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Chapter Text

One second, he was sat in the council room, a rare smile itching onto his face with every raised hand: independence for Zaun was promised, finally granted and freed from the crushing boot that was Piltover. The next second? The last thing he heard before the dark, was the screeching shatter of glass… and then there was nothing.

It’s impossible to describe nothingness.

A void, silent and endlessly irate yet gently suffocating in its grasp; swallowing deeper and deeper and deeper into abyss, could never live to be nothingness.

Was it light? A blotch of colour behind the eyes? No, it felt more final than that. Too quiet: too cold, and yet nothing at all. No expected monitor flatline, no crying companion or even silence. Nothing. Nothingness greeted Viktor in its spindly arms and held him close: stole the little breath left in his lungs.

It felt like love. It felt like nothing at all.

Till a new hand took hold, filling his lungs and leaving him gasping, gargling, around nothing. Eyes shot open to see static, fading to the edges till his vision cleared. He couldn’t move, his limbs trapped in stasis above the ground.
He could recognise this place by scent alone, the scene all too familiar: the lab.

Weakly, he pulled at his restraints despite nothing truly bounding him. It felt wet, disgustingly sticky against his skin, the sensation was buffered: he felt numb all over. How long had he slept? Did he sleep at all?
Viktor woke right up when he saw who was lying against the desk a little ways in front of him.

Jayce Talis.

Shirtless and covered in bandages, blood seeping through the fabric: hair mused and sleeping breaths heavy. What had happened to him, to the both of them? Viktor reached a hand forward, pushing against the membrane that bound him.

It tore like flesh, like tendons ripping under blunt force, resisted like bone. It snapped, and he fell forward with a yelp. Tendrils dissipating behind him, leaving him free and naked as the day he was born.

Viktor’s knees hit the floor with a clang- a thump unlike skin- nor did it hurt as it should. All he could feel was an insistent buzz, a thump like a heartbeat, droning and simply there beneath his skin. A recurring impulse.

Viktor grabbed for his crutch, propped nearby against a table, it seemed new - repaired and refurbished. Using its leverage to haul himself upwards, finally did he have the opportunity to look down at himself: the state of his being. Pale, translucent skin replaced by pulsing metal: ravines of burning magenta carved in between the strings - the hexcorisation having spread across his entirety, no longer bound to his bum leg and right hand.

He felt weak. No, no that wasn’t the word. Hindered, impaired, as though he were underwater with that buoyant lack of control.

It felt wrong. Painfully inhuman. He felt unlike himself. Was he still himself?

“Jayce?” Viktor called out, voice quiet and crackling as though he hadn’t used it in months: a testament to the unknown length of time he was suspended in…
Viktor turned around for a moment, taking in the web he’d been entangled in. His body having left an imprint of itself in the slowly drying fluid, swirling pinks and teals and white all freezing in place. It hurt his head to look at.

He took a step, then another, slowly wheedling his way over. “Jayce” Viktor called once more, louder than before, closer.

Jayce shot up with a sleep-ridden gasp, fumbling with himself before turning around on the stool - Viktor’s stool - to face him. Jayce was never a man of subtlety. His eyes trailed once, then again and then two more times over Viktor’s malformed, metallic figure.
“Viktor? My god.” He mumbled breathlessly, before sputtering like he’d caught himself: standing quickly from his seat.

“What am I?” Questioned Viktor, an air of dread in his voice, fearful. He could’ve never expected the response Jayce gave. “You’re…you’re alive” Jayce breathed out a laugh, running a hand through his hair.

“You’re alive!” The next thing Viktor felt was a warm, secure strength encasing him: Jayce practically ran the small distance over to hug him with a force strong enough to almost knock Viktor over. It was the first sensation Viktor could recognise in this new body, Jayce was always touchy, whether it be offering a hand to his back or measuring the circumference of his leg for his brace.

Viktor let himself relax into the hold, embracing the familiarity as he, too, put a hand to Jayce’s back: pressing his fingertips to the edge of the bandages. Viktor allowed himself to feel.

Jayce sputtered once more, pulling away with an embarrassed urgency like he’d forgotten something. “Oh! Oh uh.. you must be cold.” Jayce wandered away, and Viktor was left to think.

“Cold. No I don’t think so. I sense a… charge, a potential. A recursive impulse. Unpleasant but… cold isn’t its name.” Viktor let the air settle after his words, he glanced over just once more to what’s been his cocoon: he regretted it immediately when his head throbbed once more, a thought banging in his mind before Jayce slung a blanket over his shoulders, concealing him.

“The Hexcore” Viktor recounted urgently, looking back to Jayce. The same dread filling his chest, or what remained of it.

“Viktor, it saved you.” Jayce hastily consoled, “Somehow it- it adapted to your injuries, changing and evolving! It was as if it was connected to you.” Jayce stepped up to the desk once more, grabbing a handful of papers and coming back just as quickly.

“I did my best using the notes from your leg. Recorded everything. There are still so many questions, but-“

“I was supposed to die.”

Viktor might as well have bludgeoned Jayce with his crutch with the way the man’s face fell, eyes growing glossy and shoulders sagging. Viktor continued,
“You promised to destroy the Hexcore.”

Jayce took a deep breath in, Viktor watched his chest rise and fall.
“No.” Jayce replied with an almost joyfully manic lilt to his voice. It baffled Viktor. “Don’t you see? Heimerdinger was wrong. We were wrong! It’s not as bad as we-“

“It almost killed Sky, Jayce.” That rendered him taken aback, faltering for only a moment.

“What? No.”

“It disintegrated her leg, Jayce. Right up until her hip. There was no blood, no wound. It was gone as though it hadn’t existed in the first place. But…” Viktor trailed off.

He’d thought he was alone, messing with the Hexcore to his own detriment. That was until she walked in, and like the kind woman she was: saw Viktor and ran to his aid.

