The man stared at the crumbling surface of Promenade, the abandoned city that served as Zaun's surface level.
In the distance, two enforcers sporting bronze-accented, full-body armour faced the lonely city ahead, guarding one of the few bridges that connected the opposing sides of the Pilt River.
Without wasting another breath, the man sprang into action, stepping off the street's towering rooftop and falling to the pavement below.
He sprinted through the dim shadows cast by the city's weakly lit streetlamps, the sides of his long, dark, unbuttoned coat fluttering behind him in the opposing wind.
The man's mind was ablaze with thought, working to recall all of the different possible routes into the Undercity.
Some of them might not even apply to this time period—perhaps no longer viable—or more accurately, not yet built.
But it was of no matter. He would find a way—conventional or not.
As the man approached the bridge, he became acutely aware of how much further he could travel before the sound of his darting footsteps reached the duo of enforcers.
The thick helmets they wore may have dimmed their sense of hearing a tad, but it was not nearly enough to allow the man to slip by unnoticed—even with his superhuman speed.
Not unless—per se—there was something distracting them.
Some improvisation was in order.
The man mulled over the potential consequences of his current course of action, ultimately deciding that nothing great could possibly come of it.
Two uneducated witnesses could never understand the gravity of what he was about to reveal—least of all at such an early point in the timeline.
As he ran toward the bridge's entrance, the man reached beneath his coat and into the depths of one of his jacket's many inner pockets.
He pulled out a small hunk of crudely painted metal, spinning it between his fingers deftly until the item was positioned where it needed to be.
The man's armoured finger slotted through a poorly made safety pin, the rest of the makeshift grenade now secured firmly within his palm.
One of the enforcers stiffened, slowly beginning to turn around—no doubt finally alerted to the masked figure's speedy approach.
In response, the dark figure lifted his forefinger away from the grenade, pulling its pin before lobbing the handmade explosive forward.
It soared into the cold, open air above the bridge with practised accuracy.
Mere half-seconds after confirming his aim was true, the man darted into the deeper shadows lining the street, pressing himself up against its grey stone walls in an attempt to hide from the enforcer's scanning gaze.
The teeth of the grenade chattered in a loud, deadly countdown; jagged, uneven shards of metal clamping together in a grating, deathly bite.
One second passed.
The item soared over the enforcers' heads—past the bridge and through the cold winter air above the river below.
The man stalled with bated breath.
His Liege's inventions were incredibly effective, it was true—especially for items which were crafted from nothing but scrap.
This didn't make them any less temperamental than the material they were assembled from, however. There was always the slimmest chance that they never went off.
The designs she had passed on to him were faulty at best, and thoroughly flawed at worst—drawn with the intent to nurture his own ingenuity by encouraging him to spot and solve the many problems she had left behind.
Two seconds passed.
The man knew his creation was sound; knew it hadn't a single hope of being faulty—but still, he fretted.
The man began to hope this wasn't one of those times.
Three seconds passed.
Then the grenade detonated; its payload billowing outward, filling the surrounding air with a thick blue smoke.
The enforcer who hadn't turned cried out in surprise, alerting his suspicious colleague to the gigantic, blue-coloured smokescreen that had appeared out of thin air.
The duo ran onto the bridge and stopped just beside its railing, staring in alarm at the sizeable cloud that was already beginning to sink downward into the river below.
The dark figure launched forward from his hiding place, making a beeline for the now unguarded bridge.
His heavy metal boots clinked against the stony ground in a quiet, steady rhythm.
The man vaulted the metal barrier that separated Piltover from Promenade.
Another brief half-second and he would be where he needed to be.
The dark figure streaked across the bridge at a blinding speed, clearing its entire lengthy span within seconds.
He then weaved through Promenade's dilapidated buildings with an instinct borne of experience, en route to his preferred entrance into the Undercity.
There—a large, gaping sinkhole that stood within a remote town square. That was his destination.
The man reached its crumbling edge and jumped straight in, falling into the abyssal chasm below.
He gazed downward, staring at the interconnected web of miniature greenish lights that were located far, far below him.
