Two Gunslingers walk into a bar.

Lucian stared at the dish that Graves had ordered for him.

Chicken.

He hated chicken.

Glancing up to the stubby and bulky frame of Graves, Lucian saw the mocking smile he wore.

Several hundred jokes about his skin color got boring incredibly quickly.

And since his entrance into the League, the jokes kept on piling up.

The fact that he despised the squishy texture that most cooks would cook to out of simplicity made it only worse.

That showed lack of dedication to a potentially fine meal.

'Well done' was called well done for a reason after all.

"Like your meal, pardner?" Graves smiled, the cigar balanced perfectly between his teeth.

Lucian's displeased gaze said more than enough.

"Oh, com'on Lucy-"

"My name is not Lucy!" Lucian asserted.

"Ugh… Fine. Obam-"

"THAT NAME IS EVEN WORSE!"

"Oh for… Luke then."

Lucian grumbled miserably.

"I'll take that as a yes. That aside, pardner, it's just a joke. Besides, I know the folk around here and told them specifically that it should be well done since I know yer habits back at the 'Nstitute."

"How did you…"

"It's pretty obvious when ya order things back there. Real obvious. Besides, why do ya think that I'm already halfway through my lunch when yers has only just arrived?"

Lucian grumbled once more before gingerly slicing off a sliver of the battered chicken.

Like a food critic, he pondered the taste of the morsel before passing his judgement.

"Acceptable."

Graves immediately cried back towards the nearest waitress with his thumb raised high.

"Hey Margie! Tell Thelma she did done good!"

"Thanks Gravy Pie! So happy that yer gun-knight friend approves! She's been up all night thinking about yer return!"

"Return? Gravy Pie?" Lucian inquired.

"Told'ya that I know the folk around here. If some'un gets really popular in the League, then they get celebrity treatement. I think I got a museum of me somewhere in this town. For the kiddies though, so I don't think that ya'd be interested."

"A museum? Why would a ex-criminal like you get a museum?"

"It was more like a people's hero, if you get what I mean. Old Fate and I used to do all sorts o' shenanigans to the syndicates and gangsters around these parts. Really quieted down the place so folks could actually get some good customers without fearin' for their lives. We got so big in fact that that Priggs guy came out all the way from Zaun to stop us from messing up his operations. He used his connections to lock me in, and I got my connections to get me out. Joined the League to get some popularity and I got cleared of all the bull that Priggs set me up for. These were my original stomping grounds, so it sorta makes sense for the folk to make it a tourist attraction."

Lucian grunted in acknowledgement before returning to his lunch.

"Why are we here anyway?" Lucian questioned, placing another sliver into his mouth, expecting a decent explanation.

"Paid vacation."

"By that, you mean a job from the Institute."

"Kinda."

"Kinda?"

"I'll talk about in a bit. Jus' finish yer chicken first."

"Who are you, my mother or something?"

"Trust me on this one, you'll see in about a minute or so."

"How can you be sure about a minute? Surely you know about how slow I eat my food?"

Graves paid him no heed while he caught the attention of the closest waitress.

"Daisy, my friend and I need to discuss some Institute matters. Mind if you get us some water?"

"Uh… Oh yeah sure Gravy Pie, just give me a minute." The waitress replied before her pace quickened away from the table.

Graves turned back to Lucian, his face and tone changing slightly.

He was serious.

About what, Lucian had no clue.

"So, Lucian. Why did ya join the League again?"

Lucian?

Something was definitely up.

"After the incident with what we now know as Hecarim, Demacia sent out a reconnaissance force to establish an outpost on the Shadow Isle shores. They took along a couple teams of demon hunters and other horror specialists as support, Senna and I included. It proceeded to fail horribly, the entire force scattered by an undead onslaught. Only a few of us managed to get back alive, and we knew that this army could easily wreak havoc on mainland Valoran. Several Isle incursions later told us that the Isles could strike anywhere, and the best way to counter them would be through the use of Institute teleporters. That's perhaps the main reason why I joined the League, to attain the power of the teleporters."

Graves seemed to only half care about his explanation, lost in thought about something.

"You were a demon hunter then? Someone who hunted all sorts of monstrosities. How would you consider yourself in terms of skill in hunting those creatures?"

Lucian scanned around once again, finding the waitress that Graves had called Daisy.

She was talking with what seemed to be the manager from his clothing and demeanor.