“…she screamed all the same.” Jayce let out a staggered breath, finally left speechless in the wake of Viktor’s admission.

“She had such dreams, as did we once. Now she’s bed ridden because of my negligence.” Viktor trailed his gaze from the floor to the blueprints Jayce had no doubt fallen asleep to work on, he took a step forward, Jayce moved out of the way.

Viktor trailed his hand over the blueprint, letting his eyes scan over the illustration. If Viktor still had a heart, it was the thing plummeting from his chest to his stomach. It was the most he’d felt since waking up: unrivalled sickness.

“I’m going to resign from the council.” Jayce spoke up, following after Viktor. “I understand now, my place was always here in the lab with you.” He placed an arm over Viktor’s shoulders, Viktor felt nothing but disgust bubbling in his throat. “We’ll make this right. Together.”

Weapons. These were blueprints for Hextech weapons. Rifles drawn in such detail that it was clear it’d been thought over: considered and revised. Viktor’s hand shook where he trailed to another paper. Grants for the weaponry, funding secured from investors, sketches of more to come. Their Atlas gauntlets purposed for mining now twisted to hurt; to kill.
Shields, smoke bombs and bullets.
Tears bubbled in Viktor’s eyes and his gut roiled.

“What is this?” He could barely speak the words, acid bubbling into his throat as his chest rose quicker and fell even faster.

Jayce glanced down, Viktor couldn’t see his face. He didn’t want to.

“Viktor, the Undercity… they’re dangerous. They seem hellbent on tearing us down by their sick methods. They sent a rocket into the council room! It killed Councilor Hoskel and Bolbok. It- it killed Caitlyn’s mother.” Jayce’s voice grew teary “Gods, Viktor it almost killed you too! Caitlyn, she’s- she’s been down there, she knows what’s going on and the severity of it, we need to be able to protect ourselves. If they’ve done it once, they’ll do it again.”

“…I’m from the Undercity. From Zaun.” Viktor spat, stumbling away and shoving Jayce’s arm off his shoulders. “We swore Hextech was to help the people- to save lives! Not take them! How could you do this? After everything?”

“After everything? Viktor, they almost killed you!”

“I was supposed to die. I didn’t care for how it happened.” Viktor sobbed, despite it all, he couldn’t raise his voice as the metal pulsed along his skin, his head felt too heavy and too light at the same time. It felt like a million voices were speaking to his head at once and growing more needy for an answer. “I.. I cannot allow myself to work alongside you. This is not why we created Hextech.” Viktor took a step away, leaning on his crutch, and glared. The thrum intensified inside him.

“What-“ Jayce retorted, panicked and shaken. His eyes frantically glanced between Viktor’s own. “Viktor, you’re my partner.”

“Clearly, our paths diverged long ago. We no longer share the same vision. It was… affection that held us together. That kept you tending to my corpse-“

“You think it’s so easy?” Jayce retorted, desperately, angrily. “To turn your back while your whole city looks to you for salvation? To cling to principles while your best friend bleeds out in your arms-?” Jayce’s voice grew frantic, manic as he raised his voice, taking a step closer to Viktor’s retreating form.

“I never asked for this!” He cried out, charged and echoing before letting the silence settle amongst them once more. Like he made a point that Viktor could now recognise and understand, like he was justified. Viktor turned without another word, limping away towards the door, each step ringing with the echoing clank of his crutch.

“Where are you going?” Jayce demanded weakly, clinging to whatever sort of connection he could, keep the conversation flowing to keep Viktor there, with him, just a little longer.

“Goodbye, Jayce.” Viktor muttered without turning around, without slowing down, he couldn’t bear to look back, because Viktor knew if he did,

He’d never find the strength to leave.

Viktor let his feet carry him, keeping his head down and his free hand clung to the blanket, shielding himself. Though after a few minutes, he realised he was walking to his apartment. An apartment he no longer had a key for. An apartment untouched for months in his dead? Comatose? State.

He had no place to go, nothing holding him down in Piltover anymore. Not the academy, not his job nor his home nor the people. He needed to go where his help was truly needed, where he wanted it to go in the first place.

He wasn’t sure what awaited him in Zaun, he hadn’t lived there in years, when he was a child with only his clothes and cane to his name.

Perhaps, it was time to visit his mentor once more. Down in the fissures and by the river. Perhaps, it was all he had left.

_ _ _ _ _

Water was as peaceful as he showed her it was. Coddling in its coldness, calming in its serene movements.

A part of her couldn’t help the thought, who put all those holes in you? The other knew that she could only blame herself, she always had been a jinx. She couldn’t let go, holding onto his cold, dead arms for just a second longer. Keep holding onto to a rope; frayed and snapped.

She let go, or at least she tried to. She clutched his hands instead. Hands that held her, coddled her in their coldness, calmed her in his serenity. Hands she would never see again. Eyes she would never see again.

She let go. She reached forward once more, she had to hold on. Had to show she was good for something, show she wasn’t a coward who gave up when things got hard. She wasn’t a liability.

Jinx watched as he fell deeper and deeper. Almost asleep in his stillness. Too still. And yet, it was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him in her life. Was death a mercy? Was every bullet a promise? Had she proven herself?

Was Jinx as undoing a daughter as Silco had claimed, in life or death?

Had she had enough?

She screamed into the water, it fell silent, bubbling, pouring around her like pacified smoke. It was impossible to tell if she was crying, too much water, too much stillness.

She swam up. She wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t.

Jinx gasped as her head breached the stained pilt. Finally did her screams breach the air, ringing endlessly, boomed by her sobs: her hitched breaths and raging thrashing in the water.

She swam back to the docks, clutching at the algae-ridden wood, half rotten, easily letting it snap under her fingers. She stood quickly to stomp into it, screaming and sobbing and shaking with every plank she broke beneath her boot, till she fell again. Tugging at her hair, strands caught in her nails and pulling.

