Runeterra: The Long Journey

by CupcakeLover7

Benjamin Tennyson's life in Piltover has always felt limiting to him, especially with a strict woman like Caitlyn as his sister. But when he discovers a journal left behind by his dad, he finds the desire to trace his dad's footsteps and discover what the world of Runeterra can offer him, from monsters, to legendary champions to even unexpected things like... love and friendship!

5. Episode 5: Ready to Rumble - Round 1

Author's Notes: You guuuuuuuys!

You guys are so wonderful and I'm glad you guys loved the last chapter so much! Thank you so much!

Even with such a small following, I still appreciate you all even just reading and giving me follows! I promise to keep doing my best and more whenever I improve!

Okay, so the last two chapters are mostly solo stuff, but for this one, I have help from some friends. As usual, Q returns to assist me with ideas, editing and advice, as well as CaptainRex75 for even more advice and support!

Anyway, let's not dilly dally! Enjoy the chapter!

---

Several days ago, after Ben had left Piltover for his search...

The sky's afternoon, orange glow is bathed in a red glow and black smoke as the sounds of crackling fire, falling wood and the cawing of crows are all that can be heard in this now burnt down, corpse filled village, somewhere within the borders of Qualthala, a Noxian coastal settlement just in the south regions.

These bodies came in many shapes, sizes and ages. Men, women, others. Children, adults, elderly. No one seemed to be spared, as the crows all circle in the sky above, waiting to get their meal.

Among the dead, though, was one singular person. The only one alive... and maybe the cause of this massacre.

Although it was hard to tell if he was a person at all, as he looks like a walking, mechanical entity. This person is clad in blackened armor, with red trimmings here and there, especially around his helmet that fully covered his face. His helmet also has two "eyes" on them, though they seem more like lenses, for him to see through. On his back is a short sword, sheathed in a similarly black, well, sheath.

But his most striking and noticeable attributes are his left arm and his legs... or rather, his lack of both. In their place, instead, are mechanical monstrosities attached to him that make him resemble a metal monster more than a human being. His left arm has been replaced with a giant, mechanical crab claw, painted in a similar black and red color as the rest of his armor, and his entire lower half, legs included, has been replaced with four, insectoid, or maybe even crustaceous, legs, mechanical in nature like his claw arm.

This... mechanical crab-like being is currently in the process of holding a dead soldier by their head and helmet using his giant claw. The corpse's helmet is shaking and tightening as the human-crab is slowly crushing it's head, the sounds of metal on metal scraping on one another breaking the silence of the ruins...

...but, surprisingly, the crab warrior stopped and simply drops the body back on the ground, it's blood splattering everywhere. "Not the same when they're not struggling." The mechanical crab person spoke to himself, his voice having a strange, mechanical filter to it. Perhaps because of his helmet.

"Enjoying your vacation, Kra'ab?"

Suddenly, the sultry voice of a woman can be heard behind Kra'ab, the warrior with the appropriately crab themed armor, as he turns around to find the source of this voice.

Once he sees her, Kra'ab chuckles, his arms stretched out to his sides like he's preparing a welcoming hug. "Well, well, well. If it ain't the Pale Lady herself." Kra'ab quips as, before him, is a strange figure in a hooded cloak.

From her voice and the way Kra'ab addressed the person, they seem to be a woman, but it would have been hard to tell at first glance since their cloak covered everything. It was even hard to make out a face from under the hood.

"But, knowing you, you're not actually here, are you?" Kra'ab quips again. "Though why you needed to give your illusion a cloak is beyond me. Could have just shown me a random disguise."

"Oh, I do NOT miss our talks, Kra'ab." This 'Pale Lady' figure says. The dissonance between her sultry tone of voice and her creepy, hooded illusion, from Kra'ab's understanding, was making the man chuckle a little. "I'm preserving my more high end disguises and magic for more important tasks. This particular illusion is merely for speaking to you. The appearance, I literally could not care any less."

Kra'ab scoffs a little as he approaches the Pale Lady's illusion, his crab-like legs making metallic sounds for each step. "Well, I see the intent, though. You could've just sent any other messenger, like you've done before. But the fact that you're sending one of your illusions, regardless of the quality of the disguise, and using your voice and presence to come talk to me, means that whatever this next job you're about to give me... it's urgent."

The blood soaked village was silent again as the fires around the broken down houses and huts are slowly dying out and the crows themselves finally land and perch on any tree that's not burning or no longer on fire. It was as if they have now become the audience for the killer crab being and the illusionary entity in front of him.

Kra'ab and the Pale Lady only stared at each other, as if Kra'ab's intuition silenced the woman.

After a that brief quietness, eventually the Pale Lady's illusion let out a creepy laugh. One that would scare even grown men and send chills down their spines, but Kra'ab himself seems unphased. "Oh, apart from your retorts, you continue to prove why you are my favorite assassin, Kra'ab." The Pale Lady says, seemingly genuinely amused.

"I bet you say that to all your assassins." Kra'ab retorts.

"And you continue to prove me right. Now be silent. And listen well." The hooded illusion speaks. "My spies within the central Valoran regions informed me that a person of interest, and a very dangerous asset, one we've had our eye on, has left and headed for Ionia."

Kra'ab's face can't be seen from under his helmet, yet he was able to tilt his head just enough to the side to show his bewilderment. "Central Valoran? But that's where... Ah." He speaks up. "You're finally sending me to kill my big brother, are you? What does he want in Ionia? He hates that place."

"The special asset is not from Zaun, and therefore, not your similarly crustacean brother. Your — or rather, our — target, is from Piltover. A boy named Benjamin Tennyson-Kiramman." The Pale Lady explains... and then suddenly, the glows purple and morphs in front of Kra'ab... and turns itself into an exact, mirror image of Ben.

Kra'abs scoffs again and glares at the illusion in front of him, telling it, mockingly, "Oh, now you transform."

"Be silent and memorize his face." The Pale Lady continues to speak, though the illusionary image of Ben did not move nor moved it's lips to speak, so perhaps the Pale Lady is still sticking to simply being a voice, and just transformed into Ben for simplicity's sake. After a few seconds of Kra'ab staring at the image of Ben, it finally transforms back into the hooded cloak version of the illusion.

"I'd be pretending to call you heartless for asking me to kill a kid then jokingly gesture to the bodies behind me, but you're sick of me already, so I'll just ask. What exactly is the deal with this... Ben kid?" Kra'ab asks.

The Pale Lady shakes her "head", though. "Your task is not to kill the boy, but capture him. Alive. We need him breathing for our... experiment. He's caught my attention since our spies have told us about him, but we could rarely make a move on him. He was constantly surrounded by Piltover's finest, and he himself is dangerous. But now, according to those same spies, he's on his way to Ionia, and without his allies from his ivory city, he has left himself wide open to be taken. Unfortunately, my spies in Ionia are preoccupied with another task, and I don't think they can handle someone of his caliber. You, on the other hand, can."

"What's so special and dangerous about this kid for you to hire me for his capture?" Kra'ab asks, this time without any additional quips.

"Well, I'll keep it brief. But I'll say this first: Do not underestimate him. He may lack your overall experience, but he makes up for it in his arsenal. And let me tell you — You have not fought anyone like him before!"

The mechanical assassin tilts his head again, though this time, more out of curiosity than confusion. As he walks closer, he replies to his employer, "I'm listening..."

---

"Are you though?"

"Huh?"

Present day, Ionia...

"I said are you actually listening?" Ester tells Ben as they sit on some stools in front of a bar counter. Ben is currently drawing on his father's journal again, this time of the nature spirit they encountered earlier today against their fight with Enoch, while Ester has a wooden mug of some sort of stiff drink Ben didn't quite catch the name of, but it definitely has a strong smell, yet Ester seems unphased every time she takes a gulp.

They are currently within an open bar that Nyancy, a mysterious panther Vastayah woman, told Ben about after giving him a similarly mysterious card. She told Ben it could potentially lead him to some information and right now, this is their only lead.

As Ester finishes the contents of her mug, she plops it down as looks back at Ben. Ben himself is still drawing, though he does acknowledge his Yordle friend, replying to her, "I am listening, Ester. And like I told you, it'll be fine. The owner's probably busy. He's gotta manage this bar, after all."

"We've been here for an hour after asking the bar tender about the owner and he has not come back." Ester says back before stretching, trying to shake off the fatigue in her bones before popping her neck. "I'm just worried we've walked into an ambush or something."

Ben, though, gestures to her, pointing at Ester with his pencil, and tells her, "You're the one who's been drinking the drinks they served. How do you know they're not poisoned or put in something to make you fall unconscious or something?"

"I love a good drink! Don't judge me." Ester retorts. "Besides, Yordles can't get poisoned. Not by regular ones, anyway. Come on! Drink with me! You're like... Okay, you never told me how old you are."

"I just turned 20, but no thanks. I don't drink. I prefer smoothies." Ben replies before continuing to draw. "Although if you can't get poisoned, doesn't that mean you can't get drunk either?"

The Yordle gunner lets out a laugh and rolls her eyes as she grabs another mug in front of her, shoving it on her face as she drinks. Once she finished her drink, almost a little too fast, she laughs again. "Why do you think I like drinking so much?"

"Because you're from Bilgewater?" Ben jokes, which earns him a small little, painless punch on his side from Ester.

"Hey! That's a stereotype! ...But yes, that's also kinda true." Ester agrees anyway before she and the Piltovan boy share a laugh. Ester, yet again, grabs yet another mug to drink from. "But you know... I'm kinda glad you don't drink. 'Cause then I'd have to drag your drunk butt around with me, and I refuse to lift you."

Ben chuckles, finally done with his drawing and description of the nature spirit before closing the journal and putting it in his book. "Well, you probably never have to, I hope." Ben replies.

And, as soon as they're both done, drinking and drawing respectively, the bar tender, at last, returns, and this time, he has another person with him.

While the tender himself isn't all that remarkable, the new arrival with him from upstairs is an incredibly tall person, as tall as Four Arms, and has a slender figure. They seem to be a Vastaya, like Nyancy, but they appear more lizard-like, having a long, scaly green tail and has glowing, yellow, reptilian eyes. Their head and face resemble that of a human's, though, having white hair styled into a pixie cut, and a cute, small nose. But they seem to still possess reptilian features, like green scales on their cheeks, like the ones on their tail, sharp teeth and pointy ears. They are dressed rather regally, with a long flowing white coat on top of a short, red kimono underneath and some black, skinny pants. Their reptile-like feet are also bare, and possess the same scales as their cheek and tail.

Neither Ben nor Ester could immediately tell if this Vastaya was either a man or woman, or perhaps neither, as their outfit and slender appearance makes it really hard to identify. Ben does find them rather pretty, though.

"Ah, so these are the two asking for me?" The tall, reptilian person asks, in a soothing voice, as they look at the Piltovan boy and the Yordle girl. "I am Bo'lii. An artist and the owner of this establishment."

"Hello! I'm Ben Tennyson and this is my friend, Ester." Ben introduces himself and his Yordle companion, who gives a small wave to Bo'lii. Bo'lii themself gives a respectful bow to their new guests before sitting down on the stool next to Ben.

"To what do I owe your call, Ben? Did you find my bar unsavory? Perhaps there's a drink you cannot find on our stash?" Bo'lii asks.

Ben shakes his head, but gives off a smile. "Actually, we wanted some information. We were given this..." Ben continues as he finally brings out the card given to him by Nyancy this morning. "... by someone named Chan Nyancy, and told us if we needed to know about it, we ask you."

Ben hands the card to Bo'lii, clasping it between two of their fingers, even moving it around between their fingers as the golden trims of the cards shine. "Hm. You've caught the eye of a talent spotter." Bo'lii replies, handing the card back to Ben as Ester listens in from behind him, climbing up his back before resting on his shoulder. "It's rare for outsiders to be in the radar of the Boss."

"The Boss? Who's the Boss? I thought you were the boss of this place?" Ester asks, raising a brow.

"And how do you know we're outsiders?" Ben adds, also raising a brow.

Bo'lii is holding back a chuckle as they see the two of them do the exact same look and just smiles. "Well, neither of you don't exactly look like you're from around here, and I've got good memory and have met a lot of folks. As for being 'the boss', well, I am the owner of this little bar here, and a small tattoo room upstairs. But 'the Boss' is a title, one that belongs to a... 'friend' of mine." The reptilian Vastaya tells them, though when they said 'friend', there was a small blush on their scaly cheeks for a brief second.

Ben didn't notice it, but Ester certainly did, and was a little amused at the implications as she smirks. "Must be a REALLY good 'friend', huh? Helps out when you're stressed, I bet?" Ester teased, though Bo'lii surprisingly took this in stride as they chuckle. Ben was just confused.

"Oh, he's really good. And very 'strong'." Bo'lii play along and they and Ester share a chuckle.

"I feel like I'm missing something here..." Ben just comments, scratching the back of his head.

The Vastaya person before them clears their throat while blushing again, before fanning themself with their hand. "Sorry. Got carried away. Back on topic, since you have the card already, I can point you to where you need to go."

Bo'lii snaps their fingers to the bar tender to gesture to them. "Hobbs." They merely say before the tender, named Hobbs, reaches for something underneath the bar and finally pulls out a roll of paper. Bo'lii then unrolls it to show to Ben and Ester that it's a map, and it currently has an X mark on one particular part of the area and an O mark on another. "We're right here, in the X mark. Just go south and follow the path to the O mark and you'll soon find a cave. There's usually some people there, pretending to be random folks camping out, but they're actually guards and lookouts. Did Chan hand you a coin?"

Ben nods in response, pulling out the same Noxian coin Nyancy gave him alongside the card.

"Good." says Bo'lii. "Give it to any of them and they'll let you in the cave. Once inside, you'll know when you see it. Trust me. It'll be hard to miss."

"Miss what, exactly?" Ester asks, though Bo'lii just gives her a smile.

"Don't wanna ruin the surprise. And be sure to hand that card to the real guard of the place. He's a big, buff guy with a bald head and a mean frown." The reptilian Vastaya tells them. "Don't be confused by his identical twin. He's actually got cloning magic. He's a one man security team."

Ben raises a brow and forms a smirk on his lips. "Should you really be telling us this? Especially about a place apparently run by your friend? We're, like, complete strangers." He points out.

Bo'lii gives out a small, hearty chuckle, though, as they stare at Ben with a gentle look on their eyes. "Normally, no. But there's something about you... Something that tells me, that it'll be fine." Bo'lii tells him. "You definitely look like trouble, but not the kind that will endanger people. The fun kind. Besides, if you did have an ill intentions, I would have had you messed up already."

As they say that, they gesture around them with their eyes alone, which confuses Ben at first, but then Ester, who was already looking away from Bo'lii, forcibly has his head turned to the side with her hands and now Ben can clearly see...

...every waiter or waitress, and even several of the customers, of this bar are all armed with varying kinds of weapons...

And they're all staring at Ben and Ester.

Ben's usually confident in his abilities and the training he's undergone from Caitlyn and Vi, but just the sight of this small, but tight knit community under Bo'lii, makes him a little nervous.

Reminds me of Vi's stories about Vander...

Ben mentally tells himself as a small drop of sweat goes down his forehead.

"You know, Bo'lii..." Ester speaks up to break the intimidating silence. "I think you're my favorite person in Ionia so far." She adds with a smile on her face, with Bo'lii returning it.

Chuckling a little, Bo'lii nods and makes a hand gesture to signal to everyone in the bar that the intimidation part is over and they all immediately all go back to what they were doing before. "Let's hope it stays that way then. I can trust you both, yes?"

"I would never break that, Bo'lii. Promise." Ben replies with a nod and a smile, his nervousness from earlier vanishing in an instant.

"You can trust Ben. I can vouch for him." Ester adds. "But I promise I'll try."

"I suppose that's good enough. Good luck, you two. And if you win a bracket, your first rounds are on me!" Bo'lii tells them as Ben grabs the map as Ester hops off his shoulder and lands on the ground, before they both head out, waving goodbye to Bo'lii.

---

Meanwhile, back at the port, Samira and her fellow arrivals step onto the beach, the sand kicked up by their steps as they breathe in the fresh air. It's a welcome change from the fire, smoke and brimstone back home. And judging from the double axe symbols on their cloak, it appears they are from Noxus.

"Ah! Doesn't compare the comforts of home, but I do miss being outside! I love the wind in my hair." Samira exclaims and even spreads out her arms to her sides, as if welcoming the air to herself.

In the process, though, she unveils her outfit that she's been hiding under her cloak. She's wearing a black, sleeveless top with a pinkish red bottom half that reaches just enough to still reveal her well toned abs. She has black short shorts, as well as similarly black leggings and boots that reaches just below her knees. She's got a pair of big handguns, one on each holster on her left and right hips. And, as her abs already suggested, she's not only quit fit, but she's got a bit of musculature to her arms as well.

Overall, she gives off the aura of someone that will take you on a fun adventure... or kill you if you mess with her.

"It's not the same as Noxus, but I definitely love view." Samira adds, placing her hands on her hips as she smiles to herself, all while her companions follow her.

"Well..." Indari, the woman in her mechanized wheelchair, speaks up, 'driving' her chair forward using some steering sticks on the handles of her means of mobility. "Since it's clear Samira here is treating this like a vacation rather than a job she's dragged us into again, I suggest we get everything in order." Indari snaps her fingers and calls the attention of the other women in cloaks with her.

"So we can take these off now? Finally!" One of them said, doing exactly as she exclaims by removing her own cloak. She reveals herself to have a rather stocky build, with a bit bigger muscles than even Samira. She has tan skin, long and curly, dark brown hair, light brown eyes, gear tattooes on her shoulders, as well as black armor underneath her sleeveless longcoat. She's also got what appears to be ear muffs around her neck, which she puts back on her ears once her cloak's off. "It's really hot in this beach and I've been cooking under my cloak."

"Ah, it's not that bad, Miel!" The girl that's much shorter than Miel, as her name is revealed, and right next to her says as she too removes her cloak. This girl has striking, bright green hair tied into multiple ponytails that makes her hair look like a lion's mane. She's much skinnier than Miel, and much fairer skin, but she's also got the same, gear tattoos on her shoulders. The shorter girl has a black tube top, some glasses, thick, dark brown gloves and what appears to be a welding mask atop her head. "Compared to our forges, the cloaks were cozy!"

"They were only cozy because it was cold on the way here, Lani." Miel tells her partner, Lani, before popping her shoulder. "That storm hit us hard. I'm surprised the ship made it."

"Relax, Miel. Come on. We got work to do." Indari tells her and removes her own cloak as well, revealing her get up. Indari is wearing a black, V-neck shirt that reaches close to her chest, though underneath is a white tank top that still covers up to her neckline. She has bright red scarf around her neck, navy blue pants and darkened grey boots. She also has fingerless gloves on each hand. "Dame, you're with me. Samira, take Miel and Lani with you. We'll meet up at the target location later."

The last girl, whose name seems to be Dame, nods, though unlike her companions, she does not take off her cloak at all. She follows Indari as the wheelchaired woman drives off, which just confuses Samira as she raises a brow while watching her friend go.

Samira then speaks up, "And where exactly are you going, 'Dari?"

"Need to check on an informant. They might have something that'll help us for the job." Indari replies as she and Dame continue to head off.

"Oh come on! You'll miss all the fun! And glory!" Samira teases her friend, a smirk on her lips, which just makes Indari roll her eyes.

The raven haired woman then just makes a mocking wave to her Samira. "You can have the glory. We're getting paid." Indari replies.

Samira chuckles at this and gives Indari a wave of her own. "Alright! But if we get the target before you come back, I'm taking 20% more."

Without another word, Indari just flips off Samira with a middle finger before she and Dame are finally no longer in earshot.

"Hah. I love that woman." Samira chuckles to herself before finally doing a waving hand gesture to Miel and Lani to call for their attention. "Alright, ladies! Let's go meet our informant. Our little rat is waiting."

"Oh I bet you he's got another excuse for why he's late. Again." Lani comments and giggles to herself. "We really need to get him a pocket watch or something. Maybe an entire clock."

"Wait, hold up..." Miel speaks up as Samira and Lani look to her. "Little bro's not here yet."

"Hm? Ohhh, right! Is he still on the boat?" Samira asks.

Miel shrugs as she turns around to face the ship they came from. "He's probably grabbing some of our equipment. Hold on. I'll go get him."

"Alright! We'll be here." Lani tells her, giving Miel a kiss on her cheek, making her smile before she heads back to the ship.

As Samira and Lani watch Miel approach and then finally enter the ship, Samira chuckles all of a sudden and says, "Okay, for real. We'll have to strap a calendar on his back or something."

"I know! I can't believe it's taken him several weeks for the info!" Lani adds as the two of them share a laugh.

---

Meanwhile, inside the ship, Miel passes by several other passengers heading for the exit, as well as several of the ship's crew, looking around to see if the person she's looking for is among any of them. No such luck, though, as with each face she could spot within her sight, none of them were familiar to her, apart from seeing them on board on their way here to Ionia.

"I could have sworn he was already carrying the rest of our stuff. Did he get lost or...?" Miel was whispering to herself, but when she finally reached the next hallway, suddenly, the sound of metal banging and men yelling catches her attention. Before she could even check it out, suddenly, a metal door down at the end of the hallway she's in bursts open as a person gets launched from the room behind said door, and they land just before her feet.

The person in question appears to be a young-ish man with black, unkempt hair that reaches just above his black shirt's neckline. On top of that black shirt is a greyish leather that covers mostly his chest. He has a long strap around his torso, a brown belt with pouches, red clothed that are wrapped around his arms that make them look like his upper and lower arms are covered red bandages, maroon pants, black, metal plated shoes and finally some black fingerless gloves.

Although he is on the ground, clutching his head, initially, he growls and finally stands back up, revealing that he's taller than Miel, surprisingly. "You guys want some more?" The raven haired boy taunts towards the room he got launched from, and it appears to be full of sailors all laughing at him, as the biggest of them grabs a big, black backpack and throws it at the boy.

He manages to catch it, but accidentally stumbles a little as he nearly falls over backwards, had Miel not stopped and catch him in time. "Whoa! Kevin! What's going on?" Miel asks, revealing the boy's name to be Kevin.

Kevin, though, is still steaming with anger as he hands the big bag he caught to Miel. "These guys think they can just push me around and get away with it!" Kevin yells, though not at Miel but at the sailors.

"We caught you stealing some equipment in the engine room, you little punk!" The same, big sailor from earlier roars back Kevin.

Miel, hearing this, gives Kevin a side eye that sends chills down Kevin's spine, as the raven haired boy himself switches his angry expression into one of fear and then nervousness as he sheepishly chuckles. "Kevin?" Miel simply asks, waiting for confirmation as she keeps squinting at the boy before her.

"Okay, in my defense, I thought nobody was looking." Kevin replies, an almost proud but still smarmy smirk on his lips.

"Enough! Either you give back what you stole or we're attaching you to the front end of the ship!" Another of the sailors yell out.

Miel keeps squinting at Kevin, who finally gives in and groans, pulling out from one of his belt pouches a multi-tool of sorts before tossing it to the big sailor, the man catching it in his hands.

"Now we better not catch you freaks coming back here again, or we'll toss you overboard!" Another of the sailors yells out before he closes the door to the room.

"Freak?! That does it!" Kevin suddenly spouts out and, for some reason, he reaches towards the nearby metal walls of the hallway, pressing his hand against. "I'll show what a real freak can d—"

Before he could do what he was about to do, though, Miel yells out, "KEVIN! NO!"

Wincing at the woman yelling out his name, Kevin halts his actions before Miel then just grabs onto his ear, making him yelp in pain, as she pulls him away to lead him out of the ship. On their way to the exit, down the same hallway Miel came from, she scolds Kevin, exclaiming to him, "How many times am I gonna have to keep pulling you out of these messes until you finally learn your lesson?!"

"Ow! Ow! Sis, my ear!" Kevin tries to speak in between his gasps of pain.

"Well, since you don't listen to me, maybe I should just get rid of both of them then?" Miel retorts, before eventually Kevin manages to wrestle Miel's hand off his ear.

"I'm just trying to help you, sis!" Kevin comments, letting go of his sister's hand. "That was a Piltovan Talis Multi-Tool. It's like the latest version of their pocket wrenches! It's several tools built into one and it's collapsible! You can carry it around everywhere."

"I'm impressed with what they got too, little bro, but stealing ain't our thing. We invent, we build and we sell." Miel scolds her little brother more. "Our job maybe dirty, and not completely legit, but the moment we add theft in our repertoire, it's gonna turn off a lot of customers. They're gonna think everything we make is stolen. Besides..."

The siblings then finally reach the exit once more as Miel and Kevin head out. "We don't need some stinking multi-tool. We got you for that." Miel tells him.

Her words, though, seem to get on Kevin's nerves as he looks away, scowling, and whispers to himself, "I guess that's all you see me as."

"What?" Miel exclaims, barely hearing what Kevin said.

"Nothing. Let's just go..." Kevin replies, grabbing the big black bag he handed to Miel earlier and slinging it over his shoulder.

As he goes to greet Samira and Lani, Miel watches her little brother approach them, sighing at the state of Kevin's attitude.

"What am I gonna do with you?" Miel whispers, closing her eyes as she returns to her friends and brother.

---

After a couple of minutes of walking, Ben and Ester finally found the spot they're looking for. Like Bo'lii described, there's a cave formation nearby several random tents, all surrounded by some small trees acting like shade from the Sun.

There's a lot of people around. Some were in their tents while other were talking to one another around campfires and butchering some meat to cook for themselves. They're all from many walks of life, from humans, to Vastaya, to some random Yordles here and there, and there's even a pair of shark folks, like the ones Ben and Ester encountered days ago, though they're wearing Ionian outfits, so they must be native here.

Still, neither Ben nor Ester can let their guards down. After all, Bo'lii says they're all pretending to be common folk, but are actually guarding the cave.

"Ah, look at this completely normal group of folks." Ben jokes, with Ester holding back her chuckle as best as she could, though she let's out a small snicker in the process.

"Totally inconspicuous." Ester adds before she and her friend approach one of the groups.

Their shared experience from their homes has made both Ben and Ester tell that, even though none of these people are looking at them, they're all waiting for them to make the wrong move. Ben's time in Zaun every now and then during his teenage years, and Ester being from Bilgewater, the two can even feel the intense aura these guards were giving off. They weren't threatened, per se, but Ben and Ester knew a mistake would cause chaos.

So, with the jokes out of the way, the Piltovan boy and Yordle woman take things seriously as they approach the ones around the campfire, as they were closest to the cave entrance.

"You guys, uh, got something to exchange for Noxian coin?" Ben tries to make small talk as he takes out the same coin Nyancy gave her early this morning, before tossing it to one of the campers.

This particular camper catches it, eyeing Ben's coin closely as he and Ester await for his and the other guards' response. The brief moment of silence they got tenses up Ben and makes Ester squint in anticipation.

Eventually though, the camper smirks before he tosses the coin to one of his companions, a bird-like Vastaya woman, and catches it as she then taps the coin...

...and, to the surprise of Ben and Ester, the coin in her hand suddenly flickers then transforms into a completely different coin. Rather than resembling Noxian gold, it's now a silver coin with the wolverine symbol of the card Ben received on it.

"Go inside. They might be able to help you out with your 'coin problem'." The camper from earlier replies to Ben, playing along with the fake story the latter conjured up on the spot.

"That was awesome..." Ben whispers to himself, still staring at the now transformed coin in the Vastaya woman's talons, though he is interrupted when Ester, rolling her eyes, finally pushes Ben towards the cave. As usual, she showcases surprising strength for someone of her size as she manages to push Ben a couple of feet to eventually force him to move on his own, the two of them entering the cave.

But the deeper they walk down the cave, they start to hear muffled noises. It wasn't anything creepy, though, despite them being surrounded by nothing but darkness and the cold walls of the cave. But rather, from what little they can hear, it sounds a lot like cheering, music and chatter one would usually hear in big marketplaces and crowds. It almost feels... joyous? Celebratory?

Their confusion and curiosity would not take long to be answered as the deeper they went in, the louder the noises became, until eventually it becomes a booming collection of sounds that both the boy and the Yordle were astonished.

It was an entire fighting pit within the cave. But not only that, it's got a small, marketplace just outside it's entrance, filled with food stalls, weapon sellers and many more. And today seems packed as the fighting pit in the middle is surrounded by an large crowd of audience members from multiple floors. The biggest source of light for the pit is the big hole at the ceiling of the cave, using the Sun like a makeshift spotlight.

The crowds were cheering, the fighters in the arena grunting with each strike they do, the clashing of weapons against flesh, and even music from a band performing at the second floor.

While they can't completely see the whole thing, Ben and Ester's eyes were still lighting up. "This place is awesome!" Ben cheers.

"Heck yeah! Haven't seen anything like this in a loooong while!" Ester agrees as they both instinctively run up to the entrance... until they see the line of people up front.

The line is pretty short, so it be long before Ben can present the card in his possession. But the problem is, every single person in this line ahead of him and Ester all look intimidating. From the most muscular men and women, to folks filled with scars and weapons attached to every part of their bodies. So in comparison, Ben, who looks like a regular young adult boy, does not look like he'd fit.

"Oof. Maybe you should transform before going in?" Ester suggests. "What about that four armed guy this morning? He'd fit right in."

"Maybe. But that would attract a ton of attention. The flashing green light isn't exactly subtle." Ben points out as the person at the front of the line is granted entrance, allowing the line to move forward, Ben and Ester included.

"Ben, you've been transforming left and right in front of crowds of people since we met. What difference will that make here?" Ester, though, points out, even giving her human companion a shrug.

Ben wants to retort, even opening his mouth to try and speak, but then he realizes what she said was true, causing him to ponder as he cups his own chin in thought. "You got a point..." He mutters.

The line moves forward again as the next fighter is let inside. Ester points to the front of the line to gesture to Ben as she tells him, "Clock's ticking. Come on."

"I dunno... Nyancy might have told them about me, and if I show up as Four Arms, they might be suspicious? Like, I'm not on their list?" Ben ponders to himself, which just makes Ester smack herself in the face in disbelief.

The line advance once more, which just cuts Ben's time again. "It's not that complicated! Just transform!"

"Alright fine!" Ben responds and activates the watch, but just as the dial pops up and he twists and turns it to find Four Arms' icon...

"Hey! You!"

Being called out makes Ben and Ester turn their heads to face forward, and soon sees that the line has vanished. It seems deep in their arguments, the duo failed to notice that the participants before them are already all inside, and now, it's only them left in the line.

The one who called them is, as Bo'lii described earlier, indeed a large, muscular man with a bald head. He's about as tall as Four Arms would be, and is wearing a white, sleeveless garb, purplish red wraps around his arms, dark brown pants and a rope-like belt around him with two, golden wolverine head buckles on each side that look like they're biting the belt. And, once again perfectly described by Bo'lii, there's another guard that's not just similar to him, but is completely identical next to him, guarding the way in.

"You part of the line or just messing around?" The first 'twin' asks as he and his identical partner both squint at Ben and Ester.

Sheepishly chuckling, and now believing it's too late to transform, Ben just moves forward and Ester walks alongside him, as he speaks up, "No, yeah, I-I'm a fighter!"

The Piltovan boy then finally brings out the card and hands it over to the guard. Taking the card, the guard carefully observes it in his hand, then looking back at Ben, eyeing him from head to toe. He then starts looking back and forth between the card and Ben.

"...You sure you're the one who owns this invite? You don't look like much." The guard tells Ben, his 'twin' then crossing his arms as the two bald guards now glare at the boy.

Ester squints her eyes too, and moves in front of Ben and was ready to speak up in his defense, but Ben stops her, tapping her shoulder and shaking his head at her. The Yordle was ready to give out some insults herself, but perhaps it's best to let Ben do the talking for now. She gives a conceding nod and a sigh.

Ben then answers the guard, "I'm tougher than I look, I promise. I can fight."

"I don't doubt you can, kid. But this place is invitations only. And I don't really believe any of our scouts will give an invite to a scrawny little punk like ya. You didn't steal this invitation, did you?" The guard asks as his twin cracks his knuckles, which causes Ben to blink.

One of Ester's eyes twitches and her fists tighten, with one of them even opening as she slowly reaches for one of her guns. That insult thrown at Ben's away is ticking her off. She's seen what Ben is capable of many times in only a couple of days. To accuse him of theft is one thing, but to call him scrawny, unprovoked, is making her angry. It's like this guard is calling him a liar.

Give me an excuse to shoot you right now, you bald, big piece of sh—

Ester curses in her head, but then Ben crosses his own arms interrupting her thoughts. "Look, there's no need to argue. A woman who called herself Chan Nyancy gave me this invite. Call her over or just ask her. It's not that hard." Ben points out. "There's two of you, too. So just like, have one of you go inside and ask her, and the other one stays here to keep an eye on me."

Both guards look at one another, pondering Ben's suggestion. They both then look back at the Piltovan boy and respond, "No need."

Ben was a little confused, but also wary. Ester is too as the duo share look with one another, nodding. The two of them thought that these guards don't care about Ben's suggestion at all, and are about to just kick them out, despite earning the invitation... but then...

"There you two are!"

