Legends of Runeterra

We raced through the streets of Zaun. Pipes and stained glass windows vanished into blurry afterimages, as if the gray haze and fog had been smeared with paint. Zori sat to my left, her hair tangled and clad in rusty daggers, but her smile hinted at a striking beauty beneath the grime. Behind her came Berunk, his spray gun filled with fluorescent paint and his mind brimming with ideas. Leading the way came Shitpants, a man who made anyone who saw him feel worthy of his name. But he was our Shitpants, and he always lived up to his pants.

He shouted, sending the name of our gang into the billowing smoke, announcing that this night belonged to us.

"Gutter Riders!"

We laughed wildly and echoed back. We were young, living life to the fullest. Nothing could stop us. Unless you caught up to us first, but now we were still running.

The city seemed to be carrying us forward, sliding deeper, away from the bloodied gutter scavengers we had just plundered. His silver wheel still tinkled in our pockets. There was fun to be had, and money to be made. We were heading for Black Narrows, the marketplace in the heart of Zaun.

"Do you think they'll sell us the Shimmer?" Zoëlie asked. "I need to moisten it after I shoved that gutter trash."

"In the narrow alleys, even children can buy Shimmer Wine—and even children."

"You two shut up," Shitpants yelled, chasing him from the back to the front. I'd never seen him so nervous, his brows furrowing in a frown. "Didn't you hear something was wrong?"

I squinted into the deep darkness—after all, you can't squint your ears unless you have augmentations. "I can't hear anything," I shrugged. "Not even a plague rat fart."

"So I said something's wrong," Shitpants muttered under his breath.

The silence that followed... weighed on us, seemingly heavier than the shimmering light of Piltover above us.

We slowly made our way through the thick fog into the market, only to find overturned carts, their wheels still twirling feebly. The stalls were still filled with all sorts of exotic goods, but the owners had all vanished. A foul stench hung in the air, reminding me of the gutter scavenger—the smell brought tears to my eyes, yet I hadn't reacted at all when I'd seen him bled.

Then we saw corpses strewn across the ground. Many wore the insignia of the Chem-Baron. They were all torn to pieces, scattered across the crimson-stained stone ground.

A massacre.

"It's a dirty job, isn't it?" said Whiterunk, laughing lightly, as he searched the dead man's pockets and carefully picked out the scraps of meat. "Looks like we've caught a great sale."

Zoli, however, was trembling. "Someone...over there," she whispered, pointing to the other side of the field, where a pipe was spewing a fresh cloud of alchemical mist. That was the source of the stench. The smell grew stronger, assaulting all my senses, even making my ears ring. "Is it...someone?"

"No..." I whispered, following her gaze toward the green curtain. "Not exactly..."

A massive body, its mechanical legs adorned with gun muzzles, crudely attached to its fleshy torso like a mechanic welding two pipes together. Just looking at the scene before me felt like I'd been burned, and I wanted to run. In one hand, it held up a much smaller figure. The figure choked and thrashed futilely within the alchemical mist. The monster mocked him, its voice like the grinding of machinery, making my stomach churn, as if I were about to poop and piss.

"This is what you want," the voice muttered, unintelligible, as it pressed the man's face roughly into the crack in the pipe, and alchemical mist enveloped them. "Breathe in. Accept it."

The man continued to struggle, his legs kicking in the air, but his strength grew weaker and weaker, until finally, only his cybernetic arms continued to twitch, repeating the last desperate commands in his mind.

The gleam of brass flashed before me, and the corpse struck me. Only someone of that stature could afford the latest enhancement module: the Alchemist Baron. This must be the Scarlet Baron. The scattered bodies on the ground were all his men.

I used to be his. But now...

"We have to go," I gasped, my eyes turning away from the devastation before me, searching for my friends behind me. But I couldn't see them. Mist billowed out of the pipe, a toxic green cloud that was making it increasingly difficult to breathe... breathing... breathing...

Run. We must run.

I could hear the hurried footsteps and coughs of Zoli, Whiterunk, and Shitpants nearby. I reached out, trying to grab anyone or anything to run with me. But all I heard was the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground and the tumbling of a spray can on the gravel.

Blank. The thought nearly brought me down—Blank was gone.

That's not the worst.

The monster propped up its massive body and stepped out of the mist. One of its massive, armored legs stepped beside me, followed by another, and then another—hoses flowing with alchemical substances were exposed, and smoke was still emitting from the protruding muzzles, as hot as the corpses around them.

My throat is filled with acid, as bitter as the air. I'm going to die here.

The monster grabbed me by the collar and pulled me up to eye level. It was a terrifying face, for it was human, the closest thing to a human being he had. His gas mask glowed dimly, pumping pure alchemical fluid, and his eyes, for some reason, glowed even brighter. He seemed lost in thought. Seeing my fear, they seemed to smile.

"Son of Zaun. What is your name?" he growled, pressing me closer. His accent was thick, but I couldn't place it. Every word he spoke attacked my resolve. Every word was filled with the force of hatred.

I couldn't utter a complete sentence.

He laughed wildly. "That Baron, you know him? Like so many, he wanted to rule this city, to drive countless people into the abyss, to dig this..." He took a sharp breath, stirring up a vortex. "...this misery. Now he is gone, and the very thing that gave him supreme power killed him.