Mundo very angry.
After the last guy, now this little one was just as hard to cure.
Little one had strange white mark on face. Mundo had good reason to believe skin disease was contagious.
That big green guy from two days ago was obviously the source.
If Mundo could cure him, then Mundo could cure white-face little guy too.
Mundo ended this treatment process after several long hours.
This patient still was not cured, and Mundo felt terrible about it.
But there would always be tomorrow. Then Mundo could heal them both.
…
Ekko shoved open the door and collapsed in front of Caleb.
"What the hell was that thing? You really sent me after something that dangerous by myself?"
"You black-hearted hustler, you stupid rock grub, you mud-bathing sewer rat..."
Before Caleb could say a word, Ekko unloaded a full string of Zaunite curses right at him.
"So, did you figure him out?" Caleb asked calmly, not the least bit offended.
"Yeah. He's a big idiot with a busted brain."
Just about every inch of Ekko's body hurt.
"He's got really sharp combat instincts, but he honestly seems to think he's treating people."
"He throws knives like a sniper, he's got some kind of shock device on him, and he carries around a case full of blades."
"Getting hit by any of that is no joke."
Looking at Ekko grimacing all over, Caleb could not help laughing.
"So you fought him for hours?"
"I didn't have a choice. He wouldn't stop chasing me." Ekko looked exhausted. "And you can't communicate with him at all."
"So you say one thing, and he answers something from a completely different universe?"
That was enough for Caleb to be sure of it. At the very least, this was not the older version of Mundo with actual medical knowledge.
Caleb might only have been silver rank, but back when he played top lane, it had always been Maokai, Malphite, Mundo, or Sion.
He got beaten around plenty... then eventually learned how to suffer with dignity and survive weak-side.
So he still remembered Mundo's rework. He had even gone out of his way to look up the differences between the two versions.
Now that he had pinned down what kind of enemy they were dealing with, the next step was figuring out how to handle him.
"Is this your home?"
A strange voice came from outside the door.
It sounded thick and buzzy, nothing like a normal human voice.
A Vastaya? Some kind of fish-man? Or something else? (Universo League of Legends)
Caleb shot Ekko a look, and the two of them silently moved to either side of the door.
The Hex Claw behind Caleb was already primed, and Ekko had a tight grip on his modified iron sword.
As the door swung open, both of them tensed to strike.
Instead, they saw Jinx hanging inside the body of a huge green blob.
"Don't move!"
"Put her down!"
Caleb and Ekko shouted almost at the same time, while the thing facing them looked completely at a loss.
"Oh? I don't mean any harm. This young lady should be able to prove that."
The creature hurriedly set Jinx down and raised both hands, or what probably counted as hands.
"Let me introduce myself. I'm Zac."
"I'm fine." Jinx sounded a little sulky.
"I heard you've been dealing with monsters lately." The creature scratched his head and looked almost adorably dumb.
"I want to help too." His voice still sounded strange, and even his speech was a little awkward.
"Jinx?" Caleb glanced at the gloomy girl, only then realizing that all three of her guns were stuck inside the blob creature's body.
"I got carried away." Jinx pouted, still looking annoyed. "Then... I attacked him."
"Oh, that's totally fine, miss."
Zac chuckled a couple times, clearly not taking the matter to heart.
"I could feel your sadness and guilt too, so if you needed to unload on me a little, that was perfectly okay."
Without saying a word, Jinx shoved past Caleb and climbed back up to her personal section of the ceiling.
"So... want to come in and talk?"
"Sure, sure."
Zac looked weirdly happy about it.
He did not seem to care at all that Caleb and Ekko had almost attacked him, or that Jinx actually had attacked him.
"Mr. Zac...?"
Caleb was the one who spoke first, though with some hesitation.
His knowledge of this champion did not go much beyond the nickname.
"So, would you mind giving us a more detailed introduction?"
Caleb honestly found it strange. This guy called a monster looked more like an eager volunteer helping old ladies cross the street.
"My full name is Zaun Amorphous Combatant, ZAC for short," Zac explained patiently. (Universo League of Legends)
"I woke up in a drain, and then I was pumped into a tank."
"That's where I met my parents, well, I think that's the right way to put it."
"A tank?" Caleb's brows were nearly tied in a knot. This really did sound like some overenthusiastic good Samaritan.
"My parents taught me a lot. They taught me what was right and what was wrong."
"I've been in Zaun all these years, fixing machines, patching up the Fissures, things like that." Even saying it, Zac still looked a little embarrassed.
"But not long ago, my parents were killed by that Chem-Baron because they tried to smuggle me out."
Zac's tone dropped, carrying a grief so heavy it was impossible to miss.
"I heard Zaun had a new Governor. I was wondering if you might accept me, and then I ran into that girl..."
"Since you've already gotten this far..." Caleb started, clearly unsure how to phrase it. "How about giving her stuff back first?"
"Oh, sure. Of course."
With that, Zac shifted his gelatinous body and "spat" Jinx's three guns back out.
Surprisingly, all three weapons were perfectly dry, not a trace of slime or moisture on them.
"Thanks." Jinx dropped down, smoothly gathered up her guns, and jumped right back to the ceiling.
She looked like a cat carrying its favorite toys back to its nest.
"Have you seen anyone claiming to be a doctor?" Ekko could not help cutting in from the side.
"Big guy, like you, purple skin."
"I have!" Zac answered right away. "He's completely insane."
"We need to deal with him, before he brings even more trouble to the people of Zaun."
Caleb came to a decision. Now it was just a matter of working out the plan.
"Tomorrow, Ekko, bring Vi with you. The four of us will go together."
"Jinx, you go after the Chem-Barons."
Caleb raised his head and spoke toward the ceiling.
The only answer was a muffled hum, which counted as agreement.
"You really want her working under you?"
Ekko's concern was not baseless. Over the years, plenty of people had died at Jinx's hands.
Zaunites, Firelights, Piltover Enforcers.
In both cities, everyone thought Jinx had killed too many people and hurt too many innocents.
"Of course. She's important." Caleb did not dance around it.
Jinx was guilty, and very guilty at that.
But first, there was the promise he had made to Silco. Second, Caleb had his eye on Jinx's abilities.
The path he had chosen for her now was to earn redemption through service.
"All right." Ekko shrugged helplessly.
He could not let go of Powder, but he did not exactly like Jinx either.
So he still cared about the girl up on the ceiling, just with a mess of complicated feelings.
"He can heal himself. Got any answer for that?" Ekko added after thinking of something else.
After all, during those hours of fighting, Ekko had managed to wound him plenty of times, and the speed of Zac's regeneration had been flat-out unbelievable.
"We just need to hurt him faster than he can heal."
Caleb pointed at his Hex Claw, then thought of Vi's gauntlets.
On top of that, they had Zac, whose body made blunt force and bullets practically useless against him, and Ekko's Z-Drive, which could rewind time.
Four against one. There was no way Mundo was turning that around on them... right?