The duo then peek between the two large guards in front of them and see that Nyancy is behind them, walking towards the entrance... with another identical 'twin' of the guards.

Both of them finally recall that Bo'lii mentioned that this guard has the ability to duplicate himself as clones using magic. And from the way the guards said there was no need to call for Nyancy, Ben now suspects these clones have some sort of way to communicate with one another, and this guard with Nyancy must've told the clone guards on this entrance that he and Nyancy were arriving.

Either way, Ben and Ester are relieved to see her as she casually pushes the two entrance guards aside to greet the duo. "It didn't take you both long, did you? Still, showing up only a couple of hours after getting the invite? That's a new record. The least people have gone through usually was a day." Nyancy says. She's still wearing the same attire she wore this morning, but she's also still holding a glass of what appears to be wine as she gestures Ben and Ester to follow her. "Come, come! I'll introduce you to the Boss. And Smeek..."

Nyancy glares at the guards, even the one that came with her, as ther panther eyes practically pierce right through their tough exterior and into their soul as they felt the chill from her cold tone all of a sudden. "Don't judge people by their looks. For all you know, this kid could throw you and all your clones over the ocean like he's skipping stones..." She tells them before taking a sip from her wine. "And he can, by the way." She adds before moving inside.

As she does, Ben and Ester follow her, but not before Ben gives the guards some mocking double thumbs up from both of his thumbs, and Ester just straight up gives them a middle finger. As Smeek, as the real name of the guards was revealed by Nyancy, scowls at all three of them, the panther Vastaya, the Piltovan boy and the Yordle gunner all head deeper into the are around the main arena.

Now fully inside, Ben and Ester sees there's more to this place than just the viewing rooms for the audience and the arena in the middle. There's a bar, a dining area, some more weapon sellers but with much higher quality armaments for sale, and even a blacksmith to help make, fix or polish weapons.

"Whoa. You guys know how to make these invitations feel special." Ben says and makes Nyancy chuckle.

"We don't skimp out when it comes to the essentials. Speaking of which, I'm gonna be your sponsor for your time here." Nyancy tells them before leading the duo to some stairs as they head up.

Ester raises a brow and forms a smirk on her lips at hearing the word 'sponsor'. "Sponsor, huh? You paying for us?" She asks.

"Basically yeah, but only if you do well in the arena." Nyancy replies, pointing at Ben as she says that, which makes him go wide eyed at surprise.

"Wait, I didn't agree to fighting. I thought you said I can get info here? That's why we came." The Piltovan boy speaks up.

Nyancy shakes her head though, as they finally reach the second floor. "You can, but that kind of info has a price, kiddo. Nothing's free around here. That's just business. But that's why I'm taking you directly to the Boss. Maybe we can negotiate your terms with him."

"The Boss, huh? Bo'lii mentioned him too." Ester comments, earning her a nod from the panther woman.

"Yup. He owns everything you see here, in one way or another. So word of advice?" Nyancy tells them as she leads them to another set of stairs. "Don't piss him off." Nyancy finishes.

---

The arena today is getting everyone in the audience fired up as they all cheer for both contestants, with one of them being a massive, Vastaya man that resembles an armadillo and the other is a human man with a strange pompadour with spiky ends. He's also wearing a brown longcoat with short sleeves, similarly brown pants, red fingerless gloves and dark brown boots with metallic greaves. In his right hand is a peculiar sword of sorts whose blade looks strangely segmented, and in his other hand is a strange combination of a dagger and... a comb?

Regardless of the strangeness of the combatants, everyone is having the time of their lives as they clash in battle, but while this is happening, up above at the third floor of the entire place is a balcony with a special viewing room reserved for some very special folks.

Near the edge of this balcony is a small but still fancy little throne, where a man sits on as he watches both the audience and the fighting below. He is a muscular, hunk of a man, with reddish pink hair and some small, animalistic ears sticking out from the top of his head with the same color as his hair, showing he is Vastaya. He's got fair but scarred skin, bright brown eyes and a long scar across the bridge of his nose. His outfit consists of a sleeveless, very dark purple coat with large, to an almost exaggerated degree, purple fur collar around his neckline. He's even got the same double metallic wolverine emblems on each side of his open coat that's showing off his entire, muscular body. He's also got some metallic gauntlets, fingerless gloves with steel knuckles on them, pure white pants and golden, pointed shoes.

Just beside him is a large, goat Vastaya woman, even larger than Smeek and this mysterious man on his throne, with an even more muscular build. She's got purple skin, goat horns on her head, a white, sleeveless top that almost looks like it's just a really large bra, white pants and a cloak on her back with a fur collar around it as well. Unlike the man on his throne, she's standing beside him instead, both of them watching the fight below.

While the man on his throne and the woman by his side watch, the man with a pompadour below evades a massive swipe from his larger, armadillo foe as he backflips over the giant man's tail before landing on both of his feet. He then uses his smaller frame and lighter feet to quickly jump over the armadillo Vastaya's head, landing on it before attempting to strike his foe's face with his sword.

This forces the armadillo man to quickly block the incoming strike with one of his armored arms, but as soon as the pompadour man's blade comes into contact with said arm, it seemingly shatters!

...At least, it seems that way, but it actually splits apart from it's segmented portions and reveals that the sword also doubles as a blade whip, with each blade on the whip a segmented piece of the entire blade! This allows the pompadour man to then swiftly have his sword whip tie up the armadillo man's arm before he jumps back down and behind his foe.

The pompadour duelist then slides under his foe, his sword whip still in hand, as he then forcibly has the armadillo man punch himself in the face, knocking the big man down on his armored back.

Seeing his opponent on the floor, the pompadour duelist then outstretches his arms, boasting with his body language alone as he greets the audience watching his fight, all them cheering. "Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all night!" The man finally let out his boasts verbally, even doing a mocking bow.

But then, as he was distracted by his own narcissism and posturing, a dark shadow looms over him, catching his attention. As he turns around, the pompadour duelist finally sees that his armadillo foe...

...is not out, and is, in fact, more angry than hurt as he glares at him. "You're not gonna be here for the rest of the night, kid." The armadillo Vastaya replies...

...before gripping on the smaller human's bladed whip, itself still tied around his arm, before curling up into an armored ball, true to the animal he's akin to. The big guy then rolls away in immense speed that he kicks up dust, and with the pompadour man still holding onto his weapon, he is in for a dizzy ride as the armadillo man rolls around in circles in the arena with his smaller foe in toe, screaming for his life as the armadillo man keeps going faster.

While this was happening, the audience have turned from regular cheers to cheers mixed with laughter as the fighting below has become too hilarious not to chuckle at. At the same time, though, Nyancy at last arrives through the entrance to the observation balcony, with Ben and Ester right behind her. The latter two almost fully entered the room until Nyancy stops them both with a quick gesture of her hand and mouths to them silently to wait.

From behind Nyancy, Ben can't quite see what's in the room, especially since Nyancy is much taller than him by a foot or two. Though his sight is obscured, he can hear the cheers and laughter of the audience outside and the screaming of someone from below. He squints, worried someone is seriously getting hurt out there.

Ester has gotten used to that look in Ben's face. She doesn't really care about some random person down at the arena, but if Ben's worried about something, that's her concern too.

Wait. Her concern too?

"Strange..." Ester suddenly thought to herself. "Feels like I'm being more attached to Ben a lot, lately."

The Yordle gunslinger shakes her head, though, and ignores that feeling for now, as she puts a hand on Ben's leg to catch his attention.

When Ben turns his head to look at his friend, Ester just gives him a shake of her head. "Don't." escapes Ester's lips. "Not yet."

Ben wants to argue... but he knows she's right. This place is their only chance of finding traces of his father's trail. If they intend to gain info from this place, they need to play by the rules for now. So jumping in into the middle of a fight he's not meant to be in will drop that chance to zero.

He finally nods to Ester, though he still sighs cursing his helplessness at the moment.

Finally, the armadillo stops his rolling, uncurling himself from his balled up state as he skids on the floor on his bare, but armored, feet and, after quickly turning around, pulls on the sword whip, and by extension his scrawny foe, and forcibly brings his opponent towards, before finally delivering one mean punch to the pompadour man's face, a small explosion of air unleashed from the collision of the armadillo man's fist and his enemy's cheek.

With that final blow, the previously boastful duelist has now lost some of his teeth from the punch he took and a gigantic bruise on the side of his face as he gets launched into the audience seats, with them needing to jump out of the way as he crashes, unconscious.

"Graaah!" The armadillo guy takes his turn to celebrate, assured of his victory. He addresses the audience, all of them cheering him as he laughs his heart out. "No one can budge Imoba!" The armadillo man, addressing himself in third person with his name, Imoba, boasts with arms wide as the crowd cheer more.

At last, Nyancy then signals both Ben and Ester to finally follow her as she heads into the room, just in time for the man on his throne to stand up. This simple act catches the attention of everyone in the arena, both in and out, and they all cheer louder for him than they did Imoba.

From that simple interaction between him and the crowd, Ben and Ester could tell already this guy was a big deal.

"Not bad, Imoba!" The man from the throne says, as Imoba from below at the ring looks up to see who calls to him. "You might just be the star of the show... but you can leave the arena now. Let others have their fun."

"Not yet! I need more! I'll fight more of you!" Imoba begins to boast harder as he was practically frothing from his mouth.

The man from the throne chuckles, shaking his head in amused disbelief at Imoba's current battle hungry high, crossing his arms as Nyancy, Ben and Ester are finally in the middle of the room, the large woman that was with the man looking at them. She gives Nyancy a nod, and even eyes Ben a little, amused.

Ben couldn't tell if that amusement from the large woman was a negative one or something else. He just scratches his head in wonder, with Ester laughing to herself silently as she watched that interaction unfold.

"Boss." The large, horned woman says.

The man she called to, her boss, turns back around from watching Imoba's boasting to looking back to the room and finally spots the three new arrivals. "Ah! Nyancy! Back from the outside already?" The muscular man says as he approaches with an arm and hand incoming for Nyancy to shake.

Nyancy chuckles as she responds with this, clapping her hand onto the man's own as they do an arm wrestle-like handshake before pulling each other into a one arm hug. "What can I say? I'm a lucky gal." Nyancy replies to her boss as they share a laugh before she steps back and places a hand on Ben's shoulder, to call attention to him. "Boss, this is Ben and Ester. Ben's my spot for the day, and I tell you. He's quite a catch." Nyancy introduces him.

"In more ways than one, I hope." The larger, horned Vastaya woman in the room comments, smirking a little.

"Alright, calm down, Kolo. At least get to know him first." Nyancy jokes, revealing the giant woman's name to be Kolo, who just laughs it off.

Kolo then suddenly gives Ben a little wink, which actually makes him blush a little. "So the amused expression she was giving was... Oh..." Ben thought to himself.

"Oh, Akali and Jun could only crack you a little, but the big girl winks and you're face goes red?" Ester teases Ben, a smirk on her lips. "Well now I know your type."

"I think I got it from Caitlyn..." Ben replies, his blush vanishing as he shakes his head.

Nyancy and Kolo's boss, though, just laughs off this amusing interaction between his employees and his guests. "Nah, that's just Kolo. She's got a charm nobody could resist. Could break your heart as easily as she'd break your spine." The boss comments before finally offering his fist for Ben to bump. "The name's Sett, kid. I'm the Boss of this arena."

Ben blinks for a second, confused. He thought whoever the boss of this place was going to be must be some kind of hardcore guy, but so far. He seems rather... chill.

Not wanting to be rude, Ben finally fist bumps Sett, making him smile and nods. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Sett, sir." Ben replies.

"Whoa, none of that 'Mr.' or 'sir' stuff. You're making me sound old. Just Sett is fine." The boss says he rests his back on his throne, arms crossed as he continues to speak to the Piltovan boy. "So, Nyancy spotted you for us. When do you wanna start? Prelims are still open, but exhibition matches will get ya more time in the spotlight and earn you some sponsors."

Ben groans mentally. He already told Nyancy he's not here to fight and just wanted information. He opens his mouth to speak, saying, "No. I'm not here for—"

"Actually, boss, I wanna sponsor for tonight's matches. I wanna move him up to main event status." Nyancy, however, interrupts Ben before he even finishes what he wanted to say.

"Wait, Nyancy, that's not what we agr—" Ben still tries to speak up.

But then it was Kolo's turn to interrupt him, speaking up and telling Nyancy, "Main event? Immediately? Damn. He must be really good then if you want him upfront like that."

"I haven't even—" Ben once more attempts... but of course, he can't finish again as Sett speaks again.

"Well, I can't say no to that. Nyancy's never disappointed us with her spots, so if she says you're good, you're good. I'll make it happen." says the Boss.

"Can you please let me talk and—" Ben tries to yell out until...

THUNK!

The sound of wood being struck by a blade echoing within the walls of this room catches the attention of Sett, Kolo, Nyancy and Ben.

They all look and see that a dagger has been thrown and embedded onto Sett's throne. Specifically where his head would be resting if he was sitting on it, narrowly missing Sett himself who is resting his back on the back of his throne.

And the four of them see that the one who threw it... is of course Ester, with her dagger having just freshly left her currently open hand. "Will you three shut your mouths and let my friend talk?" Ester glares at Sett, Kolo and Nyancy.

Ben blinks. So far, this is the furthest Ester has gone for him. It was incredibly stupid, as she essentially threatened the life of the man they need to talk to for the information they're after, and now there's a very big chance they won't comply now. The absolute best case scenario now is they'll get kicked out, but the worst one is now he and Ester are gonna have to find their way out.

It's so dumb... yet at the same time, she did it for him. A part of him wants to scold his Yordle friend, but the other part can't help but feel happy she's willing to go this far.

He'd smile and hug her, if he wasn't nervous and dropping sweat from his forehead as he watches Sett approach him and Ester, a big, seemingly angry scowl on his face.

Once close, he looks Ben in his eyes. At first, Ben's nervous, thinking Sett is sizing him up, trying to see into his soul. But he slowly starts thinking less of himself and more about Ester. About their goal. About his dad. They didn't come all the way here for nothing and Sett intends to hurt them, he won't let that happen to his friend. So in a manner of seconds, Ben's eyes go from nervous to serious as he glares back at Sett, unmoving, unshaken and unafraid.

Sett smirks... and then he crouches down on one knee and turns his attention Ester this time. Like Ben, he looks into her eyes. Unlike Ben, though, Ester has already steeled herself. She's seen and fought people and creatures bigger than Sett. While what Sett saw in Ben's eyes is pure determination and a warm fire that cannot be snuffed out, what he sees in Ester is a blazing inferno that will harm anything that gets in her way. One ready to kill and maim him if he makes the wrong move.

After intense staring contest, Sett finally gets up and laughs, much to the surprise and confusion of the duo. "I like them both! You really know how to pick 'em, Nyancy." Sett speaks, which just morphs all that determination and rage Ben and Ester had respectively into a shared, almost comical confusion.

"I told ya, boss." Nyancy replies to her boss, nodding and smiling.

"Alright, alright. I'll hear you out." Sett concedes, grabbing Ester's dagger and pulling it out of his throne before tossing it back to her, with the Yordle catching it perfectly. "So, what's up?"

"Well, I was going to say that I already told Nyancy I'm not here to fight in your arena. I'm here for information. She told me I could get it here." Ben explains.

Rather than Sett, though, it was Kolo who answers first, telling Ben, "If she's told you that, then she's probably also told you that information ain't free."

"She has." Ester replies for Ben, putting away her dagger before crossing her arms.

"And I've named my price." Sett speaks up at last, nodding to Ben. "I wanna see you fight."

"I'm not hurting people just like that!" The Piltovan continues to push back against the idea, which just makes Kolo roll her eyes, Nyancy to facepalm, and Sett to sigh.

Briefly massaging his own temples, Sett moves away from his throne again and walks over to Ben. "Kid, I'm cutting you a ton of slack here thanks to Nyancy. Past fighters she's has always showed a ton of promise. I've never seen her spot anyone bad, which means she saw something. Something more than what we're seeing right now. You know, small and scrawny."

"I'm not scrawny. I'm only small compared to you and Kolo." Ben points out under his breath, but Sett ignores him.

The boss keeps speaking, telling the Piltovan boy before him, "In all my years of fighting, from down the streets when I was a kid to now, I've learned that there's two reasons why some people don't like fighting: they're cowards... or they're afraid of their own strength. And kid... I didn't see cowardice in those eyes."

Sett then crosses his arms as he looks Ben in the eyes again. "You want some info? You need to pay for it, and I've named my price. Don't like it, the exit's behind you."

Ben was glaring at Sett, maintaining eye contact, yet in a metaphorical sense, it's not him that he's looking at. His thoughts turned inward as he ponders his choices. He and Ester can always leave. Searching through a trail that's gone too cold and too obscure to follow. So far, despite what he thought would be easy, the journal has been confusing so far.

Or... do exactly what Sett asks. He and Ester don't know Ionia, both it's bright and dark side. But someone like Sett will have a ton of connections and, being locals, will know a whole lot more about their region than the duo does. But he'd be using the watch, his powers, for something so barbaric. He promised he'd use it to help others, but this arena is only senseless violence for the entertainment of others...

...but...

...He really wants to meet his mother, and the journal is burning him out mentally and emotionally. It really hurts him to say it's been quite a dead end.

"Guess I'll have to take a page from Vi's book again..." He mentally tells himself, sighing. Finally, out loud, he asks Sett, "I'm not killing anyone, am I?"

"Hm?" Sett replies, raising a brow out of confusion before chuckling, "That's what you were worried about? Ha. Don't worry your little boy scout morals, kid. Killing's not allowed in this arena. Deaths are just a big mess to clean up and turns off future contestants. There's no coin in losing your entertainment permanently. Outside here, though? Well, we don't control that."

Ben takes a deep breath... and finally nods. "Okay. I'll fight." He says. "But you better keep your end of the bargain."

Ester turns her head, looking at Ben. It's not obvious at first, but she could tell there's a struggle within him. The slight quivering in his lips, his fists gripping hard and his arms shaking. A frown forms on her face as she looks at him. That bright ray of sunshine she always saw him as since they met is now looking like it's being blocked away.

"Of course I will. Tell you what, I'll even sweeten the deal." Sett answers the Piltovan boy. "Regardless of the outcome, I will help you get the info you need on... whatever it is you want info on. But, make it to the finals and win, and you'll get the grand prize too!"

"I don't care about the money." Ben replies, crossing his arms.

"Honey, the grand prize isn't just money." Nyancy speaks up. "Alongside a ton of coin, you'll permanently be considered a priority member in this arena."

Ester raises a brow in confusion, asking, "And what does being a 'priority member' entail?"

"Means from the moment we mark you as one, the only one above you here is the Boss. The guards, staff and other members of the place answer to you the same way they do Sett." Kolo answers. "If you're doubting that, I am priority member."

Ben asks, "Wait, really? I thought you work for Sett?"

"Not quite." says Sett. "She fights here, drinks here, eats here and sleeps here, but she's not an employee. She's only one of three priority members. In fact, she's the first. Been many different champs over the lifetime of this place, but after Kolo's won that title from the champ before her, she's consistently kept that title for a long while."

"So rather than turn off future contestants from participating 'cause they're scared of going through so many matchups only to end up losing to her, we made a deal. She retires being champion and pass it on to the next couple of people who can earn it and she becomes the first priority member." Nyancy continues for her boss.

"If the champ at each matchup wants to, they can try and challenge me for a chance to be a priority member too. No one's been able to get that chance, but hey, at least they're still champion. Everyone wins... You know. 'Cept for the ones that don't." Kolo finishes.

Ben taps his chin in thought as Ester looks at the trio before them. "Wait, if no one's been able to get past Kolo, who are the other two priority members? How'd they get it?" The Yordle asks.

"Well, there's some guy named Bingwen the Bird, or something. Like Kolo, he won the champ title and was able to defend it for so long, but never once tried to challenge Kolo. We didn't want a repeat of what happened so we gave him priority membership. Then there's this other guy. Never told us his name. He was always in a big, black suit of armor and hid his face behind a helmet. We thought he was Noxian at first, but he's got this weird gun that shoots energy, so we thought he was from Piltover." Nyancy narrates. "We never really found out where he's from."

"He never entered any main events. Always only showing in prelims. Told us he's basically only fighting to keep his skill sharp. Treated every fighter he saw like punching bags he used to train himself. No one could dent his armor. He was a crowd favorite, though, so we gave him priority membership, but he stopped coming back since 5 years ago. Still got the membership officially, but he's a ghost now." Sett finishes the rest of the story.

Hearing more of these stories, it seems there's lots of benefits to priority membership. If Sett will keep his end of the bargain, then not only will he and Ester get the information, he'll have a connection to Ionia and it's more darker, underground side. The Kinkou Order and Jun are already his connections to the better side of this region. It wouldn't hurt to have Sett and his people at his beck and call, even for a bit, in case he needs more information and help in the future.

"I really am becoming more like Vi. Really sorry, Cait."

Ben thinks as he sighs again. "Fine. I'll do it."

Sett smiles from his answer, but then the sounds of angry yelling and fighting catches his, and everyone else in the room's, attention as he and the others all move towards the end of the balcony and see the source of the commotion.

And they see, down below, that Imoba fighting against hordes of Smeek and his clones as they try to restrain the big, armadillo man. But due to his size and greater strength, they're failing as he keeps knocking them around and tossing them aside, all while Imoba keeps yelling, "Give me real fight! Give me Kolo!"

"Guess we found your number one fan." Ester quips, with Kolo herself amused enough to let out a chuckle.

"What's gotten into him?" Ben asks everyone in the room, especially Sett, Kolo and Nyancy.

Nyancy nods, replying, "Riding off the high of his victory, I guess. That or ego. Probably both. You better go deal with him, Kolo."

"Well, guess today's crowd is getting a very special match." Kolo smirks, cracking her knuckles, but then Sett raises a hand, signaling the giant woman to stop as he too forms a smirk on his lips.

"I got a better idea. Why don't you show us exactly what Nyancy saw, Benny?" says Sett, giving the Piltovan boy he addressed a side eye.

Ben blinks. "You want me to clean up this mess for you?" He asks.

"Come on. It'll be fun. You do it, I'll cut off one match so you can advanced through the prelims and into the main event faster." Sett tells him, crossing his arms.

Ben looks back down to Imoba, still causing a ruckus as he smacks two Smeek clones into each other's heads to knock them out, all while the crowd is getting increasingly worried this will get out of hand. Any potential fighters for this event are likely not entering the ring either out of fear of Imoba himself or getting kicked out for interfering. That, or they're saving their strength for a real fight and can't be bothered with the armadillo man with an ego boost.

Regardless of any of these, Ben reminds himself that Imoba is causing trouble, and could potentially start hurting others if he doesn't get his way. Sett's given him permission. All that's left is his own decision.

And that part is easy.

Wordlessly, Ben finally activates his watch, popping up the dial, to the surprise and confusion of both Sett and Kolo, though they are intrigued by this. Ester and Nyancy, though, already know what this means. After turning the dial and finding what he needs, Ben then jumps off the balcony without warning and, in mid-air while free falling, slams the dial back down as he is engulfed in emerald light, descending unto the arena in a new form.

This bright light show definitely catches the eye of everyone in the place, especially the crowd watching, Imoba and the others at the balcony as whoever Ben turned into, crashes into the middle of the ring, kicking up dust and smoke in the process.

Imoba drops a Smeek clone he had just choked out and moves towards what could potentially be his new opponent. Once the dust finally drops, almost acting like a curtain unveiling the new fighter, in Ben's place is now Four Arms, who landed in the arena on one knee and a fist on the ground.

The multi armed being then rises from the ground as he cracks all four of his knuckles while Imoba snarls at him, "You're not Kolo! Who are you supposed to be?!"

"They call me 'Four Arms'!" The transformed boy says, smirking.

The crowd's worry melted away almost instantly and began cheering again. Getting another fight for free? Today has been an incredible event so far. And Sett and his crew couldn't agree more as even the boss himself chuckles in amusement. "He can transform into a four armed monster? Ha! That's pretty good! You got a good eye as always, Nyancy." Sett exclaims, a big smile on his face.

"Oh you think that's cool?" Ester boasts for her friend, smirking in delight. "That guy is only one of many forms he's got. I think he told me once that he's got 10 whole transformations."

"For real? Okay, yeah, he's gonna be really popular real quick." Kolo nods, chuckling to herself as well.

Sett maintains his smile, nodding as he says, "No kidding. Could start an entirely new betting pool on what he'll turn into next."

Imoba, for his part though, either through sheer rage he did not get Kolo or his unsated bloodlust now answered by a new opponent, runs at Four Arms as fast as his legs could, rearing back one of his fists to try and punch the quad armed warrior.

But Four Arms could see the attack coming, quite literally in this case, as the moment Imoba got near, he simply side steps quickly to evade the punch before he delivers all four of his fists down on the armadillo man and slam him onto the ground, flat on his face. But he wasn't done as he then picks up Imoba by his tail and, gripping it hard, Four Arms makes a full 180 spin before tossing the armadillo man in his grasps into a wall.

Despite Four Arms' strength and Imoba's weight, the wall was surprisingly fine. Not even a small crack was formed. It seems Sett and his crew thought of everything. If heavy weight fighters like the two of them would be in a brawl, obviously everything around them needs to be reinforced.

Still, though, Four Arms — or rather, Ben — was still not liking the idea of using his abilities for mindless brawling. But at least he feels some satisfaction of beating up someone like Imoba who just harassed the guards and called out Kolo unprompted. For now, he's going to treat the armadillo man before like any other bully.

As Imoba gets up from the ground and shakes his head off the wall, he turns around to face his quad armed opponent once more, his nostrils literally smoking in anger. And his rage would further be fed when, upon putting his eyes on Four Arms, the latter is now using both of his left hands, taunting Imoba with a 'Bring it!' gesture and a smirk on his lips.

Imoba roars like a madman as he curls up into a ball and rolls towards Four Arms in rapid speed, while Four Arms himself responds to this by charging as well. And as both combatants near one another, their clash between the quad armed hero's two right fists and the armadillo man's armored shell creates a powerful shockwave that kicks up so much wind and dust, one could not blamed to believe a tornado spawned in the arena from the sheer force of their collision.

Meanwhile, from the entrance to this secret fighting pit, Samira, Lani, Miel and Kevin all finally arrive. The sound of cheering, fighting and music were enough to make Samira and Lani both feel pumped. "Oh! Now this is my jam! This beats the pits back home!" Samira happily takes in the new environment they're in, a big smile on her face.

"No kidding!" Lani cheers too, and looks around the outer marketplace of the arena. "Oh, let's go set up there!"

Miel chuckles, following Lani as she gestures to Kevin to follow her. As they walk towards the spot Lani had suggested, the raven haired boy noticed the line in front of the main entrance. Just like before, it's filled with many fighters off all shapes and sized, armed to the teeth, even some more literal than others, with all manner of weaponry, from swords, guns, shields, clubs, axes and many more.

"They got some primo weapons around here." Kevin comments, with Miel looking towards the line to follow her brother's gaze.

She agrees with his sentiment, nodding and smiling as she tells her younger sibling, "Yeah, well we're about to make them all look wind up toys. You got our backs for this one?"

"Heck yeah! Wouldn't wanna miss it for the world." Kevin excitedly replies, all of them finally in the right spot and settle down their equipment on the ground.

"Alright. You three settle in. My business is inside." Samira tells them bringing out what appears to be a Noxian coin. "If you need anything, you let me know. And if Indari comes looking for me, tell her I have a date."

Lani gasps in joyous manner. "Oh my gosh! Congratulations!" Lani cheers for Samira, who only chuckles while Miel boops Lani on her nose.

"She's not actually on a date, Lani. It's code." Miel teases her girlfriend, causing the green haired girl to frown.

"Dang. This could have been a double date." Lani pouts, making Miel chuckle, while Kevin scowls rather comically.

"So what am I, a chauffeur?" The raven haired boy complains, which just made his big sister ruffle his hair to tease him.

As she smiles at the sight of her friends enjoying themselves, Samira tosses the coin her hand before catching it back, telling them, "Alright, you three behave. Mama's going to go check on her guy."

"I'll keep them in line. Take care in there, Samira." says Miel, giving Samira a casual salute that the latter gives back as she heads to a different entrance to the place. This entrance also has a line, though it seems to be for people who want tp watch the fights, as the people in the line are unarmed, and if they are, they seem to be only for self defense.

The line's shorter and it only took a few seconds before Samira herself could finally enter, tossing the coin in her hand to another Smeek clone guarding this entrance, only this time, he seems to be guarding an elderly Vastaya woman that's sitting in front of a big desk filled with coins, papers, a feather and a small jar of ink. Must be the one handling entrance fees.

Still though, like when she was just outside, Samira breathes in the excitement in the air. The clamoring of the audience, a slight hint of the music drowned out by the cheering and the sounds of combat in the arena are making her blood pump. As she chuckles to herself and walk around the place, she catches a glimpse of the fighting...

...just in time for Four Arms to get knocked into a wall, one that just happened to be where Samira is walking by as his large stature was enough for her, and her fellow watchers, to see him from his head to his shoulders. As Four Arms shakes his head to get rid of his concussion quick, Samira takes this time to lean on the wall further until she's close enough to Four Arms' left shoulder.

"Oooh! You doing okay, big guy?" Samira says to the quad armed being before her as he finally comes to his senses.

As his vision clears up, he sees that Imoba is also on the wall. Earlier, the two of them had been fighting and lead to both of them attempting to punch each other, which both of them succeed in doing, knocking one another to opposite sides of the ring.

With clenched teeth and a growl, Four Arms responds, "Aside from the concussion? Still not great. But I'm about tired of roly poly here!"

"Haha! Well, go on and dunk him. I'll bet on you!" Samira encourages the quadruple armed fighter before her, even patting him on his head comically. But while she does, she catches up a glimpse of the symbol of Ben's watch on Four Arms' chest, making her one good eye squint.

"That looks familiar..."

Samira ponders but she quickly got her attention taken back by Four Arms as he finally gets off the wall and runs at Imoba. As she watches him strike Imoba in his face, which the armadillo man immediately responds with a tail swipe of his own, Samira just shrugs, not bothering to return to her thoughts on the symbol on the transformed boy.

But then, from across the arena, on a different audience area on the other side of the ring, Samira spots a hooded figure, watching the fighting. Focusing her attention there, she tries to eye the person carefully, looking at every possible detail on them. The hood of their coat is obscuring their face, but Samira can still see their hands at least. And as she lowers her gaze down to said hands...

...she sees their hands look hairy. Like that of an animal. And the left hand specifically has multiple golden rings on it with red gems.

"Bingo." Samira smirks to herself as she heads off again, eyeing the person she spotted.

All the while, Four Arms skids on the ground as he is forced to grab and attempt to stop Imoba, who has curled into his armored ball form again and is rolling in Four Arms' four hands. The quad armed hero can practically feel his palms burning, like he's trying to stop a wheel going several hundred miles per hour, to the point that his hands are now slightly smoking.

But with clenched teeth, sheer determination and trying his best to ignore the pain, Four Arms lifts up his upper arms, only using his lower ones to keep Imoba in place, before bringing both of his lifted fists down, smacking the armadillo man on the top his ball form. This creates a shockwave that blows up more gusts of wind from the arena as Imoba is forced out of his ball form and now lies flat on his face.

Four Arms then takes advantage of this by trying to grab his foe once more. Only this time, Imoba was ready as he snuck his tail to the side and then use it to grab Four Arms instead. With a quick and strong pull, Four Arms drops on his back before the armadillo man gets back up and jumps up into the air.

And while up there, Imoba then curls back into a ball and prepare to drop his full, heavily armored weight on Four Arms, like a wrecking ball detached from it's cables, falling down like a meteor.

But just as he got close, the quad armed hero manages to get his wits back and sees the incoming ball from the sky. Quickly responding, Four Arms uses all his strength to thunderclap all four of his hands together and create a powerful shockwave of air from his hands, firing off like a cannon as he unleashes this attack onto Imoba.

The force of this thunderclap was so strong, it actually counteracts Imoba's fall, completely halts his momentum and even sends him up way high until he reaches the ceiling, crashing into it enough to shake the entire cave.

And, after slowing getting pried off the ceiling by gravity itself, Imoba plummets back down, screaming in terror from such a height. He's not even sure if his armor would be enough to protect him.

Sadly for him, it was a pointless thought as Four Arms just got back up and is greeting him down on the floor, just in time as the armadillo closes the gap between him and the floor. But before he could, the quad armed fighter delivers, not just a double, but a quadruple uppercut with all four of his fists into Imoba's chin before he hit the ground. The quintuple rising punch was so powerful, it completely knocks out Imoba at last, a ton of his teeth scattering everywhere and even creates cracks on the ground from the shockwave alone.

And as Imoba falls on his back, unresponsive but, thankfully, still breathing, the crowd cheers for their new winner as Four Arms pants, gasping for air from such a battle.

"Yeah! Now that's a brawl!" Sett himself cheers as well, a big smile on his face as he can practically see Ben as his new star. So much so, he even jumps off the balcony and lands on the ring on both feet, just in time for Four Arms' symbol to glow red and beep, turning him back into Ben after a big red flash of light.

