Amumu quickly ran after Annie after their match on the Fields of Justice was finished, shouting her name. He found himself just as quickly becoming tongue-tied as Annie turned around to greet him, her eyes full of expectation.
"Yes?" she asked, in her cute and innocent voice.
"I...er...would like if we could...er...go to the Shurima Desert...i-if it wouldn't...um...be too much of a bother..."
'Why does this always happen to me?!' Amumu thought as he tried to get his mouth to work as hard as he could.
"Oh! It's that time of the year again, huh? I'd love to go with you, Amumu!" said Annie, with a smile on her face.
With a relieved sigh and a reciprocal smile, Amumu said, "Oh, thank goodness!"
"So then I said to Pepe..."
"Pepe...he's the worm, right?"
"No! The worm's Wigglebutt! Pepe's the cat!"
"Right, right, so you gave the car to Wigglebutt?"
"You betcha!"
"And Pepe didn't like that?"
"Oh no, not at all! I had to give him a good licking, if you know what I mean."
"He wasn't too much trouble for our little Lulu, was he?"
"As much trouble as being invisible while no one's looking! It's a good thing I brought soap."
"Wait, you actual-"
"Excuse me!"
Amumus' voice had finally reached a decibel loud enough to be a shout. Two pairs of eyes turned towards him, one belonging to Tristana and the other belonging to Lulu. Amumu had walked in on them eating and talking together and not wanting to be rude, waited for them to finish. As the minutes passed, however, he saw no foreseeable end to Lulu's tale. He tried to interrupt repeatedly, only to be continually talked over for about another half hour.
"Oh, hi Amumu."
"Heya towel boy!"
Towel boy. Lulus' "affectionate" pet name for him. On one hand, he wished she wouldn't call him that and on the other, it described him almost too perfectly...
"I, uh, would really like it if you two could, um…"
Tristana seemed to realized what he was talking about.
"Amumu, are you asking the two of us to go on a date with you?" Tristana asked, surprised.
Amumu wondered if Tristana had used some secret code word to turn up the rooms' temperature to be burning hot, but then he realized it was just all the blood rushing to his face. And that they were outdoors.
"N-no, I would never ask to go on a date with yo-I mean, of course I wou-I mean, why would I know what a date is?! W-what month is this?! What year are we in?!"
As Tristana giggled, Lulu chimed in while still eating, "As nice as that would be, the date that is, not you losing your memory, I think Amumu's asking us to go with him on his bi-annual trek, not a date."
"Y-yes! That's exactly it!"
Tristana slapped Amumu on the back and said, "Of course we'll go with you, Amumu! Right, Lulu?"
Lulu jumped to her feet and said, "I can hear the desert calling my name already!"
"…So this is the fifth one I've taken so far and I'd be really, really happy if you could join us, Rammus. But if you don't want to, I mean, I know how puny, slow, and…"
Amumu had just finished his monologue, listing all the reasons why he needed Rammus in his group, detailing all the fun adventures they'd be having, explaining why the pyramids needed exploring, highlighting all the climaxes of his previous expeditions, and more. For six hours. If Amumu was going to launch into another monologue about how weak he was, Rammus knew he could be there all day. He could bear it no longer, and with his red eyes glowing menacingly and his muscles flexing as he reached out towards Amumu with his claws, he decided he was going to shut Amumu up once and for all.
"Okay," said Rammus reassuringly, with his hands on Amumus' shoulders.
Amumu's face lighted up with a smile, "Wow, really?! I didn't expect you to say okay, but I'm so glad to have a denizen of the Shurima Desert onboard!"
But what happened next was beyond any and all of Amumu's expectations...
Annie, Lulu, Rammus, and Tristana all had to cancel at the last minute. Annie came down with a fever, Lulu and Tristana were being called to action by the mayor of Bandle City, Rammus powerballed away, saying he forgot he left his oven on. When the day came and only Amumu showed up, he got depressed as shit. Seeing as Amumu's volunteers had all vanished into thin air, the Institute of War still had to make good on their promise with Amumu and rounded up the first four champions they could get their hands on. First was Brand, as he's generally always on-call. Next was Taric, and being the nice guy he was, agreed to help. Then, it was Draven, who after some persuasion, from himself, that is, decided that this could serve as inspiration for his new feats of execution. Finally, Wukong joined, always eager for another challenge. And finally, they assigned an overseer to the group...me.
"Alright, I can see you're all here, but just for procedure I'm going to do roll call anyway."
I look towards my five charges and scream internally.
"Amumu?"
"*Sniff*...hello..."
"Brand?"
"This is asinine!"
"Draven?"
"Don't wear it out, but you can certainly try!"
"Taric?"
"Here, summoner."
"Wukong?"
"I await any challenge, summoner!"
"Great...so we're all accounted for."
Draven immediately speaks up after I finish, "So we all know who's gonna be the star of this show, right?"
He jumps and slides on the ground with his knees, spinning his twin axes for effect and throwing his head up in the air shouting, "Me!"
Unfortunately for him, we've already started walking, leaving him far behind.
"H-hey! You can't just leave the Draven behind like this! Get back here!" Draven cries as he runs to catch up.
And so begins the Adventures of Amumu, Brand, Draven, Taric, Wukong... and Summoner.