A caw broke through her cries, her throat fell silent. A crow perched on a pipe and staring wistfully at her, tilting its head this way and that.
Like it understood, like it knew.

She raised her gun, flicking back the safety,
And fired.

The gun jammed, gunpowder soaked and unable to fire.

The crow flew away.

Jinx cried.

_ _ _ _ _

Jayce felt dead. Eyes glossed over and lightless with every page he stared at. He wasn’t allowed in the forge, nobody would let him in due to his injuries - he’d push himself too far and tear them back open, that’s what Mel said at least.

And so, he was stuck. Stuck in the lab. Stuck in front of the empty cocoon he spent hours simply watching: for something, for anything. A twitch, a breath, maybe even those amber eyes staring back at him.

For now he spent his hours working through the equations. The lab felt too quiet, his own breath and the sketch of chalk on a board wasn’t enough.

Jayce found himself reminiscing all too often. About magic, about electric blue and particles, about the sparking of welding, about the sound of a rolling stool, of chalk in harmony with his own, of a crank of a wrench, of quiet moles, of amber eyes.

Jayce rubbed a hand down his face, sighing into his hands. He couldn’t do this. He placed the chalk down and walked right back to his chair.

He made sure to keep his back to the looming shadow that was Viktor’s…maybe cocoon was the right word after all. Enough of that. Caitlyn needed a new rifle, the one her mother had gifted her was destroyed, by someone she claimed was named Jinx: coincidentally, the same one who sent the council room into a fiery grave.

So, Jayce offered to make her a new one. One that was stronger, quicker, more accurate. He needed to know she was safe and protected. He trusted her as such, but the extra assurance made his heart just a little lighter in these heavy times.

He almost missed the click of heels behind him, he couldn’t ever miss the gentle clasp of a hand on his shoulder and the equally gentle voice.
“How is he? Stable as the last we spoke?”

Mel was the only person Jayce had told of Viktor’s condition.

It’d been a crippling breakdown full of snot and tears and ended with him on the floor and Mel sat beside him, cradling him like he were a child again. And even after it all, she simply wiped his tears and asked how Viktor was. She didn’t care for his selfishness, she looked past his regret, all she cared about was if they were okay.

Jayce was left relatively unharmed in the bombing, Mel too. It’d left him angry at first: flooding his mind with thoughts of why’s: Why now? Why him? Why not me?

Mel was quick to shut those down for him, what is done cannot be undone, she’d said.

“He’s gone.” Is all Jayce replied with, he could hear her gasp, the tensing of her grip, could feel the way her head whipped around to the stand only to shakily sigh and her hands grow limp.

“Where…” Jayce had never seen Mel as speechless as now, her lips struggling around the words. Jayce took her hand off his shoulder, standing from his chair to level with her. Her eyes were worried and unable to meet his eyes, shoulders tense.

She bit her lip for a moment before looking up. Her eyes flickered over Jayce’s face: over his sunken, baggy eyes and unkept stubble.
“How is he?” Is all she asked, her thumb rubbing along Jayce’s knuckles.

“…I don’t know. He was…quiet, at first. Shaking all over like a newborn faun. I thought he was cold but he said he wasn’t. God, I should’ve asked more about how he was feeling- waking up like that, changed and confused. He must’ve been so disorientated and I never thought to-“

“Jayce.” Mel’s carefully sharp voice cut through, squeezing his hand. Jayce took a breath.

“We argued. He saw the blueprints and freaked out and…then he left. Without another word.” Jayce didn’t want to remember the quiet, painfully gentle goodbye. He let go of her hand, stepping away with his hands running through his hair. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone through with this. He was right, Mel. Weapons? God, I’m a scientist not a soldier. We made Hextech to help the Undercity- Zaun.”

“Jayce, what is done-“ “Cannot be undone. I know.” Jayce sighed.

Mel looked at the back of his head, sighing deeply, biting her lip in thought once more. She took a step closer.
“…You cannot fault yourself for wanting to protect those you care about. Viktor’s opinions are his own, you do not need his approval with everything involving Hextech. Especially without his support for the months he was gone.”

“Mel…”

“Jayce, sweetheart” Mel turned him around by the shoulder. Reverently cupped a hand to his cheek, running her thumb under his eyes and wiping away the tears he hadn’t realised had fallen.
“You did what you thought was right. Blaming yourself does nothing but drag you down, Viktor does not define you. Yes, he saved you those years ago, but he can’t save you now. You can save yourself, and more. Hextech can protect, can save, if Viktor cannot see the positives in your dream anymore then it is his own fault. Not yours.”

“His lack of involvement doesn’t change his importance in Hextech, Mel. It’s his as much as it is mine.”

“And so your opinions matter just as much as his own, Jayce.” Jayce fell silent, biting the inside of his mouth and looking away.

“Piltover is scared… I am scared.” Jayce never thought he’d hear such words coming from Mel. Mel didn’t expect it either.
“We have never received a cut this deep and the people are scared, Jayce. We can provide the aid the people need, and what better than Hextech? You should not fear potential. You are Jayce Talis: the Man of Progress. The people look up to you as an inventor, as a councillor, as-“

“Mel I need to-“ Jayce couldn’t stand the council. He wasn’t made for politics and fake smiles and personas.

“-We need to show a united front. For their sake. I know you hate this, Jayce. I apologise for forcing this upon you. But look at all you have achieved in this time. In a week, you did everything Heimerdinger couldn’t do in a bi-centennial. You can do good. Believe me, you are stronger than you think Jayce.”

The words soaked in slowly, her thumb never slowing on his cheek. Jayce slowly raised his hand to his face, encasing Mel’s own like a glove, holding it there as he turned his face into it: almost nuzzling into her warmth as he pressed a kiss to the heel.

