Arcane: Painted Tapestries

[Just after Callian had parted from Powder and Vi in the back alley ]

Callian stepped out onto the dark street, humming thoughtfully.

Vander was certainly an interesting man.

Yes, His Lady's praise towards her guardian was not just talk, that was all but assured now.

Vander was an excellent mediator and leader, a figure that was worth following behind.

His cautious and shrewd nature was unbefitting for a man of his size, which made Callian think that something must have happened to cull his sense of self-worth.

Larger men were almost always overconfident in their abilities, Prideful to a fault; especially in the Undercity where physical strength was almost always a necessity for survival.

Being strong meant you could steal resources from others while making your potential enemies think twice about doing so to you in fear of your retribution.

It was a dog-eat-dog world, with Vander's children being very sheltered from how life normally went for other children of their age; because no matter how much he had pushed them to become independent, they always had a home to come back to, with food ready to be eaten on the table.

The cloaked figure clenched his hand tightly, knuckles whitening as he remembered his earlier days.

Such things were of no relevance anymore.

It was time to get to work.

He ran forward, darting into the first winding alleyway he came across, quickly scaling the side of the building and hopping up onto the next level of Entresol.

The network of piping was far easier to traverse with the only downside being a relatively slower speed, but coupled with the bonus of going about your business completely unnoticed by the people walking around below you.

Anonymity was now something Callian valued above all else.

On another note, he needed funding and a base of operations, stat.

Fortunately, he and his comrades had already planned every major point Callian would have to alter during his trip into the past, meaning the man knew exactly where to head next.

An old hideout he had used when he was younger. It should be abandoned now, judging by the time period at least. It was an old, decrepit mansion on the outskirts of Entresol, so far East that not even the slum dwellers travelled there.

Eastside had always been abandoned for a multitude of reasons, although it was mainly because every Zaunite had naturally gravitated towards the Northside colony as it was the closest to Piltover.

Or more precisely it was the closest to the great river that ran between the twin cities.

While the people of the Undercity may not have official access to the naval trading routes, that wasn't going to stop them from trying. Whether that be through bribery or force, his people had commandeered a small portion of the river for their own purposes.

His Eastside hideaway was perfect to set up in, the only reason he had left it in the first place was because three bat Zonai had snuck in while he was asleep to find shelter from the bitter cold born of the Season of Frost.

He had woken up from the noise and walked down from the attic he slept in to find the demi-human intruders laughing and eating contentedly at his table.

He had killed them all.

Callian may not have had his hextech armament back then, nor the explosive gadgets designed for his usage, but he was definitely not someone you could afford to underestimate based on his appearance.

Most people did so anyway, completely ignorant of his lethal skillset.

Even with their advanced hearing, the demi-human group didn't hear his approach until it was too late.

After that incident, Callian had stayed in the dusty house for one more night before leaving forever, opening every geocache he had stored around the place and taking the small fortune he had amassed with him.

The cobbled streets thinned out, looking more and more old the further he ran until only piles of age-old debris and filthy ruins remained.

Even the greenish fungi that lit up Entresol got rarer and rarer the closer Callian got to his destination, eventually disappearing altogether and leaving the only pitch-black void of the Eastside underground.

Normal humans couldn't hope to see in these conditions.

The pipeline he had been running on finally came to an end, steering downwards straight into the ground, no doubt running into the Slump even further below ground.

Callian quickened his pace, no longer concerned about destroying the fragile pipeline that was his fastest route back to Northside.

The hextech armour that covered his lower half weighed an extortionate amount, so much that most other people couldn't even lift one of its legs unless it was fully activated.

If he had applied too much pressure to the pipe it would have collapsed immediately; after all, it could barely handle his original weight even with the anti-grav properties allowed to his armament.

A few more minutes of zigzagging through the ruined streets at a breakneck speed led him directly to the mansion.

It was exactly as he remembered it.

Callian quietened his footsteps subconsciously, coming to a halt in front of the rusted iron fencing that ran along the property's edge.

Its gates were already ajar.

Well that was… Irritating, if not unexpected.

The only time he had ever left those gates open was when he left the house for the final time, meaning that his two-birds-with-one-stone plan hadn't worked out as intended.

He could still use it as a base, but the geocaches he had stored his savings in would all be empty.

No funding to be found here then.

Callian sighed, slipping between the tall gates and swinging them shut once more, their decrepit hinges creaking loudly as he did so.

He walked to the front door, which he noticed was also ajar.

He frowned.

He hadn't left that open when he left, he remembered shutting it behind him clearly.

This was impossible.

They had planned this. Nobody had been in this house since his younger self had left; they had used Z-type forensics to glimpse into the past and confirm that fact.

