Author's Note 09/10/14: please note that this story was started before Riot made changes to their old lore starting with the Shurima Update. This story and the plot behind it was conceived around the beginning of Season 4 (before the Institute of War was removed to divide gameplay and the world setting), and will be finished with what was considered canon at that time.

Unstable Matters: the Journal of Zac (Introduction Summary)

The continent of Valoran, with its history of war and conflict, steadily moves into the future.

Since the founding of the Institute of War and the League of Legends, humanity has moved past the Rune Wars that nearly brought mankind to extinction. Although the world is still plagued with problems, an uneasy peace has been formed under the Institute of War's structure. Every day teams of "Champions" fight on arenas known as the "Fields of Justice," where the outcome of their fights are used to settle conflicts between individuals, private parties, and whole city-states alike.

Zac, aka the "Secret Weapon," is one such Champion who fights every day. Killing other Champions, and being killed in turn, but never actually dying. As an Independent Champion not affiliated with any major power on Valoran, he has the luxury of picking and choosing what he fights for.

However, those who wait and plot in the shadows of the Institute have other ideas in mind.

On the eve of his one-year anniversary of joining the League of Legends, he will receive an offer to work for two of the most dangerous individuals on Valoran: Katarina Du Couteau and Jericho Swain. The mission: deliver a shipment of hextech weapons to the Order of the Shadows in Ionia, retrieve an ancient artifact relating to Valoran's history in return, and stop a potential Ionian civil war from erupting over the exchange. Unwilling to see the world descend into the chaos similar to the Rune Wars, Zac accepts their offer. Tagging alongside of him will be Ahri, the Nine-Tailed Fox, and Riven, the Exile, both of whom find themselves involved for their own reasons. What begins as an excursion out into the world, like an afterthought spoken on the winds, will grow into a series of revelations and discoveries that will shock the political scene of Valoran to its core.

Zac's tenacity, Ahri's charm, Riven's valor, Katarina's voracity, and the force that birthed the Institute of War.

It would all become the beginning of a revolution. A reconquest of the world.

(Prologue: Unstable Matters)

Alright.

I'm writing this thing because a lot of people told me to. When you're a Champion in the League of Legends, you get used to a hundred different voices telling you what to do every day. It's important to know when to listen, but it's also important to know when some voices are full of it.

So let's start with the basics, from the top.

I'm the "Secret Weapon," a.k.a. Zaun's Amorphous Combatant. Zac. The one, the only, Zaunite superhero in the goo.

What else can I say about me? I can block the punches of a living mountain. I can do so much magic damage it puts mages to shame. I can jump over the pits of the jungle and into a lane in a single bound. And I can lift a Cho'gath with no less than Feast six stacks. And that's all just part of a days work.

But in case you didn't know, I'm also a neutral Champion. I don't fight for a king, or a empire, or a tribe, like a lot of other Champions. So I always thought it was really important to stay impartial to others. I've been told that trust is one of the hardest things to maintain between people, and being neutral relies on the trust of others. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to stay on the good side of people, especially when all of the city-states participating are only doing so to pull a fast one over the others. I've gotten everything from loving affections to death threats on the same day for simply speaking to people who are at odds with each other.

The only Champion that's never questioned my intentions was Twitch, or as he's more infamously known, the "Plague Rat." When I first joined the League and was settling into my apartment, word had already spread that the newest Champion at the Institute had come from the wastepits of Zaun. I guess word travels fast in a city that acts as the center of the world. I was worried at first that he had some crazy ratty schemes I wanted nothing to do with, but it seems that his interest was more comically lackadaisical than I imagined. You'd be surprised what kind of conversations you can have with a psychotic mutant rat (with an itchy trigger finger) when you don't have a sense of smell.

I could talk about me all day, but that's not why I'm doing this.

Let me start by saying one thing clearly: the Institute and the League are a good thing.

Even if there is a lot of politics, secret dealings, intimidation, and shadowy junk going on.

I always see people talking about how humanity is always headed toward destruction. That we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. If you ask me, that's all a load of depressing crap. Humans can come together to try and make better futures for themselves. Noxus would tell you that they maintain their empire to survive, and that the collective helps preserve humanity's survival on Runeterra. Demacians will tell you about how their isolation is to preserve their society and people, and about the countless threats that exist elsewhere. Freljordians will tell you about how their ancestors rose up and rebelled against the so-called Watchers, to preserve their own way of life. Every day I'm around people who have sacrificed their their time, their lives, their happiness, all to try and help others they'll never get to meet. So was it really that strange for the strongest humans to band together briefly, and create something they hoped could stretch beyond cultural borders to keep the world safe?

I used to think that neutrality was important. I valued the trust that others put in me, and I thought that it meant I was doing the right thing. It's not that I wanted to be friends with everyone, but who was I to judge one life against another? One story against another? Whole groups of people against each other?

But now I know the truth; a hero isn't someone that sits by and lets the world go past him.

I wanted to be a hero, so I trained to become a hero.

And now that I am one, why did I used to be afraid of doing what was the right thing?

If I'm going to tell you everything, I might as well bleed out my green guts out onto it. I'm not going to go as far as to claim that Zilean will want to use this as a reference to historical events, or that Ezreal might want to store it in the Institute's library for safekeeping. The story I'm going to spin is probably going to be filled to the brink with the kind of cliche lessons that get passed down from parents to their children. The kind of story you've heard a million times: the naive kid who becomes a big strong guy that tried too hard to do everything, before he finds balance with his friends to live as something in between. I'm like a gigantic green monstrous Goldilocks that beat up the bears after breaking into their home and committing property destruction.

I'm not ashamed of my mistakes. I want to show there's never a wrong time to start doing the right thing.

But I don't want to start this thing off on such a serious note. I want this journal show to show that I'm not a coward. I'm not just a spineless ball of goo. I'm not just good at punching things. I'm not too negative all of the time. And I don't eat too much.

Being a Champion is more than just a hobby. Even if I'm a hero for fun, I can still be number one.

So to start this off... I might as well make it entertaining right?

So it all started the day I caught Katarina and Talon going through my belongings. Which happened after I fought that match on the Howling Abyss. Which happened after I visited the bakery Sinful Succulence. Which happened after I caught Luxanna Crownguard spying on me. Which happened after I got pushed down a flight of stairs by Ahri.

It was the first day I felt that being neutral wasn't the right thing to be anymore.

Author's Note 9/17/17: to help combat some writer's block I am experiencing, I will be editing the early chapters of this story and adding/removing content to bring it up to par with my current writing. The next chapter of this story is still being worked on, and I thank you for your patience over how long it takes me to update this story as of the last year.