“I don’t know what to do anymore, Mel. Everything’s changed, nothings stable.” Jayce pulled her hand away. “I don’t know anymore.”

“You are an inventor by heart Jayce, problem solving is in your nature. Most of all, you are not alone. You have myself, Caitlyn, your mother, even that girl you met, Caitlyn said her name was Violet?” Mel tilted her head minutely in thought, righting it quickly after. “Regardless, you are not alone in this fight.”

And yet, Jayce had never felt so alone.

“We’re holding a council meeting soon,” Jayce sighed deeply, Mel squeezed his hand. “Discussing our next steps. I need you there, Jayce. Your insight is invaluable, and I will support your ideas. Perhaps you could address your concerns, if you truly care for Viktor’s words, I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

“…Thank you, Mel.”

Jayce let her step away, only one step however, before he leapt forward to grab her, hugging her tight and tucking his head into her neck.

As always, she cradled him till his tears ceased, warm and comfortable. Encased with love.

_ _ _ _ _

The familiar drip would never stop being distressing, the scent of mildew morphing into chemicals. Viktor could only hate this place, yet for a time it was all he’d known.

Each step echoed through the cave, quieting the closer Viktor got to him, hateful static dampened the noise. He could hear the bubbling of pipes, the scratch of metal plaguing his senses. He finally rounded the corner by the little river, he remembered a crude toy boat drifting down it.

Shelves with vials and bottled guts littered the walls, a pair of eyes next to a liver, next to a heart. Limbs hanging from hooks, a beast hanging by its elbows in the far corner: breathing with its stomach opened and littered on a tray below.

Pipes with the shine of green into chambers converting specimens from all over Runeterra, pipes with that sickening magenta: shimmer. Painting an eerie glow over the vile smell and sheen.

Viktor made himself known with a purposeful, loud clack of his crutch.

“...I was beginning to wonder when you’d return, Viktor.” The scratchy hiss spoke out, Singed. Sounding righteous, like a point proven, a hypothesis correct with how slow and precise his pronunciations were.

“I care not for your infallible speech, Doctor.”

“Ah… yet it must hold an inkling of significance to you. You are here, once more, after all.” Viktor scoffed, looking away. He could hear the tear of flesh from the table, disgust bottling within him.

“We like-minded individuals are often cast away, isolation becomes familiar, becomes home. That is why you are here. It is familiar, a comfort to your heart and soul.”

“I came here of my own choice. Not to entertain your remarks.” Viktor walked past the doctor, putting more force than necessary into every hit of his crutch against the floor, walking till familiar green encased his vision, and he looked up.

A wave-rider. Once free and happy to swim amongst the shore and the deep of the pilt. Now caged, hooked up to pipes and forced into stasis, not living: surviving, and yet somehow not alive at all. It felt all too familiar now.

“She’s as stable as the last you visited, Viktor.”

“Stable, but not thriving. Not living.”

“Stable enough that I can leave for my plans, there is an opportunity I must attend to. Although, I can expect you to keep watch now, can’t I?”

Viktor’s head whipped around, brows furrowed and lips snarling. He spoke with a scoff, “You think I’d shove another stick into her in your absence? Cut her open and fill her with another concoction in the name of survival? You are a fool.”

“As are you, to have not trusted my words. They do not understand you or your vision, hence why you are here.”

He didn’t give another reply, refused to, even. Staring back up at Rio, her eyes wide and glassy, her tail twisting and body twitching rarely. He placed a hand to the glass, condensation collecting on his palm and slipping down the metal grooves like rivers. He clutched the blanket a little tighter.

“…the body always fails the mind.” Viktor mumbled, nose twitching. He could hear footsteps behind him. Drawing closer, and closer still.

Viktor could hear the creak of bent metal before he felt the hit.

He turned immediately, the doctor already pulling away, observing the now ruined needle with fascination. Viktor gasped an annoyed sigh.

“Are you kidding me? You couldn’t have even asked? Oh, why do I even bother, medical consent is as foreign a concept to you as life.”

“You claim the body fails the mind, and yet. Your body has superseded nature…never in all my years have I created something so resistant, though I’ve grown close…how did you do it?”

Viktor stiffened, turning away once more.
“It was not my choice. And it is ir-replicable. A domino of chance events.”

“A shame. Your findings could have been useful.”
The doctor wrapped away instruments and jars into a bag. “I was truthful in my leavings. There is a beast in the mountains, I wish to examine it.”

“Cut it open you mean? Harvest it?”

“Forgive a man for not wanting to be crude, Viktor.”

“Your day to day is crude, Doctor.”

“You were once my apprentice, you still are in some ways, Viktor. I trust you to keep order in my wake.”

“How are you so sure I won’t leave the second you are gone?”

“You have nothing else.”

And with that, the doctor slung the heavy bag over his shoulder, each step growing quieter and quieter till he was out of sight.

His words hit heavy, and Viktor was a weak bridge to a crushing weight. His knees gave way, collapsing to the floor as he cried, covering his head with his arms. He turned, laying his back to the tank: the cold shiver keeping him grounded, though barely.

“Oh Janna, what have I done? What had that crippled child done to deserve a fate as this? Is it even fate?” Viktor rolled to lay on his back, staring up at the tank.

“…Do you believe in fate, Rio?”

He didn’t receive a reply. His head throbbed once more, reddening at the edges, he curled up with a groan.
Something distantly clicked in his leg, an uncomfortable twist in his spine. It hurt. Pulsing down his body in waves,

Till it stopped, and bubbled out of him like vomit.