While Sett's suddenly coming down surprised the arena, Four Arms turning back to Ben surprised them just as equally. Still, the audience initial confusion and shock are immediately erased as soon as Sett grabs Ben's right arm and raises it to the air. "Ladies and gentlemen! Your winner for the night, Ben 10!" Sett introduces Ben to the crowd, causing them all to cheer, though the boy himself is confused.

"Ben 10? Is that supposed to be my stage name?" Ben asks Sett.

Sett, chuckling and slightly whispering to Ben, tells him, "Roll with it. People love a good stage name."

Ben 10. A strange name for Ben to have, as simple as it is. Where did Sett even get that idea from? Is it meant to be a play on his first and last name? But Ben never even mentioned to either Nyancy, Kolo or Sett himself. Perhaps it's about the amount of transformations he has, but how could Sett possibly know that?

"Wait... Ah dang it. Did Ester let that slip? Now Sett is definitely more interested in making me fight people now." Ben thought to himself. He's gonna have to talk to his Yordle friend later. For now, though, he can hear the cheering of the crowd around him.

Despite everything he's told himself up to this point, there's a certain amount of joy and excitement in Ben's heart. The last time he's ever had groups of people cheer him on like this was during his last birthday, which was several days ago, but that was undercut with the tragedy of the day before. This, though? It was a bigger crowd. Louder cheers. Thunderous clapping. Absolute smiles and excitement on each of every audience member's face.

The inner kid within Ben can't help but smile too. For the first time in a long while, this was the most amount of people cheering for him in glee. He's still contemplating on what he thinks of this violent sport he's now become a part of, but he cannot deny that there could some fun with it after. Spending a couple of years of his life sheltered by Caitlyn has made him miss out on real fun.

And this might just be it, so he may as see where this will take him.

As the crowd continues to cheer, Ben finally grins and raises his other arm, holding up peace signs from his hands as he greets the audience with glee.

Ester, from up at the balcony, can see Ben change in demeanor. She's had enough time in this world to be able to read someone through their expressions alone, and she could tell that the smile Ben's showing off is not fake. All her worries about Ben getting involved in this have been slightly vanished as she sighs in relief. She's glad he looks like he's going to have some fun.

And their day is just getting started.

---

Back with the Noxian trio, Miel and Lani are currently talking to a new customer while Kevin seems to be putting together a weapon together. It's beginning to resemble a rifle as each piece of it is combined with another by the raven haired boy, all while he ensures to clean every side of it.

Miel then pats Lani's shoulder, wordlessly telling her that she'll be back as Lani keeps their customer occupied. Miel then moves over to her younger brother as she picks up one of the weapon's pieces and hands it to him, allowing him to put it in as the last part, finally assembling the weapon as it hums and parts of it glow orange, almost like flames.

"Look at that. You finally got it working!" Miel tells Kevin, who smirks as he holds the rifle carefully, aiming it up at the ceiling for a bit putting it down, right next to a ton of other weapons. It seems all of them were crafted by Kevin himself.

"Told ya I would. Think our buyer's gonna like it?" Kevin asks his sisters as he starts assembling another weapon again.

As Miel helps him out for a bit, handing him parts, pieces and tools for his task, she responds to her little brother, "They're no Hextech, but like we always say: If it stabs, cuts or... Uh... Shoots?"

Kevin chuckles at his sister forgetting their own catchphrase as he inserts one piece of the weapon into another slot. "If it stabs, cuts or explodes, we've got it." Kevin corrects the catchphrase for her.

"Right. My bad. Always caught up in our merch, I forget how to sell 'em." Miel responds, scratching the back of her head. "So, what does rifle do? Explodes?"

"Lance." Kevin corrects, pointing towards the rifle. "I call it a laser lance. Since we don't got Hex crystals, been using a special Zaun chemical that heats up, which uses that heat to fire a beam to heat up targets. But it can be set to lob explosive chemical balls that explode once expose to air long enough. Can be shot for as long as 35 minutes without stopping before needing to be cool off."

"Not bad, kiddo." Miel compliments her brother, a smile full of pride on her lips. Though she points towards the barrel of his laser lance, telling him. "Just a small thing. You should probably extend the barrel a bit longer, like a meter or so. It will make the heat beam a bit smaller but more accurate and easier to handle. Cause if that short barrel breaks, it's gonna explode and burn the user into a crisp."

Kevin taps his chin, putting away the weapon he's assembling down as he grabs his laser lance again. "Huh. Didn't think about that. I'll get to it then." says Kevin, placing the laser lance before him as he grabs some extra tools and metal pieces nearby.

"Good. Lemme know when your done, yeah?" Miel says to her younger brother, the two of them nodding to one another.

Before Kevin was about to start, though, he halts for a moment, much to his sister's confusion as he sighs. "Do you think we'll even make enough to finally be on our own?" Kevin asks Miel, a frown forming on his lips.

This question causes Miel to sigh too, closing her eyes for a moment as she ponders he answer. When she finally opens them, she pats Kevin's shoulder for a second. "We'll be fine. It's a miracle in of itself we're even out here. If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere." Miel reassures him.

"I know but... what about mom? Ever since dad... Err... I mean, our dads are gone... I wanna go back for her and get her out of Noxus." Kevin responds.

"Miel! He says he wants something big but light!" Lani suddenly calls out to her girlfriend while their customer is waiting, interrupting their conversation.

Miel gives them both a thumbs up before grabbing some weapons from Kevin's finished products, before patting her brother on his back. "Well, we're not gonna be able to help her out if we just sit here talking about it. Come on. We got work to do. I'll tag in with ya in an hour." The older sister tells her sibling before she heads back to their customer's presence.

Watching his sister then showcase their merchandise as she and Lani explain each and every one of them, Kevin could only sigh once more, firmly grasping his tools once more. He was about to reach for the metal piece he pulled out earlier, but then, from just nearby, a random couple, a lion Vastaya man and a human woman, seemingly fighters judging by their gear, started speaking to one another, but are loud enough for Kevin to hear and accidentally eavesdrop on them.

"I don't wanna deal with that Ben 10 kid when I get in there. Best I can hope for is for someone else to take him out so I can skip over him." The lion man says to his partner, who only scoffs at him.

"Didn't realize you were such a coward. Didn't you say you and I were gonna win this whole tourney for the prize money?" The woman tells her partner as she crosses her arms.

Her words now has Kevin's full attention as he drops his tools and instead went back to the previous weapon he was assembling, putting it together to pretend to look busy while his ears were focused on listening in to this new, juicy information.

The lion man, though, just shakes his head and raises his arms in the air. "That was before I find out some of these fighters are gonna be gimmicky! Besides, Sett's little talent scout only invited us cause we were fighting off some random mooks that were pillaging that weird Piltovan caravan. I'm not fighting no shapeshifters!"

"Ugh, for a lion, you're so damn cowardly. Fine, if you're not participating, then I am! But that prize money's all mine if I win." The woman says, poking her partner's nose rather condescendingly. "I'm gonna spend it all in buying us a bigger home!"

"Fine by me. I'll go find a seat and watch your match." The lion man tells his girl, who just groans and heads towards the main entrance.

From under her breath, she whispers, "Maybe mother was right about my choice in men..."

Those final words aside, Kevin forms a small smirk from his lips. If that woman wasn't exaggerating, then enough gold to get a big house would still be a lot. And, knowing Ionia does not have official currency, that means the prize money's going to be in Noxian coin. Combined with what he, Miel and Lani would hopefully make today, it's going to be just the right amount for them to finally permanently leave Noxus with their mother!

But in order to get that, he'll have to be part of this tournament. And he knows just how to get in...

The lion Vastaya man from earlier was just about to head to the secondary audience to pay up for a seat, but then Kevin walks by, holding his finally assembled weapon and was seemingly focused on it so much that he bumps into the lion man, surprising them both as the two of them nearly stumble.

"Oh, sorry man! I wasn't looking. My bad." Kevin apologizes as he nods to the lion man before him.

Surprisingly, the lion man waves it off and shakes his head, telling the raven haired boy, "It's fine. It's kinda dark in here anyway. You here to watch some matches?"

"Hm? Nah. Me and my sisters are just smiths. I was going to deliver this heat blade to another customer, but I couldn't find him." Kevin replies.

"I see. Yeah, well, hopefully it can stand up to those powerhouses in the arena. Seems we got some total freaks in there today. So good luck with that." The lion answers before turning around and heading towards where he was originally headed for.

But as he walks away, he does not see that Kevin's smiling to himself... before pulling an invite card from under his sleeve.

Kevin had a hunch that if this lion man and his girlfriend were actually invited to Sett's fighting pit, then that means either the two of them shared an invitation or had separate invites, and Kevin took a gamble.

And it paid off. If the girl is already going to hand out her own invite at the main entrance, then this lion man who no longer wish to join would still have his. In the confusion between him and said lion that Kevin himself orchestrated by pretending to be confused, he managed to swipe the card from one of the man's pockets.

"Now..." Kevin mutters to himself. "...Let's get us that prize money."

---

"Not bad, Benny!" Nyancy cheers as she and Ester both greet him just outside Sett's balcony, with the latter patting Ben on his back before heading inside as the Vastaya and Yordle celebrate their human friend's victory.

"Knew you had it in ya!" says Ester as she and Ben do a fist bump.

"All in a day's work. That guy's good, but compared to what we've faced these past few days, he was just another brute." Ben proudly declares before the three of them finally head off, though not towards the balcony but back down the stairs, with Nyancy leading the two adventurers.

Ester chuckles though, lightly patting Ben's leg humorously as she tells him, "A brute that can turn into a ball."

Ben and Ester share a laugh as they subconsciously follow Nyancy, until they finally both notice they're walking down the stairs. "Oh wait, isn't Sett's room that way?" Ben asks, receiving a finger wag from the Panther woman he and his Yordle companion are following.

"Yeah, but earlier was just a special occasion. Fighters aren't completely allowed in there all the time. Since it's gonna be a long day for you, you two are getting a special room." says Nyancy.

The eyes of both Ben and Ester practically light up at the sound of that as they both look at each other and gasp in delight together. Judging by the way Sett and his crew have made this place look so gorgeous despite the blood sport they run, they can only imagine how luxurious their room is going to be.

Once they reach the floor below, Nyancy continues to lead them to a different set of stairs, the two of them practically giddy at the thought of finally laying down on a nice bed after their tiring first half of their day.

Meanwhile, the next fight in the arena is just announced and every audience member is excited. And among the crowd is a hooded figure. The same hooded figure that Samira had seen earlier.

Due to being far away, it was hard to quite tell who or what they are underneath that hood, but up close, one can see that the man is a rather short, rat-like creature. He's wearing worn and torn dark and faded orange clothes underneath his robe. And like what Samira saw earlier, he has several rings on his left hand while his right is raising a big, wooden mug filled with a very stiff drink.

It's quite hard to tell if this person is a Vastaya with rat traits or not. But compared to actual Vastaya, he's lacking any human features apart from standing up right on both of his feet.

"Wooo! Yeah! Bring 'em on!" The rat man cheers before gulping down his drink. "Can't wait to get this fight started!"

"Then I got bad news for you, because you'll have to wait a little bit longer."

The rat man suddenly freezes in place as a shiver went down his spine. He turns around slowly and, seemingly to his horror, if his widening eyes are any indication, Samira is right there before him, with a smile on her lips.

"S-S-Samira! H-Hi! Hey!" The rat man stammers while his entire body is trembling. "What, uh, what can I do for you? Hehe..."

Suddenly, to his shock, Samira suddenly puts an arm around his back as he forcibly makes him turn his head back to facing the arena as she laughs... while sneakily bringing out one of her pistols from her holsters and pointing it directly to the rat man's snout. The one eyed woman is making sure the gun isn't quite seen well but close enough that Argit can feel the chill from her weapon's metal barrel.

"I'm just here to catch up with you, Argit! You know, talk about what we missed, what we've been doing..." says Samira, revealing the rat man's name to be Argit.

But then, her joyful demeanor suddenly becomes grim as she, while still maintaining her fake smile, her eye stare directly into Argit's soul as he sees her bloodlust from her stare alone.

"...and also that little 'job opportunity' you told me you'd 'share' weeks ago." The one eyed huntress tells Argit, making him gulp a mixture of the remnants of his drink in his throat as well as his own spit, a feeling of dread occupying every part of his body.

With a nervous laugh, Argit attempts to negotiate, telling Samira, "W-Well, we can talk about that later, right? We don't wanna miss the next match before the tournament really begins, right?"

But the scare keep coming as Argit did not expect Samira to laugh as well before leaning in closer, pressing the barrel of her gun harder into Argit's nose until he could smell the gunpowder within, before Samira whispers into his ears, with a smile,

"Keep stalling and we'll show everyone here how messy their walls will look painted red."

If Argit wasn't already scared before, he most definitely is now, as his entire body is trembling before he gestures to Samira, attempting to fake a smile, and tells her, "Lead the way!"

With a smirk and a chuckle, Samira holsters her pistol again, allowing Argit to breathe before she drags him away by the back of his robe, heading towards the nearest exit.

---

While the crowds continue their cheering, Nyancy finally gets Ben and Ester to their own room and the duo immediately spot a window with a good view of the arena as they can hear everyone clamoring for the next match to start.

"You guys spare no expense. How'd you guys set this all up anyway?" Ben asks, watching out the window while Ester moves to the biggest couch in the room and lies down, resting up.

The panther woman walks over next to Ben, resting her arm on the window sill as she replies to the boy, "Blood, sweat and tears. Almost literal, considering the nature of this kinda work. Sett built this place up over a long period of his life, recruiting people every now and then. Despite what you think, I've only been working here for 4 years. He's gotten some employees come and go. Some were literal, quitting the work but still on good terms with Sett. Others, well, died. Whether if it's trying to wrangle in some fighters trying to make a mess or outside stuff that's out of our control. Not very pleasant."

"That's life, I guess." Ester comments before yawning and stretching on the couch.

"I'm surprised this place hasn't been found or taken down yet." Ben adds, resting his arms on the window sill as well. "Does Ionia not have anything like officers or something?"

Nyancy chuckles, crossing her arms and saying, "There's no real 'authority' in Ionia, kid. Strange as it seems, it's a free land. Many will claim they're 'defenders' or 'soldiers' of the region but they're basically just vigilantes. This place probably doesn't sound legal where you're from, but here? It's one of Ionia's biggest forms of entertainment."

"A pretty violent one." Ben comments, frowning a bit before looking back to the arena.

"Heh. Oh, people always try and tell you they don't like violence..." Nyancy answers before pulling out a steel lighter from between her breasts and pulls out a small cigarette stick as well. The lighter itself has some Noxian engravings on it as Nyancy opens it up to light the cigarette before she places the latter to her mouth, huffing it up before blowing out smoke. "...but they all watch anyway." She finishes her sentence.

Those words make Ben sigh, because he can't deny that, as the view in front of him is telling him. Every person in the audience all look like they could come from anywhere, with all kinds of different lives... and they're all sharing delight and enjoyment at watching people fight each other through this violent blood sport.

The Piltovan boy then begin to think about himself. He's always wanted to use his powers to help others and defeat evil. Not for any personal glory or anything like that, but because it was the right thing to do... But sometimes, even he can't help but feel good beating up bad guys. They deserve it, of course, but now Ben worries if he's enjoying it too much. And he also worries that this arena, this upcoming tournament, will confirm his own fears.

He was about to speak up, but then...

SMACK!

Ben and Nyancy hear from below in the arena the fighting has commenced. "Oh, looks like we got our final contestants for the last spot for the tournament." Nyancy says as Ben watches closely, while Ester gets up from the couch and hops on Ben's back to watch the fight too, curious about the matchup.

While none of the trio know who they are, turns out, the two combatants on the field are actually Kevin himself, finally getting in, and the girlfriend of the lion Vastaya from earlier. While the woman is heavily armed, with a dual short axes crossed on her back and a big sword in the middle, Kevin was... unarmed.

Ben's a bit confused on him. Sure, some folks don't need weapons, like him and Imoba earlier, but that raven haired boy down there doesn't even look like he's got any real armor on. Maybe he's just really good at fisticuffs?

"Oh, he spells trouble." Ester comments all of a sudden, catching Ben's attention.

"Think so?" Ben asks as the two of them observe Kevin carefully.

"Yeah. In my experience, when you fight someone unarmed, either they're really stupid... or have something up their sleeve." Ester nods to Ben as she squints. "And something in my gut tells me... he's the second one."

Ben was thinking the same thing, eyeing Kevin carefully as the match begins.

---

Down below, the warrior woman runs at Kevin, pulling her axes from her back on the way to him before swinging her weapons at her foe.

Surprisingly, Kevin manages to duck and weave past her attacks, evading each swing while he keeps an eye on her hands. Once he finds an opening on a sloppy swing by his opponent, Kevin manages to do a jab the strikes the woman in her nose, knocking her back a bit. But during her stumble, she manages to get a lucky swing in that cuts Kevin on his arm, cutting both his a bit of his red, bandage-like sleeve and his skin.

The wound was not deep and not particularly big, but Kevin still grunts from the pain as his blood trickles down more on his sleeve, soaking it and making it a darker shade of red.

The raven haired boy did not have time to think over his wound, though, as the warrior woman recovers almost instantly and pounces towards Kevin, raising both arms up as she attempts to swing both of her axes down at Kevin.

However, to her confusion, Kevin wasn't even attempting to move out of the way as he just stands there, as if ready to take her attack.

But Kevin's next action surprised not only his foe but everyone watching them as instead of any attempts to evade or block the attack, Kevin instead...

...catches both axe blades in each of his hands. The woman's swing was strong enough to make Kevin fall on one knee but he was still holding onto both blades as blood trickles from his palms, the axes slightly digging into his his hands from his actions.

Before the warrior woman could mock him for his stupid response to her attack, though, Kevin suddenly chuckles as he starts getting back up, hands still holding onto the blades. "Noxian steel blades with a Petricite lined handle. Not bad. Perfect for handling regular folks just as much as handling someone with magic. Versatile... Too bad for you, lady..." Kevin starts telling the woman before him...

...and continues to shock everyone watching as he grips onto the axe blades harder. "I'm neither a regular guy or a magical one." Kevin adds, his smirk forming on his lips.

Suddenly his hands look like they are turning into metal, like his skin was being coated in the exact same material as the axes he's holding. Then, this 'coating' begins to form over his sleeves quickly. Then to his shoulders, his chest, his head and even down to his legs and finally his feet.

Before the woman, and the crowd watching the match, is now Kevin who has seem to turn himself into a metal man. The woman didn't even have time to process her opponent's revelation of his powers as he then pushes her back with ease. The wounds her axe gave him even seem to have healed from what he did to himself.

And the surprises don't end there as the metallic man then morphs his right hand into a spiked ball, turning it into a mace as he charges forward.

"You think just because you're some kind of metal freak, I'm gonna stop?!" The warrior woman boasts as he meets Kevin's charge with her own. The two then start swinging at one another head on, but while the woman needs to evade Kevin's mace strikes, Kevin was tanking every hit from his foe without worry. Each axe strike on his metal armor is doing nothing, as it seems it really is made from the same kind of material as her weapons. It really feels like she's fighting a living, breathing incarnation of Noxian steel itself.

Kevin continues his brutal and relentless assault on his foe, jabbing and swinging his mace hand at her. For every smash he misses, he seems to be getting faster, adapting, as he observes the warrior woman's pattern of evasion.

Once again, he finally sees an opening and he tricks her by using his other hand instead, grabbing her by her neck to keep her in place as he then essentially punches her with the mace hand, causing her to cough up blood and her armor cracks apart, several pieces of it scattering everywhere.

At the last moment, Kevin let's her neck go as his mace jab makes contact, knocking her away as she leaves a trail of blood from her mouth and pieces of metal from her armor.

Kevin chuckles before morphing his mace hand back to normal. He remains coated in the Noxian steel he absorbed, though, as he walks away, seemingly content at his victory.

Despite their initial surprise at the sudden twist and turns in the matchup, the crowd cheers for Kevin nonetheless as he takes it all in, raising one of his metal fists up in the air to greet their cheers back.

But the woman wasn't done, though, as while Kevin was taking in all what the audience has, she gets back up, extremely pissed off as blood slips from her lips and down her chin. She then spits the blood still in her mouth before fully taking off her now broken armor and pulls the big sword on her back.

With an angry yell, she runs towards Kevin, her blade scraping on the floor as she does, creating sparks along the ground and, once she's close, tries to swing her weapon at what she thought was her distracted foe.

But that rage soon became shock once more as Kevin turns around and catches her blade between his arm and his side, tucking it in and keeping it in place. He then turns his free hand into a big axe blade and, in one swing, he breaks her sword's blade in pieces.

The sword losing most of it's weight from getting torn apart accidentally causes the woman to stumble back, leaving her vulnerable as Kevin let's go of the other half of the sword, switching his axe hand back to normal and running up to the woman.

He then grabs his opponent's shoulders before raising his metal head back and delivering a powerful headbutt to her own noggin, knocking her out as her forehead bleeds from that attack. As the metal man let's go of his foe, she falls on the ground, unconscious as her blood trickles down her face.

The crowd cheers again as Kevin celebrates his victory...

...apart from the lion Vastaya from earlier finally seeing what has happened to his girlfriend on the arena. "No!" The lion man can only yell as he tries to jump over the railing over the audience seats, but is stopped by some of the guards.

As Kevin finally his metallic armor subside, he looks over to the lion man. Between all his crying and screams of worry and anger, the man was threatening Kevin, as he keeps saying, "I'll kill you for this! You bastard!"

The raven haired boy looks back to his unconscious and bleeding foe, then back to her Vastaya boyfriend. Strangely, his initial smug behavior from earlier seems to vanish, though now he seems to just... sigh. While Sett up above was saying all manner of things, announcing Kevin as the final contestant for the upcoming tournament, Kevin just walks away, heading for the exit to this arena. He can still hear the lion man's threats from all the cheering in the audience.

---

But while everyone was cheering, Ben, back at the room provided to them, was not amused at what had just happened. Whoever that guy was, he was too brutal with his attacks. The mace to the gut was one thing. But deliberately knocking the woman out with his metallic, armored head was too much. It could lead to so much injuries, or worst, a skull fracture.

Ben's eyes squint in slight anger as he watches Kevin walk away so casually, like it was nothing to him.

Even Ester can see the sudden change in Ben's mood, giving him a glance before looking over back to the arena as several of the guards gently pick up the unconscious woman to get her to safety, her boyfriend crying as he tries to reach for her.

The Yordle girl has seen first hand how terrifying Ben can be when angered, especially earlier this morning when he thought Rojo was going to die, and it seems Ben has set his sights of delivering some 'justice' towards the raven haired boy down at the arena.

"Wait your turn, Ben. Don't worry." Ester says, seemingly encouraging his anger. "He'll get his 'just desserts' from you. Just gotta hope he makes it down in the bracket long enough to face you."

"If he does, he's gonna be sorry." Ben mutters back to Ester, scowling as he grips the window sill with his hands harder.

Nyancy, though, remains silent, huffing her cigarette as she smirks at Ben's sudden interest in taking that new contestant down. And it gives her an idea as she blows out smoke from her mouth.

"Well, I'll see you guys later once the tourney starts. Got some things to take care of for a bit." Nyancy tells the duo as she prepares to leave the room.

Before the panther woman reaches the door, Ester takes the time to ask, "You're still sponsoring us, right?"

"Now that everyone's looking forward to your fights? Of course I am." Nyancy responds, heading for the door as she gives a wave to Ben and Ester.

As the Vastaya woman leaves, Ester takes a sigh of relief as she hops off Ben's back, with the Piltovan boy himself following her. Ben sits on the same couch from earlier, groaning a little from the fatigue of fighting people for most of the day. Ester then lies down next to him, and even uses his thigh like her own pillow as she takes off her hat before yawning.

"Tired too, huh?" Ester asks Ben, looking up from her spot at her friend's face, who just chuckles.

"Yeah. The day has been nonstop action, that it already feels like we've consumed most of it, yet the sun's still up." Ben admits before he and his Yordle companion share a laugh, but soon regret it as the feeling of exhaustion overwhelms them to the point that simply laughing already makes them winded.

"Ugh... I already miss my bed at the inn." says the Yordle gunslinger, stretching her arms out before resting her head back on Ben's lap.

Ben yawns again, slumping a little on his back against the couch as he closes his eyes. While he clears his head, he replies to his friend, "Me too."

For a moment, the room was silent, as Ben and Ester's fatigue has practically muffled all the noise outside, focusing on resting themselves.

The silence was comforting for a moment... but Ester opens her eyes again, looking back up at her friend and asks him a question. "What're you gonna do when you meet your mom?" Ester asks Ben.

Ben was silent for another few moments, to the point that Ester thinks he's fallen asleep. But then she hears him sigh. Eyes still closed, Ben replies, "I don't know. I never really thought ahead of that goal. I told myself I'd just... let my emotions at the time speak for me. Maybe I actually become happy and just hug her. Maybe I get angry for leaving me and my dad and just yell at her... I don't really know. I try not to think about it, or else it'll keep me up at night."

Ester maintains her sights at Ben. Even though his eyes are still closed, there's a part of Ester that can tell there's a conflict within her friend, one he can't resolve until he finally confronts his mother. The Bilgewater Yordle feels a little bad trying to butt in with such a personal quest for Ben, yet she really still feels compelled to help him.

Whatever it is that's telling her all of this, whatever is this feeling of attachment towards Ben she's feeling, perhaps it's her own conflict as well. One she'll solve as well someday. Until then... Ben needs her help, in all the ways that matter.

"Well, hey, if your mom turns out to have left you because she's a complete jackass, I'll be happy to kick her ass with you." Ester tries to comfort Ben. And to her joy, it actually makes him laugh.

"Hopefully it doesn't come to that." Ben responds, sharing another laugh with his Yordle friend. This time, though, it doesn't make them winded. "Hey... Ester?" says Ben.

Ester looks towards him, replying, "Yeah?"

Ben finally opens his eyes again and offers his fist towards the Yordle gunslinger. "Thanks for being here. I don't think I could've gone this far without you. Mentally and physically." He tells her, a smile on his face formed.

"Heh." escapes Ester's lips. She then respond to his fist with her own, bumping one another affectionately. "Don't mention it. Like I said. No one deserves to be alone."

And as they finally let their exhaustion take over, the duo remain on the couch, taking enough rest and sleep until someone comes to call for them for the tournament, comfortable in one another's presence.

---

Meanwhile, Kevin finally makes it back out of the arena, waving to anyone cheering for him along the way, all while one of the guards leads him away. Just as Ben and Ester were told they'd get a room, the guard says so to Kevin as well.

Kevin keeps up his smile, giving finger guns to every attractive woman he passes by and waving to other folks. It seems like he's really milking all his new fame already.

But just when he thought he was having a good day...

"Kevin Ethan Levin."

The raven haired Noxian boy freezes as he hears that familiar. Forcing himself to turn around, he is not surprised, but is still scared, to see Miel and Lani behind him. Miel's arms are crossed and has a big scowl on her lips, a clear indication that she is absolutely not amused, while Lani looks like she's holding back her snicker as she hides behind her much larger girlfriend.

Kevin gulps, nervous. That despite what he had just faced, warrior is scarier than the gaze of an angry big sister. "Has she been...?" Kevin asks.

"...Looking for you for the past several minutes." Lani finishes his words for him.

This further terrified Kevin. He continues and asks, "And you two have been...?"

"Working on the weapons you were supposed to be handling and been dealing with customers by ourselves, yes." Lani finished for him again.

"I guess this is the part where you pinch my ears, pull me away and yell at me, right?" Kevin sheepishly asks.

Miel huffs as she closes her eyes. To Kevin's surprise, though, rather than do exactly that, she instead speaks up and tells him, "Normally, yes... But Samira just came back and she found Argit. We're meeting up with her."

"Oh. Whew. That was close." Kevin says, wiping away any possible sweat that accumulated from his forehead from nervousness. "Good. 'Cause I promise that I got a really good reason why I'm here and—"

"I'm still pinching your ears for leaving without telling us." Miel suddenly says, and does exactly, not even allowing Kevin to react as she pulls Kevin away by his ears, with Lani following them as she giggles at the siblings.

---

Just outside the cave entrance, Argit is knocked into a tree before Samira steps on his tail, keeping him in place while she aims one of pistols right between his eyes.

"Now, you're going to go into detail about why exactly you haven't delivered on your end of the deal for the job, or I'm about to introduce a new hole in your skull where we can put a third eye on it. How does that sound, Argit?" Samira threatens the rat man, smirking as she does so.

"L-Look, Samira, it's just that..." Argit tries to come up with an excuse, but only receives an eye brow raise from the huntress before him. "Okay, fine. Look, I swear to you this time, it's not my fault."

"That's what you say whenever you mess up."

Samira and Argit hear an approaching voice and look to see Kevin, Miel and Lani are approaching. "And the last couple of times you did, it really was your fault." Kevin finishes his teasing as the three of them are finally near.

"Okay, but it's for real this time! I promise!" Argit continues to plead. "That shipment of Hex crystals we were going to deliver back was taken in by some nutjobs around here. They ambushed me and my boys with these weird, shadow monsters. I was the only survivor."

"Probably 'cause you played dead. You're good at that." Miel teases Argit as well.

With a scoff, Argit replies, "Better than being actually dead."

"That's no excuse, Argit. You had plenty of time to get those crystals replaced." Samira responds to his earlier explanation.

"That's the thing, though! I thought the same thing, but then several days ago, apparently, the Hexgate to Piltover got shut down or something, and the Hexgate here in Ionia got cut off, which means any shipping to and from both regions stopped entirely. It's going to be manual from now on, but that'll take days, and there hasn't been any ships coming directly from Piltover since the Hexgate problem." Argit adds to his explanation.

Samira still has her gun aimed at the rat man as she and her allies are all processing Argit's words. "He could probably be lying." Miel makes an argument, scowling at Argit.

"I don't know. All the major Hexgates seem to be down too. We had to take a ship to get here, remember?" Lani points out, however. "Piltover's Hexgate is the main hub for all others across the world. It shutting down, or whatever happened to it, was felt everywhere. Remember all the commotion back home when the Noxian Hexgate suddenly shut down?"

"Not to mention, I heard earlier that many Piltover caravans around Ionia are getting attacked. He might be onto something." Kevin adds

Argit gestures, rather nervously, towards Lani Kevin. "See?" He says, in an attempt to defend himself.

"Well, then, let's say you are telling the truth. Why exactly are you in Sett's little fight pit instead of heading back to Noxus to tell us?" Samira points out, crouching down to give Argit a glare.

Argit gulps, arms raised as if to surrender, and continues, "Look, either I was gonna come home empty handed and get killed by our employers or I was at least gonna get something back! So I took an opportunity. I heard some rumors around that a guy named Vulkanus runs a gang made up of runaway Noxian soldiers that all decided to work under him than risk getting killed for being deserters. He and his merry band of bandits managed to snatch back the same shipment we were supposed to get but he's selling them for a high price. So I hired some two of the toughest people I could find here in Ionia and agreed to split the prize money with them if they win. Even at half, that prize money's going to buy at least one crate of Hex crystals from Vulkanus' new stash."

"Dang. Sett must be really loaded to be able to have that much for prize money." Miel says, impressed.

"Exactly! That's why I didn't want to miss the fights! My fighters got in to the tournament and I needed to scout out the rest of their competition so I can find a way to sabotage them and guarantee my fighters' win! And you made me miss the last one!" Argit yells, but one look from Samira makes him chuckles nervously immediately.

"Well, I got some good news and... weird news." Kevin speaks up. Almost in an instant, Miel already knows what he's about to say as she sighs, facepalming. "Good news is, I'm the last fighter, and I just got into the tournament."

This makes both Samira and Argit look at him, confused, as they both speak in unison, "Wait, what?"

"Yep. Kev snuck into the pit and got himself his victory, earning him the final spot for tonight's tournament!" Lani announces, gesturing to Kevin with joy and pride.

"Yeah, that." The raven haired boy says, pointing towards Lani. "The weird news is... I guess now we got three people to guarantee the prize money? Three chances of winning."

Argit scratches beneath his own chin for a second, pondering this new predicament. His mouth then slowly forms into a smirk as he nods. "This could work! And if Kev wins, we can just kill the two guys I hired so we can keep the rest of the prize money for us!" The rat man excitedly says.

"Good point..." Samira nods as well. "Alright, Argit. For once, you made a good plan. Well, part of a plan, but whatever."

The one-eyed huntress then offers a hand towards the rat man to help him stand up. Argit sighs in relief and takes it... before Samira pulls him up quick for her to punch him in the face, knocking him down on the ground as he groans in pain. "That's for keeping us waiting for weeks." Samira tells him... but she helps him get back up to his feet again.

"Y-Yeah... Fair... Ugh..." Argit responds, rubbing his snout from the pain.

As they all head back towards the cave entrance, Miel moves over closer to Kevin, both of them behind Lani, Samira and Argit so they can converse to themselves. "So, are you gonna tell me exactly why you suddenly joined the tournament?" Miel asks her younger brother.

"I was going to earlier before you dragged me outside." Kevin tells her. "I... I wanted to win the prize money so we can finally have enough to get mom far away from Noxus."

