Tyrese
*starts dancing* I'm writing these in caffeine fueled insomnia nights, I don't even have the updates! HAH!
Ren hatori
At this point I just might. But as you can see, there are fan favorites from those who know more characters of League of Legends. Granted... I'm surprised to see Lux with no votes but Briar with two.
amavgupta0
"Always know that a crowd who applauds your coronation will be the same one that applauds your beheading. People like a show, and I plan to make them part of the episode." Naruto's response to this.
Paradoxity
Naruto and Cassandra have history. Cass knew Naruto's mother, and she owes the Uzumaki a debt that can only be repaid in equal value. Naruto knows that she is simply honorbound to him, as is stipulated by the magical blood pact she made with Naruto's mother, and Naruto simply does not trust that Cassandra is as willing as she lets on. He could be entirely wrong, as well, but he continues to threaten to make sure she listens. Also, I forgot about Shyvanna when going through the list but I also know that the average person wouldn't know or vote for her lmao
Here's the poll results (those with votes) for right now:
Kindred: 5
Ahri: 4
Caitlyn: 3
Evelynn: 3
Akali: 2
Briar: 2
Gwen: 2
Jinx: 2
Mel: 2
Poppy: 2
Fortune: 2
Vi: 2
Aurora: 1
Fiora: 1
Irelia: 1
Kai'sa: 1
Katarina: 1
LeBlanc: 1
Morgana: 1
Rell: 1
Tristana: 1
I will not be taking reviews as consideration unless it isn't on the list so if you really want your choice heard vote on the poll on my profile.
Some of y'all really are as weird as me. How does Lamb, the literal embodiment of (peaceful) Death, become the most voted for character? Ahri was one less vote throughout the whole poll as of right now (03:41 11/27/2024). I dig it, was expecting a yordle more than Kindred tbh, and frankly I can work with the top four.
You are also very mean. Didn't like just having four pairings? Cuz here's the thing. If Cait ended up in the top four, she and Vi are such a cute couple that I would not have left Vi out. But until recently Vi did not even have any votes and Jinx was (until five hours ago) in the top 4 and that meant I either do not let Vi be part of it or not let Jinx. That seems to have worked out for now at least lmao
I'm only at episode four of Arcane so far and I already have some ideas. Gotta rewatch it again to make sure I get some things right but yeah.
Currently, the polls make the pairing this: Naruto x Lamb x Ahri x Caitlyn x Vi x Evelynn
PS: Fuck Caitlyn in act three. Always a Jinx supporter.
PSS: Hey Cait x Vi fans, how did it feel watching episode four? I gotta say, I didn't realize we were dealing with WHORES
Naruto: Cassandra! Get out here?
Cass: What is it, Naruto?
N: I didn't realize I was raising a WHORE!
C: What are you talking about?
N: Caitlyn had an argument with Vi and decided she was going to sleep with that Noxian agent in her squad! Your daughter is a whore!
C: Stop calling her that!
N: Tell her to stop having Ho Behavior(TM) then!
IV
"Sir?"
Naruto hummed with a light smile on his lips when he heard one of his foxes approach him. "Yes? What is it?"
"That lady from the bar, Sevika, and her crew have come looking for you."
Naruto paused at the statement and glanced at the clock on his table. Only three hours later. That's faster than I thought.
With a smile, he pushed himself out of his chair where he was writing magical runes he had been seeing in his dreams. They were fuzzy and the lines were probably incorrect but that was nothing new. He could never keep the dreams long enough to where he could remember each of them and every new dream brought newer runes with few recurring ones.
It was like learning another language but there were no natives, no written alphabet, and he was left with little time to hear the words. He was going in blind and hoping for the best.
With a sigh, he entered the entrance of his home - if you could call it a home. Underneath the lowest levels of Zaun are old sewer systems and catacombs that are left deserted and unused. In those he has made it his home where he and his foxes can work and relax in private.
In the room with his foxes staring at the group of fourteen strangers, he found Sevika and a large portion of the people from the Last Drop. He was sure some of these people were not part of Sevika's crew and are here simply out of aligning goals.
What goals could that be, he wondered.
"How did you find this place," Naruto called out as he approached them with a few soldiers behind him. "It ain't exactly easy to get down here, and you have to go through a labyrinth before finding any sign of our occupation."
Sevika watched the boy stop ten feet away from her as she was at the front of the group that tagged along with her. "Your foxes heard us talking about finding you and joining you."
Naruto raised an eyebrow at that before calling out, "who brought them here?"
"I did, sir," a fox to his right bowed his head when he answered. "I was listening and found them worth your time. I teleported them here, they don't know the way in or out."
Naruto nodded his head, glad that the fox didn't make the mistake of just guiding them here. That would never have ended well since even if they seem like they could be recruited there was still the question of loyalty. Anyone can say they'll support a cause, but there are plenty of examples where there is betrayal because there wasn't true loyalty.
"So, what, you want to become one of my foxes," Naruto waved his hand to his soldiers.
