Champions partaking in the daily organized slaughter in the League of Legends stand as idols to the citizens of Valoran. It becomes hard to imagine that you would see Udyr the Animal Spirit buying eggs, or Shyvana the Half-Dragon window shopping for a new pair of pants. But not everything is hand-delivered to our champions, especially those who are less sociable. On that day, one of the champions was out to buy candy.
Amumu the Sad Mummy kept his body pressed against the side of a concrete building. The Demacian marketplace was bustling on that day, for there was going to be a fierce battle the next evening. Demacians would gather at long tables filled with food in the central square to watch their champions fight Zaun. Amumu made sure not to venture out of the shadows, or else some idle noble might notice him. The last time a crowd of people noticed Amumu, they hugged him to no end and showered him in cute trinkets and gifts. It was horrible.
The mummy had a specific purpose that day. Annie had been bought out by Zaun for the match, meaning that she would be participating. Amumu had been implored rather forcefully by the Dark Child to go get some "good luck" candy, though it was more like "give it to me before I beat you". Like most people, that girl confused Amumu. And so it was that Amumu found himself squatting in the darkness of a building, trying to work up the courage to venture out.
Somebody would probably buy candy for Amumu if he asked them, but then he would have to talk with people! Then again, he would have to talk to someone to buy the candy in the first place...why did everything have to be so confusing!? The mummy almost stepped out to go into the market three times over the span of twenty minutes. It was then that he heard a cry.
"Hey, stop it!" The voice belonged to a little girl, and the noise was quickly accompanied by a crash.
Amumu's head whipped around, for the noise had come from behind him. He moved his short little legs as fast as he could to where the sound came from. He poked his head around the corner into a poorly lit alley. The tall rooftops overhead effectively blocked much of the light, even though the sun was high. Even Demacia had it's dirty alleyways, and this was certainly one of them.
Amumu could see three boys, each about ten years old, huddled around a little girl on the ground. A trash can lay on its side, which had caused the noise. "Why don't you give us your money, you little kid?" one of the kids snarled, landing a kick into the girl's ribcage. A small squeak came out. The other boys jeered and laughed.
"I...I..." the girl tried to talk between tears.
A different boy put a hand to his ear and leaned down. "What was that? I couldn't hear you!" he joked while the other kids continued to chuckle.
The girl managed to form a sentence. "I don't have any money!"
"No money!?" the boy who spoke first feigned disbelief. "Then why were you in the marketplace?" he whispered in as threatening a tone as a ten-year-old can muster.
After hearing all of this, Amumu decided that it wasn't any of his business. As he turned to leave, one of his bandages got caught under his right foot, and he fell to the flagstone floor flat on his face. "Ouch!" he muttered. "I thought that I just retied them before leaving..." he mumbled as he got up slowly.
"What was that?" one of the boys asked.
Amumu peeked over his shoulder as the face of a kid lurched around the corner. "Ahhh!" Amumu cried, startled. The corners of his eyes became wet, and the usual shockwave ensued. The boy, looking chubby for his age in a tight brown tunic, went flying back into the wall. His body hit the ground with a thump.
"What the heck!?" The two other boys, who were already walking in that direction, did an instant reversal and were sprinting away. The last civilian who tried to fight a champion of the League mono a mono ended up with a lamppost-shaped scar down his chest. The kid who had been knocked down stood up in a daze, and followed the others at a slower pace.
"Wait for me!" he cried as he made his tactical retreat.
Amumu's eyes were still wide, as he looked around in a panic. Realizing that there were no terrible threats around, he calmed back down. Shaking his head to relieve the headache that always came with an accidental release of Despair, he remembered the girl. Trotting over as fast as a midget mummy can, he squatted down next to her.
She had disheveled brown hair, hanging down in gently curling locks. She wore a simple brown tunic, as was customary of Demacian children on a day off of school. The girl was very skinny, with pointy elbows and knees. Despite this, Amumu thought that she was kind of cute. Deciding that there was no place for those kind of thoughts, he asked her if she was okay in the only way that a sad mummy can. "Are...are you...fine?" Getting no immediate response, he added, "Girl?".