Miel, shocked at his answer, asks, "Are you serious? This money's going towards getting those Hex crystals. Once we split what's left, there won't be enough for our family."

"I know, but... maybe we can convince Samira to just... I dunno... Fight our way through whoever this Vulkanus guy is and his gang and take the Hex crystals for free?" Kevin tells his older sister, who only sighs and shakes her head.

"We don't know who this Vulkanus guy is, Kev. Even with Samira, Lani, you and me together, with all our gear, we can't fight an enemy we don't have no info on. We may very well walk into a trap." Miel points out, crossing her arms as her brother sighs.

Shaking his own head, Kevin says, with a frown on his lips, "We'll figure something out."

While Kevin walks on ahead, Miel sighs once more, watching as her little brother follow Samira. "Kevin..." She could only whisper to herself.

---

After an hour or 2 of preparation, it's finally in the afternoon as the tournament has officially begun. The chosen fighters are all in their rooms, watching from their windows amd waiting as Sett announces the bracket.

And of course, among them is Ben, who finally got a good amount of rest even in a short, hour long sleep with Ester, as the two of them are excited.

"So, who will your first pick will be? The fire guy? The diamond guy? Oh, is it gonna the four armed guy again?" Ester asks Ben, who only chuckles at her question.

"At some point, I need to tell you my forms' names." Ben teases, which just makes the Yordle gunslinger giggle before jokingly punching Ben's shoulder lightly. "As for your question, well, it has to depend on who I'll fight. Considering how strange some of the fighters are, though, I really have to pay attention before I go in and transform."

"Good point. A shame you can't switch on the fly, though. That'd be so useful." Ester tells Ben.

They both pause their conversation, though, when Sett finally stands up from his seat on his balcony as Kolo stands behind him. "Is everyone ready?!" Sett yells to the crowd, a big smile on his face.

"YEAH!"

A joyful cry of unison erupts from the crowd as the Boss himself nods.

"Are our fighters ready?!" He yells again.

"YEAH!"

Ben, together with all the other fighters from their windows, all shout out too. Even Ester cheered with him.

"Then, say it with me..." Sett announces as he takes a deep breath. With a very powerful yell, the Boss bursts out from his lips and throat,

"LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!"

Cheers erupt once more as everyone raises their arms, tossing around their drinks and some food from all the excitement.

"So let's announce our fighters and who will they be fighting against!" Sett yells out.

For this one, Ben and Ester nod to one another as they wait. However, Nyancy suddenly knocks on their door and catches their attention. "Time to head down, Benny." Nyancy announces, nodding to the Piltovan boy.

"Wish me luck?" Ben smiles towards his Yordle friend before the two of them share a fist bump.

"Kick some butt!" Ester leaves to him as they share one last smile before the brunette boy heads off, following Nyancy outside.

Meanwhile, in the room provided to him by Sett's crew, Kevin, as well as Miel, Lani, Samira and even Argit, all wait as well. With Argit relaxing on the couch as he takes a sip from a straw on a half cut coconut shell, drinking it's juices within. "This is totally worth getting punched." Argit speaks up, taking another before sighing in relief.

"Gotta admit, Sett knows how to give both his fighters and audience a good time." Samira says, resting on the window sill like she's lying down on a bed. Rather daring and dangerous, and yet she has a big smile on her face as she watches the commotion below.

"Shouldn't you be with your team, Argit? The fighters you hired?" Lani points out while she's currently putting together a piece of weaponry with her wrench. "They're gonna need to know about the plan, right?"

"Nah. We're gonna kill 'em anyway once Kevin or they get the prize money. No big deal." Argit replies rather casually before taking another sip from his drink.

"But if there's a chance Kevin wins, then they're gonna come barging towards you and kick your ass because now they can't get their money. If we trick 'em into thinking this is all part of the plan, we can catch them by surprise and take them out." Samira points out to Argit.

Upon realizing she's right, Argit does a spit take, spraying his drink all over himself, especially now knowing the tournament fights are about to start. "Ah crud! I gotta go!" Argit yells out and bolts, running out of the room as Lani and Samira chuckle at him.

"I have no idea how the rat's still alive." Samira comments. "So, you ready for your first fight, Kev?"

Before he responds, Kevin tightens up the wraps on his arms until they feel like a second skin. And, with a crack of his knuckles, he smirks towards the one eyed huntress and tells her, "I was born ready."

"I know you are." Miel says to her brother, before suddenly pulling out four metallic rods from her pockets. "And here. For you to absorb. Can't have you keep relying on your enemies trying to beat or cut you to death with their weapons just for you to make armor for yourself.

"Thanks. There's also the ground, too, but hey, I won't deny any extra edge I can get." Kevin takes those rods and carefully observes them. Each metal rod is colored different from one another. The first is dark and blackened, which he recognizes as Noxian steel. Powerful, but heavy in mass quantities. The next is a simple silver rod with a greenish tint, which he's seen in some Ionian swords and other kinds of weapons. Lightweight and never dulls when used as a blade. The other two are whitish gold and silver respectively. "I'm gonna guess the gold-ish one is Petricite lined iron and the silver one is...?"

"Freljordian metal. Incredibly durable. You got one for offense, one for speed, one for defense, and one for dealing with the trickier foes. Specifically the magical ones." Miel explains, closing Kevin's hand that's holding the rods she gave him. "Go kick their asses."

Her words were enough to make her brother smile as he nods to her. A guard then finds his way to their room as he, too, calls for Kevin like Nyancy did to Ben.

Saying some short goodbyes, Kevin heads off to prepare for his fight.

---

"Our first round, ladies and gents, is an agile fighter who has never backed down from a fight. She's won many prelims many times but never quite made it to major tourneys until now, and she's seeking to make her first tournament one to remember her by! Give it up fooooooooooor... Porcupine!" Sett announces.

As music begins to play by the arena's very own band, a Vastaya woman starts walking down from one of many entrances towards the main stage. The woman is dressed in a short, light orange, sleeveless top, showing off her very fit body, from her abs to her slim but still muscular arms, as well as dark, reddish brown pants and some sandals over her feet. But her most striking attributes, apart from her toned body, is the fact that several spike-like protrusions are sticking out from her arms, shoulder and even looks like some are coming from here black hair, to the point that it looks like her entire hair is made out of spikes!

As Sett announced earlier, this must be Porcupine!

The woman is yelling in excitement as she throws up bull horn hand signs into the air while everyone keeps cheering her on. Porcupine laughs in joy as she then runs and slides down the middle of the arena on her knees and gives a thumbs up to the audience.

As Porcupine calms down her stage entrance, Sett takes the chance to announce the next contestant, yelling out, "And her opponent! A newcomer from the other side of the world that quickly became a fan favorite around here! A boy that can kick anyone's ass in literally 10 different ways! His sudden but decisive match against Imoba showed you all that anyone dangerous can come from anywhere and nowhere! Ladies, gents and other folks, let's hear it fooooooooooor... Ben 10!"

While there were less cheers than Porcupine's, there was still enough that was loud enough to be heard all over the cave. And rightly so as Ben enters, raises his left fist as he flashes his watch for the crowd, and that familiar symbol is already known to everyone watching as he calmy walks towards the main stage.

"You got stage presence, pretty boy." Porcupine says towards Ben before she pops her neck. "Let's see you if you can back it up with your skills."

"I was gonna say the same thing, but I didn't want you to feel bad when you lose." Ben taunts back to her. A little lighthearted trash talk never hurt anyone.

To his surprise though, Porcupine only laughs as she enters a fighting stance. "Oh, I like you. I hope I don't wreck your pretty little face too hard." She teases.

Ben just chuckles, though, and brushes that off. "Well, you're not gonna like what I'll turn into then."

"Aaaaand... FIGHT!" Sett yells and a bell is rung.

Porcupine takes the first turn as, using her superior agility, she runs towards Ben before swiping her right hand into an arc as the spikes on her arms are ejected and fired towards Ben, who ducks to dodge them all.

The spiked woman, though, did not give Ben a chance to relax as she was already a feet away from her the moment he dodged. Porcupine then attempts to deliver a savage axe kick down at the boy, who has to dive to the side to evade her attack.

Porcupine is not letting up, though, as she keeps throwing and firing her spikes towards Ben, like her namesake, to ensure he can't do anything but keep moving.

She's trying to keep me from transforming by keeping me occupied enough until she lands a blow that can take me out. Clever.

Ben thinks to himself as he is indeed forced to keep dodging and running away from Porcupine.

Sadly for her...

All of a sudden, Ben surprises his Vastaya foe when he starts running towards her. Before she can react, though, Ben swiftly slides his foot forward, kicking up so much dust from the floor that it blocks Porcupine's field of view, preventing her from seeing Ben as she starts firing her spikes blindly.

I don't mind playing dirty either!

Ben mentally boasts to himself before finally activating his watch and slamming down the dial. Once the emerald light vanishes, the crowd is both shocked and intrigued that now, in his place is Stinkfly!

The smelly insectoid takes to the air as a gust of wind blows from his takeoff, removing the blinding dust from Porcupine's vision as she finds Ben nowhere to be seen. Hearing the rapidly flapping wings of Stinkfly, though, finally made her look up and sees him, noticing that same hourglass symbol on his face.

"I was expecting that four armed guy again. Didn't think you can turn into lame forms too!" Porcupine taunts her foe before bowing her head. Initially confused at what she's doing, Stinkfly soon realizes she's actually preparing to attack as her hair spikes suddenly stand right up and start firing into the air at him like a hail of bullets, forcing him to dodge every one of her attacks as he flies around the arena.

"You think Stinkfly's lame? Wait 'till you get a load of this!" Stinkfly boasts back and, while still flying circles to dodge the incoming spikes, aims his eye stocks at Porcupine and looks towards her feet. Then, he shoots out his green slimes from his eyes, jetting towards Porcupine's feet as they stick to them.

Porcupine is understandably disgusted at what had just happened as she stops firing her spikes at Stinkfly. She tries to rip this mucus-like substance off, but her hands just stick to it as well, trapping her further. "Ugh! Seriously, man?!" Porcupine complains.

However, all she gets is a laugh from Stinkfly, who clings onto the ceiling like an actual bug. And, taking advantage of her predicament, Stinkfly finally drops from his spot and swoops towards Porcupine, tackling her into a wall. And he wasn't done as he then grabs her by her shoulders and takes her to the air with him, intending to piledrive her into the ground.

But his initial tackle had the unintended side effect of freeing her from that same slime he trapped her in, so now, she's free. Mustering her strength towards her legs, Porcupine then kicks Stinkfly off of her before throwing her spikes at him again as the two of them freefall towards the ground.

The smelly insectoid manages to deflect her projectiles by swiping his bladed tail with them, but one of them manages to get past his defense and strike him in his chest. The spike doesn't hurt too much, and is more akin to being stuck with an injection needle.

However, Stinkfly begins to feel woozy as he tries to control his flight, but his vision gets blurry and warbly, unable to get himself to fly straight. This allows Porcupine to grab onto him and force him to crash, using the bug being to soften her fall as they both end up on the ground.

The Vastaya woman manages to find her footing as she stands back up, looking at her dizzied foe. Stinkfly is still trying to stand up, struggling to do so as his slim, insectoid legs are practically trembling from his attempt. Porcupine, though, does not care as she grabs Stinkfly by his neck, clocking back one of her arms as she balls up her hand into a fist, ready to punch his lights out.

"This is for shooting that slime on me!" Porcupine exclaims.

"Ugh... Well, I'm really sorry for this then..." Stinkfly replies, still dizzy...

...but all four of his eyes can still tell, even while dizzy, that Porcupine is directly in front of him, and that's enough.

With a quick inhale, the insectoid hero then barfs out a big blast of the same slime from his eyes as it fully covers Porcupine in her face, chest and arms. With a scream of pure disgust, Porcupine accidentally drops Stinkfly from her hands as she tries tries to shake off all that slime on her, to no avail. She manages to wipe off enough from her face so she can see, but she still looks drenched in slime.

Just in time too, as Stinkfly finally tries to search for that spike stuck on him, reaching for it with his weakened hands and finally pulling it out. In a near instant, it's like he went back to normal. While still a little bit dizzy and wobbly, he can see much clearer and think much better as he turns around to face Porcupine, just as she does to him too.

"You disgust me!" Porcupine yells out as all her spikes, from her arms to her shoulders and to her head all straighten out as if she's ready to fire them all at her foe...

...but they can't seem to budge, unable to eject from her body. The Vastaya is quick to realize that, just like Stinkfly's slime on her hands and feet, the massive amount of this mucus-like substance is now all over her, including her spikes!

"Ha! Looks like I super glued them all to your body!" Stinkfly taunts Porcupine. He then starts flapping his wings again as air is kicked up. Without warning, he then jets towards his foe and tackles her into a wall again. Unlike last time, though, the much larger amount of slime on Porcupine's body sticks her into that very wall, keeping her from moving.

Stinkfly isn't even taking a chance this time as he opens his mouth and sprays her again with the slime from it, as well as his four eyes, completely trapping her onto the wall.

"1...! 2...!" Sett begins counting down for Porcupine as she is unable to free herself from her new, slimy prison. "...3! The winner is Ben 10"

Stinkfly greets the crowd as they cheer for him. This time, much more of them celebrate his victory as Porcupine groans. With his victory declared, Stinkly moves over to Porcupine and, with a swipe of his bladed tail, slashes through all the slime trapping her, finally freeing the woman, though she was still covered in slime.

"I take it... I don't like you..." Porcupine tells her insectoid foe. "... But you earned that victory. I'm gonna need a bath. A long one."

Stinkfly nods to her, replying, "Sorry about that. But I work with what I got."

"Heh... Well, you got lucky this time, pretty boy. But my little brother's in this tourney too. And he's gonna tear you apart." Porcupine warns, or rather threatens, the transformed boy as she walks away, leaving a trail of slime as she does.

Her warning didn't quite scare the Piltovan boy, though, but he does still take note of it. If her younger brother's here too, then he knows how to handle him now thanks to Stinkfly's slime affecting Porcupine's spikes.

---

The rest of the afternoon then happened, as the tournament goes through many matchups. As expected, there were many contestants, and all of them gave it their all as they crushed, punched, kicked and blasted their way through each of their opponents.

After Porcupine, Ben would later fight a strange, a man who claims he's from Zaun, with one of his arms being an actual lobster claw, likely from a mutation, and manages to pinch and throw Ben, as Four Arms again, around. But once he realized that was his only gimmick, Four Arms manages to overpower him eventually with a knock out.

Kevin's first fight was with a big, elephant Vastaya man and he was absolutely colossal, standing nearly 15 feet tall. Sett mentioned this elephant man's name to be something like "Trombipulor" or something like that. Kevin could not overpower him with his Noxian steel armor alone, so he resorts to using his Ionian metal instead, making himself a bit more agile than his gigantic foe and eventually dealt enough cuts to weaken him, making him bleed all over, and make him vulnerable enough for Kevin to knock him out with Noxian steel again.

Then, one of the fighters is a big, crocodile Vastaya man. While not as big as Trombipulor, he was still incredibly huge, nearly a foot taller than Four Arms. He faced what appears to have been a shark man, like the ones that worked for Jonah that Ben and Ester fought at Mudtown. While both were dangerous, both of them equally armed literally to their teeth as they savagely bit one another on multiple occasions during the match, the big crocodile man emerges victorious by not relying solely on his fangs, punching and grappling his aquatic foe until he got knocked out. Ben heard Sett mention his name to be Gator Boy. Whether or not that's his real name or his stage name, he doesn't know.

More fighters fought and fought throughout the tournament, but while Ben defeated his second to last foe, he sees that the next match will be Kevin vs Gator Boy, both brutal fighters who don't mind playing dirty.

On one hand, if Gator Boy defeats Kevin, Ben won't get the chance to humble him for what he did to that poor woman earlier. But on the other hand, even if he can't do it himself, Ben admits to himself he'll be satisfied enough to see someone of Kevin's size, or rather bigger, actually humble him.

Now he just hopes if Kevin will be the one to win that Gator Boy will be alright.

Strange, though, that after watching all the other matches that lead up to this, Ben did not once see another porcupine Vastaya, which he would have assumed would be, well, Porcupine's brother that she claimed is here. Maybe he was among those that lost and Ben didn't notice him?

"Having a good time?"

Ben, at the window sill with Ester as they wait for Kevin and Gator Boy to arrive, turns around to see Nyancy walk into their room again, sipping a glass of wine. "I bet you are." Nyancy adds as she smirks, moving over next to Ben as Ester scoots over to give the panther woman some space.

"Not gonna lie... This has been good for relieving some stress." Ben admits, popping his neck before doing punching motions. "And a good way to keep myself in shape." He adds, with Nyancy chuckling at him.

"So the physical stuff your forms do apply to you as well?" The panther woman asks, taking another sip of her wine.

"A bit, yeah. That, and the fights are kind of a good way to train me. Making me learn new techniques and fighting all different kinds of people will give me a bit more experience, especially for future reference." Ben states.

Ester, though, teases her friend, yelling out, "Neeeeeerd!"

"Whatever, doofus!" Ben retorts before he and his Yordle friend share a laugh.

"Well, I guess we're about to see if your next challenge will give you more of that 'experience' you're talking about. Who are you betting on?" Nyancy asks, looking over to the arena.

Ben just shrugs, though, before leaning on the window. "From what I've seen, both this Kevin guy and Gator Boy are equally tough. Though considering Kevin seems to have his own materials to give himself armor, which I still don't know how he does that, he might one-up Gator Boy."

"I like the alligator guy, so I'll root for him." Ester just casually says, earning a deadpan face from Ben.

"That's all the reason you need, huh?" Ben asks, making the gunslinger chuckle.

Down below, as predicted, Kevin and Gator Boy have already arrived in the middle of the stage, facing each other as their glares pierce into one another's eyes.

"Argit told me all about you. So I guess it doesn't matter who wins this round." Gator Boy says, finally revealing his identity to Kevin, though he made sure only the raven haired boy in front of him could hear his words.

"So you're the one Argit hired, huh? Where's the other one?" Kevin asks, crossing his arms.

With a snort, the alligator man responds, "Sadly, she lost already, but we still got another shot at this. But we can't raise suspicions, so we're gonna have to make this look good. Talk trash."

"Alright, but don't take offense, 'kay? You literally asked for it." Kevin smirks and finally speaks out loud, taunting Gator Boy by saying, "I've been called a freak a lot in my life and yet for once, I found someone who matches that description!"

Gator Boy, slightly smirks as he knows Kevin's faking it like he asked, makes a fake frown afterwards as he roars, "You think you're funny, little man?"

"Hey, you're the comedian, jade jaws! At least you got the face for it!" Kevin taunts back.

"Oh, are you asking for it?!" Gator Boy roars back, snarling at Kevin as he makes typical alligator hissing from his big mouth.

"I'm begging for it! Who's gonna give it to me?!" Kevin yells, cracking his knuckles.

Gator Boy then slams his fist into his palm as he snarls back, "Me! With one hand and my tail tied behind my back!"

The audience is loving the tension and the build up as both combatants taunt each other constantly, which made them all the more excited when the bell finally rings and the match begins.

Gator Boy attempts the first blow by quickly snapping his jaws towards Kevin, who instinctively jumps backwards. But it seems Gator Boy was counting on this as he immediately turns around in blinding speeds, swiping his tail towards Kevin as it manages to reach the boy, striking him on his side and sending him to a nearby wall.

With his back hurt, Kevin groans in pain before shaking his head as he spots his reptilian foe dashing towards him, instantly waking Kevin from his pained state as he evades a claw swipe from Gator Boy. But once again, the alligator man is smarter than he seems as the claw swipe was fluke and instead, he manages to grab the raven haired boy by his leg and toss him around, smacking him on the ground as Kevin coughs up blood from this.

Even the audience recoiled at how painful that slam was, including Ben and Ester. "Oooh... That's gotta hurt." Ester comments.

Before Gator Boy could continue his onslaught on Kevin, though, Kevin finally manages to reach to his pockets. But in his panic, he instead grabs all the metallic rods given to him by his sister and absorbs all of them at once as several metals coat Kevin's body.

Seeing this, Gator Boy throws Kevin again into a different wall in an attempt to stop him from armoring up, kicking up smoke and dust in the process. As the alligator Vastaya tenses up, keeping his eyes on where Kevin is, what emerges from the cloud of dust surprises him as Kevin has managed to blend the mixture of metals all over him.

Most of the right side of his head and down the left half of his torso, including his left arm, is covered in dark Noxian steel. The right half of his body, including his right arm, is coated in bluish Freljordian metal. His pants/legs are now covered in the wood-like Petricite lined iron and finally the left half of his face is covered in the green tinted Ionian silver.

All in all, Kevin looks strange, and yet with metal all over his body, he looks more durable than any individual metal he could absorb. "I never thought about combining different materials together before... But I am sooooo trying this more often!" Kevin smirks, and just in time to as Gator Boy runs at him. "If I got all this different metal on me... then can I...?"

Kevin says to himself as he tests a new theory he's got as he runs at his foe too. He brings up his right fist and, imagining something in his head...

His hand morphs into a Freljordian metal ball... and it growns dark Noxian steel spikes, giving him a hybrid metal mace! "Hell yeah!" Kevin cheers for himself as he then smacks his new mace hand into Gator Boy's face, knocking him back hard enough to make him turn a whole 180 degrees.

With the combined durability and weight of the Freljordian metal and the hard hitting power of Noxian steel, Kevin's mace hurts a whole lot more than if it were just the same metal as Gator Boy now has broken scales around his left eye, bleeding.

Some of his blood trickles down his own mouth, which doesn't seem to bother the alligator man. In fact, he uses this to intimidate Kevin as he licks away the blood coming towards his mouth. "Now you're gonna get it." Gator Boy tells him, snarling as he does so.

Kevin seems confident, though, as he shifts his mace hand back to normal before making hammer heads on each one this time. Each hammer's main cheek is made of Ionian silver this time, while the two ends of each one is made with Freljordian metal, this time, combining the lightweight material for speedy strikes and the other, more durable material to make the blunt strike as painful as possible.

When Gator Boy pounces towards him, Kevin manages to block his first claw swipe with his left arm, the sound of metal and scale clinking against each other echoing in the cave, just as Kevin attempts to use his free, right hammer hand to bash it towards his larger foe...

...only for Gator Boy to effortlessly grab that hammer head in his much bigger scaly hands.

"...Uh oh." Kevin mutters, before screaming as Gator Boy grabs his other hand and tosses Kevin again into another wall. The metals made him durable, and strong, but it seems Gator Boy's larger size and superior strength was still greater than what Kevin can handle.

And it does not end there, as when Kevin tries to move from the wall he got knocked into, the alligator man is already in front of him as Gator Boy wastes no time to grab Kevin by his metallic face and grind it across the walls as he runs with his foe still in his hand.

The walls were actually cracking and being dug into this time as sparks kept flying from Kevin's face being dragged across the entire round arena. While the Noxian steel half of his face is only getting some friction burns, the Ionian silver half of it is cracking. It may durable, but not so durable to withstand an assault like this.

So before his fleshy face gets exposed, Kevin turns his hammer hands into giant hooks this time, using Noxian steel for both, and he sinks both pointy ends into the walls, anchoring him. The sudden stop from Kevin's actions causes Gator Boy to stumble on his feet as he was still holding onto his opponent's head, making him fall down on the floor.

As he quickly gets back up though, Kevin unhooks himself from the wall, shaking his head from all the ringing in his ear after all that metal scraping against stone. He then looks over to Gator Boy, snarling at him and ready to fight, so the metal boy takes the first shot this time as he runs at his large foe, turning his right arm into a blade.

He almost closes the distance, ready to swing his sword-like hand...!

Until...

SHINK!

"...What?" Kevin asks, confused...

...as he sees several, small spikes have embedded into the cracks on the Ionian silver half of his face. Those were enough to finally cause those cracks to get bigger and numerous until finally they break, shattering off of Kevin's face as his fleshy, human half of his face is exposed.

Kevin is about to reach for his pocket again to absorb a metal rod, any of them, to cover up his exposed face, but then Gator Boy grabs his hand that was reaching towards his pocket and, with his other hand balling up to a fist, strikes Kevin's exposed half, concussing him a bit as his forehead bleeds from the strike.

Dizzy and stunned, Kevin wobbles on his feet, accidentally turning around...

...and finally see where those spikes came from. And it was none other than...

"Porcupine!" Sett yells from his balcony as the crowd cheers.

And true enough, Porcupine is indeed back, standing on the railing from the audience seats before front flipping and landing on both feet in the arena.

"We got a special round for you this time, folks! We're teaming up the siblings against a new crowd favorite as Kevin fights off the pair of Porcupine and Gator Boy!" Sett announces as everyone once again cheers.

Everyone... except Ben and Ester, who are shocked at this turn of events. "Wait a minute, Gator Boy is Porcupine's brother?!" Ben exclaims, confused. Though he gets over it quick as he shakes his head, and says, "No, wait, different question, is that even allowed? Two against one isn't fair!"

"Yeah. I mean, I'm always up for outnumbering an enemy, but don't you guys got rules for this?" Ester adds, gesturing to the fight below.

"Well, you heard Sett. It's a special occasion." Nyancy sips from her wine glass again as she makes a coy smile. "It does seem unfair he's getting ganged up on. Could use some help, but I dunno if Sett'll allow it." She adds, maintaining that smirk.

Ben looks towards Nyancy then back at the fight, as he sees Kevin desperately trying to fight off the strange siblings, with Gator Boy using his tougher scales to block his attacks while Porcupine keeps aiming for his exposed face. He grits his teeth and grips the window sill. He wanted Kevin to learn a lesson, but not like this.

Ester, however, squints at Nyancy. The way she speaks, ever since she came back to this room minutes ago and even now, has felt off. She was always friendly to them, but it always felt genuine. But now... something's up.

"Ben... I think..." The Yordle gunslinger was about to whisper to her friend, but then suddenly he runs out of the room. "Wait! Ben!" Ester yells but it's too late.

Nyancy, for her part, sips the last of her wine before placing her glass on the window sill, chuckling to herself. "Just can't seem to ignore being a hero, that one."

"Yeah..." Ester murmurs, tightening her hands into fists. Though now that Ben's no longer in the room, the next part is easier, as she then pulls out both of her pistols out and aims them at Nyancy, who blinks at her, unafraid. "Too bad for you, I'm not a hero like him. What the hell are you guys planning?!"

"Oh, nothing dangerous, I assure you." Nyancy waves her hand off towards Ester before crossing her arms. "Well, nothing lethal, at least. You see, Benny and Kevin have become tonight's rising stars. Their unique sets of powers make them quite the talk among the audience and see some potential in them..."

"So, what, you're forcing a team up with them by making that Kevin kid's fight an unfair match?" Ester replies, still aiming both guns at the panther woman. "Make the crowd happy by seeing their favorite fighters fight together?"

"Oh, that's just part of the whole plan, sweetheart. As you already know, we got betting pools too. People throw in more cash to bet on who they think will win. They guess right, they get more than what they paid, while the coin from the people who guessed wrong, part of it goes to us. It makes things exciting. And in just tonight, a lot of folks have already bet a lot on Ben and Kevin... but of course, that goes out the window when Kevin loses his match up, right?" Nyancy tells Ester.

"Well, yeah, obviously. And you've guaranteed his loss by... making him fight... one... against two..." Ester replies, but slowly trails off as the realization kicks in in her mind. "Oh. Oh."

"Bingo." Nyancy replies to her. "I've seen Benny first hand how 'heroic' he can be. And he's already interested in teaching Kevin a lesson himself because he can't let that poor girl's injuries go unpunished. So he gets to kill two birds with one stone. Save Kevin and guarantee their matchup."

Ester shakes her head though, as she starts lowering her pistol, now that she knows it was nothing serious after all. "Wait, couldn't that Kevin kid have handled Gator Boy anyway? Why waste the effort to set up that one versus two match?" She asks.

Nyancy chuckles, turning around to face the arena from the window. "First of all, we can't leave that to chance, can't we? And second, well, the audience loves a good twist. You make them team up, it's gonna blow their minds, which will just make their final match all the more exciting. That's more bets. More bets, more coin. Simple as that."

The Yordle scoffs, hopping onto the window sill to watch what will happen next. "I'm gonna guess your ran this idea to Sett, considering how happy looks up there." Ester asks, crossing her arms.

Nyancy just chuckles as she looks towards where Sett. And, as if he felt her lay eyes on him, the Boss himself looks back to her and Ester as well, and gives both ladies a wink. "I dunno. You tell me."

"Ugh..." Ester just groans.

---

SMACK!

Kevin is yet again throw to the wall, bouncing on the ground multiple times like a pebble thrown across water before that. As he groans, the blood from his forehead was trickling down the left half of his face, and eventually starts traveling down the rest of the more metallic parts of it.

The rest of the match, these, apparently, siblings have been making sure to aim at that exposed portion of his as it's the only one they can target right now, considering his body is basically too durable for any of their hands, as well as their own ways of attacking, like Gator Boy's jaws and Porcupine's spikes.

And Kevin hasn't really had the chance to armor back up that portion of his face as they keep making sure he can't reach for any material he can grab onto, like the metal in his pocket.

Desperate, Kevin finally recovers from his dazed state and stops reaching for his pocket. Instead, he groggily shambles into his knees and tries to absorb the ground instead, covering the exposed half of his face with whatever stone-like material the floor is made of.

Unfortunately, this was pointless, as Gator Boy immediately bolts towards him and punch him so hard, it immediately breaks and cracks apart the stone half, exposing Kevin's face again as falls on his back. The floor may be durable, but not durable enough for a powerhouse like Gator Boy.

And that punch dazes Kevin further. He can practically feel like he's about to pass out as he struggles to get back up from the floor.

As the metal boy groans, his reptilian foe moves over to him, towering above him as he places a foot on Kevin's chest, preventing him from getting back up. "Don't take offense. You literally asked for it." Gator Boy taunts back Kevin's words at him. Unable to even retort, Kevin just groans as Porcupine walks over to her brother.

"1...!" Sett begins to count down, with audience yelling with him in unison.

"2...!"

In Kevin's mind, all he could think of is how disappointing this was gonna be. He failed his sister. His sister's girl. His mother. There's no hope for Gator Boy or Porcupine either, since their next match is that Ben kid, who will surely beat them, so now their plans have gone to shit.

"Damn it..."

Kevin scolds himself mentally...

...and yet...

SLAP!

All of a sudden, Porcupine gets launched towards the walls, faceplanting onto them. Before Gator Boy could react, and before Sett could finish the countdown, Kevin suddenly disappears from beneath his foot as he nearly stumbles from losing his footing and with a sudden burst of wind and dust kicking up in front of him.

As the alligator Vastaya looks around, something zips past him and stop several feet away from and reveals itself to be none other than Ben as XLR8!

"Oh, and what is this? Looks like Ben 10 has joined the match, folks! Looks like it's a surprise 2v2 match tonight!" Sett announces, making the crowd cheer, which just made XLR8 roll his eyes from under his helmet.

He's currently holding Kevin in place, trying to help him stand up and stay on both feet as the speedy creature opens his helmet. "Need some help? You look like you do." XLR8 takes the time to quip as Kevin clutches his head in pain.

Gator Boy snarls as Porcupine, recovered from her wall accident, walks up next to her brother. "He's gonna need more than you!" Gator Boy snarls.

"You don't got the skill to take on both of us at once, shapeshifter!" Porcupine taunts.

XLR8 just smirks, though, as he closes the visor of his helmet again. "Oh, I got some skills, alright." XLR8 taunts back at his foes. Once he's sure Kevin can stand up again, the speedy creature then speeds towards his two opponents, kicking up dust and emitting a small sonic boom as he does so.

Gator Boy was ready to tank his next hit, hoping to catch XLR8 off guard so he can grab and trap him in his arms. But too bad for the reptilian brute, XLR8 not only saw this coming, but he could control his speed well. So, just before he collides with Gator Boy, XLR8 halts, a foot away from his big foe, and quickly zips to his left in a mere millisecond, astonishing Gator Boy long enough for XLR8 to make a turn around the big fella and reappear behind him.

He then delivers a nasty, rapid fire kick onto Gator Boy's back. One kick wouldn't have hurt, but XLR8 was kicking so fast and on the same spot, there was barely a second in between each strike, so to Gator Boy, it just felt like XLR8 kicked him really, REALLY hard once and it knocks him over, falling face first on the ground.

Porcupine, pissed off at the sight of her younger brother getting hurt, quickly tries to shoot multiple spikes towards the speedy creature, firing them faster than she did before, to the point it looks like she's firing at the speed of bullets.

But this was still slower than XLR8 as he not only dodges several of them, but manages to intercept multiple spikes by grabbing them with his hands, using his insane speeds and reaction time. And, once he's gathered enough of them, he mimics Porcupine's attack, using his fast arms to throw the spikes back at her.

To his surprise, though, Gator Boy managed to recover quickly as he steps in between XLR8 and his older sister. His incredibly tough scale were too durable for the returning spikes to pierce, so they just bounce right off Gator Boy.

This didn't bother XLR8 much, though. As Gator Boy snarls at him, a small twinkle from what little light above forms from XLR8 shiny helmet, which made it look like he was taunting Gator Boy back.