“Why? Why do I feel so little one moment and the next I’m drowning? What has been made and unmade in my being to reap this agony?” His chest sunk, ribs squeezing. It felt like something was crawling inside him, destroying his foundations and making him implode.
“It hurts, I’ve always lived with pain- grown used to the breaking aches and insatiable cramps! Yet it comes raging back, angry I’d even tried to forget-“

It all reared to a head. He hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge it all yet. The attack on the council, his supposed death, the hexcore, Jayce. He’d compressed it down into a dense ball that eventually dragged him down with it, too heavy to hold and punishing in its drag. It all cruelly manifested as a burn through his body, writhing under his metallic skin. Pain he longed to forget.

“How do I forget, Rio? Make this hurt stop?”

He felt like a little boy, only his clothes and cane to his name, trying to chase a toy boat too quick for his too big shoes.

“Is your stasis peace? A mercy? You cannot hurt without consciousness, cannot experience with immobility. I used to ire your state, now I am simply jealous. Do the tubes and pipes keep you happy? Are the machines as kind to you as I was?”

Something clicked, in Viktor’s shoulder this time as he sat up. Wiping away the rivers of tears, blanket forgotten on the floor. He spoke aloud, nobody around to hear his deluded mumbling.

“…machines. They’ve kept you alive, breathing… just enough to support survival but not life… what if…”

Viktor was encased once more in acid green, the colour flickering in his teary eyes. His hands pressed to the glass. A promise, a vow, ringing through his vessels.

A little boy handed a purple, glowing plant to a three-tongued wave-rider, giggling.

“I will let you live, Rio.”

_ _ _ _ _

The whir of fan blades quietened and a flurry of footsteps entered the cannery. It appeared normal from the outside, as old and unused as it always was. They have a lead though, a tip. They had to investigate.

“Search the premises.” A modulated voice commanded. A hoverboard slung to his back.
Rubble was kicked to the side, torchlights turned on and searching, carving out an… odd scene from the darkness.

A dining table sat in the middle, a doll hung from the ceiling over one of the chairs, next to it? A mannequin. It sent a shiver down his spine, their looks too familiar.

An ode to simpler times.

“Boss.” A voice ahead called, turning a cushioned chair around at the head of the table, the cushions coated in blood, bullet holes littering the back of it.

In his walk over to it, he saw more evidence on the floor. Severed ropes, a ball gag a little ways away, a discarded mask with a pink smile drawn on it. He looked around, the same drawings covered the walls- like a disturbed art exhibit.

Pink and blue monkeys. A circus in its own right.

A single platter rested in the middle of the table, a mouldy, barely recognisable cupcake lay in the middle: left to collect flies. It reeked.

“Jinx.” He spat out, he knew she was unwell, knew she didn’t want help even more. But this? This psychotic display? It felt too far, even for her. He bent down, picking up a bullet, observing the craters left to the floor: shot from close proximity. There was no doubt she’d been here.

He heard a distant ‘fuck’ ring from a little ways in front of him, he saw Scar appear around a corner. “You have to see this.”

He didn’t waste any time heading over, was it a body? A weapon?

It was worse.

He rounded the corner, a small uphill climb, open to the sky: it looked beautiful, peaceful. Till he reached the top.
Scar clasped his shoulder: his free hand pointing a line of direction.

In perfect view was Piltover, in all its high-end architecture and pride. But perfectly inline, was the council room at the peak of the Piltovan academy. “…holy shit.” Ekko whispered breathlessly. Horrified.

Jinx was behind the attack on the council.

She had created something so strong, so powerful, that caused so much damage from so far away.
She was a terrorist, a threat. Her actions would bring the war they’d worked so hard to evade.

“We’re done here.” Ekko turned around, they grabbed what evidence they could, left silently. Their hoverboards whirred once more, streaking through the smog in bright green stripes. They had more important things to tend to.

They had a manhunt ahead of them.

_ _ _ _ _

Jayce found her after an hour of searching. First he’d checked the shooting range, every post unattended. Then her bedroom, as messy with her stringed map of the Undercity as it was before. Then the living room, all before he gave up and asked her father where she was.

He should’ve expected her to be here, the Kiramman gardens, sat beside the wind statue: watching as the blossoms drifted in the whirlwind only to fall once more when the vents closed. A quiet jingle sounded with every breeze brushing past the chimes. It was a peaceful area, one they’d come to uncountable times together as they grew up, a bond only strengthened by time.

“Hey, Sprout.” Jayce started, quiet and gentle, a hand placed carefully between her shoulder blades as he sat down beside her: he didn’t say anything when she shrugged it off, didn’t complain. Only understood.

“Are they ready yet?” Caitlyn implored, never so much as glancing away from the petals. Watching as they rose and fell. Clockwork in their cycle. Jayce’s face scrunched in confusion, he opened his mouth only to be cut off.
“The weapons, Jayce. Are they ready?”

“Cait…” He could only sigh, rubbing a hand through his hair and resting on the back of his neck. “No. No, they’re not ready. I’ve not been allowed in the forge for a bit… how are you-“

“When can we expect them to be ready?” Caitlyn demanded, harsh and sharp: reminiscent of how she carried her rifle.

Jayce didn’t say anything else, for a moment. He just sat beside her, watching the petals.
Up and down, up and down, and up and down again. Minutes must have passed in their shared silence, Jayce understood it too well. The cyclical nature of it, once did it bring comfort: in knowing it would rise and fall again. But now? Now Jayce knew it would drive you crazy: waiting for that rise and fall, growing afraid of it, angry at it, then indifferent to it.

He knew it all too well.

Slowly did the sun change its course, Jayce truly had no idea how long they’d been sat outside for. He only snapped out of it when he noticed the lamplights turn on, it made him look away from the statue, it’d grown dark.

Time vanished when you were thinking, stuck in your head: recycling the same thoughts over and over.

Up and down, up and down, then up and down again.

You can’t think forever, but you can’t always drag yourself away from your thoughts.

