Chapter 19: Saving Akali And Thresh
Kennen had warned the Summoners about Zed and Shen duking it out, and Zed found himself being carried by a Summoner towards the Infirmary. He blacked out at one moment, though when he regained consciousness again, he took one of the nurses that was putting an IV in his arm hostage.

“Don’t move,” Zed said while his eyes narrowed towards them. “I know that something is going on, and you’re going to give me answers. Tell me what happens when a champion dies, and where Akali is.”

The nurse held in Zed’s grasp appeared frightened at first, before something seemed to overtake her body. A chilling voice that wasn’t her own resonated through her mouth, and a crooked smile overcame her features in a twisted grin. “You’re defective just like the others,” the nurse whispered, before Zed slashed her throat. However, he was disturbed to see that the nurse’s corpse still moved after he hit her in a vital area, and she called out to the other nurses and Summoners to aid her.

Zed escaped as soon as he could.

He was so used to being on the run, of eluding authorities and enemies alike.

Zed made his way towards the only place that he could think of—the inner vaults of the League institute. He needed to discover the truth himself, before he died at the hands of the Summoners. Everything that he fought for, everything that he tried and did, was to expose the Summoners. He knew that Shen knew something was up, though Shen had been too afraid to make ripples in the pond of that small world. But now Zed knew that he would come close to what he sought, and he used his shadows and shadows clones to confuse and confound his pursuers.

Maybe his life would end here. IT would be about time. Zed always had been a dead man walking. If it weren’t for his survival instincts and combative abilities and his use to the Summoners, he wouldn’t have made it to this day. Though now he probably outlived his usefulness towards the Summoners, now that he was privy to the Secrets that Shen tried to preserve in the League, so he wouldn’t upset the balance between Summoners and Champion. Hordes of nurses came into the room and attempted to stop Zed from making his way out of the Infirmary, though Zed slashed them all down, knowing that they were minions of the person that spoke through the one nurse. The ominous, looming emperor of shadows and death, of horrible schemes that Zed could only fathom to guess at—Thanatos. He heard the name whispered among the league at times, of a man that could possess people’s body’s and had powers of a god. But there certainly had to be certain limitations to his power, did he not? He was bound by rules much as the champions were. He had to have some kind of weakness, didn’t he?

Zed would root it out and find out what that weakness was. He was pretty sure that Thanatos was behind this scheme as he began piecing together the information that he had. But if he were to die before this information could be brought to the light, so to speak…then everything he did was in futility.

Just when the Summoners were about to capture Zed, Zed felt an aura surrounding him, and a comforting presence that he thought would never join his side.

Shen joined the fray using his ultimate on Zed to protect him, and once Shen was by Zed’s side, he nodded towards the one whom he once called brother and said, “Let’s end this.”

“Agreed,” Zed said, before they made their way towards the inner vaults of the institute together.

However, Summoner stood in their way. They tried to restrain and subdue Zed and Shen, though Shen easily overpowered them as the slipped through the main defenses that led to the inner vaults, where their destiny lay, apparently. Zed arrived there first, and he used his blade to pick the lock and went inside. What both Shen and Zed saw unnerved them.

They first saw the various clones sitting in their rejuvenation tanks of various champions, and then there was of course the morgue. But first, they had to find Akali. They searched and swept throughout the room, and Shen gestured for Zed to come over and look. Zed peered closer, and then he saw that Akali and Thresh were in a cryogenic chamber, frozen in place, unable to move.

“Let’s get them out of there,” Shen said, before he undid the cryogenic chamber for Akali while Zed released Thresh from his prison.

Both of them were dazed and disoriented.

“Where…what happened?” Akali said dazedly, and Shen held her hands within his own.

“Zed and I rescued you,” Shen explained, and Akali turned to Zed in surprise.

“Zed?”

Zed turned away and pretended not to listen, though he thought he could catch a faint trace of a smile on her face.

As much as the reunion was touching, Zed sensed there were more enemies coming. They needed to get out of her quickly, but how were they going t owarn the other champions about what happened? About what was going on with the League and everything else? That there’s a man who though himself God and wanted to take over Runeterra to crush people with his power?

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Shen murmured. “There are lots of Summoners. They’re going to surround us, but you and Thresh can fight, right?”

“Of course,” Akali said, and Thresh scoffed.

“Please,” Thresh said. “My wits haven’t been completely addled. I thirst for the Summoner’s blood.”

“That’s the spirit,” murmured Akali in agreement.

The Summoners surrounded them, suddenly looking wary. Bedecked in their robes, they made intimidating figures that raised their hands and formed the hand signals to perform the spells and glyphs they marked in the air to hurl magic at all of them, the Champions. Though Zed was no stranger to Magic. He knew how to counteract against Mages, and Summoners had magic, though yes, it was powerful, it could still be handled. The one thing they had to worry about though is the mind meld connection that Summoners had with Champions, an really Thanatos wanted to keep all the power to himself. The Summoners weren’t as intimidating as Thanatos was, perhaps, but they still could put up a good fight. And what they lacked in strength, if they weren’t already powerhouses already, they made up in sheer numbers.

“You’re going to regret this,” One of the Summoners said. “It’s a shame that that so many champions have found out about the existence of this chamber. Though no matter, we have Master Thanatos on our side.”

“Don’t waste your breath pleading for mercy,” Zed said as he brandished his blades.

“Get ready,” Shen murmured, and all the Champions wielded their weapons to fight against the Summoners. However, they heard the resounding laughter of a madman gone deranged, and Thanatos’s voice resounded in their heads.

Well played. You’ve made it to the final levels of the game, haven’t you? Now this is where the real fun begins!

All of a sudden, the corpses from the morgue rose up and headed towards the Champions. Akali cursed underneath her breath and threw a kama at one of them, directly in the head. The various corpses of her friends and other Champions that she knew rose up one after another in a torrential wave, seeming to have no end to them. Zed slashed at them with his blades, Shen cut them down with his twin blades, Thresh used his scythe like weapon and chains to strangle and cut them. After a while, Thanatos seemed to grow bored of this spectacle, before saying, “Come now, this was a mere appetizer for the grand spectacle that is about to take place! You know your friends that we’ve quarantined into a certain area? Their souls are going to be sacrificed to me.”

“What was your plan all this time, Thanatos,” Akali said warily. “Immortality?”

“Precisely,” Thanatos said. “This was all an experiment to test certain methods of immortality, true immortality instead of the false immortality that have been granted to the Champions every time that they die on the battlefield. Though I will leave you to these corpse minions while I make the preparations. Don’t assume that you’ll be leaving here alive.”

With that, Thanatos’s voice vanished, and the Champions cursed underneath their breaths. They were so close to finding out the truth, only to find out something as equally devastating as the truth that they’ve discovered; their friends are going to die. Horrified and pumped with adrenaline, they slashed through the corpses as though their lives depended on it.