The two reptilian fighters then run at each other, with XLR8 being faster and ready to strike his alligator foe, while Gator Boy is sure to get him this time, preparing for whatever quick swerve XLR8 will try again.

And as the two close the gap to one another, the bigger reptile was expecting XLR8 to run to sides again... only for XLR8 to instead quickly slide on the ground and underneath Gator Boy instead. Once he gets behind his foe, XLR8 then starts literally running circles around Gator Boy, never stopping as the speedy fighter just becomes a blur that the alligator man can't even keep track of him anymore.

But he didn't need to as being so fast he appears invisible wasn't XLR8's plan, and Gator Boy soon realizes what it actually is. As XLR8 keeps running, going faster and faster, a powerful vortex is beginning to form around his large foe. And it keeps getting stronger the faster XLR8 went.

It didn't take long before this small vortex becomes a medium sized tornado as Gator Boy found it harder to anchor himself to the ground with just his sheer mass alone anymore. The tornado was lifting Gator Boy up into the air, unable to even control his own movement anymore.

Porcupine desperately tries to keep firing her spikes into the lowest portion of this tornado, hoping to at least hit XLR8 to stop him, but to no avail, as each spike is just sucked into this vortex instead. But, before she could think of any other strategy, she hears heavy footsteps approaching her.

The Vastaya fighter didn't even have time to react as Kevin, finally fully awake, is now right in front of her before he delivers a very powerful punch to her gut, making her cough up blood and knocking the wind out of her from how hard his metallic fist was.

Before she even fell to her knees, the metal boy grabs her by both of her shoulders and then tosses her into the vortex to join her brother. Now caught in this tornado, Porcupine bumps into her brother as she is now stuck in the middle of this tornado with Gator Boy.

Finally, the tornado ceases, but now the siblings plummet to the ground as their scream all the way down. Thankfully, or unfortunately for them, XLR8 and Kevin break their fall as the two join together and deliver a dual kick towards their falling foes. XLR8 kicks Porcupine in the face while Kevin kicks Gator Boy in the gut, knocking both siblings into the wall as they're finally knocked out.

"1...!" Sett counts down again as Porcupine and Gator Boy groan in their unconscious state. "2... 3...! And we have our winners folks! Your rising stars! Ben 10 and Kevin Levin!"

The crowd cheers as their shouts, claps and whistles echo all over the cave. XLR8, despite being unhappy of the situation at first, still feels a bit of joy from being praised by the audience as he waves with one of his hands. "That wasn't so bad, huh?" He tries to talk to Kevin...

...who is no longer on his side. The speedy creature looks to see where he went, and once he finds him, he is in utter disbelief. Kevin is approaching Gator Boy as his fists tighten. "I'm gonna turn you into my new belt, you cocky, son of a...!" Kevin starts cursing off and, once he's near his fallen reptilian foe, grabs Gator Boy by his neck with one hand...

...and turns his other hand into a blade as he raises it and is about to use it to cut the alligator man in half!

"Stop!"

However, Kevin couldn't move his blade hand at all, and he turns his head to see XLR8 has wrapped his tail around his arm to prevent it from moving as he glares at Kevin.

"He's down!" XLR8 yells at the metal boy.

"He humiliated me! Both of them!" Kevin growls at XLR8, who isn't budging.

As the speedy creature maintains his glare, he tells the boy in front of him, "Let. It. Go, Kevin. Besides... you'll be disqualified if you kill them."

The two combatants remained in place, eyes locked onto one another in anger. Several security guards were about to step in, but Sett, from up above, gestures them to stop, waiting to see where this goes.

After a few more seconds, Kevin grunts as he disperses his metal armor way at last, returning to his human self again. XLR8 finally lets him go as he walks away. "Fine. They can go... But you just guaranteed our next match, kid. This time, I'm not holding back." Kevin warns XLR8, heading off to go back to his room as XLR8 sighs.

The crowd may love the tension of their new favorites, but Ester from up above is troubled by this new dynamic, as XLR8 runs off, presumably heading back to their provided room.

"This night's getting a whole lot more troubling..." Ester murmurs to herself.

---

After that match, Sett allowed Ben and Kevin to take some time to rest and heal. The crowd wouldn't want either to be still spent in their next match, especially Kevin who's still suffering from his head injuries. Out of the two, though, Ben's not even exhausted yet.

Although Ester suspects Sett is allowing this brief respite to build up more tension and suspense for his audience so when the match finally happens, excitement brews greater.

Kevin, in his room, is now being taken care of by Miel and Lani. Lani has placed bandages and proper medical care onto her girlfriend's little brother, while Miel herself is fashioning something from the metal rods she gave to Kevin earlier and seems to be attaching them to some bracers. Samira and Argit don't seem to be in the room, so it was just the three of them.

"So... Ow...!" Kevin tries to speak but winces when Lani applies aid on his head again with a local Ionian medicine she got from one of the vendors outside. He continues, "Is this the part where you scold me?"

"Scold you? For nearly losing an unfair fight you couldn't have foreseen?" Miel points out as she continues working on her new contraption. "Kev, I scold you for a lot of things. But for things out of your control? Never."

Kevin smiles at that, with his big sister smiling back at him before finally placing the final piece to her creation. She then moves over to Kevin as she shows him what it is.

Upon closer inspection, Kevin sees she's made what looks like a combination of a small gauntlet and a revolver pistol's cylinder. The gauntlet can be worn on the right arm and there's some mechanisms attached near the wrist area from beneath the palm, while the revolver's cylinder-like mechanism is around the gauntlet, with it's "ammo" each and every one of the metallic rods.

Miel places onto Kevin's right arm, and instructs him. "Alright. Squeeze that trigger near your palm." Miel tells him.

Kevin does so, reaching for both his middle and ring finger on that trigger and, to his surprise, one of the rods, the Noxian steel, directly beneath his palm protects outward, allowing Kevin to take hold of it.

"And now, absorb." Miel adds.

Her brother does so and he absorbs the metal, armoring himself up all from his hands and up to just his shoulder. "Nice. Instant access to materials. Judging by the way it's built, I'm gonna guess I need to do a twisting motion so I can pick what metal I need?" Kevin says, earning him a smile from his eldest sister.

"Yep. Saw how much trouble you were having down there, reaching for your pockets, so for now, you get this doohickey. I'll have to come up with something better in the future. Didn't have enough materials for something less... clunky. So you'll just have to suffer with this one for now." Miel tells her brother.

With a playful scoff, Kevin retorts, "Bet ya I'd make one before you do."

"Whatever, Kev." Miel teases back before flicking her brother's nose, causing both of them, as well as Lani, to all laugh.

As their tender moment subsides, Kevin looks around the room and finally notices the absence of their two other friends. Well, Samira at least. Argit's not much of a friend to any of them. "Where's Samira and Argit?" Kevin asks.

"Samira mentioned that she's looking for Argit. She wanted to discuss about our next move since now, you're the last person in the tournament to get us the prize money." Lani explains.

"No kidding. Those two bastards were real pieces of work. I think we made that fight look too good." Kevin comments, still wincing from the pain on and in his head.

Miel nods, sitting down next to Lani. "Well, at least no one suspected we're working together with them yet. Still, can't help but feel like something else is going on here..."

---

Deeper into this cave are several other commodities for Sett's customers and fighters, like gambling rooms, bars and even some private rooms that can be paid for to sleep in, as well as more... promiscuous activities.

And it is one of these private rooms that Argit, Porcupine and Gator Boy are heading towards, with Argit seemingly holding a piece of paper with some Ionian writing, or symbols, on it.

Unbeknownst to them, though, Samira had been tailing them for a while now, and is doing her best hiding behind small crowds of people so Argit, the one who would recognize her, wouldn't notice the huntress following the trio. She squints her only eye as she spots the rat man looking around and back to the paper in his hand.

When Argit finally sees a door to one of the private rooms with the same symbols as the one in his paper, he knocks on it. A brief second and it opens as he, Porcupine and Gator Boy head into the room, the door slamming shot behind them.

The one eyed huntress scowls at this, muttering to herself, "What are you hiding, Argit...? Knowing those rooms, I really hope it isn't the gross kind..."

---

While outside, Samira moves towards the door, inside was an interesting story.

The room is pretty big and spacious, with a big bed in one corner and several other room commodities all over the place. But that's not what's concerning.

Because inside this room is not just Argit, Porcupine and Gator Boy...

...but several groups of both men and women in dark armor, with big, orange and stylized "V" symbols painted over the Noxian symbols on them, like on their capes, chest plates or pauldrons. They're all wearing matching red helmets too, so it was hard to tell who they are under the masks.

Each of them had varying weapons, but unlike all the regular armaments in this place, like regular swords, axes, etc., all of their weapons look too advanced. Like they're from Piltover itself, with the only difference being that instead of white and gold, their weapons are colored black and orange.

"You screwed up big time, Argit." One of armored males spoke. "Vulkanus isn't gonna be happy about this loss."

"You had TWO chances to get that prize money. And you somehow failed twice. That's embarrassing." One of the armored women this time spoke.

"We're not out of the game yet!" Argit pleads. "We still got one guy in the arena and he could still win!"

"He'll get you the money, we swear! Just don't hurt her!" Gator Boy pleads as well, strangely.

One of the mysterious figures chuckled. "Maybe next time, you shouldn't be involved with Argit's plans if you don't plan to succeed in them." He taunts Gator Boy.

"If you hurt her, I swear I'll...!" Porcupine starts getting angry, the spikes on her body tensing up like her.

However, the front most armored figure gives her a gesture with her palm, telling her to stop talking, as he interrupts the Vastaya woman to tell her, "You got involved, you pay the consequences. If you're sure this 'other guy' you got will win, then you got nothin' to worry about. But if he fails, well, you know what happens next..."

Porcupine growls and is about approach them all, but Gator Boy stops her, placing a hand on her shoulder and shakes his head. "Tch..." was all that escapes from Porcupine's grit teeth before turning around.

"We'll see you after the tourney. Just tell Vulkanus—" Argit tries to speak.

However, another of the armored folk interrupts him, saying, "We will tell him exactly what happened. You focus your sorry asses on your next plans, or you're all gonna be sorry!"

---

As they open the door and leave the room, closing the door once outside, Argit starts scratching his head furiously while the two siblings just sigh. "Agh! I hate those guys! Always so condescending and think they're better than us!" Argit growls, frustrated.

"Look, all we want is her back. Can you guarantee Kevin will win the final match? That Ben kid isn't exactly an easy opponent." Porcupine asks Argit.

"Unless Sett's willing to do that surprise again and have you two team up with Kevin, which I doubt will happen again, then no. But... I am willing to play dirty." Argit says, as he reaches for something in his pocket.

After a brief second, Argit pulls out a surprise that both Porcupine and Gator Boy are shocked to see...

In Argit's fingers... is a Hex Gemstone. Perfectly round like a ball, with none of the protrusions or imperfections of the typical Hex Crystals.

"Where'd you get that?" Gator Boy asks.

"I told you guys about the caravan I was guarding with some of my guys, right? I swiped this from one of the crates before I escaped." Argit explains, tossing the Hex Gemstone upward and catching it back in is hand. "I kept it for safekeeping, but now, it looks like it's gonna be our plan B."

"Mind explaining what this plan B is, then, Argit?"

Argit jumps as Porcupine and Gator Boy both enter fighting stances, as the rat man turns around to see Samira before him, and eyebrow raised and a smirk on her lips as she stares into his eyes, a chill running down his spine.

"After all, we're still part of the team, right?" Samira mockingly asks him.

---

In Ben's room, the boy has taken this time given to him by reading and writing through his father's journal again. Already, he's drawn the arena view from the window in his room, taking note of how well the place was built together to still somehow meld with nature itself.

However, he can't quite concentrate on it enough to finish it as he puts it back in his bag before covering his face with both hands, groaning to himself as Ester, holding a wooden mug on each hand, enters the room. From what she's carrying with her, seems like she went to one of the place's bars.

"Okay, good news and bad news. Bad news is they ran out of the hard drinks 'cause everyone's been enjoying the tournament so much. Good news is, they do have smoothies and you told me you wanted to have—" Ester speaks, chipper as she walks in.

But then, he finds Ben, his hands slowly dropping off his face as he maintains looking up, seeing nothing but the ceiling above him. With a sigh, Ester places the mugs of smoothies on a nearby table and approaches her friend. The Yordle takes a seat next to Ben, speaking nothing yet as she pats one of his thighs to reassure him.

The room was silent once more, with only the noise from the crowd outside being heard.

"...Am I... wrong, Ester?" Ben finally speaks.

"That requires a bit of an elaboration, Ben." Ester responds, half joking, but half serious, making sure Ben speaks his mind but making her answer a bit humorous to lighten his mood, even if a little.

Thankfully, he takes it in stride, replying to her, "The whole purpose of this. Me joining the tournament, all to find help so I can get some clues about my dad. We could be searching, on our own, never involved in all this fighting. But we took this chance, shoot our shot and hope for the best. Now we're here. I'm fighting people, hurting them, and for what? My own selfish desire?"

"Ah." Ester says, nodding, now understanding Ben's plight. "Yeah, I guess you were wrong."

"...Oh. Wow. Thanks." Ben deadpans, frowning at his friend's answer, finally averting his gaze from the ceiling and looking at her with a scowl.

Ester, though, shrugs, smiling, though not a mocking one, and feels more... sincere. "Ah, but who gives a shit. We all make mistakes. No one's perfect. And anyone who says they are, are idiots who deserved to be knocked down from the throne they call their ego."

The Yordle gunslinger then lies down again, laying her head on Ben's lap while looking at him, face to face. Ester then speaks, "The secret is making the most out of your mistakes. Sure, we really could have just searched the land, follow the vague clues left behind by your dad's journal, prevented all this violence you say you didn't want to be part of, but that could take several days, maybe weeks, especially with just the two of us. But we're here. Working for a favor for a big deal like Sett, who can get us a ton of connections and people to look all over Ionia for any hints of where your pops went through."

Ben looks at Ester as she speaks, his eyes widening slightly as she realizes how correct her statements are.

"You hurt people? It's a fighting pit! It's natural. You're playing a sport with other contestant, not slaughtering people. You're not hurting anyone out of malice nor are you hurting them so badly and don't feel bad after. Like I told you. You're you. I've seen the good you do. But this is all a sport. A sport you attended so we can find better clues about your dad. Now, are you gonna mope around, or you gonna be ready for your final match?" Ester nods to her friend, an eyebrow raised with a smile on her lips.

Ben's eyes are still widened... but eventually soften as he chuckles. It always seems like Ester knows what to say to him.

"You're really good at speeches. You should be captain too, someday." Ben says to his Yordle friend, who just scoffs at him.

"Me? A leader? No way." Ester jokes back as she finally gets her head off Ben's lap. "Now come on. While our smoothies are still cold."

With a smile, Ben rises from his seat as well and follows Ester. "Finally! Some good drinks." Ben exclaims rather happily as Ester laughs at him.

---

"OOF!"

Argit falls flat on his face after Samira kicks him into Kevin's room as she, with Porcupine and Gator Boy behind her, enter as well. Kevin, Miel and Lani all look at back and forth between Samira and Argit, confused.

"What's going on now?" Kevin asks.

Miel, though, glares at Gator Boy and Porcupine, the two of them seeing her eyes burning with fury, as she remembers what they did to her little brother. "And what are they doing here?!" Miel asks, angrily.

"Heh... Uh, sorry about earlier, man. We needed to win." Gator Boy apologizes, tapping both his pointing fingers against each other sheepishly. Kevin is a bit astonished how meek the alligator man is, despite his size and intimidating appearance.

"Lemme guess, he tried to escape?" Lani asks, a brow raised.

"Oh, worse. He lied to us. Again." Samira replies, walking over to Argit. When the rat man tries to stand up, Samira puts a foot on his tail and stomps on it hard, causing him to shriek, unable to escape. "Go ahead. Tell us what actually happened, Argit." Samira coldly says, with a fake but convincing smile on her face.

"Agh! Okay! Okay! I will! You don't have to step on my tail!" Argit pleads, trying to pull his tail out from beneath the one eyed huntress' foot.

Samira just laughs... and steps on his tail harder, making him screech in pain. "You've messed up SO BAD this time, Argit. You're lucky I'm not just shooting you in the head."

"Crap, what did he do?!" Kevin asks, everyone's eyes gazing upon the rat man as he whimpers.

After growling to himself, Argit finally yells out, "Agh! Fine! I lied about the whole rumor thing about Vulkanus, alright?! I already knew him before you guys came here. I was scared to come back to Noxus empty handed, so I asked around, dug up any kind of rumors, any other place I could get more Hex crystals and gemstones. That's when I learned about Vulkanus. We made deal that if I get him enough Noxian coin, he'd give me a shipment of Hex crystals. I didn't know where else to scrounge up enough money to pay him, and that's where I met these two!"

Argit gestures to Porcupine and Gator Boy, with the former taking her turn to speak. "We were just humble farmers, together with our parents, with our father teaching us everything we knew on how to work. But we found out later in our life he owed a debt to someone, paying them protection money so they'd keep some of the Noxians or those Navori brotherhood maniacs off our backs. When he died of an illness we could not cure, we took that responsibility and learned who were paying." says Porcupine.

"It was Vulkanus and his gang." Gator Boy continues. "Like our pa, we started paying up, but one day our crops were stolen and burned by some Noxian soldiers, and Vulkanus' gang were not around to deal with them. When they came, we told them about it but they didn't care. It was unfair but they gave us an ultimatum we couldn't ignore."

"They took our mother and told us if we didn't pay them double our usual protection fee, they'll kill our mother." Porcupine adds. "They gave us a week, and right now, we're only a day away from the deadline."

"I met them second day this week. I told them I can help them pay AND still have enough for me to buy those Hex crystals from Vulkanus. And now, here we are." Argit finishes, as everyone else in the room listened and now processes everything they just said.

Kevin is the first to speak up, asking, "Why would you help them? You're not exactly a charitable guy, Argit."

Argit scoffs and does a fake eye roll as he pats his own chest. "I'm insulted. Maybe sometimes I just wanna do things out of the goodness of my heart!" Argit tells him... and shrieks in pain again as Samira presses her foot onto his tail harder. "Okay fine! I... I planned to... Ugh..."

"Come on, Argit. Tell the class about it." Samira mocks the rat man further.

"Ugh! I planned to sell them out to Vulkanus and take their cut for myself and use the rest to buy those crystals!" Argit admits, which shocks both Porcupine and Gator Boy, while Kevin, Miel and Lani are just disappointed, shaking their heads at the rat man.

"And there we go, guys, gals and other pals." Samira mockingly says, slapping Argit's face with the flat side of one of her pistol, making him yelp.

However, this was nothing compared to the sudden PUNCH that Porcupine lands on Argit's face, knocking him out cold and even punching out a tooth from the rat man's mouth. "You son of a bitch! We trusted you!" Porcupine yells, but the target for her rage is unconscious thanks to her own actions, as Gator Boy grabs her older sister to stop her from doing anything more drastic.

"The only thing you can trust from Argit is the certainty that he's going to sell you out." Miel comments.

Porcupine was still growling in rage, but she cannot escape the grasp of her bigger, younger brother as Gator Boy keeps his grip on her. When she finally calms down, she breaks down, crying, covering her eyes with her palms as she tries to hide her tears, to no avail. Gator Boy then turns his hold on his older sister into a genuine hug, even having his tail wrap around her as she hugs him back.

In that moment, both Kevin and Miel forgot their anger towards them. Hearing about their story, about their mother, and now this sad yet tender moment between them, both of them can't help but feel they're just looking at a reflection of themselves. In another life, this could be them, with Noxus keeping their mother hostage just to keep them loyal.

And so, just this once, Kevin and Miel look at each other, nodding to one another, and let go of that petty anger. Kevin then walks up to them and says, "Hey, man. I'm gonna win this match and we'll get your mom from this Vulkanus guy."

"You'd... You'd do that?" Gator Boy asks, looking upon the raven haired boy, with Porcupine looking at him as well.

"You're all Noxians, like Argit! Why... Why should we trust you?!" Porcupine expresses both her anger and worry. However, she's met by Miel as she too approaches, placing a hand over Kevin's shoulder.

She then replies to the Vastaya siblings before them and says, "Maybe you can't trust us. We've never given you reason to. But I'll at least say... We both know what you're going through."

"Trying to save our mom is why we work our asses off and sell weapons." Kevin adds. "No one should be separated from their parents like that."

Porcupine looks directly into both Miel and Kevin's eyes, one after the other. Their words would mean hollow... if not for the fact that their eyes speak the truth. She sighs and nods to them, slightly still sobbing as she says, "Thank you."

As the two pairs of siblings talk, while Lani is smiling, proud of her girlfriend and her little brother, Samira smiles to herself. All this talk about mothers reminds her of her own. She does a small, nearly silent chuckle, with a strange understanding of these four before her. "Ah, why the heck not." She suddenly speaks.

Everyone turns their attention towards Samira as she finally steps away from the unconscious Argit. "Once Kevin wins his matchup, we'll go with you to Vulkanus, keep you safe long enough to get back your mother. Sound good?" The one eyed huntress asks.

This made Porcupine and Gator Boy smile, but then Lani speaks up before they do, asking, "Before we get hasty and all, do we have a guarantee Kevin can beat this Ben guy? He could turn into anything."

"Don't have faith in me, Lani? Dang." Kevin asks, though he only meant it sarcastically.

"Hey, I don't doubt you got what it takes in a fight, Kev. I've seen what you can do. But that Ben guy's unpredictable. We won't know what he'll turn into in the fight." Lani responds, but then Porcupine stands up, patting her brother so he'd let her go as she suddenly walks over to Argit.

Everyone watches as she starts rummaging through the rat man's clothes for something. "Argit told us earlier he had a way to turn the tides..." The Vastaya woman says. After a few more seconds of looking, she finally finds what she's searching for and brings it out from Argit's person, unveiling the Hex Gemstone he had earlier.

"Whoa, he has Hex Gemstone? What crap is he still keeping from us?" Miel asks as the group gathers closer.

"Probably a lot of things." Samira answers as Porcupine then gestures towards Kevin.

"At first, I thought Argit meant to give this to you because you guys have some sort of weapon to put it into... But now, looking back at Kevin's fights, including ours, I think I know what his plan is now." Porcupine says, with Kevin moving towards her as she hands him the gemstone. "I think he wants you to absorb it and gain some kind of... Hex gemstone armor."

"Wait, is that even possible?" Samira asks as Kevin holds the orb-like stone in his hands. "I mean, I guess it is a solid material, but it's also full of magic."

"Yeah, we don't know what it will do to Kevin." Miel says out of worry, placing another hand on Kevin's back.

Lani, though, taps her chin, taking a good look at the stone in Kevin's palm. "Well, Hex Crystals are the ones that are more unstable and wild, and requires a lot of machinery to make it work. But Hex Gemstones were specifically made to be more stable and usable for common folk. Maybe Kevin will be fine." She theorizes.

Everyone had many questions about this outcome, but one thing's for sure. All eyes are on Kevin, their gazes silently asking him...

...will he do this?

Closing his eyes for a moment, Kevin weighs his options. Despite his boasting earlier, he does think Ben has a huge advantage by having transformations that none of them have seen before. Kevin is confident in the metals and his newly made gauntlet from his sister, especially if he absorb them all at once again like he did earlier. But for all he knows, Ben might have a counter to that using one of his transformations.

But if he can just overwhelm Ben, regardless of what transformation he uses, by using the Hex Gemstone and blast him with so much magical energy, then maybe...

After being silent to himself for so long, Kevin finally grips his hand into a fist, the Gemstone inside said fist, and speaks up, "It'll be my last resort. If I can't beat him with my multi-metal form... Then I'll pull out the Hex Gem."

Everyone nods to him. All of them, including the two Vastaya siblings, all look at him in both hope and worry for what might happen down in the arena.

"Okay. But promise me... No... Promise us that if absorbing the gem starts to hurt, you stop using it, okay?" Miel tells her younger brother as he puts the gemstone in his pocket.

Kevin nods to his older sister, and just in time too, as they can hear Sett announcing the match, ready to begin. "Wish me luck?" He asks them.

"Hopefully you won't need it." Lani responds to him. Kevin hugs her and Miel, the trio smiling to one another. And before he leaves, he gives Samira, Gator Boy and Porcupine a fist bump each as he heads out of the room.

This fight will decide everything...

---

The crowds finally cheer as Ben and Kevin finally face off in this final match. Entering from opposite ends of the arena, the two stare down one another in the middle of the stage, eyes glaring into one another.

Kevin cracks his knuckles first, while Ben already brings up his watch, hovering his other hand over it. After his previous opponents try to keep him from transforming, he's now readying up a form to pick already so once that bell rings, he can turn into someone already, and he's already got a transformation in mind against Kevin.

"Ready to get your ass kicked, kid?" Kevin boasts, readying his new gauntlet as well.

Ben, maintaining eye contact with his opponent before him, smirks as his hand scrolls through his watch for the right form. "Sorry. I don't plan on losing today, dude." Ben boasts back.

Kevin chuckles, prepping the Noxian steel option on his gauntlet.

"...AND FIGHT!" Sett yells from his balcony as the bell rings.

With the signal to their match rung, Ben slams the dial on his watch quick, engulfing himself in that familiar green glow while Kevin runs towards him, absorbing the Noxian steel on his arm on the way.

As Kevin transforms his free hand into an axe blade, he swings it down at the emerald light in front of him, trying to cut Ben down in one swing...

...only for his attack to bounce off his opponent as a loud clang echoes from the collision...

As Kevin orients himself back to his feet from his attack being deflected so easily, he sees now that before him is Ben in a form he has not seen before.

But to anyone familiar with Ben already, like Ester, who smirks from watching from Ben's room, the Piltovan boy has now transformed into Diamondhead!

"Now... let's do this!" Diamondhead says to his opponent as he transforms both of his hands into crystal blades, much to Kevin's surprise.

"Hey! Turning your hands into weapons is my thing!" Kevin replies, responding to Diamondhead's blade hands with his own as he transforms one hand into a serrated machete and the other into a spiked mace.

Diamondhead just smirks and glares down Kevin. "Maybe, but I make it look good." Diamondhead taunts him.

With a growl, Kevin charges towards the crystalline being, who responds in kind with heavy footsteps. Once near one another, Kevin swings his machete hand at Diamondhead, but like before, it only bounces off his hardened skin without so much as a scratch. Diamondhead takes this chance by swinging his blade hand at Kevin.

Kevin barely evades, but the crystalline fighter still comes into contact with his armored torso. Diamondhead's blade man manages to actually create a big and long scratch on Kevin's Noxian steel armor. The scratch was so big, it genuinely looks like Kevin has big metal gash on his torso, though of course, only his armor is actually damaged.

Still, this was a big red flag for Kevin already, as Noxian steel is his second most durable metal on his person and Diamondhead just showed he can cut through it without even trying.

He doesn't have time to process this yet, though, as Diamondhead jumps towards him and swings his other blade hand at the metal boy. Kevin dodges in time, causing Diamondhead to miss, as he quickly sidesteps and swings his mace hand at his crystalline opponent's face. This smacks Diamondhead hard, causing him to tumble back a little. The attack did not leave even a crack, nor did it hurt Diamondhead at all, but he was still disoriented from it.

Seeing a result from his attack, even if it was a small one, Kevin discards thinking of using slice attacks and instead switches to just pummeling Diamondhead with concussive blows. So he switches his machete hand into a spike-less mace instead. He also discards the spikes on his other mace hand, ensuring that his new round weapons for hands are now for bludgeoning his foe this time.

Diamondhead sees what Kevin's trying to do now. By resorting to blunt force rather than cutting power, and striking him in the same place, eventually Kevin will make a crack on Diamondhead. He's a tough form, but even he can admit Noxian steel is not joke. Unlike the drake back home or those Navori goons, Kevin seems to be a much smarter fighter, and he can't underestimate him now.

Just in time, too, as Kevin manages to close the gap between them in one leap as he tries to smack the crystalline fighter in his face again. Diamondhead evades in time, but is shocked when Kevin suddenly changes his left mace hand into a pincer-like claw and grabs Diamondhead by his neck. The metallic boy then has that pincer wrap around Diamondhead's neck and locking the two ends of the claw together.

And he wasn't done as Kevin then raises a foot, produces a metal blade from underneath it and stomps into the ground hard, anchoring himself in place, and by extension, Diamondhead as well. He learned from his mistake when Gator Boy tossed him around earlier.

That's when Kevin starts beating his foe's face over and over and over, the sound of his metallic ball hand clanging against Diamondhead's crystal noggin echoing across the arena. Diamondhead's a bit disoriented from Kevin's genius move as well as getting his face whacked over and over again, preventing him from keeping a clear enough head to retaliate immediately.

But as he ignores the ringing in his head, trying to grit his teeth through it, Diamondhead finally retracts one of his blade hands to turn it back to normal and catches Kevin's wrist, stopping his attack. And, just like Kevin, Diamondhead gives him a taste of his own medicine by also locking his diamond-like hands, keeping the metallic boy from moving.

Next, Diamondhead then turns his other blade hand back to normal and strikes Kevin in his gut, punching hard enough that it leaves a dent the shape of the crystal being's fist, forcing Kevin to let go of his opponent's neck.

And the Piltovan boy was not done as Diamondhead then aims his free hand at the ground where Kevin anchored one of his feet. He then does a raising motion with this hand, quickly swiping upward and closing his hand into a fist, and, to Kevin's shock, a small pillar that seems to be made of the same crystal-like material Diamondhead is made of rises from the ground beneath Kevin, knocking the metallic boy upward and launching him into the air, dislodging his anchor from the ground in the process.

Kevin almost loses his footing as he tries to keep both feet on this new structure beneath him, but he didn't even have enough time to reorient himself properly as Diamondhead leaps up to his level and punches him in the face with his crystal fist, sending him into a wall.

After launching his foe, Diamondhead manages to take Kevin's place on the crystal pillar he made and once again, leaps forward, jumping towards Kevin. Once he's closer, the crystalline fighter skids to a halt before turning both of his hands into crystal spikes and fires them towards Kevin. However, he was not aiming to pierce him. Rather, he made sure the "shape" of his crystal spike attack was around Kevin's waist, legs, arms and neck, trapping Kevin by pinning him to the wall.

"You're not getting out of that." Diamondhead smugly boasts to his foe as he then aims one of his hands at Kevin and mentally commands all the crystals on him to grow bigger, making them sturdier and harder for Kevin to even move.

Seeing one of the contestants trapped and immobile, Sett considers Kevin pinned as he then begins the countdown, yelling out to the crowd, "1...!"

Kevin's eyes open wide once he hears that. Even under his metallic armor, he's shaking in fear. Fear of disappointing his sister, his friends and his new allies. He can't fail...

"2...!"

"NO!"

Kevin suddenly yells as, with the way Diamondhead pinned him to the wall, his arm and hand could still reach his pocket. And, quickly, he reaches into it and pulls something out before finally absorbing it. However, unlike the metals earlier, whatever he's absorbing in his hand is glowing so bright that's nearly blinding, causing even the audience to shield their eyes. Even Sett couldn't do the last count from getting his eyes hurt from the bright, bluish light.

Diamondhead seems to be the only one who can withstand this bright glow, but while his vision is fine, the alarms in his head were practically blaring. Something's extremely wrong and whatever Kevin is doing is really dangerous. In one last attempt to detain him, Diamondhead quickly commands the crystals still on Kevin to finally fully encase him, enough to completely cover his foe until the bright light can't even be seen anymore...

...until the reflective and light absorbent crystals themselves began glowing too as Kevin's actions are too much even for Diamondhead's creations.

It didn't take long until from within the crystals, a powerful, bright blue explosion of energy erupts, completely exploding off all the crystals Diamondhead had made and even release a shockwave powerful enough to knock him away.

Smoke, ash and dust fill where Kevin was, just as Diamondhead finds his footing, standing back up as he eyes the smoldering spot where he last trapped his enemy.

Everyone watching, especially Miel and the others, are all tense from what happened, awaiting what happens next...

...until the smoke was finally no longer thick enough for a bright, bluish silhouette to be visible to the crowd. The sound of something almost glassy starts coming from where that silhouette is, almost like footsteps walking towards Diamondhead.

But when all that cloud of smoke finally vanishes, everyone, including Diamondhead, were all shocked to see what emerged.

It's Kevin.

But he's almost unrecognizable.

Because now, rather than metal, his entire body is now covered in a glowing blue, slightly jagged and sizzling crystal-like armor. His mouth barely looks like a human mouth anymore, but more like a spiky, almost Jack-o-Lantern style mouth, with a bright glow coming from his mouth like his throat was filled with pure energy. His eyes were glowing bright as well and almost crackling with bluish electric-like energy. He has similar back spikes like on Diamondhead, but one was longer than the other, with the shorter one being a lot pointier.

While most of the crowd is confused how Kevin became like this, Diamondhead, the one closest to Kevin, spots the same hand that pulled something from his pocket earlier and he finally catches a glimpse of what it was...

The Hex Gemstone.

"Where... where did you get that?" Diamondhead asks out of concern, though not for himself, but for Kevin.