“When my dad died,” Jayce began with a heavy sigh, wringing his hands where they fell between his knees. “I didn’t understand it at first, that he was truly gone, buried in that graveyard. The first thing I noticed was the break in routine. He wasn’t up and early to make breakfast anymore, didn’t return home late covered in soot and the smell of hot steel. Couldn’t take me to the forge so I could pretend to do homework in the corner just to watch him work.”

Jayce returned his hand to Caitlyn’s back, rubbing up and down, up and down, and up and down again.

“He wasn’t there anymore. Just… gone. Not a gradual fade, not a grain of sand lost to a wave, slowly slipping away. Just gone. Like a blip, no warning, no alarms. And… it took me a long time to accept the fact. I’d see him in everything: in the clothes collecting dust in my mother’s closet, in the hammer he’d gifted me for my 6th birthday, in the boots too big for my feet and the empty chair at the table.”

Jayce continued despite the shakes he felt against his palm. He couldn’t tell if they were his or hers. He paused to swallow, to take a breath.

“And even then, they never truly go away. The hurt never stops, but you grow used to it. It burns hot like coal, drowns you in grief. But you learn to withstand the heat, learn to breathe. It’s a scar in its own right, and…”

“…she’ll always be with you Sprout, no matter how much time passes.”

The statue finally ceased, the petals falling to the ground: the turbine shutting off automatically at the hour. Each petal settling onto the grate: stuck in the same place, but no petal rested on the same tile it’d began with.

Jayce let out a relieved breath once he felt a head rest on his chest, his arm slinking around her shoulders and keeping her close. Silent tears carving puddles into his vest. He didn’t care.
“…I need her dead, Jayce.”

Jayce didn’t say anything more, simply held her there, in the Kiramman gardens, surrounded by blossoms and blanketed by purpled trees.
He thought of a young girl, carrying boxes by his side, and wondered where her smile had gone.

_ _ _ _ _

It was too quiet. The last time the council room had been filled, it was clouded by enraged shouts, bleeding into horrified screams.

What once was 7, reduced to 4.

The gaping hole that was once the roof remained, looking over then as a reminder like the memory alone wasn’t enough. Dust and rubble had been cleaned and cleared to the best of anyone’s abilities. Barely any chairs remained, most toppled, burned and smashed in the explosion.

Ash and blood still lingered in the air, a tinge that stings at your nose: makes you spit black to the ground.

Caitlyn walked in behind Jayce, Vi promised to wait outside for her, she didn’t care to stand in front of the council a second time. Much was to be discussed today. Every step echoed with a click of her heel, Jayce stilled, and so did she. In the centre of the council room, circled in destruction.

Councillor Medarda walked in not soon after, an air of elegance following her till she looked around at the remaining carnage surrounding her. Fire burning in her eyes, a recollection, a memory.

She approached Caitlyn, following her eyes. A chair with a corner blown off of it, blood and dust stained into the fabric. Mel laid a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know how we’ll face this crisis without her.”

It was a gentle reminder of who had once sat in it. Caitlyn’s chest sunk no less than it had.

Councillor Shoola came not long after. She too took in what once was, a similarly haunted look in her eyes.

The next and last entered with a push of the door and the grating squeak of wheels, crashing with every step down it took to reach the roundtable: Councillor Salo with general Medarda in tow.

The doors shut once more.

“To think we nearly extended sovereignty to the creatures who did this.” Salo gritted, the world’s slow, scratching resentment spitting from his weak tongue. Death was a mercy that’d evaded him. He’d been crushed under a beam of rubble, screaming and crying like a cowardly child. Paralysis took his legs. He’d never walk again.

Caitlyn winced with every bash the wheels took trying to come down the steps to meet them. The carnage Jinx had caused in a single blast, what more could she do?

“We’re charged with imposing order,” He continued, Councillor Medarda’s gaze hardened, Councillor Talis tried to shield his own remark at the man, though Caitlyn caught the stilt of his brow. “And we’ve been asleep at our posts. Well, my eyes are open.”

The room settled for a moment, Councillor Medarda stepped away from Caitlyn’s side, closer to councillor Talis. Councillor Shoola tensed. The room tensed: apprehensive and dreading. Councillor Salo continued with the authority of a man who claimed to wheel his own chair, and yet couldn’t.
“There will be no more fairy tales of peace until we scour our basement of its demons.”

“So kind of you to assist Councillor Salo, mother.” Councillor Medarda remarked, a cold profession to her voice, it wasn’t hard to miss the obvious deflection away from Councillor Salo’s badgering, unsubtle plans. The man continued anyway.

“As we are at war, I thought it prudent to solicit the advice of such an experienced veteran.”

Caitlyn’s sharp eyes didn’t miss the lethally silent exchange between the Medarda’s, a war in its own right.

“Let us address the matter at hand.” Councillor Shoola spoke finally, glancing around the room. “Our people are scared, suffering. They need to know their leaders have the situation under control.”

“An unprecedented show of force. We flood the undercity with Enforcers, armed with Hextech.”

Councillor Talis tried to speak in tow to Councillor Salo, Caitlyn couldn’t help but interrupt urgently. “Innocents will be caught in the crossfire.”

She was silenced by an angry hand smacking against his armrest: spitting and cold.
“How many more councillors have to be blown to pieces before you wake up? We are under siege.”

Caitlyn watched as Councillor Shoola nodded, Councillor Medarda tensed and looked around: searching for reason, and Councillor Talis cupped her shoulder, a worried yet determined look on his face. Councillor Medarda looked to Caitlyn.

Sputtering, with an angry gesture of his hand, Councillor Salo snarled. “What is she doing here?” Caitlyn swallowed, glancing away. Councillor Medarda rushed to her verbal aid.

“Officer Kiramman witnessed the attack first hand. She confirmed this was the act of a single, deranged individual.”

“Jinx.” Caitlyn couldn’t help but spit, the name felt acid on her tongue, dripping and poisoning her from the inside. Solidifying her hatred to resolve.