His violet eyes gleamed, enhanced vision scanning the surface of the subterranean city he was falling toward.
The odd, layered network of piping and scrappy-looking buildings were illuminated by an earthy glow—courtesy of the naturally glowing fungi which grew within Zaun's cavernous tunnel systems.
The Undercity's inhabitants had long since taken advantage of the luminescent plant and used it to light their streets and homes, growing it in excess for usage within their underground city.
The man could have righted himself on any of the jagged, protruding supports he passed by on his way down, but he chose not to—instead twisting mid-air to avoid them.
His final destination would be the same regardless of the speed of his descent. Caution now would only serve to slow him down.
Such a meagre fall could not hope to cause him harm. Not anymore.
The man's coat billowed in the upward draft, revealing a worn-looking set of bulky, high-topped mechanical boots.
The footwear's originally bronze surface had been painted over badly, now coloured a scrappy, matte black.
The man readied for landing, his movements promoting jets of hot steam to blow out from the vents lining the armour's sides. His footwear hissed loudly, the subtle noise lost in the throes of his rapid descent.
The man soared downwards, flipping over and over midair as he blitzed past the depths of Promenade at a near-suicidal velocity.
His destination was the Entresol level—the beating heart of Zaun, located within the largest cavern of the underground.
The ground caught up with the man—hard—breaking him from his momentary reflection.
The inner layer of his Hextech armament brimmed with a potent, magical energy. The iridescent blue lightning arced beneath the thin lines of glass lining his footwear's sides.
Upon contact with the ground, this energy burst downward, liquefying the earth beneath him into a molten, earthy slop.
Droplets of superheated slag splattered upwards, burning holes through the tip of his dark coat.
The man's knees did not buckle under his fierce landing—even after falling a few hundred metres to get there.
The noise of his arrival echoed loudly across the surrounding area.
Yells of confusion, followed by a colourful series of cries resounded from all around him.
Most, if not all of the shouted complaints, were concerning the noise the man had made with his heavy landing.
It seemed this place was no longer deserted—or more accurately, was not deserted yet.
The man sighed.
Maybe a slightly more soft-footed approach would have been a wiser choice of arrival. His urgent haste to arrive here was, perhaps, a little too impulsive.
The man straightened up, instantly noting that his hood had fallen askew due to his fall.
It was now draped across his back, no longer obscuring the sight of his masked face.
The man reached up, combing his short, dark blue hair back into place where it had fallen awry from his fall.
He pulled his hood up once more, carefully tucking the few remaining strands back beneath its now shadowed confines.
Then he buttoned up his dark coat, threading each button through its designated hole with a slow and careful precision.
Only then did the dark figure begin to move once more; sparing a singular unreadable glance back at the deep web of cracks and cooling lava his entrance had left behind.
The man trudged through the ruined outskirts of Entresol; passing by many a makeshift house and shoddily made shelter during his slow-paced journey onward.
The structures lining the Outskirts' winding streets looked primitive, cobbled together from scrap and stone with no real plan in mind during their creation.
This area of the city looked pathetic—barely more than a slum—especially when compared to the grand, well-made architecture of Piltover.
A sudden, unnatural haze flickered over the man's vision, halting him mid-stride.
It was a memory—perhaps triggered by the familiar environment surrounding him.
The man's mind dulled, giving in to his vision of the past..
He remembered this place—This very street.
The stony ruins in his memory looked much the same as they did now—their dirty bricks stained a sickly yellow-green.
Dozens of fresh corpses lined both sides of the cobbled street; blackened blood dripping from their every orifice.
Another haze—pinkish this time—and far worse than the last.
The man stared ahead through the eyeholes of a dusty, mechanical mask. Ahead at a small, unmasked figure, slumping backwards in a short-backed chair.
The man's breath subconsciously quickened.
The pinkish haze vanished.
It was a living nightmare. His living nightmare.
And it would not happen again.
The man's eyes flashed briefly, glittering a malicious, hot pink beneath his shadowed hood.
The burning colour quickly faded back to a dull, unmoving violet.
The man's resolve burned.
He would revise this terrible future—and the greater tragedies that would follow after it.