Kevin, however, misunderstands this question as he chuckles, his voice sounding like it has a filter, as if he were speaking in two voices, but one was deeper than the other. "Scared, are ya?! You should be. I feel energized! It's like there's a lightning storm inside my body!" Kevin gloats, his body crackling with energy.

"Look, I don't know how your powers work, but I know how Hextech does. If you don't have anything to regulate or nullify that energy, you'll keep getting stronger and—" Diamondhead tries to explain...

...but then Kevin was suddenly in front of him. It would be an understating to say he moved in a blink of an eye because Diamondhead did not even have time to blink when Kevin then follows up his gap closer by forming his right fist into a Hex powered mace again and striking Diamondhead so hard, it knocks him back.

And this... Diamondhead has a big crack on his face from the attack. The cracks even have residual, crackling energy from Kevin's Hex powered attack. "So you're telling me the longer I stay like this, eventually I'll be too strong for you to beat?! Sounds like I'm carrying the cards now!" Kevin boasts and laughs.

"I was going to say you'll get too strong and eventually release too much energy that you'll explode! You'll hurt so many people!" Diamondhead yells back, finishing his warning.

The Hex powered Noxian, though, just scoffs at him. "I'll beat you before that happens. And once I've made sure you can't even stand up anymore, then I can release this Hex armor. But until then..." says Kevin, before changing his mace hand into a blade, similarly glowing with magical energies. "...looks like I can hurt you now." He adds.

"Fine. If I have to beat you unconscious so you can stop, then I guess I'm done holding back!" Diamondhead replies, responding to Kevin's crystal blade with his own as he changes his right hand into one, the light from Kevin's glow reflecting on it.

"Bring it on!" Kevin roars back as the two of them charge at each other. Like seconds ago, Kevin is faster, but Diamondhead is prepared this time as he and his opponent clash crystal blades, their weapons sparking with magical energy against one another as they try to push against each other.

The two then trade blade strikes at each other, with each collision of their blows making momentary flashes that the crowd was beginning to get nauseous.

---

However, Miel and the others are no longer even concerned from Kevin losing. In fact, the moment he absorbed that Hex Gemstone, he feels... different. Whatever that Hex Gemstone is doing to Kevin, they're all negative. He sounds like he's getting high from so much magical energy flowing within him, to the point of recklessness. And if Ben is really speaking the truth, then Kevin's a literal walking bomb right now. If he can't beat Ben fast enough, he might actually just explode and take everyone else with him.

"This has to stop... This was a mistake!" Miel exclaims. To her momentary surprise, everyone, even Porcupine and Gator Boy, agree with her.

"Can we throw in the towel for him? Is that a thing here?" Lani asks.

"Sett has to know if this continues, his own audience and even himself won't survive!" Porcupine adds.

Samira, though, finally moves away from the window as she starts heading toward the door. "If he's not stopping this, I'm telling him myself!" Samira says.

---

And they were not the only ones as Ester from their room is also seeing this. Kevin's escalated this match and now he's using some kind of Hex crystal power.

Unlike Samira's team, Ester actually saw firsthand how dangerous one can be thanks to the shenanigans that happened near Mudtown days ago. A couple of these crystals when detonated together leveled an entire island cave structure, big enough to support an entire pirate crew and their enslaved Krakens.

Even if Kevin just has one, that's still a dangerous amount of power in his possession and, immediately believing Ben's words, Kevin will likely kill everyone in this arena if he keeps this up.

This is no time for fair play or entertainment anymore. Sett needs to stop this. So the Yordle gunslinger grabs her firearms and runs out of the room.

---

As both women head towards where Sett's balcony would be, the fight still continues as Kevin slams Diamondhead's face into a wall. The Hex powered boy then follows this up by delivering a flurry of punches into the crystalline being's face, with each strike powered up by magical energy. Each blow caused small explosions of that same magical energy on Diamondhead's face as it begins to crack and crack and crack with each strike.

For the first time in his life, Ben finally experienced real, physical pain as Diamondhead. Gritting his teeth through the pain, the crystalline being then manages to grab Kevin's wrists, one after the other, stopping his assault.

But before he could even follow this up, Diamondhead was not expecting Kevin to suddenly open his toothy mouth and unleash essentially a blast of blue energy from it like he was a fire breathing dragon, blasting Diamondhead in the face.

While he took that blast head on, painfully so, this pure energy seems to reflect off his crystalline body, causing it to split into smaller beams that all get blasted in random directions. The crowd were forced to duck and cover as some of these blasts almost hit them, while some struck some walls instead.

Even from Sett's balcony, a blast almost hits him, but he blocks it with his bare arms alone. For a brief moment as he took that small blast, he seems to glow with a small golden aura around himself, especially his hair, but it immediately passed. He felt that pain from the accidental attack as smoke sizzled from where he was struck, hissing as it left a small burn mark. He groans before he yells to the contestants below, "Hey! Keep that in the ring or I'm knocking both your skulls into the floor!"

"Something ain't right, Sett." Kolo, though, speaks her mind as she looks over to see Kevin still blasting Diamondhead in his face, before eventually the crystalline fighter has had enough and knees Kevin in his gut, stopping him. "Didn't you hear what Ben said?"

"I heard him, but if we interfere now, the crowd might not like it." Sett replies, gesturing to the audience watching.

Much to Kolo's disbelief and disappointment, the crowd is indeed still excited, watching the fight as this clash of freaks seems to be making them all cheer even in the face of their own danger. The lengths people will go through just to find entertainment has sorely soured Kolo's mood now.

Still, even she is recognizing this peril, so she speaks up again and tells Sett, "That's not gonna matter if the Kevin kid explodes and kills your audience. Then what? The rumors will spread the Boss himself let his own crowd die because he was thinking about the money?"

"It can't be that ba—" Sett was going to say...

...until the doors to his room are kicked open, making him and Kolo turn around and are greeted immediately by both Samira AND Ester, both looking anxious and wide eyed. "Sett! Stop the match!" The two said in unison. Neither cared they said the same thing. Their concern is towards their friends in the arena.

And now that that is two additional people telling him to stop, Sett had to give Kolo a look that she returns with a deadpan expression on her face. The kind that says 'I told you so' without even speaking a word.

"Fine. Let's get in there." Sett says. He then held onto the rails on his balcony and was about to actually jump over to drop in, but then a bright blue explosion occurs in the arena, catching their attention.

They spot Diamondhead, this time, is actually the one retaliating now. He's now sprinting towards Kevin, whose hands are now glowing as he keeps throwing bolts of magical energy at his foe, all of which Diamondhead keeps dodging as he keeps approaching Kevin at his best speed, considering his really heavy body.

And once he's close, the transforming hero manages to deliver a right hook to Kevin's face, making him stumble back from pain. But he wasn't done as Diamondhead then continues his assault, punching Kevin several times, mixing it up by striking his face, then his gut, then his chest, then his face again and on and on that Kevin couldn't keep up, unable to properly block because Diamondhead constantly switches his target.

How did he get the upper hand fast?!

Kevin thought to himself as his foe keeps his assault on him. He tries to block another punch, and seemingly succeeds as both of their crystalline arms make a ringing sound from coming into contact with one another, but Diamondhead just uses his other fist to punch Kevin in his face again, making him spin and get knocked back, falling on the floor on his face.

As he gets up, Kevin tries to fire another beam from his mouth, but then Diamondhead swipes one of his arms in an arc and unleashes a couple of crystals that fly towards Kevin's bottom half of his face, completely covering his mouth like a mask with his greenish crystals.

With his mouth covered, Kevin halts his mouth beam attack, afraid it will explode his lower jaw, or worse completely blow up his head. But before he can even attempt to remove it with his own hands, Diamondhead has already closed the distance between them, kicking Kevin in his gut hard enough he momentarily ends up in the air, before the crystalline being grabs him by his leg and tosses him into a wall, creating an explosion of dust and small debris in the process.

Kevin growls as he shakes his head, the dust from his impact slowly dissipating as he glares at Diamondhead. While slightly muffled by the crystals covering his mouth, Kevin still manages to say to his opponent, "You got lucky..."

He tries to save face by taunting his opponent, but Diamondhead just does a prideful 'hmph' as he approaches Kevin.

"I'll admit, you gave me a scare, and you're pretty much still a threat, but after looking back on all your fights, including the one where we teamed up, you brute force your way through your opponents and overwhelm them with whatever material you've absorbed. Very Noxian, especially from all the red on your clothes before you absorb stuff." Diamondhead begins to lecture his opponent.

Kevin growls, charging at his foe, but Diamondhead proves himself correct by simply moving to the side to dodge Kevin's attack before kneeing Kevin's gut hard, knocking the wind out of him before punching him again in the face, knocking his Noxian foe away from him.

"I let my initial panic get a hold of me. Your Hex armor is dangerous... But only if I let it. And to compare our skills, you're way brutal, I'll give you that. But brutality ain't nothing compared to the training I've had with my sisters and their fellow enforcer friends. I see your hard but sloppy swings, relying on brute force and never precision. You leave yourself wide open whenever you try to attack with your weapon hands because of how heavy you always make them so you'll hit harder, and your aim is so bad, you can only blast me with your magic beams when I'm in close range." Diamondhead adds as his foe tries getting back up, coughing from his last attack.

Diamondhead transforms his right hand into a crystal mace and grows part of his left arm to create a crystal shield as he approaches Kevin, all while telling him, "You're the one who got lucky shots in. All I've been doing is apply my training. And so far..."

The crystalline warrior then moves his shield arm in front of him, enough that Kevin's reflection can be seen on it as Diamondhead glares at him. "You're all power, no skill. You don't compare to what I've fought this week alone." He says. Not as a boast.

But as fact.

And this did not make Kevin happy at all. With a loud growl, Kevin finally rips all the crystal over his mouth, breaking it apart as he frees his mouth. With a roar, Kevin finally lets out a magical beam of energy from his throat, this time, much bigger and stronger than the last one.

Diamondhead's eyes widen at the incoming blast, forcing him to block it with his shield arm. And like last time where his face took a beam, this bigger one is reflecting everywhere too.

Because of how big and strong the blast is this time, there are much more reflected beams scattering everywhere, to the point that Sett can't even drop down from his balcony anymore to stop this as the beam was nearly hitting his balcony.

The crowd all try to duck and cover with each beam almost hitting them.

If this keeps up, the entire arena will be blast apart just as collateral from Kevin's reckless attack...

...but Diamondhead knew this was coming, and in fact has been waiting for it.

As he keeps his shield up, he slams one foot down and suddenly, he grows and commands several crystal spires around both him and Kevin before eventually he forms an entire, absolutely gigantic crystalline dome around them both, completely covering both combatants and obscuring everyone's view of them.

But most importantly, protecting everyone from the magical beams reflecting everywhere. With the dome around them, this time Kevin's beams are reflecting all over the place, bouncing all across the inside of the dome that it unintentionally creates a cage of magical energy.

"You think this can stop me?!" Kevin, somehow, is able to speak, despite the beam spewing directly from his mouth. Perhaps the nature of this blast being magical, as well as his entire body covered in Hex material, allows him to keep the beam going and still speak at the same time. "Now you're just trapped in here with me!" He adds.

"I'm not trapped in here with you. You're trapped in here with me!" Diamondhead retorts before discarding his shield and starts blocking the beam with his bare hands!

"What comes around... goes around!" The crystal warrior taunts back.

Kevin's confused, but he barely had enough time to process as Diamondhead then looks like he's holding the beam like it was a solid object before quickly aiming the way it's reflected! With one swift motion, he reflects and aims the beam to shift to the side first before finally forcing it back and ONTO Kevin, causing Kevin to be struck with his own, mega powerful beam.

The resulting collision of the energy hitting Kevin was so powerful that he screams in agony, the entire crystal dome lighting up in the process.

Everyone still watching and has not fled are all waiting in anticipation as the dome is so bright, it looks like a giant disco ball. But when the light dies down, the dome is finally brought down...

...as Diamondhead remains standing and Kevin is down on the ground, unconscious. And it seems that his consciousness is what keeps his armors up as his Hex crystal armor finally disperses, with Kevin's entire body smoking from absorbing such a material.

Despite all their initial fears, the crowd immediately forgot all about their own lives being in danger as they cheer for Diamondhead's success.

Miel, from their team's room, sighs in relief. It doesn't really matter her brother lost. She's just happy he's alive. And everyone else agrees too, as Lani holds her hand to comfort her, while Gator Boy places one of hs big hands on her shoulder and Porcupine gives her a reassuring nod.

In Sett's balcony, the boss himself is impressed on how Ben handled that extremely dangerous fight. Kolo and Samira as well, nodding at Ben with smiles on their lips. Meanwhile, Ester sighs in relief and almost collapses to her knees from all the nervousness and fear leaving her body. She manages to catch herself and looks over the balcony to look at her friend.

Diamondhead finally turns back into Ben in a flash of red light. Thankfully, it seems any injury he gains in his transformations aren't transferred to his human form, as the cracks on Diamondhead's face aren't on Ben's.

After staring at his unconscious foe for a few more seconds, Ben looks up to the balcony. While at first, he does so because he was waiting for Sett to countdown or announce that he won, he spots Ester first, looking over him.

With a smile and a wink, Ben gives Ester a thumbs up.

Ester, seeing this, chuckles to herself. She had nothing to worry about. She should not have been surprised. So far, she's seen her friend go through so much danger, but still keep that attitude of his, alive and well.

With a smile of her own, she gives her own thumbs up towards Ben, really proud of him.

---

The tournament is finally over as everyone celebrated Ben's total victory. But while Sett is showing him off to the crowd, Kevin, for his reckless behavior, has been kicked out of the arena for endangering everyone's lives just to win.

His companions accompanied him to head outside, with several people watching them all go with disdain for Kevin in their eyes. Seems any and all excitement they had for Kevin as a fighter has now been replaced with wary after his dangerous display in the arena.

However, Kevin and his companions have different concerns now. During all the commotion with Kevin's Hex crystal madness, Argit managed to wake up and escape.

It's been exactly an hour since that and now, outside the cave, Kevin and his companions all discuss what to do next.

"Well, that was a mess. Now we got nothing to trade with Vulkanus." Samira speaks up as she taps her foot and crosses her arms.

"Sorry." left Kevin's lips as everyone looked at him. However, none of their stares were those of scorn or malice, but understanding and empathy.

Miel pulls her little brother in for a side hug and even Gator Boy pats him on his back. "It's fine. It wasn't your fault." Miel reassures him.

"Yeah. You were just doing what you thought would give you the win." Gator Boy adds.

"But I could have—" Kevin tries to say but Porcupine shakes her head at him.

Nodding to the Noxian boy, she tells him, "It's okay. We didn't know that would happen. And we're glad it didn't happen at all. I don't think it would have sit well with us to save our mom if it meant we would have sacrificed your life for us."

"Honestly, Kev, you would have definitely beaten that guy. But whatever that Hex crystal thing was doing to your head was clouding your mind." Lani tells her girlfriend's brother.

Kevin sighs and nods, looking at his hands. He can feel them shaking, like there was still linger energy from the Hex gemstone within his very nerves. The boy closes both hands into a fist, as if trying to stop that feeling, but to avail. "I felt so powerful. So much energy... But I also felt like my blood was beginning to boil. Like my skin was starting to peel off like they were burnt away. Maybe that Ben guy was right. Maybe I really could have exploded there." Kevin speaks, shaking his head. "I'm never absorbing any kind of Hex crystal ever again."

"Trust us. We'd never ask you to again, Kev." Samira nods. "But now Argit's gone. I don't suppose you two know where he'd go, huh?" She nods towards Porcupine and Gator Boy.

Unfortunately, the two of them shake their heads in response, causing Samira to sigh. "What the hell do we do now?" She mutters.

While the Noxians all look at one another for any ideas, the two Vastaya siblings give one another a look, both of their eyes filled with worry, but also guilt. The two then give one another a nod before looking towards their new friends.

"You don't have to do this for us anymore." Porcupine speaks up.

This caught the attention of the four Noxians, especially Kevin and Miel. "What?!" Kevin exclaims.

---

Several minutes ago...

Ben and Ester find themselves back at Sett's balcony as the boss himself proudly shows them off to the crowd. Or rather, just Ben. Ester beside him, proud of Ben, but not really sure why she's also being featured.

Still, it was an exciting moment that eventually died down as the crowd was starting to leave, either to their rented rooms or outside of the cave.

But now was the moment of truth as the duo discuss thing with Sett. With Ben winning the whole tournament, their deal is now officially being discussed and how things will go.

Sett now sits with the Piltovan boy and the Bilgewater Yordle, with Kolo and Nyancy sitting next to their boss. "I'd congratulate you, but you're probably sick of hearing that for the past 36 minutes." Sett jokingly says, which does earn him a snicker from Ben, but Ester just rolls her eyes, yet she still has a small smirk on her lips.

"Yeah. It does feel good to be cheered to, but it gets tiring after a while." Ben admits. Though he's smiling at first, it quickly fades into a more serious expression as he nods to Sett. "So, our deal?"

"Well, first, your priority membership." Kolo says before nodding to Nyancy, who then unveils a small, wooden bottle from behind her.

The panther woman then pops the lid off, revealing it to also have a brush-like extension and is now soaked in a strange, golden liquid from within that bottle. "Alright. We'll just place a mark on wherever you'd like. I recommend somewhere you can show off easily. And while I know you're not that kind of man, bless you, I still gotta say that please do not make me place the mark on anywhere obscene like her rear or your co—" Nyancy says.

But the moment Ben hears 'rear', he immediately guessed what the second one was going to be and interrupts her in a panic, saying, "Alright! You don't have to say it out loud!"

"Ah come on. We're all adults here." Sett jokes before chuckling, with Kolo and Nyancy giggling too.

"I thought there have only been three members? Did the other two ask to do that for you guys to start requesting not to?" Ester asks, confused.

Kolo laughs to herself while Nyancy shakes her head in disbelief. "It was actually Kolo." Nyancy replies. "She actually asked to be marked on her—"

"Alright, alright, that's enough. Ben, just tell us where you want the mark." Sett finally stops her, with Kolo just laughing again.

Kolo chuckles at what the topic had become, and then just adds, to prevent any confusion, "They placed the mark just above my chest." This earns her a laugh from Ben, with a slight blush at thinking about the mark's placement.

"Okay. Well..." says Ben before pulling down the collar of his shirt slightly down, showing off the part just below his neck, to the left. "How about here?"

Nyancy nods to him. "That'll do." She says before moving over to Ben, carefully painting a symbol on where he asked. After a few minutes, she was practically done.

Ester takes a peek and sees that Nyancy has drawn the same exact wolverine-like head symbol found in all of Sett's calling and invitation cards. Then, to her surprise, that mark briefly glows in the same golden hue it has before vanishing into nothing, making it look like Ben never had that mark at all.

"Interesting magic." Ester comments.

"Just a bit of nature magic. It's sap from a special tree we grow." Nyancy comments, placing the brush/lid back onto the bottle as she moves away from Ben.

"From this point forward, you're now officially a priority member in my organization." says Sett, giving a singular clap before gesturing to the duo. "Congratulations and all that."

Ben nods, giving the Boss a smile. "So how does it work?" He asks.

"Well, you can show that mark to anyone and it will show back up, as long as it's your intention to show it. So in case you're feeling a little sneaky, you can pretend you're not by pretending you're showing without actually showing it, you get what I mean?" Sett replies, giving Ben a wink.

Ben scratches the back of his head, though, responding, "Well, that's useful, but I was actually asking about the membership. And the stuff that comes with it?"

"Oh." Sett responds, a bit embarrassed now that he gave the wrong answer.

"It's like we told you before: the moment we mark you as one, the only one above you here is Sett. The guards, staff and other members of our organization answer to you the same way they do Sett." Kolo answers, repeating her words, near verbatim. "So now, you can officially ask for your request."

Ben and Ester share a look of joy, nodding to one another. The Piltovan boy then speaks, "Then, as a priority member of this fine establishment, I humbly request thee, that I, Ben Tennyson, be—"

"Kid." Sett interrupts him with a deadpan face. "Just ask. You don't have to do this whole shtick."

"Oh." Ben says, this time the one embarrassed. "Uh... Well... I need information about my father. I need it to... find my mother."

Nyancy and Kolo both nod. They've heard such tales before of people searching for other people, so Ben's request isn't too surprising.

But Sett... Sett's attention is now fully caught by the young man before as any sort of humor or professionalism went away. The beast man's eyes seemingly goes a tad soft as he looks at Ben. "Your mom's missing?" He asks in a, strangely, gentle voice, which caught both Nyancy and Kolo off guard.

"Yeah... Well, no, she's... It's complicated." Ben replies, scratching the back of his head again. "To make a long story short, my dad died years ago and I've been using a journal he took to document his journey across the world as my guide to find my mother because she's apparently from somewhere else. I don't know if we got separated or something happened to her... or, worse, she abandoned me and my dad. But I won't know what happened until I find her. And the first part of our journey lead us here to Ionia, but we've lost track of his trail and now we don't know where to pick it back up."

Sett nods, clasping his hands together as he looks down. "So with my help, alongside my connections and people, you're hoping you can find information about him and pick his trail back up?" The Boss replies, looking back to the duo.

"That's exactly it." Ester replies for Ben, nodding to the beast man back.

"Well... should be easy enough." Sett replies almost instantly. "Give me a name and maybe a photo of your old man, and we'll get you back on the trail to your ma."

"You'd really do it?" Ben asks, a twinkle in his eyes almost visible from his excitement and gratitude. "Thank you!"

Sett shakes his head and waves a hand at Ben, telling him, "Don't mention it. We made a deal and I'm honoring it. 'Sides... no kid should be separated from their mom."

And that's when both Nyancy and Kolo finally realize why Sett was acting this way. The two give one another a knowing nod. Knowing a very vital part of Sett's life, they understand now why he wants to help Ben almost instantly.

"Thank you so much!" Ben says excitedly, suddenly moving over to shake Sett's hand, but he immediately stops when he could barely budge the man's much stronger arms. "Uhh, well, thank you, Sett. I'll pay you back some day."

"You already paid me with that banger of a tournament. This is just my end of our deal." Sett replies. But as Ben lets go of his hand, Sett suddenly offers his fist for a bump. "But since you're offering, how about we deliver the crowd one last performance later? I want you... to fight Kolo as a final exhibition match."

Ben blinks and is stunned. One last fight... and with the arena's longest reigning champion? He looks over to Kolo, who gives him a wink and even a flex with one of her muscular arms. This suddenly makes Ben blush a little before looking back to Sett, his eyes suddenly filled with determination.

"Deal!" Ben says enthusiastically as he returns Sett's fist bump.

Ester gives her friend a look of disbelief as she mutters, "I think you just want her to beat you up..."

"Let's see what you're really made of, kid." Kolo tells Ben, giving him another wink and a giggle before heading out of the balcony.

"Yes, ma'am!" Ben replies. "Oh, and here, Sett."

Ben pulls out from his bag a picture of his father, together with him, handing it over to Sett. "His name is Carlton Tennyson. He's from Piltover, like me."

"Got it. I'll have some of my guys ask around Ionia. See if anyone in our own connections could identify him or perhaps folks that met him." Sett replies, handing the photo to Nyancy. "But as for you, well, no rush. Take it slow. Go on. Enjoy the luxuries my business can offer. You're now a priority member." Sett tells him, patting Ben on his back, though he didn't know his own strength as he almost causes Ben to stumble over. "I'll have Smeek call you over once we're ready for the exhibition match."

The beast man then gestures to the exit of his room as Ben nods. "Oh, and Nyancy. Get Lise to prep their prize money for the tournament win. They've earned it." Sett gestures to Nyancy as she gives him a thumbs up.

"Already let her know." Nyancy replies to her boss. "You two, just head on down and find the old Vastaya woman counting coins. Show her the mark. Go have fun!" She tells to Ben and Ester.

Ben and his Yordle friend then exit the place and start heading down stairs, waving goodbye to the Boss and her two lady companions on the way.

Once they've reached the next floor, the duo share a high five, with Ester even jumping up as high as she can to reach Ben's hand as the two excitedly make some noise to themselves. "I told you that could do it!" Ester proudly tells her friend as Ben chuckles.

"Heck yeah! That was awesome! I guess it was fun to let loose like this once in a while." Ben replies as he and Ester start to walk off.

"We should go get the prize money now. We're gonna drown ourselves in the best drinks in the house!" Ester says, arms raised in excitement.

Ben laughs though, and reminds Ester, "I don't drink the hard stuff, remember?"

"Right. You and your lightweight guts." Ester teases Ben, but the two still share a laugh anyway.

"Before we do those, though, I want some fresh air. We've been in this cave for hours now." Ben suggests.

Ester nods in agreement, placing both of her hands behind her hand in a relaxing manner. "Yeah, fair enough. Whatever that sweet fragrance they're using to spruce up the smell of this place is not covering the smell of sweat and alcohol." She comments.

And so the duo stop by Lise, who is indeed an old woman Vastaya, with mouse-like traits like her big ears and thin tail that she keeps hidden under her seat. However, she also had extra arms on her, giving her a total of six, which just confused Ben and Ester on what kind of animal her Vastaya heritage is meant to be.

Lise was not much for conversation as when Ben asks for their prize money, even showing her his new wolverine mark that magically appears like he was told, she didn't say much, or anything at all, as she makes a twirling motion with one of her arms without even looking at Ben and Ester. She was using her other arms to hold up what appears to be a log book and writing stuff on it with a feather pen.

All of a sudden, small little, glowing fox-like spirits appear out of nowhere, with one of them even grabbing a nearby bright red, leather bag with it's mouth and gently handing it to Ben, who picks it up in kind. Lise still didn't even look at them as she was still busy with her work, with the fox spirits resting on her shoulders before vanishing.

Not wanting to bother her anymore, Ben went ahead and thanked Lise before leaving with Ester. And just like they planned, they head towards the cave entrance to head out, waving to anyone still cheering Ben on. Some were ladies, and even a few guys, gushing over him, which Ben just nods and smiles to, respectfully. Ester still finds it so funny no girl has made him blush harder than Kolo. Even Jun earlier this morning with that surprise kiss only made him blush a little.

Once they're nearing the entrance, Ben zips open his bag so he can find a place to put the prize money in. "Okay, so after this, what do you wanna do? Apart from drowning yourself in drinks that can't even get you drunk?" Ben teases Ester.

"Oh shush, you. Let me enjoy my drinks in peace." Ester retorts, making Ben laugh as the duo nearly leave the cave.

"Well, I'm gonna check and see if I can buy some souvenirs, if they have any. I wanna bring something back to my sisters and friends back home." Ben comments, with the light outside finally shining over him and Ester, the two of them finally outside.

Ester's eyes light up as she tells Ben, "There's an idea. We can swap stories for a bit. You never really told me much about your life back in Piltover. And I've never told you about stuff in Bilgewater."

"That's a good idea!" Ben replies. "We could totally—"

"Trust us. We'd never ask you to again, Kev."

They suddenly hear someone speak nearby. The duo look around and spot Samira with Kevin, Miel, Lani, Porcupine and Gator Boy all gathered just near the cave entrance. The group seems to be huddled together while having a conversation.

Ben and Ester has had suspicions about these people ever since they saw them, especially when they walked out with Kevin earlier after Sett kicked them out for endangering everyone. The fact that all their outfits and gear show them as being Noxian did not help either. Ben and Ester haven't really had good experience with Noxians today.

But seeing Porcupine and Gator Boy with them, two Ionians, is raising some questions.

The duo hide just near the cave for a bit to eavesdrop on them.

"But now Argit's gone. I don't suppose you two know where he'd go, huh?" Samira nods towards Porcupine and Gator Boy.

Unfortunately, the two of them shake their heads in response, causing Samira to sigh. "What the hell do we do now?" She mutters.

While the Noxians all look at one another for any ideas, the two Vastaya siblings give one another a look, both of their eyes filled with worry, but also guilt. The two then give one another a nod before looking towards their new friends.

"You don't have to do this for us anymore." Porcupine speaks up.

This caught the attention of the four Noxians, especially Kevin and Miel. "What?!" Kevin exclaims.

"We appreciate everything you've done but... We don't want you involved with our mess anymore. Our mother's our responsibility. Vulkanus doesn't know about you but he knows us. You won't get in trouble for not showing up." Gator Boy tells them.

This caught the attention of Ben and Ester immediately, especially the former. What's going on? What happened to these Vastaya siblings' mother? And who is this Vulkanus guy?

Kevin shakes his head, though, as he approaches the other sibling pair. "Look, we promised we'd help you get your mom back from Vulkanus and we will! Even if we have to fight our way through." He tells Porcupine and Gator Boy.

Ben's eye widen at that revelation. He still doesn't know who Vulkanus is, but taking someone's mother from them is already an unforgivable sin!

Something he already knows too well...

"Vulkanus is a dangerous man. Not that I doubt any of your skills, all of you, but we don't know what he's got up his sleeve. And he outnumbers us with his own little army of ex-Noxians." Gator Boy replies, with his sister nodding in agreement.

Porcupine adds, "So unless you guys can get enough to match the prize money from the tournament to pay him off, we all might end up dead if we go against him."

Ben cups his chin in thought... then reaches back in his bag to pull out the red bag of the prize money and gets an idea.

An idea that Ester does not seem to like as she immediately could tell what he's planning. She grabs his arm holding the prize money and shakes her head, giving him a stare that says 'That ours!'

But Ben nods to her in response, his eyes telling her 'They need it more than we do.'

The duo enter a tense staring contest, their current interests not aligning with one another as Ester tightens her grip on Ben's arm, as if to wrangle him to her side.

But Ben keeps his steeled gaze, never backing down as he tightens his hold on the red bag instead.

They kept their staring into one another's eyes for another couple seconds... and eventually Ester loses, sighing as she closes her eyes. "I can't win with you, can I?" Ester whispers to him.

"I'll make it up to you another time. We still got cash from my own stash." Ben whispers back to her.

"Fine. But you owe me some drinks after this." Ester replies quietly.

As the Noxian team and their new Ionian friends discuss things, Samira spots the cave entrance nearby and see Ben and Ester emerge from there, tapping Kevin near her on his shoulder before nodding towards the new arrivals approaching them, with Kevin, Miel, Lani, Porcupine and Gator Boy all turning around to see the duo.

They all give them a glare, except for Porcupine and Gator Boy, who look a bit saddened, which stings Ben in his heart a little. He's seen that look in his own eyes in the mirror when he first lost his father, then later both of the Kirammans that became his second parents.

He takes a deep breath for a second before looking at the group before him. "We overheard what happened with you guys and..." Ben says...

And hands over the prize money to Porcupine and Gator Boy, completely astonishing all parties involved, apart from Ester who just sighs and crosses her arms.

"What? We can't possibly take this!" Porcupine replies, looking at the red bag she's cupping between her hands.

"Yeah. You won this fair and square." Gator Boy adds, as Kevin and his companions steps up next to him.

"We don't need your help. We didn't ask for it." Miel tries to say, but Lani holds her hand, shaking her head to her girlfriend.

Kevin, however, says something else, telling Ben, "Look, man. This is helpful, but this ain't your business anymore."

"Maybe. But I can't ignore people who need help. The prize money was just a bonus. It's not why I was fighting in the tournament." Ben responds, before turning his attention back to the Vastaya siblings. "You wanna know why I entered? Because I'm looking for my mother. I needed information and Sett named his price. So trust me. Everything you guys are feeling? I know all too well."

Porcupine and Gator Boy, and even Kevin and Miel, go wide eyed from this revelation. It is strange, but it seems fate brought them all together for this shared pain, so they can all fight through it.

Even Samira smiles at this, her suspicious glare fading. She can't believe she's found so many kindred spirits here. "Wow." She suddenly blurts out. "I can't believe we all got mommy issues." She jokes, hoping to lighten the mood.

She succeeds, thankfully, as everyone starts smiling. Porcupine keeps the red bag in her hands, holding it tight as she looks at Ben. "Thank you for this. We'll make it up to you someday." She tells him.

Ben nods, and replies, "You can do it by bringing us along. In case things go wrong, we'll back you up."

Ester just shrugs, leaning on Ben's leg like it was a wall. "If things go south, I can just shoot this Vulkanus guy in the head." says the Yordle gunslinger, this time finally smiling.

"Then we're coming along too, just like we promised." Kevin adds, nodding. Miel, Lani and Samira all stand with him.

"I've seen Kevin fight. What do you guys bring to the table?" Ben asks, looking over to the women with Kevin.

The three of them smile together as Samira grabs her giant sword behind her back, twirling it above her to show off before slashing it down, striking the ground, and finishing off her little exhibition by pulling out one of pistols, twirling it in her fingers.

Miel grabs some gears and parts behind her back, connecting them to one another as each part clicks and clacks. Once she's done, the tough girl unveils her new masterpiece as a broadsword with serrated blades. Miel then twists the hilt, making it do clicking noises and suddenly, the handle extends, turning the serrated sword into a spear. She places the spear over her shoulder and nods to Ben.

Lani takes her turn as she also pulls out some parts from behind her back. Though she seems to be quicker than Miel, which is impressive given that what she assembles is also much larger than what her girlfriend made. After assembling all her gear together, the resulting weapon is a giant hammer with mechanical parts the back part of it's head that resembles a steam powered engine block. Lani's slim frame betrays her immaculate strength as she is holding onto her giant hammer like it was lighter than air.