"You are against the Enforcers?" Sevika's question sounded like a demand, getting a silent nod from Naruto. "We will follow your lead so long as you show that you can lead us better than Vander."
Naruto cocked an eyebrow at her words. "And why would I want any of you? I have my soldiers and they're pretty good at doing their job. They believe in a crusade they haven't heard of because they believe in me."
Naruto leaned forward to look at the woman, deep into her eyes. Despite being many years her Junior, shorter than her by half a foot, he still felt bigger. He felt better than any of these adults that say they will follow him.
"None of you can offer that, can you?" His words are a whisper as he gauges the woman's reaction. "Can you offer me everything? Your constant obedience without sacrificing your free mind and will? Can you trust in my plan without being made aware of any of the details? Will you die for me, willingly?"
Sevika looked down at the boy's face and saw something that made her excited. She didn't see any cockiness that would have made her feel disgusted, but there was only demand. Demand for an answer to test how far she is willing to go.
That made her think. Is she willing to follow this boy? Is she willing to do everything he said in the hopes that his cause would achieve what she wanted?
She wouldn't go back to seeking out Vander's ear as that man has shown that he does not wish to fight back. And with everything that happened earlier, he was clearly working with the enforcers. He wasn't someone they could trust anymore.
But this boy? He had that gleam in his eye. He had the guile, the grit, to stand against the Pilties that walk into their streets and push them around. To actually die for him? That may remain to be seen.
"If you show that your cause, even unspoken, is worth dying for, then I would accept the Wolf with a smile on my face."
Naruto grinned at her words, and the agreements of the men and women with her, and he truly believed her. But there was always a matter of a test.
"Good. Then I have an assignment for you all to take care of until I can trust you into my ranks. Consider it a test to show that you mean your words."
Time to ignite the gunpowder.
Grayson scowled at the burnt wood under her feet, the blackened dust coating her otherwise pristine boots. She now stood in what used to be her office; used to be because it was not nothing but a destroyed mess.
"The explosive device was addressed to you and passed our standard check procedures," Marcus listed from the report in his hands. "They checked inside and found some baubles and small toys. They assumed it was some delivery that you've ordered for your grandkids."
"So it was a deliberate attack," Grayson surmised as she picked up a ruined picture of her and her late husband.
"Turns out, the glue of the package was an explosive paste while some of the fibers lining the box was a treated flammable twine. There was no timing device attached so it had to be detonated manually."
Grayson sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. It was a good thing she was out talking to some contacts for the penthouse explosion. But the others that were inside the offices were not so lucky.
"Injury report?"
"Three dead, fourteen injured," Marcus answered as he lifted the first few sheets. "Two in critical, five severe, and the rest are good to be discharged within a few days."
"Jeez," Grayson muttered before turning around to leave the room. "Do we know who sent it? Has the courier been questioned?"
"The deliverer was found and he has no ties to who sent it, only stating that he was paid a full lump sum by a man in a porcelain mask in the design of a fox."
She stopped walking at that and turned on her heel to stare her officer down with a glare. "Repeat that! Who gave the package?"
"A man in a fox-like porcelain mask," Marcus repeated shakily, surprised by the sudden anger of the sheriff. "Do you know who it is?"
Grayson's narrowed eyes drifted down in thought, her gut sinking as she realized what this all meant. It can't be.
"Marcus, you know how the Zaunites rioted and were trying to cross the bridge into Piltover, and we have always called it a resoundingly successful operation. That is because of three main reasons."
"One, we had repelled the rioters back to the Lanes and the undercity. They did not make it to the streets where our citizens were and we contained it all on the bridge. That alone would have warranted it a success."
"The second success is the death of the Sage that lived in the depths of Zaun," Grayson noticed the furrowed brows of the man and nodded her head. "It is news to you but it was a major concern for the council when they heard of a woman rumored to be using magic. She had only been heard to be using it to heal and for farsight but the Ethos have made it clear that all magic is dangerous."
"We killed her on assumptions?" Marcus questioned, feeling oddly disturbed by that fact despite having been open and willing to go through with much worse things.
"She was one of the ones marching on the bridge when we decided to use lethal action," Grayson's voice was monotonous as she remembered watching it all.
At first it was a line of Enforcers shooting when the Zaunite rioters continued past a certain point. She had a high visual from her spot in one of the blockade towers and she could still hear the screams. She had found out after she gave the order that there were children among the rioters.
When it was time to clear the bridge, a quarter of the bodies were of children fifteen and younger.
"She had her son with her. The son of a witch. He was ten or eleven at the time and was there to help his mom heal and comfort the rioters. He had these whisker marks on his cheeks and the richest blue eyes that I have ever seen."
Marcus froze at her description and felt his mouth hang open in fear as he realized why he sounded so familiar. This is the very description of the young adult he ran into down in the undercity when he was looking for the terrorists.
So that's why he could punch a man's arm off, Marcus thought to himself before asking, "what was the third goal?"
"Create someone in Zaun who could keep them under control," Grayson answered after a moment. "We knew that without someone with the respect and pull needed to keep Zaun in check, another riot of that calibre will happen again and if it did we would not have been able to stop them."