Standing up shakily, the girl rose to her feet. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and though she tried to hide it Amumu could tell that her stomach was hurt. Quickly wiping away tears on the back of her sleeve, she sniffed and responded, "Yeah, I guess. Thank you so much, Amumu!" There was an overwhelming amount of kindness in the girl's almond-colored eyes. She threw her arms around the mummy in a blatant display of appreciation.
Amumu bit down on his bottom lip and squeezed his eyes shut to stop himself from crying out of reflex. When they disengaged, Amumu took a tentative step backward. "Well, nice to see you!" the mummy waved concisely and turned on his heel. The candy would have to wait; today had just been too stressful.
"Wait!" the girl grabbed Amumu's shoulder.
Amumu whirled around. "Aaah!" he barely suppressed a full-blown Despair from knocking the girl flat. "You shouldn't surprise me like that..." he mumbled, staring down at the ground.
She giggled and indicated an adjoining alley. Her expression suddenly turned somber. "There's something that only someone from the League can help me with."
Amumu quickly looked around, hoping that someone else from the League had appeared during the conversation. "W-well, I'm not really from the League as much I'm just kinda there sometimes..." His excuse was cut short as she gripped his tiny wrist and led him down the alley. His stubby legs hastened to keep up as she took him down a series of twists and turns. The mummy attempted to memorize the way, which proved to be a futile exercise.
They arrived at a dead end, where Amumu saw what many would mistake to be a large purple butterfly, where in reality it was Pix, Lulu's fairy assistant. However, the fairy was usually vibrant, darting around and flipping as she cast her magic. Today, she lay flopped on the ground. Almost like someone had wrung her like a towel, Amumu didn't sense any magic power emanating from the creature.
The girl knelt down next to Pix, and pulled several slices of bread from the folds of her tunic. "She must've spent the money that the bullies were looking for on the bread!" Amumu realized. This girl that he had met was truly very kind. "By the way, what was your name?" he asked her. The mummy was largely ignored as Pix consumed a slice of bread almost instantaneously. "What kind of insane metabolism must fairies have?" Amumu wondered.
With what appeared to be tremendous effort, Pix flapped her wings and drifted over to Amumu. "She hasn't had the strength to fly since I found her here!" the girl exclaimed.
Amumu barely heard her, as he was discovering that Pix had a very strange way of communicating. What sounded like a light tinkling of bells came from her tiny mouth as she perched on his shoulder, and words appeared in Amumu's mind. There was no disembodied voice to accompany them; almost as if he had thought them himself, although these words were definitely foreign.
"Help me...Amumu..." they said. "Something is stealing my magic..." she elaborated.
Amumu took Pix from his shoulder and let her lie in his palms, which were barely long enough for the creature. "What is? What's taking your magic?" he prompted.
"Something...nasty." Amumu knew that Pix liked to play around, but she could've provided a better explanation than "nasty"!
"What did she say!?" the girl asked loudly. Amumu was alone with his thoughts, and jumped at her voice. A single wave of Despair escaped his eyes, almost knocking the girl flat. But instead of slamming into her like it did to anyone in its way, the magical pulse just stopped in midair. The tears began to come back together, into a ball with the dark energy Amumu gave off enveloping it. Then, as if there was some spectral force controlling it, the ball began to drift lazily down the alley.
Amumu blinked his eyes a few times to make sure that he wasn't seeing things, and followed the ball's every movement. "I don't get what's happening, " he stated. "But we need to follow that ball!" he exclaimed in an unusual sense of adventurism, and clamored away after it with Pix in tow. Glad that she had an objective, the girl cheered as she followed.
The strange procession of a floating magical orb, a sad mummy, a nearly passed out fairy, and a Demacian girl took several turns into the darkest part of the city-state. The ground was sticky, and filth plagued the air like a terrible illness. If Amumu's sense of smell wasn't severely dampened by his bandages, he might've choked. The girl seemed to be one strong gust of wind away from an epileptic seizure. She put a hand over his mouth, trying to hold her breath.