Ester nods to herself, impressed with the gear of the ladies. "Gotta admit. I'm a little jealous. I might buy a weapon from you guys after all." Ester compliments them, with Lani giving a courteous bow in response.

"Those weapons are SO cool!" Ben says, almost childishly staring each weapon presented to him, his eyes practically sparking in joy.

"Hey, eyes off my sister, man. She's spoken for." Kevin exclaims to Ben, with Miel and Lani just laughing it off.

Ben takes a moment to look back and forth between Kevin and his sister, seeing Lani beside her and very closely. The Piltovan boy is immediately reminded of himself and his sisters, with Caitlyn and Vi being married. It was like looking in a mirror. "Huh. Small world." Ben says.

"What?" Kevin replies but Ben does not respond to him.

"Alright. We're all in this together now. If we're lucky, Vulkanus will just hand over Porcupine and Gator Boy's mom once we give him the prize money. But in case he doesn't, then we gotta have a back up plan." Ben says as everyone huddled together for this plan.

Kevin's a bit bewildered that Ben suddenly took up the role of leader and plan maker in an instant. Literally an hour ago, he and his team were practically hating his guts.

Still, despite his own doubts, Kevin could see Ben does mean well, so for now, he'll listen.

"If what you guys say is true, then Vulkanus doesn't know about Kevin and his friends. And he doesn't know about Ester and I either." Ben begins. "We can use that to our advantage. Porcupine, Gator Boy..."

"Actually those are just our stage names. My real name's just Pine." Porcupine, or rather Pine, properly introduces herself.

"I'm Fang." Gator Boy adds, nodding respectfully to Ben.

Ben smiles towards them, appropriately correcting himself as he rephrases, "Pine and Fang can take the prize money to Vulkanus by themselves. The rest of us will sneak around and wait. If Vulkanus drops his end of the deal, then we go in. Ester and, uhh..." Ben looks over to Samira, having not gotten her name.

"Name's Samira, handsome." Samira comments, giving Ben a wink of her only eye. "You've met Kevin. These two love birds are Miel and Lani."

The latter two give Ben a nod. Ben nods to all three of them to acknowledge their names. "Ester and Samira will find Pine and Fang's mom. The rest of us will beat down Vulkanus and his minions." Ben finishes the plan.

"A sound plan. But only one problem: There's only one person we know that would know about Vulkanus' hideout, and that's Argit. And the little rat ran away from us while we were distracted." Miel points out, which causes everyone to frown at this unfortunate news.

Everyone... except Ben, as he smirks. "Lucky for you guys... I just got a connection to Ionia's underground." He tells them as he crosses his arms.

---

Back inside the cave, Nyancy is enjoying, or rather just drinking, her wine in the arena's local bar, all alone and bored. The excitement for the night is over and now after this, she won't be able to see the new friends she just made with Ben and Ester. The fight with Kolo will probably the last she'll see of them so she's hoping all this wine can calm her down, or at least numb the loneliness, even just for a bit.

As she sighs, she stares at her wine glass blankly. The red colors of her drink almost feels dull now...

...until she gets a good look of her glass as it starts to show a clear image. A reflection.

A reflection of someone behind her that makes her very happy as she turns around to see the person reflected onto her wine glass.

And it was none other than Ben, as well as Ester and their new Noxian and Vastaya companions. Ben, despite knowing she's the one who gave him it, pulls down part of his shirt a little and the wolverine mark on him appears, glowing in it's golden hue.

"Hey, Nyancy." Ben says. "We could use your help one something."

Nyancy smirks, her feline lips practically quivering in joy as she almost carelessly throw away her wine glass, contents and all, behind her, the glass shattering and the wine spilling on the floor as she stands from her stool to approach Ben. "Name your price, Benny." She replies to him in kind.

---

Thanks to some of their connections, as well as some scouts and previous dealings in the past, Nyancy was able to get the location of Vulkanus' lair, hidden in a deeper part of Navori's forests. Nyancy even volunteered to join them on this hunt if only to stave off her boredom.

After locating the place, the entire group finds that it seems to be an abandoned Noxian lumber mill that was built here in Ionia when some of them attempted to chop down the trees seemingly to harvest them for their magical, and literal, nature.

The mill itself has become overgrown with various trees and plant life, but there's an encampment at the front, filled with tents and campfires, all with soldiers clad in the same kinds of armor as the ones that talked to Argit, Pine and Fang earlier.

Ben, Ester and the rest of their new companions are all hiding behind a nearby cliff as they survey the area. Ben spots an opening over to the side, left unguarded by Vulkanus' minions. He nods to everyone but the Vastaya siblings to head there so they can sneak in.

As they all leave, apart from Ben, Pine and Fang, the remaining trio share one last talk before they start this operation. "In case we don't get to say it, thank you for this for us, Ben." Pine says to Ben before suddenly giving him a hug.

Ben yelps a little from the hug. Not out of bashfulness, but because Pine's spikes hurt him, poking him on several spots on his body. Thankfully, they didn't dig into his flesh or anything deep, but it still hurt. "Ow... Uh, you're welcome." Ben replies through his teeth.

When Pine lets go of Ben, he felt a bit relieved a bit, but soon changes his expression to a more serious but caring one. "But you can thank me later once we get your mother out of that place. Once she's saved, get her out of there as fast as you can and as far away from here. We'll hold off everyone else."

'"We can't just leave you guys here." Fang responds, but Ben shakes his head.

"If your mother gets hurt, or worse, then it would all have been for nothing. You need to get out of here once things go down, okay?" Ben tells them. He then gives them a smile that's both reassuring and confident as he shows off the watch on his left wrists. "Besides, I can handle this."

Pine and Fang both smile, trusting Ben. If their fights with him and Kevin were any indication, then there's more to Ben than meets the eye.

Pine prepares the red bag with the prize money, with she and her little brother heading off to meet Vulkanus' men. As Ben watches them begin their rescue mission, he activates his watch and scrolls through his list.

Once he finds who he needs, he presses the dial down, transforming through a flash of green light.

---

The ex-Noxian guards all roast their foods above their fire pits. While many were already feasting on their meals, the sounds of rustling leaves and footsteps on soil caught the attention of a majority of them.

They spot Pine and Fang approaching their encampment, and spot Pine's holding the bag. The guards all could immediately tell why they're here and who they are, especially after recently just meeting up with them privately.

"We got the money." Fang speaks through his reptilian jaws.

"Now give us our mother!" Pine shouts to them.

The guards all gather, weapons at the ready, approaching the sibling duo.

Pine and Fang grip their fists tight, preparing for a fight... but one of the guards laugh at them for some reason. "Didn't you two already lose? Did you two steal it from the real champ?" This specific guard asks.

"Yeah? What of it?" Pine replies, glaring at the guard, who only chuckles in amusement.

"Didn't know you had it in ya. Anything for dear old mom, huh?" The guard taunts them, making Pine growl and almost retaliate physically as the spikes on her body stand up in her anger.

Thankfully, Fang manages to stop her, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking his head. Pine sighs, taking a deep breath and relaxes her spikes.

"Just take us to your boss so we can get this over with." Fang tells the guard.

With another chuckle, the guard they're speaking to mockingly gestures to the entrance to the abandoned lumber mill. "This way, freak shows." He taunts them again before leading them to the inside of their hideout.

While the Vastaya siblings follow, behind them were the other guards tailing them as well, keeping an eye on them. Once inside, the two of them feel uneasy. The place was a bit dark, and it didn't help that it's also getting darker outside as the afternoon was beginning to transition to night. The only sources of light in the place were several torches on walls and whatever light was left outside through the windows of the mill.

The guards practically blended with their dark environment that Pine and Fang were even having a hard time seeing them if not for the torches leading them deeper into the place.

After several minutes of walking, the guards have finally lead the siblings into a much wider and bigger part of the mill. This time, it was much brighter, but only because of the gigantic hole in the ceiling and braziers lit with better and brighter flames.

There's several abandoned, rusting Noxian equipment around the place, like gigantic saws, broken down motorized carts and even some torn apart mini mechs.

But that's not what really caught the attention of the siblings as in several crates all over the place are weapons of all kinds, seemingly from multiple regions all across the world. From Piltovan rifles, Bilgewater pistols, Noxian axes, Demacians swords, Freljordian flails, Ionia katanas, Shuriman spears and so many more. All in corresponding crates with labels and even symbols of each region.

And the big prize. One that the siblings have been hearing about from Kevin and his companions: Several crates and boxes of Hex Gemstones, like the ones that Argit got and Kevin absorbed. Their bright blue glow was incredibly noticeable that it's almost blinding.

This is definitely it. Vulkanus' lair. The only thing missing now is—

"Who did you bozos bring this time?!"

—Vulkanus himself.

The siblings hear someone speak out in the darkness. The voice was incredibly deep yet also raspy, with a bit of gargling to it. And, what's more is that they start hearing footsteps. Heavy ones. Like a Freljord mammoth with metal boots was walking towards them. They could even feel the ground shaking beneath them with each step.

When the footsteps were slowing down and felt like they're getting closer, Pine and Fang could finally tell where it's coming from and spot the middle of the wide room where several, big pieces of lumber have been stacked on top of one another to make a higher platform.

And that's when the two of them see the man himself... And he was not what they expected.

They expected maybe a big human or Vastaya in heavy armor. Or heck, maybe even a Yordle in a mech suit.

They did not expect this... massive, hulking beast that they have never seen before. He had orange skin, large jaws with his teeth fused to his lips, and two brown horns extending downward from his jaw. He had big, bulky armor, with giant, round pauldrons adorned with several spikes that makes it look like he has maces to protect his shoulders. He had similar spikes on his armored knuckles and knee pads. And, strangely, he only had two, spike-like toes on each foot. His armor was colored almost the same as his minions, primarily black and red. On his hip looks like a giant, pistol-like weapon of sorts, shining in red paint.

This was, of course, none other than Vulkanus himself. He glares at Pine and Fang with his glowing, golden eyes before he jumps off his stacked up platform. His very landing shakes the ground further that it felt like a mini earthquake.

Neither of the Vastaya siblings have seen anyone like him before. Maybe he's a Noxian Vastaya? No. There's something... strange about him. Almost... alien.

They've only ever felt this way once... and it's when they saw Ben's transformations. Yet where Ben's forms almost felt like reflections of him, and so felt almost warm, humorous and welcoming, Vulkanus feels... sinister. Perhaps it's fitting, considering his line of work and the things he did.

Pine and Fang never felt such fear before, but they're thinking of their mother right now and they can't afford to make mistakes now. As Vulkanus approaches them, Fang takes initiative, nodding to Pine. She nods back to her little brother and hands him the red bag, which he then holds and hands over to Vulkanus once he's near.

"We got you the cash with a bonus. Now let go of our mother." Fang tells the... creature before him.

Despite Fang's own size, Vulkanus was still towers over the alligator man, and is even wider than him. Maybe it's the armor. Or maybe Vulkanus is just that big.

"So you're the two with the mommy issues, huh?" Vulkanus replies before swiping the bag from Fang's hand. He shakes it over and over just so he could hear the clinking of the coins within, which made the monster of a man before the siblings smile, his toothy maw looking creepy. "Guess you two did keep your end of the bargain..." Vulkanus adds before snapping his metallic fingers miraculously.

On cue, a couple of lights from the ceiling light up after the sound of giant switches being flipped echo from within the mill's walls. This catches the attention of the siblings...

...and soon spot a woman tied to a big piece of lumber, just atop a sliding, deactivated conveyor belt of sorts, leading to a big, circular saw, which actually looks pristine compared to all the other ones that're rusting away.

The woman looks several years older than either of the siblings. She's a fair skinned woman in a traditional Ionian garb, with white, aging hair tied into a ponytail. And from the looks of it, she has no animalistic traits on her body at all, so she seems to be human.

"Ma!" Pine and Fang both yell in unison upon seeing the woman, revealing her to be their... mother?

"Pine! Fang! What are you kids doing here?!" The mother asks them, worry across her face.

"We got the money, ma! Don't worry!" Fang tells his mother.

Pine nods her head in agreement, adding, "We'll get you out of here!"

"Now why would you go and lie to your mother like that?"

The porcupine woman and the alligator man are both shocked at hearing those words as they turn their attention back to Vulkanus as he smugly chuckles after telling them that. "I said you kept your end of the bargain... I didn't say I'd keep mine." He adds as every guard in the room ready their weapons, all aimed at the siblings.

"But we got you the money, you bastard!" Pine blurts out in rage, tensing up all her spikes while Fang growls and makes hissing noises like an alligator would.

"You did, but we never planned to let you live. You and your mother were becoming liabilities and a waste of our time and resources, so we decided to have you scrounge up double the usual pay so you can come get your mommy. That way, we can get you all in one place without anyone ever finding you idiots and get rid of you without any witnesses. And we'd still get paid." Vulkanus explains, chuckling all the way. He tosses the red bag of money to one of his guards who flawlessly catches it in her hands.

"You backstabbing, double crossing snake!" Pine roars at them. In her anger, all the spikes on her body, even parts of her hair, all tense up and even get longer.

Vulkanus just laughs off her display of rage and crosses his arms. "Maybe I am that, but I'm also rich. And you're going to be dead." He replies.

"They would be... if they were alone..."

Suddenly, a new, almost mechanical filtered voice joins the scene, causing everyone in the room to be confused...

"But they're with us!"

...except Pine and Fang, who both smile, recognizing that voice despite it's strange new tone.

And it was none other than Ben, transformed as Upgrade, arriving from the back entrance to this room, together with the some of the team, Nyancy, Kevin, Miel and Lani.

Upgrade's arms are crossed as he stares at their enemies before them. "Samira, Ester! Now!" Upgrade speaks, his voice still sound like Ben but, as mentioned, with a techno filter to it.

And from the open hole in the ceiling above, Ester and Samira drop down and arrive beside the mother.

"You have friends?!" Vulkanus yells in anger as he watches the intruders to his hideout. But his rage swiftly turns into condescending smugness as he finally grabs his giant pistol on his hip and aims it at Upgrade. "Had friends." Vulkanus corrects himself in a taunting and threatening manner as he pulls the trigger.

Much to Upgrade's surprise, the gun in Vulkanus' hands fires out a powerful jet of flames instead of bullets or energy blasts like that of a Hextech weapon. His heroic instincts kicks in quick as he uses his stretchy and malleable body to extend his arms fast and push away Nyancy, Kevin, Miel and Lani away from him.

This prevents them from being seared by the flames as the fire blast instead hits Upgrade alone. While his semi metallic body could take the hit, the force of the flaming blast itself was still strong enough to knock him away.

The four other members of this team were about to help Upgrade out, but then several of Vulkanus' guards all block them, fighting each of them one on one as Vulkanus approaches the transformed hero, his heavy footsteps shaking the ground as usual.

Kevin faces off against a really big, heavily armored guy, wielding spiked gauntlets and knuckles, one on each hand.

Miel is now one on one against a guy with a scythe and a long flowing red cape with a hood over his helmet.

Lani stares down her foe, a woman with a sharp rapier in her hand, glistening from the lights all over the room.

And Nyancy shares the glare of her opponent, a man with twin katanas.

As they fight their new duel partners, Samira and Ester and fighting off the rest of the guards, having a shoot out with them as the two women use their dual pistols against their crossbow and rifle wielding opponents. "Go free her. I'll keep them busy." Samira says to the Yordle, a big smile on her lips and a glimmer in her eye.

"Alright, if you insist." Ester replies, putting away her pistols so she can pull out her dagger, and starts trying to cut all the rope around the tied up mother.

Seeing everyone else occupied, Pine and Fang nod to one another, wordlessly telling each other to be safe as they split up. Pine runs off towards the direction of their mother, Samira and Ester, shooting her spikes towards the guards. Some of the spikes bounce off their armors, but some manage to strike and pierce through the gaps in their armor that leaves parts of their bodies expose. This allows her spikes to paralyze at least 3 of the guards.

Fang, meanwhile, does one big leap, landing next to Kevin as they both face off against their large foe. The two nod to one another, acknowledging that they're going to have to work together to fight off their opponent. And, knowing what one another is now capable off, they can now cover each other's weaknesses.

Kevin grabs a random axe from a nearby crate of Noxian weapons, absorbing the metal of the axe head and coating himself again in Noxian steel armor. He tosses the axe to Fang, who grabs it with just one hand as Kevin himself transforms both his hands into twin pickaxes. "Want me to take him on, jade jaws?" Kevin playfully calls Fang.

Fang himself chuckles as he grips his new axe in his hand. "Go ahead, little man!" The alligator man replies, the two of them charging their opponent, who meets their charge after clashing both his fists together and then running at the duo.

Meanwhile, Vulkanus tosses and pushes aside several of the weapon crates that Upgrade got knocked into, trying to find his opponent. "I don't know what a Galvanic Mechamorph like you is doing in this backwater planet, but it looks you and I are both stuck here. But between you and me, I'm not gonna let you ruin what I've built here!" Vulkanus taunts before spotting a stack of toppled crates. Assuming this is where Upgrade ended up, he kicks them all over and aims his flame blaster...

...but Upgrade was not there.

Instead, the shapeless, ooze-like form of Upgrade emerges from behind Vulkanus before the liquid metal being swiftly wraps itself all over the giant man's armor like a snake, restraining Vulkanus' arms and legs as best as he could before finally morphing his top half face to face with the man, including his head and arms.

While Vulkanus is trapped, Upgrade takes this chance to change his fists into maces and starts smacking his foe in the face multiple times. "I don't know what you just called me, but I'm taking you down!" Upgrade speaks as he continues his assault.

Vulkanus though, is more annoyed than hurt. Each smack on his face from Upgrade felt like wet metal being struck on his face and it was getting old real fast. While Upgrade is restraining him, he still has his flame blaster in his hand. And, seemingly without regard for his own life, he pulls the trigger hard and the blaster shoots out a powerful torrent of flame beneath Vulkanus' feet, unleashing a pillar of fire from the ground that heats up both him and the transformed hero at the same time.

Like the last blast that was shot at him, Upgrade is able to resist the heat, but because Vulkanus has not let go of the trigger, the flames are not stopping and only growing hotter. And whatever Vulkanus' skin is made of, he doesn't even look like he's hurt by the temperature of his own fire.

The flames were rapidly increasing temperature and Upgrade's liquid metal body was beginning to loosen up and feel like melting, but that was all Vulkanus needs as this brief moment of Upgrade losing his grip on him was enough for Vulkanus to forcibly stretch out his arms and legs, breaking Upgrade apart into pieces as he frees himself.

This scatters Upgrade everywhere, to the walls, to the crates of Hex Gemstones and to several of the other crates filled with weapons all across Runeterra.

Vulkanus laughs to himself after watching him seemingly tear apart his foe. "What? Don't recognize what Detrovite when you see one? I thought you Galvanic Mechamorphs were smart. But I guess that only applies to the aliens that made you." Vulkanus says.

"...Did you just say aliens?"

Vulkanus hears that same voice from Upgrade and spots a big piece of him on the floor, rising and slowly morphing into his head, complete with his circuitry-like eye. "Is that what I am? A, what did you say... A Galvanic Mechamorph? An alien? Like, from space?" He asks.

"What, did you crash here when you were a baby or something? That's what you and I are, slime ball!" Vulkanus taunts him more. "We're from somewhere else across the galaxy. I came here years ago trying to find the Omnitrix with my boss, but the people of this planet managed to beat us down and we got separated. Now I'm stuck here and I can't even track down our ship!"

"Those are... ugh..." Upgrade tries to speak, but being literally split apart is still causing him pain as he is slowly pulling himself back together. "...Those are a ton of words to throw at me, man. I just asked if I was an alien. What the heck even is an Omnitrix?"

Vulkanus was about to speak, his mouth open in the process, but then when Upgrade manages to pull back enough of his own pieces to form most of his upper body, including his chest, that's when Vulkanus finally got a good look.

He sees that familiar hourglass-like symbol on Upgrade's chest, glowing green. "You! You have the Omnitrix?!" Vulkanus roars at Upgrade.

The transformed 'alien' could not really raise a brow due to only having an eye and no, well, eyebrows, but Upgrade is still confused at what Vulkanus asked, but he sees him staring at his chest, causing Upgrade to look as well, and now finally gets it. "Wait, the Omnitrix is the name of the watch?" Upgrade asks.

Instead of an immediate answer though, Vulkanus just aims his flame blaster at Upgrade again and fires. Fortunately, Upgrade, while still yelping in terror, still manages to get out of the way, slithering away fast like a snake as the flames miss him, with it hitting several empty crates instead, burning them up.

"You're the reason I'm here! I don't if there's still a bounty on you from whoever hired us, but once I hand over your charred corpse with Omnitrix still on you, then I can guarantee myself a ship outta here!" Vulkanus roars to his opponent.

"What happened to not letting me ruin what you've built here?" Upgrade retorts, reforming back his top half.

Vulkanus snorts and laughs, glaring at the Piltovan before him as he reloads his blaster, with it making a hissing noise as he does so, smoke emanating from it's barrel. The beast of a man then tells Upgrade, "That was before you showed up. Now you're my ticket outta here!"

"Maybe. But, counterpoint..." Upgrade replies.

To the confusion of Vulkanus, suddenly, one of the weapons crates with the symbol of Piltover suddenly starts to glow green, growing brighter and brighter until a blast of green energy is fired from within and struck Vulkanus so hard, he's knocked back and into the piled up lumber he was using as a platform earlier, causing all of them to tumble down and topple over him.

Upgrade finally reveals what he's been doing as, with the strange green laser tearing apart that crate, it can finally be seen that the other torn parts of Upgrade are now merged with multiple Piltovan weapons, combining them all into one super weapon that he used to fire upon Vulkanus seconds ago.

And this 'Galvanic Mechamorph', as Vulkanus called him, was not done revealing his surprises as he's actually been keeping his foe occupied with his questions, long enough so that his other torn pieces have now merged with more Piltover weapons all over this room. He's even grabbed a combat sledgehammer from the Noxian crates and a few miscellaneous forging tools from the Freljord boxes, plus some additional Hex Crystals and Gemstones and finally a high tech armor from another Piltover crate with some armor plates from some Demacian loot.

Using his powers, and remembering what he did back with Axel's airship days ago as well as borrowing ideas from Miel and Lani, Upgrade combines everything he got from the mill before finally merging his top half with it all so he can be whole again.

The result is now Upgrade with a new look. Thanks to his combination of the Piltovan tech armor with Demacian plating, as well as several advanced firearms from his home region, he looks heavily armored, with a bulky, angular top, big metallic boots and gauntlets and appropriately robotic fingers on each hand. His head looks like a helmet with a long, middle "spike", with two shorter ones to the side, one going left and one going right. His cyclopian eye is now in the middle of this helmet-like head of his. And, thanks to the Hex crystals and gemstone he grabbed, the armor is now glowing bright blue and has even taken over all the circuitry lines on Upgrade, changing all the green into the same blue hue as the crystals. And, at last, he has his 'Omnitrix' symbol on his chest, if that's what it's truly called now.

Now armored up and ready to go, Upgrade's prepares himself for the real fight as Vulkanus gets back up, groaning in pain as he clutches his smoking chest, part of his armor having a scorch mark from Upgrade's attack. "Hey, that's my merchandise you're wearing!" Vulkanus yells angrily at his Galvanic Mechamorph foe.

Upgrade, though, just chuckles at this as he unveils that sledgehammer he got from the Noxian weapons earlier, as well as a couple of Hextech weapons he still has that he did not merge with his armor. He then combines the hammer and the Hextech together to create a new one. Now, in his hand is a new hammer with a much bigger head and a glowing blue middle portion of it. Upgrade then aims this weapon at Vulkanus and the head suddenly splits into four as the hammer is now gather blue, Hex energy like it were a blaster.

"All your merchandise is stolen. I'm just putting them to better use! And this little invention of mine? Inspired by my mentor. Let me show what REAL Hextech does!" Upgrade taunts Vulkanus as the two of them fight again.

---

Meanwhile, Miel skids backwards after blocking an attack from her foe with her sword. When she turns her sights forward once more, her foe is gone, and her instincts told her to look up, which proves useful as she spots the scythe guard had just jumped and is now in the air, attempting to swing their weapon down to try and bifurcate her.

Thinking quickly, Miel jumps backwards, hoping to dodge the scythe coming for her. She almost succeeds, but due to the length of the scythe's handle, it's blade still manages to barely reach her, creating a small cut on her left arm before the blade sinks into the floor beneath them.

Miel, having handled weapons and metals all her life, is not bothered by her wound at all. It's a small cut compared to all the wounds she's had to endure most of her time on this planet, even as blood trickles down her arm and into her leather glove. Still, she saw the way her foe is swinging that scythe around.

That blade is sharp, obviously, but it had to be lightweight or else this red hooded guard wouldn't be swinging it around like it was made of air, so that rules out it being either Noxian steel or Freljord metal. Likely Ionian in origin. But the entire hilt of this scythe? It can't also be Ionian metal either. That kind of material is only lightweight in small sizes, which is why a majority of Ionian weapon wielders only have one part of their weapons to be made of their metal, like the blades of swords or the heads of hammers.

In that case, unless this guard is actually really, REALLY strong to be swinging a purely metal weapon in high speeds, then the rest of his scythe must be...

Miel starts to think to herself of that possibility. So, to test her theory, she grabs another tool from her back, putting it on her left arm, the one that got cut and wounded, like a gauntlet. Miel then does a punching motion with her left arm and it causes part of her gauntlet to activate and form itself into a circular shield, before she then twists the handle on her sword like last time to extend it, switching her sword into a spear as she holds it tight and watches her foe's next move.

The scythe guard only chuckles at her actions as he finally pulls out his weapon from the floor, twirling his scythe in only one hand. But while he thinks he's being threatening while he's showing off, Miel was only seeing more evidence for her theory.

And now to finally apply her plan to prove herself correct.

Her scythe wielding foe charges at her in high speeds, wind blowing from where he ran like a miniature sonic boom as dead leaves left behind by dead trees all over the floor even follow him, making it look like he's leaving behind a trail of them as he runs. And as he quickly closes the distance between him and his Noxian enemy, he swings his scythe in a wide arc, aiming for Miel's legs.

But then, as he got close, Miel jumps at the last second, causing him to completely miss her. And, in all one quick but brief few seconds, the guard only had a mere fraction of that time to look up in horror as he sees Miel, in mid-air, throw her spear at him like a javelin...

...Or rather, at his scythe's handle as her blade effortlessly cuts that handle apart, splintering apart as Miel finally sees what she's been thinking of: the scythe's handle is made of wood. Wood that stands no chance against her spear's Noxian steel.

And, as the guard can only see his scythe destroyed for another small fraction of those few seconds, Miel perfectly aims the face of her shield down as gravity finally catches up and causes her to drop from the air. The Noxian blacksmith then smacks the guard square on his helmet with that shield, dropping on him like a meteor as the full weight of this woman and her powerful shield hits him, knocking him out as he lays unconscious on the floor.

Miel takes her time to grab her spear before spitting on her foes helmet mockingly. "That's why you scythes are for gardening, idiot. Not for battle." Miel taunts her foe one last time.

---

Lani's opponent has managed to outmaneuver her at every possible turn, as her foe's lighter armor and even lighter weapon, the rapier, made her faster than the green haired girl, who is weighed down by her big, engine-like hammer. Despite showing off earlier, the hammer is definitely really heavy, and really bulky, and so this put Lani in an immediate disadvantage.

Still, she was still managing on her own as she has put on her wielding mask and is using it as protection for her own face, and even managing to block every blade strike her opponent tries to land using the metallic portions on her gauntlets.

But this was getting them nowhere, as they're practically locked in a stalemate. Lani can only block her opponent's attacks and can't even swing her hammer fast enough to hit her, and the rapier guard can't properly hit Lani either because she still has surprisingly good reflexes and ways to block her attacks.

They both know that one good hit is all it would take. Lani can smack the rapier guard with her giant hammer and it will, even at worst, break every bone in the guard's body. Meanwhile the guard can hit a very vital part of Lani like her throat, her heart or her head, and she's done for.

These combatants both know this. So now, they're essentially both trying to find that opening they need.

And it seems the rapier guards gets an idea. She holds her blade tight, brings it up near her face while pointing it towards Lani. She puts her left foot back and right foot forward, but not that forward. Then, quickly, she sprints at the green haired girl once more.

Lani is about to block the attack again... until the rapier guard, rather than strike Lani, instead swings her blade on the ground hard enough that it kicks up a ton of dust from all the wear and tear of the mill, as well as any remaining saw dust on the floor. This creates a small, dirty cloud around Lani that blocks her field of view from all directions. While her welding mask prevents her from inhaling any of this dust, as well as prevent any of that from getting to her eyes by shielding them thanks to her mask's glass visor, she still can't see anything within 2 feet of her. So she's essentially blinded anyway.

It seems that, in her panic, Lani finally grabs onto her hammer with both hands and lifts it over her head, seemingly ready to just randomly smack the ground.

The guard takes advantage of this as she's sneaks behind Lani, walking through the dust as she's ready to finally stab the unwitting girl in her spine to finish her off...

...except Lani also had a plan the whole time.

While she did not predict the guard to blind her with dust, she did expect her to charge in. But even with the dust around her, Lani still continues her plan as she then smacks the ground hard with her hammer. So hard, in fact, that Lani ends up almost being flung upwards, had she not held on tight to her hammer's handle. The force of her ground pound is so strong that it unleashes a powerful burst of wind that blows away all the dust around her and even halts the guard from her attack as she nearly found herself almost stumbling from that shockwave.

Still, the guard did not falter as she still tries to stab Lani anyway while she's still suspended in the air, only anchored by her own hammer.

But then, to the guard's astonishment, Lani twists a part of her weapon's handle too, and she hears a clicking noise within her hammer...

...And that's when the guard sees that the entire rim of the hammer's head is line with several holes. Holes like those... of a gun's barrel.

The guard has very little time to even think of why that is until whatever mechanism Lani activates finally begins as those same holes begin to glow like flames... and then unleash small explosions on each hole. All of these explosions combined together creates a much bigger one that gets unleashed beneath Lani as it essentially creates a second, even stronger shockwave the blows away everything.

This time, the shockwave is so powerful that it sends the guard flying, high into the sky, unable to stop her feet from leaving the ground.

But her horrors were only beginning as Lani, with her thick and tough boots, lands back on the now cratered and flaming floor. She holds her hammer with both hands again, giving her opponent a stare she'll never forget. "You're fast. You dodge fast too! But..." Lani says as she then readies up her hammer, moving it behind her like a baseball bat.

"You can't dodge in the air!" Lani yells out to her foe, whose eyes under her helmet go wide from this realization.

And sure enough, the woman begins to fall down, unable to control where she'll go. When she got close enough, Lani finally SWINGS that hammer hard and fast, slamming it's face onto the entire body of her enemy as the sound of metal hitting lighter metal clangs across the room. The hammer bash is so strong and so powerful, Lani could briefly hear some bones cracking before her weapon sends her opponent flying even further, smacking her across the room as the rapier guard crashes into several stacked crates that all topple on top of her.

"If you survived, please tell your friends that we deliver high quality weapons like these at an affordable prize!" Lani shouts out to her foe. Whether she was mocking her or not is up to debate.

---

Nyancy is no stranger to combat. She's fought off some folks she spots for Sett's fighting pit, especially those who were either just really rude jerks or straight up bloodthirsty psychos. Still, those circumstances she had to outwit them most of the time before managing to convince them to join.

This? This was different. In her haste to no longer be bored, she joined Ben and his new companions in their hunt for Vulkanus, and now she's going toe to toe with one of his guards.

The guard swings both his katanas at the panther woman, forcing her duck, dodge and weave away from his attacks. She is so incredibly unprepared for this. Her sultry dress does not give her any protection, and in fact could get caught in places that would leave her vulnerable. She is unarmed too, with only her claws as her weapons.

At any point during this duel, she could very well lose her life...

This...

...is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to her in her whole life.

She grins to herself, her toothy maw visible enough for her foe to see and even creep him out as she suddenly switches from being on the defensive to lunging at her opponent with her claws, trying to swipe at him as she aims for the portions of his body that aren't protected by his armor.

Her assault was fast, relentless, almost feral, as the guard thought he was fighting a non-combatant. He is extremely shocked to see that she's even faster than he is.

When he tries to swing his left blade at her, Nyancy shocks her foe further by, instead of dodging, she instead grabs his blade with her bare hand, catching it as part of it sinks into her fur and the skin beneath. Her hand begins to bleed, soaking her fur in red, but the brief moment of fear the guard feels from her actions was enough time for Nyancy to punch the guard in his face, or rather his helmet, knocking him back as he accidentally lets go of his katanas, with one of them now under Nyancy's possession as she still has his left one's blade in her hand.

The guard gets up from the ground as fast as he can, trying to reach his other sword on the ground, but Nyancy throws the one in her hand at her foe's hand before he reaches his weapon. The blade sinks into the man's hand, unprotected by his armor, as he screams in pain. He can't even completely break free because that sword has also sunk into the ground, pinning the guard's hand in place.

