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Not long after the chemical fire was suppressed, Kael chose to take over the burned and abandoned factory. This act allowed the former manager—who had been metaphorically standing on the edge of a cliff, ruined and buffeted by the winds of debt—to step back to safety.
"I don't even know how to thank you! I'll introduce you to my daughter! Wuwuwu..." The manager, moved to tears, clung to Kael's leg like a drowning man to a drift-log.
Kael looked down at the man's face, where each feature seemed to be weeping independently, and shook his leg to dislodge him. "Take your gold coins and get lost."
"Right away!" The man vanished in a blur of greed and relief.
"You really have money to burn," Vi said, stepping out of the shadows of the soot-stained workshop. "Buying a ruin like this? What for?"
The fact that she was questioning his investment instead of helping the other Zaunites fleece him was a sign: she officially considered Kael "one of the crew."
"Investing in industry," Kael summarized. "Piltover's land is overpriced and wrapped in red tape. In Zaun, no one cares what I produce, as long as it doesn't level a city block."
The Blue Ocean of Cosmetics
"Produce what? Don't you dare cause trouble here," Vi warned.
"Cause trouble? Look around, Vi." Kael gestured to the surrounding district, where chemical plants billowed black smoke and toxic waste seeped into the fissures. "How much worse could I possibly make it?"
"You're a Piltie. You're different," she countered.
"Discrimination already? You're picking up the Upper City's worst habits," Kael noted, inspecting the factory's structural framework. It was solid enough.
"I'm going into cosmetics," Kael finally revealed.
"Huh?"
"You wouldn't understand. Piltover's beauty industry is primitive. It's an untapped blue ocean." Kael didn't need Hextech for this; his memories of Night City and the Marvel Universe contained chemical formulas that would deliver a crushing blow to the existing market. Once he had the capital, he'd pivot to heavy industry—fertilizers and refined alloys. He was going to bring the blessings of modernization to Zaun, one factory at a time.
"Tell the original workers they have their jobs back," Kael instructed. "And give Benson a list of the raw materials I need."
"Has Vander returned yet?" Kael asked Powder, who was helping him organize some salvaged tools.
"No news for two days," she whispered, her brow furrowed with worry.
This gave Kael pause. Vander had the prestige and the numbers; dealing with Silco should have been a surgical strike. But Zaun's lowest levels were a toxic maze of shifting ruins and alchemical fog. Even for a legend like the "Black Hound," it was a dangerous place to play whack-a-mole.
Suddenly, Ekko burst into the factory, his face as pale as a Zaunite could get.
"Vander's injured! Badly!"
Vi didn't wait for details. She bolted toward The Last Drop. Kael grabbed Powder and followed.
The bar was packed, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and the smell of cheap ozone. Vander lay on a table, his chest a ruin of torn flesh and exposed muscle. The local doctor was backing away, terrified of the internal damage.
"The best doctors are topside! We have to move him!" Vi screamed, tears streaming down her face.
"By the time you reach the bridge, he'll be cold," Kael said, pushing through the crowd. "Move aside."
"Are you sure you can do this?" Sevika asked, her eyes full of pain and guilt. She had been wounded too, her arm bent at an impossible angle.
"If I want him to live, even the Kindred couldn't take him," Kael said calmly. He opened the first-aid kit and called for the strongest liquor they had. He poured the alcohol over his hands, flashed them over a candle to sterilize them, and got to work.
"Who did this?" Kael asked, cutting away Vander's blood-soaked shirt.
"I'm not sure... it was barely human," Vander wheezed.
Kael recognized the signs. Shimmer. Silco had accelerated his timeline.
Tsk. Kael reached into the wound, pulled out a retracted blood vessel, and tied a surgical knot with localized pressure. Vander gasped, his eyes bulging.
"You're lucky. It missed the aorta," Kael noted. "Now, stay still." He pressed a specific nerve cluster on Vander's neck, dropping him into an instant physical anesthesia.
Kael's hands moved with the efficiency of a Night City ripperdoc and a Titan Resistance combat medic. He stitched the internal tears, tied a neat bow on the skin-level sutures, and turned to the next patient.
"Who's next?" His gaze fell on Sevika. "Anesthesia?"
"No," she gritted out, trying to maintain her tough-as-nails persona.
CRACK.
Kael forcibly reset her arm, pinning the bone with two table legs and some gauze. Sevika let out a scream like a slaughtered pig.
"Next."
The other injured Zaunites looked at the blood on Kael's hands and the expressionless look on his face. They swallowed hard. "Doctor... I think I'd like the anesthesia," one whispered, eyeing the massive suture needle Kael was holding.
"It's just twelve stitches. Bite on this wood," Kael ordered.
Vi watched from the corner, a new kind of fear taking root in her heart. She realized that while Kael was a "Piltie," he handled the carnage of Zaun with a coldness that made the Enforcers look like kittens. She felt a sudden, profound relief that she had never truly managed to land a hit on him.
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