Pix struggled to continue broadcasting her thoughts. "The nasty thing is right up ahead!" Her words felt labored as they entered Amumu's mind. Since she was an ethereal creature, he sensed that she didn't have much time left before whatever was sapping her magic tore her apart completely.
The mummy made a decision before the ball could leave his sight. He handed Pix over to the girl, who still looked sick. "Take Pix, and wait here!" he commanded. Confused, the girl nodded. "Hang on, Pix!" Amumu thought. Every fiber of his body screamed not to keep following the ball, just to get what he came to the market to get and leave. If Pix died here, then there's wouldn't be any laser flying at him from the brush, or any gigantic champions squashing him under their boot. But there also wouldn't be any warm shield to protect him, or any beautiful melody playing through his mind as they won. Amumu had to be brave, something that the Sad Mummy was unused to feeling.
Amumu followed the orb a short distance longer, until he reached a strange sight. A transparent ball that appeared to be distorting the air around it hovered in the center of a wide alley. Seeing it was like looking through a sheet of warped glass, you can see it and you can see what's on the other side of it, but neither are very clear. Leading into it were tendrils of different colors and shapes. Some were thick and red, while others were skinny and golden. The colors shown magnificently, against the now black alley. His ball of tears floated towards the ball, and slowly penetrated it. The ball appeared to swell in size slightly.
"Well, what is this?" A deep, disembodied voice echoed from the ball. It filled Amumu's ears like honey, and his head became light. "A champion of the League of Legends, perhaps?"
The mummy shook himself out of his stupor, and managed to form words, although his tongue just felt like a big lump of meat in his mouth. "Wh-what are you?" he managed to ask.
The ball responded immediately. "Currently I am nothing," it answered cryptically. "But soon...I will be everything!" The alley appeared to shake, and Amumu was struck by a piercing headache, much worse than anything he'd ever felt from Despair. "I will consume all of the magical power from this world, and then I will reduce it to rubble!" The tubes leading into it swelled suddenly, as though they themselves were sucking the life out of Valoran. Some led into the walls, and some tunneled underground. Others went into the sky, becoming transparent as they hit the light.
Amumu choked back tears. "W-well, stop it!" he screeched, scared for his life. "You big bully!" he insulted ruthlessly.
"No," the ball spoke. "You have the perfect amount of magic inside you!" One of the tendrils, a golden one, shot from the ball toward him. It moved faster than Amumu's eyes could track. But before it could reach him, the girl appeared in front of him.
"I told you to stay back!" Amumu cried in surprise more than anger. The tendril attached itself to her chest, but instantly recoiled.
The ball made noises like it had been burned. "This specimen holds no magic power!" it cried.
Amumu leapt into action, not wasting a single moment. He quickly unwound a length of bandages from his arm, and threw it at the ball. The Bandage Toss connected squarely, wrapping itself around one of the tentacles. Amumu planted his feet, and rotated his hips in a wide arch. The bandage acted like a rope between them, and the Sad Mummy flung the ball straight into one of the walls.
"Agh!" it cried out in apparent pain. A spark of energy discharged itself from the ball. "How dare y-!" Amumu yanked it again, sending the ball to the ground. Another spark of energy shot away into the sky.
The mummy connected the dots and came to a realization. "Do I just have to beat your stupid energy out of you?" he asked.
"No!" the ball responded quickly.
Amumu advanced on it slowly. "Let me give you a hug!" he whispered menacingly.
In defense, the ball quickly withdrew the tentacle that Amumu's bandage attached itself to, and the bandages fell uselessly to the ground. Another green tendril came around and swept Amumu's feet out from under him. The ball willingly discharged an energy blast toward Amumu, which knocked him back into the wall. The breath left his small body, which wasn't a major loss to someone who's already dead.
"Beat him up, Amumu!" the girl cheered.
Opening his eyes wide, Amumu conjured his best Curse of the Sad Mummy. The ball found itself unable to move, frozen by whatever otherworldly magic Amumu possessed. "Come play with me!" Amumu yelled, running to the ball and heaving a wild punch. The ball fell back into the wall, releasing more energy. "Take this!" he slammed another punch into it, followed by another. "This is for Pix!" he cried.