The masked figure started to lose his composure as he realised what such a thing implied.

Callian's eyes exploded with a violet light, his glowing irises shaking with a wild rage.

No, it wasn't rage. It was fear.

Why was it different? How was it different ? It shouldn't have been different.

Ekko had warned him of the dangers of inter-dimensional travel. Was he right all along?

If it wasn't his world he was saving, was it even worth the effort anymore?

Months of planning and dedication by the greatest minds of their age almost came crashing down on his old hideaway's doorstep.

Almost.

Callian entered the house, still exuding a murderous salgi onto the empty surroundings.

He had no doubt every Zonai that was even remotely close to Eastside had felt his rage, however faintly.

But he didn't care.

He strode through the empty hallways; storming towards the dining room, no longer caring about concealing the sound of his heavy footsteps.

The door was shut.

Callian reached for the doorknob, turning it and stepping inside.

All of his salgi disappeared in an instant, all cause for his rage leaving him as he stared at what lay before him.

The large dining table was wrecked, its dusty wooden surface broken into pieces on the dirty floor.

Three Zonai corpses lay strewn across the room, utterly brutalised by whoever had killed them.

Callian sighed with a shaky relief. It was his world, but there was only one day of the year that it could possibly be.

The first of them had the easiest death, he remembered that now.

The man lay on what was left of the table, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle.

He had died first, he and his companions were completely unaware of Callian's presence until his neck had been snapped.

He had slammed the man's head into the table violently, shattering the flimsy furniture into pieces before leaping towards the second man and plunging his armoured fingers into his eyes, pulping them.

He chuckled, fingering his own, now more advanced armour.

His finger armour had been the only real weapon he had in the outskirts; being so small and looking unarmed made everyone underestimate him, a fatal mistake made by many.

He walked over to the eyeless corpse lying against the wall; deep, red blood still matting its grey fur in streaks akin to bloody tears.

The last one had put up a fight, a pitiful one sure, but the beast had still managed to land a hit on him.

The phantom pain caused by the Zonai's claws burned his scarred lip, and he remembered the thing's animalistic screams of rage after he had killed its friends.

It had slashed his face with its claws before Callian had broken its leg with a powerful calf-kick and stabbed it in the throat with his index and forefinger, finishing off with a roundhouse kick to smash the injured creature away into the opposite wall.

The hit it had landed on Callian back then had made him so unbelievably angry.

Part of it was directed at himself for being shaken enough for an unarmed demi-human to wound him, however light the cut turned out to be. Most of it was towards his aggressor and its compatriots for breaking into his home.

A thin scar was a small price to pay for his life.

Callian had crouched down in front of the dying Zonai, watching as the thing backed itself into the corner.

It had taken two minutes for it to pass away from the blood loss, and he had been there staring at it for every second.

He could have ended its torment easily, but he didn't.

Callian wanted it to be in pain, to suffer for what it had done to him.

The present Callian walked over to the last Zonai, kneeling down and swiping some of its blood with his outstretched fingers.

The sticky liquid was still warm, which meant it was not long dead. A fresh kill.

That could only mean one thing. His younger self was asleep in the attic upstairs for his final night there, ready to leave first thing the next day.

The corners of Callian's mouth twitched upwards, a small grin creeping its way onto his face.

Now wasn't that just perfect timing?

Despite his, minor overreaction earlier, his situation had just evolved from a two to three-birds-with-one-stone scenario.

The base was untouched as always, the geocaches were still there, perhaps already collected by his younger self, who was also within reach.

It was time to get to work, with the most pressing matters to be taken care of first.

Callian strode through the mansion, his pace and salgi back to being carefully suppressed.

If his younger self hadn't woken up from his tantrum, then he could go up to the attic and introduce himself properly.

He couldn't take the usual way up as he remembered meticulously booby-trapping the attic's ladder. The alarm he had made was set up in such a way that the system was impossible to disable from the outside.

When triggered, it would wake him up immediately, a precaution he had deemed necessary back then.

It was nothing more than an annoyance now, given his preference for stealth.

Fortunately, his ever-paranoid younger self had carved a backdoor into the attic's roof.

What use was an alarm system if you were permanently trapped in the same room, waiting for your attackers to break in?

It was a counterproductive measure not to have one, he had reasoned back then; having spent an entire painstaking week setting up both contingencies.

Callian's cloaked figure scaled the outer side of the mansion, climbing up the decorative stone bricks jutting out of its side.

He jumped off an alcove, grabbing the metal gutter overhead and launching himself upwards onto the roof.

He landed gracefully, his metallic boots falling onto the hem of his cloak, cancelling the clinking noise that would have been generated otherwise.

The cloaked figure stalked across the tiled rooftop, towards the hidden door on the rightmost section of the roofing.