Nyancy takes this opportunity to lick her own blood from her bleeding hand as she slowly walks towards her pinned foe. When he tries to reach for the hand to try and pull the blade from his hand, Nyancy just steps on the other hand hard, nearly breaking the man's poor fingers as he screams in pain again.

As blood trickles from her lips after her licking, she grins at the man on the ground, helpless and afraid of her. "I could tear your throat out with my claws if I wanted to... But Ben's nearby and I'd hate to be scolded by him. So, here's the deal. You quit working for Vulkanus and I can try and convince Sett to hire you. Not as a guard though. Smeek has that covered. Maybe a janitor?" She tells her foe.

It didn't even take a second before the guard under her foot starts nodding and pleading between his whimpers of pain. "Good boy." The panther woman replies... before kicking the man in his face so hard, it knocked off his helmet and knocked him out as well. "Now go to sleep."

---

With a loud smack, both Kevin and Fang get tossed into several of the broken Noxian mechs, with Fang accidentally dropping the axe, as their lumbering foe walks towards them, responsible for their predicament.

Just when they thought things couldn't get any worse, the guard suddenly starts connecting some tubes to his gauntlets that are also connected to the big metal pack on his back. Before they even try to question what that is supposed to mean in their heads, their towering foe answers them instantly as several ports on the side of each gauntlet emerges... and starts shooting streams of flaming liquid, likely an oil of some sort, making it look like the giant guard has flamethrowers attached to his arms.

"Okay, that's just excessive." Kevin snarks, scowling at their opponent. Fang offers him a hand up, which the metal boy takes as the two stand back on their feet.

"We've been doing this wrong. We're gang up on him but we're just getting in each other's way. We need to take him one after the other." Fang suggests, with Kevin even nodding in agreement.

The Noxian boy then says to his reptilian friend, "I can try and break apart his armor and that weapon. Then you can use your strength to tear it all off of him so we can leave him exposed and pummel 'im."

Fang chuckles at this suggestion, confusing Kevin. "What?" The metal boy asks.

"Your plan. It's what Pine and I did to you." Fang responds, but Kevin laughs this off, taking it in stride.

"Hey, it was an effective plan. You guys would've definitely won that match." Kevin admits. "And since this guy doesn't have a transforming partner of his own, then we're gonna win this too!"

"Then let's take him down!" Fang says before he and Kevin charge their foe as the two of them yell out a battle cry.

Their bulky foe tries to bring their charge to a halt, firing his wrist flamethrowers at the duo, but Kevin immediately clasps both of his hands together and soon merge them both to form a giant, Noxian metal shield in front of them. The shield was big enough to block and even split the flaming attack fired at them, and thanks to the metal being highly resistant to heat, Kevin can't even feel hurt from all that fire shooting at him.

The two continue their charge, with Fang staying behind Kevin and his gigantic shield, all while their foe is still trying to purge them with flames. Once they're finally close, the guard stops his fiery assault, rearing back his fist to resort to just punching Kevin, but Fang interrupts him right quick as he jumps over Kevin instead.

The guard thought he would be fast enough to intercept Fang, almost aiming his flamethrowers at him now that he's out of the view of the shield, but the alligator man proved even faster, with Fang closing the distance then punching the guard's helmet in.

While it barely hurt the flame guard, his skull was rattled from his head banging all over the inside of his helmet thanks to Fang's attack, and leaves him vulnerable, long enough for Kevin to unmerge his hands, turning his left one into a smaller shield and his right hand into a blade.

This allows Kevin to cut apart any straps holding together the big guard's armor as he slices and dices them apart. Some of the armor falls off from this, like the man's kneepads, greaves and even the armor plating on his upper arms. The rest were still hanging onto the man's body, though, but feel a lot more loose.

Fang takes advantage of this by literally pulling off pieces of their enemy's armor now that they're not attached well. Each time the flame guard tries to attack him, Fang manages to avoid his slow attacks. And when the guard manages to grab Fang, Kevin was there to back him up, using his sword hand to creates cuts and wounds on the big guy to stop him.

Slowly but surely, the duo manages to nearly strip the man of his armor. The only ones left on the flame guard's body are his helmet, a single pauldron on his left shoulder, his boots, the metal pack on his back and of course, both of his flamethrower gauntlets. The undersuit he has under all his armor are now filled with cuts and wounds thanks to Kevin.

When Fang and Kevin try to beat him down on his chest, though, the flame guard has had enough as he manages to finally grab them both by their necks once they're close before bashing their heads together and tossing them away.

The inside of their heads felt like a ton of ringing from what had just happened as they both try to massage their respective heads. "Okay, I think we pissed him off." Kevin comments.

"You think?!" Fang snarks back at him.

They both hear their opponent roar in anger and starts coming at them like a raging bull. With very little armor left, the duo accidentally made him much faster. Slightly panicking, Fang spots the axe he dropped nearby and grabs it with his tail. Once he gets a hold of it in his hands, he stands back up and throws it as his opponent.

The flame guard was not expecting this, though, and had to block the axe with his armored arms. Unfortunately, he couldn't block it right as part of the axe's blade strike his helmet, dizzying him again as the axe completely removes his helmet from his head at last, exposing his cranium.

This gives Kevin an idea as he looks over to his alligator friend and yells to him, "Quick! Throw me at him!"

With no hesitation, Fang grabs Kevin and tosses him as hard as he could towards the now dizzy and helmet-less guard like fast moving ball of sorts. Kevin then brings up his shield arm again and aims it forward, making him a flying battering ram.

And true to that, the guard could only look for a brief second before Kevin finally hits him in the face, knocking him down hard as 3 of own teeth got sent blasting out of his mouth before finally falling unconscious. Kevin could not stop his own momentum as he ends up crashing on the ground after his attack.

Fang almost runs towards his new friend, but when he sees Kevin groggily sit up, the Noxian boy gives him a thumbs up with his metallic hand. Fang smiles with his toothy maw, reassured and responds to Kevin's thumbs up with his own.

---

Gunshots echo all over the mill as Samira has a gun fight with the guards, matching their crossbows and black powder rifles with her own dual pistols. Those that only had melee weaponry at the back are holding off Pine as she fights her way through the horde hoping to reach her mother, who, right now, is being freed by Ester as she desperately tries to cut the ropes with her dagger, but seems to be having some trouble getting through.

"Sorry, ma'am. But I swear I always sharpen my dagger every morning." Ester tells the person she's trying to rescue, both of them sweating from the intensity of the moment, even as bullets and bolts fly past them.

The mother, though, replies to the Yordle rescuing her, saying, "I overheard them say the rope they used is meant for construction and lumber, so it must be really strong."

"Ugh, figures. Samira!" Ester yells out, catching the huntress' attention as she just narrowly dodges two crossbow bolts before retaliating with her own gunfire.

"Yeah?" The one eyed Noxian woman asks, tilting her head to the side to dodge a bullet before shooting back at the guard who tried to shoot her.

Ester points at the ropes around the mother. "Ropes too thick for my knife. Switch?" The Yordle gunslinger asks.

Samira smiles at this, just as she shoots another guard without even looking at them. "Switch!" She replies to the Yordle before she holsters her pistols and brings out her sword from behind her back.

So, in a rather stylish manner, Samira does a double front flip towards the mother's position while Ester runs and slides underneath her, the two of them flawlessly switching positions as Ester starts unloading her shots at the guards, striking all their weapons out of their hands and disarming them.

Meanwhile, Samira lands next to the mother with her humungous blade. "Hello, Mrs. Porcu-gator!" Samira jokingly calls the mother as she readies her sword. "Hold still."

After that warning, the mother closes her eyes and braces herself. Unfortunately, one of the guards they're fighting runs towards a nearby wall switch and pulls it down. The sounds of the entire mill, or at least just this room specifically, roaring back to life as steam hisses and machines whir.

Adding to more bad news is that before Samira could even cut the ropes, the conveyor belt beneath the mother activates, and slowly starts leading her away from Samira instead and towards that giant saw earlier, with it also activating as it spins, spelling doom for the mother if she doesn't get out!

Samira nearly stumbles had she not caught herself from her failed swing. She gives the guard that reactivated the mill a glare, annoyance in her eyes. In her frustration, she casually just pulls out one of her pistols with a free hand and unceremoniously shoots that guard in head, splattering his brains on the wall.

After that was over, Samira slides over the conveyor belt to follow the mother before finally swinging her sword with surprising precision, despite the size of her weapon.

As the ropes all snap in half and free the mother, Samira grabs her by her waist and jumps of the belt, just in time for the saw to do it's thing and cut the lumber the mother was strapped to earlier in half at last, wood splinters everywhere. "Pine! Your mother's here." The one eyed huntress calls out as she gently drops the mother on both her feet.

Hearing this as she kicks down one of the guards, Pine looks over and sees her and Fang's mother, safe and sound. Or, at the very least, free from her predicament. She's not safe until she's out of this mill and away from this place. So, taking a page from her younger brother, Pine roars and dashes towards her mom, bashing here way through any and all soldiers in her way.

She even recalls what Imoba the armadillo man that went crazy earlier in Sett's arena. Imitating his technique, Pine dives forward and curls up into a ball as best as she can and spins through her enemies, her quills protruding outward to make herself a spinning, spiked wrecking ball.

With each foe she topples down like a bowling ball to a bunch of pins, Pine finally makes it to her mother and Samira, standing back on her two feet. They shared no words, as all they need is a hug. Mother and daughter embrace one another that even when some of Pine's quills were slightly poking her skin, her mother did not mind. She's happy they're together again.

Samira smiles watching this, memories of her own mother flowing in her mind. And that feeling is only getting warmer as Fang, Nyancy, Kevin, Miel and Lani finally arrive. The mother pulls in Fang as well, as she and her children are all finally together and in one another's arms.

Miel chuckles, placing a hand on Kevin's shoulder as he too was smiling at the sight before them.

But that warm feeling has passed as the sounds of gunfire interrupt their moment, with Ester running to a crate to hide behind as she is being shot at by the remaining guards. "Not to ruin the family reunion, but there's still people left that want us dead!" Ester yells out to them.

"Okay, hugs and kisses later, people. Porcu-gator family, exit stage left and go!" Samira tells the reunited family, who all nod to her as Fang as as the shield to his sister and mother while the three of them leave the mill.

"Nyancy, Miel, Lani, Kev, you four go with them. They might need your help with the guards outside!" The huntress tells her fellow Noxians. Lani gives her a salute before Miel just pulls her away by her collar, with Kevin following his sister and her girlfriend. Nyancy follows them afterwards.

But while they're running off, the sound of combat and the ground shaking catches Kevin's attention. He looks over to where it could have come from and sees that Vulkanus had just broken a hole into a wall using Upgrade like a battering ram. Upgrade manages to stand back up and tries to whack Vulkanus with his hammer, but the big guy blocks the attack before punching Upgrade away, then following where he knocked him off to.

Squinting his eyes, Kevin was almost tempted to leave with his sisters, just like it was planned... But he looks back towards the battle between Upgrade and Vulkanus... and for a moment...

He hesitates.

---

Meanwhile, Samira is now left alone with Ester as she then jumps up in the air, both guns out and starts spinning around, firing her ammunition in every direction. She hits one guard, then two, then four, then six, then ten until she starts filling every single guard in the mill with lead and holes.

When she finally drops to the ground on one knee, posing stylishly while she can, she looks around and sees all her targets are down. She then brings out the revolving cylinder of both her pistols as all the bullet casings start raining from them and eventually stopping, signifying she's fresh out for now.

Ester just blinks, eyeing all the dead guards on the ground before approaching the one eyed huntress as she starts reloading her guns again with fresh ammunition. "You could have done that the whole time? Show off." Ester teases Samira.

"Oh, don't be jealous, little girl. Your pistols are just outdated." Samira teases her right back.

"First off, I'm older than you. Second, I'd still be the better shot. You just threw your bullets around like a madwoman." Ester retorts.

But their task is not done as multiple more guards emerge from another doorway, all them armed with all manner of weapons. Rather than be troubled by this, the two gunslinging women instead look at each other, smirking. "Well then, 'grandma'. Why don't you show me how good your aim is?" Samira tells her new Yordle rival.

Ester maintains her smirk before firing a shot at a guard without even looking. This guard was about to shoot his Hextech rifle, but then Ester's shot manages to hit him in his leg, causing him to scream in pain as he falls to the ground and accidentally pull the trigger of his weapon. This mishap makes his rifle fire thrice and hit three of his comrades in their legs too, capping their ability to stand up and causing them to fall over.

Samira's eye widens at awe, even making say, "Huh. Not bad."

"I'm just getting started." Ester adds as she twirls her pistols in her hands.

Samira does the same before both of them aim their pistols at their foes. While Ester is aiming hers normally, Samira's arms are crossed to look more stylish. "So am I!" The huntress exclaims.

---

During all that overlapping amount of battles, Upgrade and Vulkanus have been tearing through the whole Mill in their rampage against one another.

Despite thinking he got an advantage by using a ton of Vulkanus' stolen weapons against him, his enemy has now humbled him greatly as whatever Vulkanus skin and armor are made of, they can take the hits he's been dishing out. In his mind, Ben scolds himself as it made sense. If he could be overwhelmed by sheer weaponry alone, then Vulkanus' thugs would have usurped that metaphorical throne from him considering all the weapons in their disposal.

It seems that, if what he said is true about himself and Ben's forms, then Vulkanus' alien race must truly be walking tanks to keep fighting like this.

His train of thought gets derailed when Vulkanus pulls out his flame gun again and, this time, shoots out a big fireball coming for Upgrade like a meteor. Upgrade holds onto his Hex hammer tight and activates it's blaster form so he can fire a similar energy ball to counteract the flaming sphere coming for him.

Their attacks come into contact with one another, creating a combination of fire and magical energy that explodes upon colliding with each other. This resulting blast kicks up a ton of smoke, ash and dirt and obscures both their lines of sight.

Upgrade tries to scan anything in front of him, but none of the weapons or armor he absorbed had anything that can see through smoke.

But he didn't even need to, because Vulkanus passes through that wall of smoke between them, charging at him like a bull who saw red. Upgrade once again attempts to swing his hammer, but this time Vulkanus just grabs it by the handle and kicks Upgrade away, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon.

The big alien then brings up the hammer over his head before quickly bringing it's handle onto his armored knee, snapping the weapon in half as he throws the now split halves of the hammer away.

The Galvanic Mechamorph grumbles, getting annoyed with his 'Detrovite' foe as he aims both of his arms at his opponent as several blasters emerge from all sides of both arms, as well as a missile launcher on each of his shoulder. The transformed hero fires all his weapons at Vulkanus, continuing his assault with a hail of missiles, bullets and energy blasts.

While Vulkanus was still tanking it all as usual, this time, he's forced to block it with his arms as Upgrade was actually pushing him back this time. But Upgrade can see that his assault is barely doing anything to his foe's armor, and he's only able to push him back through the sheer force of his energy blasts and explosions. The bullets were practically useless as they just bounce right off his armor.

Ben was beginning to think he chose the wrong 'alien' for this. He thought he could take advantage of fighting a bunch of weapon dealers by using all their weapons against, but he was not prepared for their boss to be built like a war bunker. He needs a plan... and fast!

But before he can think of such a plan...

"Hey. Nice armor."

Vulkanus hears someone behind him but as he turns his head, all he sees is a metal ball striking him in the face and knocking him to a bunch of crates again.

Upgrade had to stop firing as he sees that the one responsible for his opponent getting smacked like that...

...is none other than Kevin, and now, he's clad in the same material as Vulkanus' armor. The same armor that's been giving Upgrade so much trouble. His right hand has even been turned into that metal ball he used to punch Vulkanus with.

The transformed boy could blink if he could, but his biology won't allow his singular eye to do so, so all he could do is ask, "Kevin? What're you—"

"Save it." Kevin interrupts him, though as he approaches Upgrade and stands with him. "... Look, I owe ya, okay?"

"Owe me?" Upgrade asks him.

Kevin nods before sighing. "I was getting reckless in the arena. I was so desperate to win that I resorted to a dangerous tactic. You even warned me. If you hadn't beaten me down like that... I would have exploded... and probably killed my sister, my friends and a ton of other people. Then my mom would have been left alone, probably never even finding out his own kid killed so many people just because he wanted her to have a better life."

Upgrade — or rather, Ben — hears his new acquaintance's words. All this time, he just thought Kevin did not regret what happened. He genuinely thought he was just out for blood. But it seems there's more to him than he thought. A side of this story he's not yet heard. But his words hit close to home for him, considering what this journey he's set out for is meant for.

I guess in the end, some people truly have to do some bad, or worse, things for the ones they love. And that includes himself and Kevin, especially during their skirmishes in the tournament.

With a slight chuckle, Upgrade nods to the metal coated boy. "Then I guess we're beating Vulkanus together." He says, transforming his hands into multiple guns.

"Good. Been wanting a piece of this guy for what he did to Pine and Fang's mom." Kevin responds, turning his non-transformed hand into a big hammer head.

As if on cue to their words, Vulkanus emerges from where he crashed after Kevin's sneak attack. While he's already angry from being assaulted like that, he feels something wet trickle down his toothy mouth. He places a hand on where he felt it and sees a blue liquid coming from the inside of his mouth.

"You hurt me... You made me bleed!" Vulkanus growls at Kevin, spitting out his blue blood with every word, with the Noxian boy just smirking at his whining.

"Look at that. His own armor is effective against him." Kevin points out while simultaneously mocking their bleeding foe.

Upgrade nods. If only he had the ability to show that he's smiling at this revelation. "Then I'll blast him and keep him on his toes. You break his armor!" Upgrade formulates the plan.

"You won't get the chance!" Vulkanus roars as he aims his blaster at his opponents and fires another stream of flame, but this was easily blocked by Kevin as he steps between the Detrovite and the Galvanic Mechamorph. He doesn't even feel any warmth from this fire, which further proves Vulkanus' armor is made of extremely heat resistant metal.

While Kevin is literally taking all the heat, Upgrade takes this chance to activate some boosters beneath his feet as he flies into the air and starts pelting Vulkanus again with a barrage of missiles and energy blasts.

This irritates the Detrovite as the blasts from above force him to block it all, leaving himself open for Kevin to sprint forward and slam his metal ball hand into Vulkanus' chest, creating a crack on his armor. The force of Kevin's punch was so great, it sends miniature shockwaves all over Vulkanus' body that he feels it all, even underneath all his protection that he almost puked out his own blood.

Kevin follows this up with a powerful uppercut with hammer hand, striking Vulkanus from his chin and sending up into the air, long enough for Upgrade to swoop in and grab their foe by his hands, flying further into the air, as high up as he can.

Then, Vulkanus still in his grasp, Upgrade turns the opposite direction as he rapidly descends towards the ground like he's delivering a piledriver. The Galvanic Mechamorph then slams Vulkanus' head into the ground so hard, he actually buries his entire cranium under the floor.

With Vulkanus' head pinned, Kevin then does a powerful dropkick into that same chest area where he cracked Vulkanus' armor. The force of his kick splinters apart the armor on the Detrovite before sending him flying into a wall. "Now, Tennyson!" Kevin yells out to his alien ally.

Seeing the big alien's armor broken and vulnerable now, Upgrade merges both his arms and hands and finally fuses every single weapon he has on his armored form, creating a gigantic cannon powered by Hex crystals. With one last charge up, Upgrade fires the cannon with max power, unleashing a gigantic, bright blue beam of pure magical energy that heads straight towards Vulkanus.

The Detrovite is unable to do anything, his entire body pinned into that wall as he watches that incoming beam of light in horror coming for him.

In mere seconds, the beam completely engulfs Vulkanus as his scream is drowned out by the loud blast of energy from the transformed hero.

The beam was so big and so strong, it keeps going past Vulkanus and the now obliterated wall behind him, passing through the rest of the abandoned mill's ceiling and into the sky itself.

Upgrade's blast eventually grows smaller and smaller until finally dying down. The barrel of his giant cannon hisses and smokes before he unmerges with it, alongside all his weapons and armor, returning to his regular, unarmored alien self again. All the weapons he upgraded and combined with all flop on the floor, broken from his overuse and constant cycling and merging with them.

Kevin looks at all the broken weapons and comically sighs. "I thought you'd leave behind a pretty piece of high tech armor once you 'blorp' yourself off of them." He comments.

"I didn't want anyone getting their hands on that, so I purposely burned them all out so they'd be useless even after I've turned back to human form." Upgrade responds to him.

But then the sound of groaning catches their attention, and both turn to see that Vulkanus had miraculously survived that blast... but has also lost most of armor, leaving only the lower half of it as his chest and arms are now exposed. There aren't even burn marks on it, though, and is mostly filled with scars everywhere. Still, it doesn't look like he'll be ready for a fight any time soon. He's even lost his blaster, which Upgrade must've obliterated in the blast.

"Damn. He's still kicking?" Kevin asks.

Upgrade nods. "Yeah. I didn't wanna kill him. Just heavily incapacitate. I am surprised he doesn't even have burns on him, though. I guess his alien race really is completely heat proof."

"...Did you just he's an alien?" Kevin blinks at the Galvanic Mechamorph.

"Long story." Upgrade replies to him. "I'll fill you in later."

"You won't get the chance!"

Suddenly, Vulkanus gets back up like nothing happened to him and charges towards both Upgrade and Kevin and clotheslines them both, knocking them on their backs. But Vulkanus kept going and running until he reaches the nearest, small box of Hex crystals, as well as a nearby crate of Hextech weapons. "Once I gather my guards, I'll be hunting you all down until each and every one of you are dead! Starting with you, Omnitrix user!" Vulkanus threatens them before sprinting away to the nearest exit.

Upgrade was about to stretch his arm out to grab the Detrovite weapons dealer, but then he hears that familiar but aggravating beeping from his Omnitrix symbol before it flashes red and he turns back into human form.

"Ah man! Quick, stop him!" Ben yells to Kevin, who looks around for anything to throw at Vulkanus, as the big guy's surprising speed has managed to let him widen the gap between them.

In a panic, Kevin instead grabs one of the broken Hextech rifles Upgrade dropped and throws it at Vulkanus like a javelin. His aim, though, like Ben told him before, was sloppy, so Kevin instead lodges the rifle into the small box of Hex crystals in Vulkanus hand.

Kevin shrugs as Ben gives him a look that says 'What was that throw?!', not really able to respond to the Piltovan boy.

But things go from bad to worse when that broken Hextech rifle sparks up from the Hex Gemstone within it. These magical sparks then start affecting what little Hex crystals are in that box that Vulkanus has in his possession as they all begin to light up.

And this is something Ben knows exactly what is happening. "They're going to blow... It's gonna blow!" Ben yells out.

So loud, in fact, that even Samira and Ester, who had just beaten their opponents, hear him. They both then sprint towards the exit after hearing Ben's loud warning. Samira even takes the time to grab Ester into her arms.

Kevin does the same, grabbing Ben by his back and runs to the nearest exit he could find. "Vulkanus! Let those crystals go! They're going to explode!" Ben tries to yell to the Detrovite in vain.

"Hah! Like I'd fall for that, you stupid little—" Vulkanus tries to retort...

...but he could not even finish his sentence before the Hex crystals all charge up, overload, grow bright...

AND EXPLODE!

Kevin and Ben dive out the exit they were heading for and take cover behind some big boulders as a bright blue explosion completely annihilates a majority of the lumber mill.

The ground shook and the trees surrounding the mill all almost topple over from the power of that blast, it's mushroom shaped cloud even visible from very far away. Folks who could see it are all horrified what could have caused this.

But no one is more horrified than Ben, who peeks from behind their cover as soon as the blast had finally weakened while the smoke from it continues to rise. "Is... Is he...?" Ben mutters, wondering about Vulkanus.

"He was in the middle of that explosion. I don't think he made it, man." Kevin responds. "Guess you were right... I really could have killed everyone in that arena..."

Ben just sighs, seeing what's little left of the lumber mill, with a huge crater with blue smoke and flames in the middle of it all.

Soon, Ester, Nyancy, Miel, Lani, Samira, Pine, Fang and their mother rejoin with Ben and Kevin.

Ester immediately sees the sorrow in Ben's face and runs up to him. She holds his hand, trying to reassure him. She gets a response when Ben holds her hand back, tight, as he clings onto her for comfort, both metaphorically and physically.

Ben keeps his stare at the mill, though, as it slowly catches fire.

For a brief moment, in his rage and sorrow...

...his eyes turn blue again, before turning back to it's regular green hue.

---

The group has gathered together and decide to head back to the arena a bit to cool down from all that commotion. They had to say goodbye to Pine, Fang and their mother after that rescue mission was a success, with the family thanking them for this. Ester questioned in her head how a human woman had Vastaya children of different types, considering from what she heard from Miel and Lani, Pine and Fang only had one father. Perhaps they're adopted?

It didn't matter though because she never got to ask them. Still, everyone's tired from that mess at the mill and could really use some drinks and maybe a bed. Nyancy even told the Noxians she'll vouch for them inside so they can rest there, but the Noxians insist they should be leaving soon. This whole mess did not get them anything at all.

But, once they're at the cave's entrance, Ben suddenly halts them all.

"So... Kevin told me that... you guys are working this world tour of smithing and selling weapons, all for your mom, right?" Ben asks Miel.

"Y-Yeah. Why are you bringing this up now?" Miel replies, asking a question back.

"Well, during all the fighting back at the mill... I managed to recover this." Ben tells her.

Before he pulls out that familiar, red bag of coins from his own, bigger bag. Much to Ester's dismay, even groaning to herself, Ben tosses the bag to Kevin as he catches it in his hand. "You can have it. It's got enough to get your mom outta Noxus and maybe buy some Hex crystals from a more legitimate Piltover trade market somewhere here. You know, for your job." Ben tells them all.

"Wait, how did you know about that last part?" Samira asks.

"Oh, Kevin told me about that too." Ben replies to her.

The Noxian ladies all just stare at Kevin, who just shrugs at them, though he does give a nervous smile. "Look, I talk when I'm tired, okay?" He tries to excuse himself. Ben, Ester and even Nyancy laugh at him for that.

When they finally stop giving him a stink eye, the Noxian women all look back towards Ben, with Miel saying, "Are you sure you're okay with this? You won this fair and square."

"Yeah. And since it's mine, then I decided that I'll give it to you. You guys will need it more than I do." Ben tells her, giving her a smile.

Ester, though, comically mutters to herself, "But I want it more than they do..."

The Yordle gunslinger gets completely ignored as all of a sudden, Lani jumps towards Ben and gives him a big, tight hug. That immaculate strength of hers is now felt by Ben as Lani's hug almost feels suffocating. This is the second painful hug he's had today. "Oh thank you so much! This means so much to us! Kevin and Miel's mom is so sweet and supportive and I've always wanted to return her kindness!" Lani tells Ben, who can only grunt and breathe hard. She eventually lets him go as she giggles, with Ben coughing from finally being free.

"Well great. Now I owe you again, Tennyson. You're just a constant source of trouble for me now." Kevin says, but he does not mean any of it as he just smiles, with Ben even nodding to him back. "...Thanks, man. We'll pay you back some day." Kevin says, this time, much more serious and softly spoken.

"Don't worry about it. Go make your mom happy." Ben nods to them.

Miel, Kevin and Lani all nod to the Piltovan boy and begin to leave. "You coming, Samira?" Lani asks the huntress.

"Nah, I'm gonna stick around for a bit. I need a drink. You guys go ahead and complete the job. Celebrate your victory and be excite for your mama. She'll be happy to see you." Samira tells her friends, giving them all a wink with her only eye.

"Alright. Don't spend all your money in one place!" Miel tells her as she, her brother and girlfriend wave goodbye to everyone else.

Before they fully leave, though, Kevin turns around for a moment and looks towards Ben. "Hey, Tennyson."

"Yeah?" Ben yells back.

"I want a rematch someday. No Hextech stuff from me. I'll train, and beat you this time!" says Kevin.

After chuckling, he then declares his new rivalry, a much friendlier one, with the Noxian boy, responding to him by saying, "Then I look forward to it!"

Once they've exchanged their words, Kevin and his lady companions finally leave, leaving behind Ben, Ester, Samira and Nyancy.

Nyancy stretches her back and arms out for a moment before yawning as the night sky has fully darkened above them. "Welp, that's enough action for me today. I'm gonna go get a drink. And maybe something to patch the wound on my hand." Nyancy tells her companions.

"Yeah, I'm done for the night. I'll watch Ben's match with Kolo then I'm sleeping." Ester adds too, yawning as well.

When Ben heard Ester's words though, he smacks himself in the head, exclaiming, "Oh man! My fight with Kolo! I completely forgot! Okay, I better head in there!"

Ben was about to do exactly that... until...

"BEN!"

Ben, Ester, Samira and Nyancy two voices speak the boy's name in unison. Ben turns away from the cave to face whoever spoke...

...only to be shocked when both Akali AND Jun are running towards him. "Wait, Akali? Jun?" He says as they approach.

Both women then suddenly grab his hands, with Akali on Ben's right hand and Jun on his left. The two of them then speak at the same time, telling Ben, "You need to come with me!"

"Wait..." Akali says, confused that Jun said the same thing as her.

"...What?" escapes Jun's lips too, also confused that Akali spoke in unison with her.

Ben just blinks, just as confused as, if not moreso than, the girls holding his hands. This amuses both Samira and Ester as they watch a young man having his hand held by young women his age. "Ooooh, drama!" says Samira, with Ester laughing after she said so.

"Wait, you two aren't working together?" Ben asks both Akali and Jun.

The two green clad girls before the green clad boy shake their heads. "I've never met her." Akali responds, pointing at Jun. "No offense."

"None taken. I have never met you before either." Jun responds in kind. "Ben, it's about your father. My master wishes to speak with you."

This completely capture Ben's attention, his eye wide and staring directly into Jun's own. "Wait, my father?!" He asks

"Well, sorry, but I need to speak with him first." Akali interjects.

Jun blinks, but then smiles. "Oh, in that case, you may speak to him first. There is no rush, but my master, Yi, is eager to speak with you, Ben."

"...Oh, you're just gonna... let me talk to... Okay then." Akali mutters, not expecting Jun to be cooperative.

"Wait, but... Akali..." Ben tries to speak.

"It'll just be quick, I promise. I just... I just need you to—" Akali attempts to talk...

...until the sound of fighting interrupts them. The whole group all turn around to see several figures approaching the cave, their silhouettes hidden by the darkness of the night.

Akali and Jun both let go of Ben's hand as the two women draw their weapons. Ben stand between them, his face going from confusion to battle ready, hovering his hand above his Omnitrix.

Ester moves over to Akali's side, guns drawn. Samira and Nyancy are behind the four of them, but nonetheless enter battle stances too, with the one eyed huntress drawing her blade and Nyancy baring her claws.

As the figures drew closer, the light of the campfires and torches nearby finally show who they are: a bunch of those same fish and shark men and women that worked with and for Jonah.

But the one leading this new group at the very front of them really caught Ben's attention the most...

...and it was none other than Jack himself, standing tall, his muscles bulging from his chest and biceps while his tophat sits comfortably atop his head.

Jack puts on some knuckle dusters on each of his hands while popping his neck as he stares down Ben and his team, as well as some of the guards of the cave arena, working for Sett.

"So..." Jack speaks in his thick accent and deep voice. He snorts, snarls then clacks both his knuckles into one another to create the sound of metal ringing as he stares down his new opponents.

"...who do I have to kill around here for an invitation, huh?"

---

TO BE CONTINUED...

---

ENDING NOTES: Done at last! Wooooooooo! Surprise! This was an extra long chapter just for you guys, as a special gift this season!

This was supposed to be finished before November, but real life kinda took over for a while and I had to put it on hold, but it was perfect timing because Arcane JUST finished too!

Now to address that first, how will Season 2 of Arcane affect this story? The truth is, not much. There will be some inspirations here and there, but it won't be affecting the rest of the plot for this fic. We've already deviated a lot from what was established in it, and we've also already said we're taking some creative liberties with League lore without completely overhauling a large majority of it. I mean, Caitlyn does not have an eyepatch in this story and Jayce is still around, so we can't change it now!

But for this chapter, oh man! We finally got Kevin! Hooray! But we also just lost him (not in a deadly way), but don't worry! He'll be back someday, together with Miel and Lani (who are actually the Adroit Artificer and Daring Demolisher from Legends of Runeterra)!

Samira, though, will be here with us for at least another chapter, so we'll get to see her kick more butt stylishly, since this chapter was focused mostly on Ben and Kevin's characters. Next one, we'll see more Samira AND Sett action, now that Jack is here!

But the big wham reveal: aliens DO exist! And you thought we'd just turn everyone into Runeterra races! How silly! XD

And with Vulkanus here (for a bit... unless you know the lore of Omniverse and what happened to him :3), we now get one of our first shakes to the plot — the potential of more aliens showing up! And since I also established but changed Kraab/Kra'ab as a human instead, then that should also tell that some Ben 10 characters will remain aliens while others will be changed, mostly to fit the story we're telling more!

Finally, we also get to call the Omnitrix it's name now! I'm also tired of referring to it as just "the watch" so I'm glad we got this out of the way! Hehe!

Anyway, I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and look forward to part 2 of it! As always, feel free to leave comments and critics, but remain civil and we can learn from it! Hope you all have a wonderful time this year!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!