It wasn't long before Amumu had beaten the strange creature down completely. Its tentacles had withered and died long ago, leaving behind just a semi-transparent ball repeatedly crying out in pain. Every time energy left its body, it became slightly smaller. Soon, it could fit in the palm of Amumu's hand.
"Please! No more!" it cried. "I'm sorry! Please don't kill me!" it released an earsplitting howl. The ball now just glowed ever so slightly.
The girl put a hand on Amumu's shoulder. "It can't hurt anyone anymore," she assured him.
"Okay..." Amumu agreed, drained of energy from the day's events. "I'll take it to Ezreal!" Amumu decided. "He'll know what to do with it for sure!" he told the girl.
Ezreal was in town, just returned from an excavation of a "magical" tomb. The only magical thing about the tomb was its ability to be boring, he had decided. He was ready to turn in at his hotel, when a strange group burst into his bedchamber.
"Ezreal!" Amumu cried.
The explorer was taken aback. "Amumu? How did you even get in here?" he asked.
Amumu pushed the ball into Ezreal's hands. "Look at this!" he commanded.
Ezreal registered that Amumu was accompanied by Pix and a girl he'd never seen before, and sat down on his springy bed. "Alright, Amumu," he sighed. He was used to Amumu bringing in weird things for him to look at, but he wasn't even aware that the mummy was in the city. "Tell me from the beginning."
While Amumu told Ezreal everything from the bullies to him fighting the ball, it floated up around the ceiling of the room. "So you sucked magical power from all around Valoran, little guy?" Ezreal asked the ball.
It jerked down at him menacingly. "You don't think that I could do it!? Do you think I'm weak!?" it yelled.
Ezreal pretended to ponder the question. "You belong in a museum!" he taunted. "What can you actually do in this state?" he asked.
Instead of responding, the ball labored a quick grunt. "Hnng!" it cried, and shot out a small bullet of energy across the room. It collided with a vase that was propped up on a nightstand and shattered it. It exploded with reasonable force, scattering shards across the floor.
The audience clapped quietly. "I think that I might have a use for you!" A light bulb went off above Ezreal's head. "But first, I need to know your name," he commanded of the ball.
It floated in a manner that almost seemed arrogant. "I have no name. I am a powerful creature, ascended beyond physical form that can transcend the mortal plane!" it gloated.
The explorer thought for a moment and stooped down to the girl. "What's your name, little girl?" he asked her. It occurred to Amumu only at that moment that he had never received an answer.
She cleared her throat. "My name is Runaan," she told him.
"Runaan, eh?" Ezreal nodded. "Then we'll call you Runaan!" he told the ball. "Named after a person that helped discover you!" he smiled to himself, clearly impressed with his own ingenuity.
Pix hovered tentatively around the ball that almost ended her life. One of the sparks of energy had flowed back into her, and she felt better than ever.
The ball seemed to disagree with the name. "Runaan is too wimpy!" it claimed. "I am to be called the Hurricane that Crushes Mountains!" it decided. "That name is far more suited to someone of my ability!"
Ezreal smirked to himself. "I think that the League will love you...the Runaan's Hurricane."
Annie strode off of the fountain, fuming at her most recent death. Jarvan the Fourth had leapt from the bush faster than her reflexes could react, and she could practically still feel the hole in her head. It didn't help her mood that Amumu never brought back the candy that she asked for. She would have to singe a few of his bandages later as payback.
Twitch had just Recalled back to the base, and something odd hovered around his shoulder. It appeared to be a glowing ball about the size of her head. Braving the smell that always accompanied an encounter with the Plague Rat, she approached him. "What's that thing?" she indicated the ball.
Twitch looked out of the corner of his eye at the ball. "They call it a Runaan's Hurricane, some new item that Ezreal brought in," he sniveled. "Its smell is annoying, though," Twitch sniffed. "Oh, that's me."