Even with his shimmer-enhanced eyesight, it was far too difficult for him to spot exactly where the mechanism for entry was hidden.

But it had to be around here somewhere.

His fingers traced the roof tiles, applying a slight amount of pressure to his continuously probing hand. 

There.

One of the many tiles was pushed inwards by his touch, and Callian instantly zeroed in on it, quickly pressing down hard enough for the mechanical entrance to activate.

The door whirred, grating slightly as it slid inwards.

Callian lowered himself downwards with his arms, making sure his descent and landing didn't make a single sound.

It wouldn't do for his younger self to wake up and spook, he thought wryly.

There, in the corner of the dimly lit room, a small blue-haired teen lay curled up in a mess of filthy blankets; his back facing the rest of the cold attic.

There was a singular lantern next to him, casting a fluctuating green glow around the room.

Callian approached the boy silently, bending down on one knee to stroke his hair softly and whisper an apology into his ear. "For what it's worth boy, I'm sorry you won't get to live out your life this time around."

The teenager stiffened under his touch, waking up just in time to feel Callian stab his two armoured fingers through the side of his unprotected throat.

He choked, gasping in pain and clutching at his neck, flailing wildly as he tried to roll around to face the masked figure. He tried to crawl away, snarling and glaring at the man in despair. His red lifeblood leaked across the dirty, unkempt flooring.

Callian got to his feet, walking to the side of the room and pulling up the lone chair conainted inside the attic.

He sat down, watching as the boy before him slowly bled out.

The long-haired boy coughed wetly, still clutching at his neck, trying to stem his bleeding artery but to no avail.

In Callian's eyes, he was already dead.

"Why?" His younger self choked out, his blood splattering onto the floor.

The older man tilted his head to the side owlishly. He reached up, slowly dropping his hood and removing his white mask, allowing the boy to see his unmasked visage.

"For the greater good." Staring down at himself impassively. The boy looked up at him in shock, which quickly morphed into a primal rage. "Goodbye, Cal."

"This isn't fair." The dying boy spat angrily, his slurred voice getting fainter and fainter.

"Nothing is fair in this cruel world." Murmured Callian, listening as his breathing slowed down to a stop.

The light left the boy's frustrated eyes. He had died.

It was cruel, cutting his younger self's life short like that. Denying him his future, a future that was rightfully his, and not Callian's.

But the boy had no place in this world now, not while he was here.

It was a dog-eat-dog world, and he had simply been far stronger than his younger counterpart. That was the way of things down here.

Nobody would be able to connect the lonely orphan boy living in the outskirts to the new, mysterious face in Zaun. This was the price he had to pay to protect his identity.

He placed his mask back on his face, pulling his hood back up.

The world shivered unpleasantly.

The higher powers in this world could not find about him.

He stood up from the rickety chair, leaning down to search the boy's pockets for his fortune.

Suddenly, the teen exploded off of the ground, his armoured fingers heading straight for Callian's exposed neck.

His shimmer-enhanced reaction time was barely enough for him to dodge the attack and grab his younger self's forearm, pulling it forward before smashing his other armoured elbow into the boy's own, breaking it cleanly at the joint.

The teen yelled in pain and slumped to the ground, his final sneak attack very nearly managing to kill his future self.

That was not the strength of a dying boy. What the actual fuck was going on?

If Callian was even an inch closer he would have died along with his younger counterpart. Not even shimmer would have been able to save him from an attack as lethal as that.

The man darted over the boy's downed figure, slamming his armoured boot down onto his other arm, breaking it just like he had the other one.

He was taking no chances this time.

He grabbed the body by the hair, lifting it up off the ground to stare into its expressionless face.

The boy's eyes were a light blue, but with the faintest tinge of pink hidden behind their original colour.

Shimmer ?

But that was impossible, the substance hadn't even been invented yet.

Something was at play here, something of an Arcane nature.

He could feel it. Chaos was in the air. He felt the circular entropy of magic.

Callian grabbed a heavy pouch from the boy's pocket hastily, his younger self's darkened blood dripping down onto it, no doubt staining the heap of coins within.

He dropped the body, watching as it flopped lifelessly to the ground.

Something wasn't right here. This was not supposed to happen.

Callian's masked face twisted in anger, utterly hating his ignorance at the situation.

He was thoroughly spooked by not only the fact that had he almost died, but the laws of the Arcane were still opposing his very existence.

Ekko was being proven right, after all, this was dangerous. Very dangerous.

He was going to have to accelerate their carefully planned timeline before he was killed off on a whim of the very world that surrounded him.

He could die after his task was complete, and only after.

Nothing else mattered.

—

(Total wordcount: 3015)