His very existence in this timeline was proof of their progress—of their city's fighting chance at redemption.
He would make sure that this time around—they won. Utterly.
So that this time around, his comrades' sacrifices were not made in vain.
He would accomplish this. For them. At any cost.
The current council of Piltover would fall, along with every single member of that accursed house Kiramman before it was too late.
Before they were tempted into abusing the power that their lineage had held so tightly to their chest.
The man was pulled from his brooding as several armed Zaunites slowly emerged from the surrounding structures, quietly grouping up around him in a clear encirclement.
The man's eyes glinted.
Every single one of them was substantially taller than he was—not that it would matter.
Their height would not save them if they made the mistake of provoking his ire with an attack.
The man had no misconceptions about what was to come if a group in the Outskirts ganged up on you.
He had grown up walking these very streets, after all.
The man readied his hands, his first two fingers poised outward within his coat pockets, concealed from view.
The razor-sharp armour covering his fingertips would deal with the first. Then they would make quick, vicious work of the rest that would follow.
He would not require the assistance of his hextech armament for a matter so trivial.
"The fuck was all that noise about, huh?"
One of the taller men had spoken, pointing an accusing finger in his direction, grasping a crudely fashioned machete in one loose hand.
"No, wait… Who are you? I haven't seen you around here before."
He stepped forward, slinging a muscled arm around the cloaked figure's shoulder.
"You wouldn't happen to be a topsider, would you?" the man sneered, leering down at the short stranger threateningly.
The masked man did not oppose the invasion of his personal space, a far less violent response than what he would have normally opted for.
Instead, he turned his head toward the thug's own and allowed for shimmer's inherent madness to take hold of his psyche.
The near-sentient drug dug its unforgiving claws into his growing irritancy, forcing the emotion into full bloom.
The unpleasant man leered down at him, his eyes glinting with a visible greed.
The thug's desire was unsightly.
He was their saviour.
The ignorant masses that this foolish man was a part of were unimportant.
A simple, useless addition to his already cramped ark.
People like this should be on their knees—professing their undying gratitude toward him for his kindness. For his mercy in allowing them to exist in his mistress's utopia.
Instead, they leered at him.
The thug instantly recoiled, stumbling backwards in terror.
The stranger's eyes burned with an inconceivable malice—glowing an uncanny pink beneath his dark, shadowed hood.
It was the colour of rage. Of a deranged, genetic madness that would never truly settle.
The stranger opened his mouth to speak, his voice laced with an underlying, unbridled malevolence.
None of them could mistake his wrath.
"I am no topsider." he spat, his words powerfully slow.
This was their first and final warning.
The group flinched at his declaration, each member taking a step backwards, unanimous in their sudden trepidation.
The stranger's fury was honest. Primal. Oppressive.
And yet it still felt restrained. Like a beast shackled within thick iron chains.
"R-right, and the noise?" the tall thug stuttered.
The stranger, once appearing like an easy target for a mugging, didn't seem so small anymore.
The thug watched as a pair of uncanny, glowing eyes slowly rolled toward him.
A terrifying pressure bore down on him.
He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even think.
The thug swallowed hard, averting his trembling eyes from the stranger's own—cowering away from his predatory stare.
His words were a shoddy attempt to save face—ruined by his uncontrollable stuttering. He regretted ever saying them.
"That is none of your concern." the stranger answered; daring the thug to challenge his answer—to see what would happen if he were pushed any further.
"I s-see," he mumbled in reply. "Well—on your way then."
The thug motioned the man forward, quickly gesturing for his group to break the encirclement—an order which they were more than willing to follow.
The stranger paused, lacing each uneasy-looking individual with a final, penetrating stare before continuing on down the dirty, dimly lit street.
As the man walked forward, he caught wind of the group converging where he had once stood.
The man's ears picked up a quiet, shaky whisper of, "Fuckin' psycho." before turning the street corner and leaving the group far behind him.
The corner of his lip curled upward in an unconscious amusement.
Then the shimmer-induced sentiment died, pressed firmly beneath the boot of his will—crushed back into the recesses of his mind.
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