That statement made Marcus confused and Grayson could see it and she scoffed.
"Tell me, do you know the population of Zaun and the population of Piltover?" Grayson got a head shake from the man. "Without going into numbers, Zaun outnumbers Piltover five to one; of that, they outnumber the Enforcers twelve to one. The moment they figure that out is the moment that we have a full war on our hands."
That brought a chill to Marcus' spine and he truly understood the sheriff's fear from the penthouse incident. Vander had suddenly become unwilling to sell out anyone in Zaun after that incident, and Marcus had a sinking suspicion that the man who contacted him was right. The kids responsible are protected by the Hound himself.
"So the foxes… are tied to the witch's son?"
"Naruto Uzumaki," Grayson told him with a nod. "We thought he died on that bridge with his mother but we had only been able to recover her body. She's currently buried in Glasco Burials."
"Is he also magical?"
Grayson immediately began laughing at his question, making him red in embarrassment. "Is he magical? Boy, he had more power in his pinky than his mother displayed on his bridge. He burned more of us than we killed of them. We told the public the burning on that bridge was from cocktails thrown by the rioters. The truth is that Naruto is the one who caused all of that."
"The moment we began throwing tear gas and shooting anyone that crossed the halfpoint of the bridge is the moment he showed his true colors." Grayson's voice drifted as she remembered the pillars of flame, the cries of the boy as he burned anything and everything in front of him. "His mother had been one of the ones shot, and we knew she was shot because she had screamed his name just before he began burning everything in sight. If not for the constant firing by our marksmen, I'm sure that he would have torn through our line and made a mess of everything."
She found that she and Marcus were standing outside the enforcers headquarters at the time she was talking to him. She lit a match and puffed on a cigarette before turning around to look at the destroyed building.
The fires from the explosive had burned for five hours, no amount of water being able to put it out, and it only stopped when daylight came. Thankfully no surrounding buildings had been caught in the blaze but the citizens were now buzzing with questions on what happened. Talks of sabotage from Zaun were already spreading around and she had no ability to stop it at this point.
If Naruto is alive, then that means that we have no choice but to face Zaun with as much aggression as possible. We can't give him time to whittle us down until we can be walked over.
Jayce looked out from the balcony of his ruined penthouse. It was barren now of all the work he had poured his life into. He will never get it back.
He looked down at the empty streets below. He imagined that he was high enough to end his life should he fall. It was a fifty or so foot drop. Quick enough to not doubt his decision.
I'm sorry, mom, Jayce thought as he closed his eyes and slowly leaned forward.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Jayce stumbled back, startled by the new voice, and whipped around to see Viktor walking towards him.
"Oh, don't mind me," Viktor waved his hand as he walked over to the table with Jayce's letter. "I'm just here to call the enforcers immediately after your fall. Can't have any of the citizens stumbling upon your body and causing a whole scene."
Jayce huffed as he breathed frantically, looking back over the edge as he realized just what he was about to go through with. He stumbled back to the wall and held his head. He tried to get his breathing under control but he was still frantic.
"I leave you alone for a few days and I find out that you are about to kill yourself. Pathetic."
Jayce looked up when he heard Naruto's cold voice speaking from the balcony, finding the young adult leaning against the rails. He had a scowl on his lips as he stared at him with flared nostrils, the skin on his arms glowing a faint orange and red hue, and he gripped his biceps tightly. He was clearly upset at Jayce for his hasty decision.
"You weren't there," Jayce defended himself as he felt tears come up. "They called our work dangerous, an abomination, and called me a monster for thinking I was above the Ethos. I never felt more humiliated in my life."
"So that gives you the right to take your life," Naruto growled out. "I made a deal with you, Jayce Talis! You help me research the arcane, find out what we can about it, and I get your work the recognition it deserves. You get a little bit of ridicule and think that you can just back out by killing yourself?"
Jayce looked up when he heard Naruto making his way to him, finding eerie orange eyes looking at him instead of the usual blue. He felt his heart stop as the magical energies appearing from the boy crackled and blew into the wind like embers from a fire.
"Your death would be a very brief respite, Jayce." Naruto told the man as he hovered over him like a dark shadow. "I would bring you back, rend you for your time promised to me, and you will have found out what I want. I do not back out of deals, and I don't allow others to do the same to me."
Naruto glanced at Viktor and noticed the book in his head; the same book that Jayce wrote all of his notes inside.
"What about you, sicky," Naruto pointed at the book in the assistant's hand. "What are you doing with Jayce's book?"
"Ah, this?" Viktor held up the notes to look at them. "I was curious about Jayce's work, but I'm more intrigued by your involvement, mister…?"
Naruto looked at the man's eyes and was silent for a few moments before he smiled and held out his hand. "Naruto Uzumaki. Arcane provider for Jayce's research."
The moment Viktor took Naruto's hand, he knew that this was the one he wanted. Jayce had ambition and tenacity, but there was something about this man that showed he could provide more. He would be more of a boon than Jayce ever could be in the future.
And that made him excited.