"Both of them got hit?"
Ekko immediately understood why Caleb had come looking for him.
Both Jinx and Vi had lost something, and both items were important.
"Do you have a suspect?"
Ekko's expression turned serious too.
Lately, the Firelights had been carrying not only the burden of improving Zaun's environment, but also the weight of post-disaster reconstruction.
The people coming in and out of the Firelights' base were not being searched at all.
Thankfully, with Warwick and Blitzcrank around looking like two absolute monsters, most people behaved themselves.
There were still a few who didn't, of course. They just got bold enough for someone to notice.
And then they got beaten so badly it was almost hard to watch...
To the point that Ekko had started to think no one with bad intentions would bother targeting the Firelights at all.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
If that thief really had set their sights on his place, then with his hoverboard skills and his Z-Drive,
he would definitely be able to catch them.
"Thief!"
Before Ekko could finish the thought, Caleb had already shouted it out.
He had just caught sight of a face beneath a hood and instantly understood what was going on.
Ekko was still summoning his hoverboard when the cloaked figure was already running.
Caleb stayed glued to the thief, refusing to let him slip away. Compared to someone who moved through crowds with that much practiced ease, the only thing Caleb could do was make sure he didn't get shaken off.
"Damn it!"
Caleb was already kicking himself for not thinking of this guy sooner.
Ezreal, one of Runeterra's resident troublemakers!
"I'm here! Go, go, go!"
Ekko came rushing in from behind on his hoverboard at top speed.
"He's got the Hextech shield!"
Viktor's voice came from behind them.
But it was too late. Ekko had already blinked to Ezreal's side and swung his iron sword.
In the next instant, a blue wall of energy sprang out and sent him flying backward.
"What the fuck!" Ekko cursed midair with all the elegance Zaun could offer.
Caleb took advantage of the moment Ezreal planted his feet. He stepped forward and drove a heavy straight punch into the shield wall.
That punch was no weaker than one from Vi wearing the Atlas Gauntlets.
The Hextech shield had been designed by Caleb to stop projectiles, so while it had some defense against close combat, it was not especially effective.
Sure enough, Ezreal let out a muffled groan and tumbled hard across the ground several times.
"Heh." Caleb flashed a crooked grin, then stepped forward to finish the job.
Ideally, he still wanted to take the man alive, but if necessary, killing him was not off the table either.
"Essence Flux! Mystic Shot!"
Ezreal, meanwhile, had no problem firing both attacks straight at Caleb's face.
Rune power surged through Caleb's body. This was the moment to find out whether all that grinding through books had actually paid off.
He raised both hands, and a circular shield appeared around him.
The damage and the impact were both absorbed by the barrier, then quietly vanished.
Realizing things were going south, Ezreal scrambled back to his feet and bolted again.
Caleb was not about to let him go. The guy had decided to pull this right under his nose?
Not happening.
When Caleb saw him driven into a dead end, he still didn't let his guard down in the slightest.
And sure enough.
Ezreal's body vanished by the wall, leaving behind only a ball of light.
Caleb inwardly rejoiced. In a critical moment, Ezreal had assumed Caleb could not use the same kind of trick, so in his rush, he had passed through the wall on the right.
Before the Ezreal on the other side could even wipe the sweat off his brow, Caleb had already shifted over by the same method and appeared right beside him.
The last thing Ezreal saw was a black sack flying straight at his face.
...
"We searched him. Nothing."
Ezreal was groggily trying to open his eyes when a bucket of cold water splashed across his face.
That woke him up completely, and he immediately started gasping for air.
Caleb wound the alarm clock a couple of turns, then slammed it down right in front of Ezreal.
"Where did the stuff go? Start talking."
His voice was calm, and utterly cold.
"If you can't answer before the alarm goes off, then we start getting rough."
Over the last couple days, Caleb had almost started to feel like he was some kind of good person. Thanks to the guy in front of him, he had finally remembered that he was no saint.
"Ahhhh!"
Ezreal let out a shout on reflex.
It wasn't that he was weak-willed, it was just that Jinx and Vi standing nearby with those dark expressions were terrifying enough already.
Not to mention the wide variety of torture tools in the room, and the fact that they had specially prepared a large chamber he couldn't Arcane Shift out of.
And that woman with the rifle, the policewoman, she looked like the kind of person who never missed.
If he really tried to Arcane Shift, he would probably end up with a bullet through his knee.
Ezreal had seen plenty in his life, but this kind of interrogation was a first even for him.
Up until now, he had always relied on the magic in his gauntlet to stay slippery enough to thrive wherever he went.
And now he had crashed and burned here. How could he not be scared?
"Crying?" Caleb barked even louder, drowning out Ezreal's voice.
"Crying still counts against your time."
After saying that, Caleb nodded in satisfaction.
Yeah, this kind of outlaw-style interrogation really did suit him, and it felt great.
As the clock kept ticking, Jinx had already started picking out her toys.
"You should talk now and save yourself the pain," Caitlyn said from the side.
By the time Ezreal's brain kicked into overdrive, the alarm had already gone off.
Jinx charged forward holding a Chempunk Chainsword.
"I do! I do, I do!" Ezreal screamed the moment he saw that.
The instant Caleb realized he was about to talk, he threw out a hand and stopped Jinx from rushing in.
She had no sense of restraint, and with Ezreal's scrawny little build, she might actually wreck him.
"One more lap around the clock." Caleb picked up the alarm clock and wound it two more times. "Keep talking."
"At, at the Grah Inn, second room on the left on the second floor."
Ezreal swallowed hard.
Only then did he realize his gauntlet had vanished at some point.
Now he was really screwed. Actual meat on the chopping block.
Ezreal had just been passing through, but unfortunately, his hands had gotten itchy.
One careless move later, and he had provoked exactly the wrong people.
"Go." Caleb jerked his head toward the door, and Jinx instantly jumped onto Ekko's hoverboard and tore off.
"You never missed before?"
Caleb looked at the blond man in front of him with interest. He really was handsome, only just a little less than Caleb himself.
Ezreal nervously shook his head.
"Do you still want your gauntlet back?"
This time Ezreal nodded like his life depended on it.
"Two months of mandatory labor. Everything you own besides the gauntlet may be confiscated depending on the situation."
As Caleb spoke, Caitlyn wrote it all down beside him.
"Any objections?"
"No."
Ezreal felt a little relieved. Luckily, he had not brought many things with him this time.
A loss was a loss. Better that than ending up dead.
One of his best qualities was that when he got caught, he admitted it honestly and didn't puff himself up like an idiot.
"Good." Caleb nodded in satisfaction.
Jinx came back quickly. She tossed the two gauntlets straight to Vi.
Once Vi put them on, the gauntlets gleamed brightly, while the minigun in Jinx's hands started spinning again.
Ezreal swallowed hard.
Were people in the Undercity really this insane?
"Apologize." Caleb's cold voice rang out again.
"I'm sorry." Ezreal admitted fault immediately and lowered his head at once.
"That's enough. Untie him. I'm going to see what else is over there."
Caleb turned and walked out of the room, leaving Caitlyn behind to explain Ezreal's mandatory labor assignments.
They were still rebuilding, after all. One more person meant one more pair of hands.
Still shaken, Ezreal swore to himself that the next time he came to the Twin Cities, no matter how itchy his fingers got, he would not pull anything like this again.
That white-haired guy nearly catching him had already been terrifying enough.
Who knew the black-haired one could walk through walls too?
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