Both of them shot a glance at Graves' table before the manager nodded and motioned Daisy towards another waitress before quickly making his way into the kitchen.

"I would rate myself rather highly among even my fellows. I graduated the top of my class and by the time of the recon force I had already undertaken fifty cases from various sources."

Graves was getting on to something.

"So what is it like hunting these demons? Do you need some sort of instinct to hunt them if they're so strange?"

An odd thing to ask.

"Instinct definitely plays a part in hunting those things, but if you can try to think from their point of view and try to bait them into things, then catching them becomes much easier."

"What if I said that we're hunting monsters right now?"

Lucian suddenly realized what Graves was getting at.

How had he been so stupid!

All of the signs were there, but he had been so focused on the chicken.

Lucian's face turned to cold stone.

"How many?"

"I count a dozen. I wanna keep at least one of them alive to question."

"Think we can get the drop on them? Your big shotgun isn't exactly the easiest thing to swing around."

"I have other weapons apart from ol' Bessie here, like my lil' baby in its holster." Graves motioned with his arm to his hips, denoting most likely a revolver considering his gun tastes.

"When do you want to turn?"

"In ten seconds. Don't make a move until then."

As those ten seconds passed, Lucian realized how quiet the bar actually was without Graves' booming voice blocking out everything else.

He heard the shutting of doors and hurried footsteps.

More importantly though, the cocking of pistols and other small arms from the edges of the bar.

Three.

Two.

One.

The entire bar filled with the cracks of revolver fire and the sharp thrumming intakes of Lucian's arcano-pistols.

The fight stopped as swiftly as it started, the only sound remaining was the grunts of a single gunman who was crawling his way out of the carnage, his legs useless from a bullet wound that had buried itself deep inside his right calf.

His pistol had jammed at the very start, something that had spelled his doom.

The weak golden glow of the overhanging lights darkened slightly as figures loomed over him like vultures.

"So, who's yer boss?"

Lucian had never heard much Zaunic, but the way Graves barked that stream of hard consonants and vowels was absurd. A Demacian battle cry was incredibly powerful, but this… this was something else.

A literal machine gun of words.

The panicking man cried out in response, only for Graves to blurt out another set of inquiring words.

After several back and forth conversations between the two, Graves rose up and strained his neck.

"Ruvinek. The boss is Ruvinek of all things…"

"Is, is that a bad thing?"

"Not especially, he's jus' kinda a big shot with not a very good reputation. Looks like he'll be the example this time."

"Example?"

"Sometimes, gangsters forget their place, and if they get too big they'll do something like a coup and make a fortress of their town. 'Nstitute helps local gov'nments by making sure that gangs and other groups stay in line, sending us champs to places where they believe that there is too much activity and stomping it out before any of that stuff happens."

"So this was what you meant by 'kinda'?"

"Yep."

"I wouldn't say this was 'kinda' a job."

"I've done this plenty o' times and you generally have a lot of freedom about what you do, as long as people get put in line."

"Huh, fine." Lucian moaned. "So what's the plan when we get to where Ruvinek is?"

"Go all 'Yippee-kay-ay motherhubbards!' and make our way from there."

"Your plan is incredible and would put even Swain to shame."

"Ya flatter me too much, pardner."

"I guess so, partner."

"Did I sense a bit of a 'D' in there somewhere?"

"No, it was very much an explicit 'T' sound. And I still hate that phrase. Far too intimate for my liking."

"Ugh, fine… Luc-"

"Don't start this again."

"Oh I won't, Lucy."

A/N: Hey guys, Ethereal here once again with another side chapter that I made ages ago in the Summer or something. There are currently delays on a lot of things, coming from the youtube channel and upcoming exams as well as just generally a lot less interest in the story. I have a lot of things that I can do and at this point it seems very unsustainable to continue with both of my projects, but I feel like I have to continue with both.

I'm still trying to get this story noticed by more people to really improve my feeling about the whole fanfic, so if you guys want to share this with friends and circles, be sure to link to this chapter in particular as it gives a much better example of what I am capable of, as opposed to the first couple of chapters as they aren't strong enough for most people to gain interest. I'll be doing more updates and so on with earlier chapters before starting full force on the third arc (I guess that's what you could call it).

In any case, I hope you guys enjoy this short story and some good reviews really make my day (your reviews really help me out).