"Me, out to dinner?"
Still half asleep, Caleb looked at Mel and rubbed at eyes that did not want to open.
"Yes. My mother and I want to thank you properly."
When word reached Piltover that Caleb had taken care of Urgot, both Ambessa and Mel were stunned.
According to the reports their informants had gathered, aside from his head, almost every other part of Urgot's body had been replaced with chemtech machinery.
And that tube had been feeding poisonous gas straight into him.
It was almost unbelievable. Under a little Noxian-style persuasion, some of the survivors from the Dredge had obediently told the whole story.
"In Zaun, replacing damaged tissue with mechanical prosthetics is usually admired," Ambessa explained. "But throwing away perfectly healthy organs and replacing them with more efficient augmentations is called the Glorious Evolution."
Under Urgot's brutal rampage, every mechanical prosthetic in the Dredge district had been stripped away and gathered for him, while terrified craftsmen installed them onto his body.
As mentioned before, some mechanical prosthetics were directly tied to a person's survival.
So during that process, the number of people who died made up nearly half of the total casualties by itself.
And that monstrous thing, the headsman who had once come close to killing Ambessa, had lost to Caleb.
Twice.
Ambessa felt she had to win him over.
Even if it meant offering terms painful enough to make her wince.
Compared to ending up like Urgot, she could accept something even more painful than that.
Urgot had been full of confidence, convinced he would bring glory.
He had endured humiliation in the Dredge, paving his path with hundreds, even thousands of lives.
But what would that have changed?
Even if Urgot had made it out of Zaun, Piltover would still have been waiting for him.
He had guarded against Caleb's Hex Claw, but would he really have been able to stop Jayce's Mercury Hammer?
Ambessa was grateful she had come early, and that her information network had been fast enough.
Otherwise, if she had stayed in Noxus, her self-proclaimed fox of a son would have been the cautionary tale.
…
"The same restaurant. Tonight at seven. Don't be late."
Mel left as gracefully as she had arrived, leaving Caleb staring after her in confusion.
He slept all afternoon until the sun had gone down, and the room had grown dim.
Back in his old life, Caleb probably would have felt abandoned by the world waking up like this.
But now...
"Ahhh, I don't want to go to work!"
No matter how much Caleb rolled around on the bed, it changed nothing. Another day had begun for the overworked Governor.
He wanted to throw all of it aside and stop working altogether, but then who was supposed to take care of Zaun?
Which meant that almost everything involving Piltover ended up on Caleb's desk.
And even though the reconstruction and renovation of Zaun's infrastructure was being handled by Ekko and Heimerdinger, every single document still needed Caleb's signature.
Add in the Chem-Barons stirring in the black mines...
Caleb was tired, unbelievably tired.
…
It was the Lytton Restaurant again.
And Caleb was once again fully focused on eating.
Lately, Zaun had been good in every way except one, the food was way too creative.
One snack, ten different toppings, all of it supposedly safe and clean.
Caleb's stomach had survived, but his taste buds had been traumatized.
So now that he had finally made it back to Piltover for a proper meal, he was absolutely taking food to go. Not one meal, three.
Ambessa looked at Caleb, sitting in exactly the same posture as last time, and could not help feeling a little emotional.
Last time, she had only wanted to test the young man a little.
Then Urgot had come crashing through the wall and nearly taken her head off.
After considering her approach, she decided to open the conversation in the blunt style Noxians preferred.
"You did me a great service by dealing with Urgot this time, young man."
"My pleasure." Caleb quickly looked up, slurped down the last of his noodles, swallowed, and continued, "What can I do for you?"
"About that, young man…"
"Hey." Caleb cut off the attempt at friendly small talk before Ambessa could continue.
"Let's settle accounts first." He picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. "Surely the esteemed Lady Medarda isn't planning to express her thanks with words alone."
His meaning could not have been simpler. Forget the empty courtesies.
Go ahead, aim straight at my weak point.
Let a little of that improper outside influence drift in here.
"The Medarda family is willing to offer part of its wealth in return for your lifesaving help, Mr. Caleb."
And that part was an enormous amount of money.
After all, even Mel, the richest woman in Piltover, was nowhere near as wealthy as her brother and mother.
The Medarda family had lost one of its members, and much of his property had been confiscated.
But Ambessa was no fool. The truly valuable assets her son had controlled had already been moved away on her orders.
"There is also one more matter I hoped to trouble you with."
Seeing Caleb's face brighten, Ambessa felt even more confident.
"I'm caught in a difficult position in Noxus right now. Could you help ease my worries?"
That was the real reason she had come tonight.
Mel looked mildly surprised, but kept her head down and continued eating in silence.
She had opposed war between the twin cities, and had stopped Jayce from continuing large-scale weapons production.
So she had already prepared herself to sever ties with her family if necessary.
Now, with her mother still acknowledging her as part of the family and willing to let her remain in Piltover or return to Noxus as she pleased, Mel naturally had nothing to complain about.
She had also thought it through. Without Caleb, those Enforcers probably would not have survived.
At that point, the twin cities would have become a keg of explosives, and someone would inevitably have lit the fuse.
Caleb had stabilized what should have been a violently unstable situation between Piltover and Zaun, and he had done it in a remarkably clever way.
"You mean Swain taking power."
Caleb did not know the details all that well, but his rough familiarity with League lore still gave him a basic understanding of Noxus.
"Exactly!"
At that moment, Ambessa did not think the man before her was inferior to Swain in the slightest.
One was a man who had lost an arm, then acquired demonic power within the Immortal Bastion.
The other looked like a physically unimpressive young man, yet had managed to calm the twin cities, two places that mixed about as well as oil and water.
"He seized control of Noxus in a single night!"
Even now, the thought made Ambessa's teeth clench. What kind of nerve did that require?
The previous ruler of Noxus had not been some idiot or weakling.
He too had been powerful enough to suppress every rival who wanted the throne.
Noxus had never lacked bloodshed.
"Kings use inherited power to force you to kneel. Noxus lets you stand again."
Caleb's light, casual remark sent a chill of sweat down Ambessa's back.
For a moment, it no longer felt as though Zaun's Governor was sitting across from her, but one of Noxus's own rulers.
"Noxus rarely focuses on production. Most of the empire sustains itself through conquest."
Caleb dipped a finger into the water in his cup and casually began sketching a map on the table.
"Piltover is easy to defend and hard to take. And farther south, all you've got is desert and jungle. The location matters, sure, but Noxus would not necessarily be able to govern that territory well."
"The desert and the jungle just do not offer enough value to Noxus."
"So they won't touch the center of global trade."
"The frozen lands to the north are poor in resources, and Noxus's northern territories are already vast enough as it is."
"And Demacia hasn't shown any signs of weakening over the last few years. Their petricite walls would be a brutal obstacle for a Noxian army that relies on battlemages."
"Besides, the two sides have been staring each other down for so long that Demacia is perfectly happy defending what it already has. So yes, a war is possible, but it isn't necessary."
"Bilgewater is an island city, and Nagakabouros stands over it. Even if you took it, it wouldn't really satisfy Noxus."
"So that leaves only one option."
While Ambessa was still marveling at how accurate the map was and how grounded the analysis felt, Caleb had already drawn a huge arrow.
"March east, to Ionia!"