“Silco is dead.” Councillor Medarda continued, “The underground, leaderless. If we follow your plan, we risk unifying them against us.”

Councillor Salo scoffed, moving himself forward with a push of a rickety button. “So, what is your solution? Chastisement? A firm reprimand?”

“We use their division against them. Pin the attack on Jinx,” Councillor Medarda suggested, biting her lip and glancing away from the pathetic sight rolling towards her, she returned her gaze: hardened. “Post a reward too substantial to ignore.”

“I’m sorry, Mel. I’m not comfortable trusting our fates to chance.” Councillor Medarda bit her lip once more as Councillor Shoola spoke, “Jinx has proven elusive. Our healing can only begin once she’s been brought to justice.”

“Then, we’re 2-1. Unless the silent Talis wishes to speak his mind? Where’s the conviction of the man who removed Heimerdinger from his 200 year run of the Council gone?”

Councillor Talis ground his teeth together, jaw tightening then dropping. “We’ve seen what happened at the blockade, that alone was a mistake that cost too many lives. Do you think parading around their streets won’t illicit a similar, if not worse reaction?”

“Hm. 2-2 then, we’re at a standstill.” Councillor Salo scoffed with a roll of his eyes.

“If I may?” General Medarda requested, her voice carrying across the room and further. Too powerful was a single voice. “In crises such as these, it’s imperative you present a unified front to the public, whatever your personal feelings.” She threw a look at Councillor Medarda.

“How wise.” Councillor Medarda retorted back. “Councillor Talis has a point however, invasion will only raise tensions. They abhor Enforcers enough, more so now than ever. Have you forgotten the riots that took place the first time it was done? The air was thick with smoke for months following.”

“Then how to you propose we contain this disgraceful rebellion?”

“An elite strike team.”

The room fell silent as all eyes turned to Caitlyn, it was like she was bathed in spotlight: her breaths grew quicker, and she didn’t slow.
“As the only enforcer who’s seen Jinx firsthand, I have the knowledge to detain her. A smaller, highly trained team would not bring as much trouble as a floor invasion. We’ll be secret. Careful. Armed with Hextech.”

“Cait.” Councillor Talis sputtered, she didn’t so much as glance at him.

“We will enter through the air filtration systems, built under my mother’s name. We can open and close them at will. And if it comes to it, we can arm ourselves with the grey. Aim it for the chembarons and disarm their leaders whilst they’re weak.”

“Cait-” She pretended not to hear the quiet devastation in his voice: like he’d taken off the rose-tinted glasses and saw her for the first time again.

“I agree, it would be much more efficient to target solely Jinx. It would prevent uproar and harm, keep tensions low whilst we can bring justice.” Councillor Shoola agreed, nodding her head in assurance. Councillor Salo followed.

“I will not weaponise Hextech. We created it to help people, we cannot-“ “You have blueprints Jayce. You know how integral this is, Piltover needs Hextech. All we need is a team’s worth. It’s not like you’ll be forging an army.”

Councillor Talis fell silent, mouth hung open, a twitch of betrayal in his eyes as he stared at Caitlyn. She stared back, unwavering. He ran a hand through his hair, looking away. Councillor Medarda bit her lip till it bled under the force of her teeth.

“Then it’s settled, Caitlyn Kiramman will search the undercity for Jinx with a strike team, armed with Hextech.” General Medarda announced with finality, not hiding the smirk on her lips.

Rain fell through the hole in the ceiling, an all too daunting reminder. They were vulnerable,

But not for much longer.

The council disbanded without another word, Caitlyn didn’t wait to look at their faces. She couldn’t, she knew what she’d just done.

She found a familiar face leaning against the wall as she left, picking her teeth till she noticed Caitlyn: righting herself accordingly. “So… how’d your little discussion over tea go?”

“We need to talk.” Caitlyn grabbed Vi’s arm and pulled her away quickly. Lighting flashed through the windows.

“Woah woah- hey. Does talking need me to be dragged around, cupcake?”

‘Cupcake’ didn’t answer a single question till they were in the solitary that was her room. They walked all the way out of the academy, through the streets of Piltover and all the way to the Kiramman estate. In the pouring rain, without a single answer.

“You could’ve just asked me whilst we were in that prissy Piltie hallway Cait. Or were you intending to get me soaked?” Vi raised a brow, gesturing down at herself where she was, quite bluntly, soaked head to toe: a displeased curl to her lip as if to say “See? See what you did?”

“We needed to be alone for this. It’s important.”

Vi not so subtly gulped and pulled her collar away from her neck. “Alright, so get to it.”

“I am banding a strike force to head into Zaun. To search for Jinx. I… I want you to join me.”

“You want me to…” Vi opened and closed her mouth a few times, brows drawn and shoulders raised.

“Think of all the good we could do. The undercity would remain unharmed if we just focus on catching her. Solely her. She’s strong and dangerous, you know that Vi. We need strength, and I don’t know anybody stronger than you.”

Caitlyn pulled what looked like a wallet from her pocket, holding it out to Vi who took it with a slight shake of her hands: opening it to find and enforcer badge sitting pretty and polished inside.

“Cait…”

“I’ll find the most trusted enforcers amongst our ranks, pick them out myself even. Jayce is building Hextech for us to use as we speak. Your gauntlets? Stronger than ever. We’ll catch her easy.”

“Cait.”

“Although, It won’t be easy, we know that much. She’s mad. She’ll shoot without another word like a frightened bull seeing red. But with all of us she’ll be no trouble-“

“Cait!”

Caitlyn fell silent in her rambling, fumbling for a moment with a swallow. “…yes?”

“I… I can’t do this.” Vi held the badge back towards her, like it burned her hand to even hold it. “I can’t wear this. You know what they’ve done to me. My family, Stillwater… fuck, I can’t wear this Cait. I can’t.”

Caitlyn frowned, disheartened and crestfallen, she carefully took the badge back. Vi was shaking. Gods, she’d come on far too strong. Hadn’t analysed the facts before presenting her plan. How could she miss such an important detail?

“But…”

Caitlyn looked up from the badge.

“…I’ll help you. Powder’s gone, if anybody can, it’s me who can stop her. There’s no going back now for her. But I refuse to wear that uniform.”

Caitlyn sighed, a relieved smile taking to her face. She threw the badge away without a second thought, letting it crash to the floor and fall out its holder as she hugged Vi, squeezing tightly around her shoulders.

“Thank you Vi, thank you.”

Caitlyn didn’t let go till she felt those strong arms wrapping around her too. She couldn’t help herself, she needed this after all.

She needed this.

She needed to kill Jinx.

_ _ _ _ _

Singed had a successful hunt.

It’d taken him a month to climb the snowy mountains where it rested, a month more to track it down and catch it, then a month more to drag it back down to his laboratory.

A wicked thing it was, a dire wolf with two heads. Two brains, two hearts. A perfect specimen. Now it lay limp, dragging across the floor. There was nobody in the mountains and nobody else in the fissures, who would stop him?

He entered his home through the caves as he always did. A part of him wondered if his apprentice stayed. His answer came swift.

A cheering, chirping noise echoed the closer he got. His grip faltered only for a moment, hesitation replaced by curiosity. It only heightened when he heard the laugh of his apprentice.

Of course he would stay, just as expected.

He left his catch in the mouth of his laboratory, taking careful steps inside. The twisting, joyous dread filling his cold heart.

Singed would expect nothing less of his prodigy.

There Viktor was, laughing and lying flat to the floor with a monstrous pink form looming above him, jittering and clicking happily over him like a dog. Three purple tongues licking excitedly up his face, but no. No that wasn’t what surprised him most.

The glint of metal, bolts and welding fused to flesh. And yet somehow, the areas remained without irritation: no expectant swell of boiling red inflammation or the pus of rejection.

It had merged with her skin. Viktor had done what Singed had not thought possible.

He’d revived life. Rio was alive.

He’d long thought her brain dead in her capsule, he hadn’t cared for her being so much for the mutation living inside her.

But now here she was, running and playing and alive. Her eyes like black pools rather than a fogged glass pane.
“How did you do it?” Singed asked, quiet awe mixed with that malicious curiosity. The pair froze on the floor.

His first answer was a devilish screech, the rearing of teeth and puffed fins like a bird’s ruffled feathers alongside the hiss of hydraulics. The next was a quiet clank of a staff and a voice.
“So you’ve returned. Foolish of me to think you’d failed in your hunt.”

“Death will elude me so long as I wish, Viktor.”

Viktor scoffed, turning back around to pet Rio: she chirped under his hand: it was stained purple. “I wish it would not.”

“Hm. And evading my questions doesn’t aid your whims. How did you achieve this?” Singed took a step closer, only to receive a louder, longer hiss and the angered swish of a tail.

“She doesn’t like you. I believe she’s territorial.”

“Waveriders typically are. How brilliant. From a barely breathing comatose state, to enriched instincts. You have reanimated her. I cannot say I didn’t expect such genius from you, Viktor.”

“…that means little coming from you.” Viktor retorted, taking time to readjust his blanket-turned-cloak around himself. “Regardless of your ill-issued praise. I believe it is time I leave.”

“With Rio.” Viktor added with a glare the moment he saw Singed’s jaw open beneath his bandaged face. Singed’s eyes narrowed in disappointment.

“I suppose my experiment shall be passed on to a new generation. Though, I would have liked to analyse her new condition.”

“Well, unfortunately for you, you get nothing.” Viktor walked away for a moment, stuffing bound paper into a bag Singed didn’t recognise and pulled it closed. “Do not come looking for her. If you do anything more to Rio, well, something may just happen to dear sleeping Orianna.”

It was the first time Viktor had seen panic flash through the man’s eyes. It made him feel powerful, watching the other’s eyes widen, his body tensing.
“I looked around the place whilst you were gone, boredom does much to a man in solitude. She is stable, if you must know. Although, whatever creature you had hooked up to the dialysis stopped moving approximately 24 days ago.”

Singed let his shoulders fall. Stepping aside for Viktor to leave, Rio snapped at him as she walked past. “Watch where you step past the corner, my catch is there.”

“By Janna-“ Singed heard the quiet, horrified gasp under Viktor’s breath. Alongside a gentle thud and a chastising “No! Rio don’t eat that.”

And after not a minute more, Singed was alone again. Left to theorising thoughts as he stepped back outside. He hadn’t the time to waste as he resumed dragging his prey inside. A fine specimen. A perfect donor, for his finest creation yet.

How had Viktor done it?

_ _ _ _ _

Viktor wondered the streets like the back of his hand now. Every turn bringing back memories of his youth in his time spent residing in the Doctor’s lab. Any thugs learned to stop trying to mug him once they realised he had nothing and their blades, similarly, did nothing.

He’d been browsing for a while now, he was glad for the hospice in the relatively short time he lived there, it allowed him to evade homelessness at least.

Now, with Rio by his side. He couldn’t settle for some cheap, claustrophobic apartment. No, he needed something bigger. A house. And a house did he find.

A house resting in the corner of Emberflit alley. It was run down to say the least, the windows smashed in and the place barren yet filthy.

Viktor had no concern. He has faced worse after all, a little glass did nothing to him: though he was worried for Rio.

It started with getting a broom and bucket, traded for using things he’d ’borrowed’ from the Doctor. Plain and simply clearing out the dirt with Rio’s excited help despite all she did was carry the heavy parts away.

More so, she helped him find and carry scrap. Stuff he could sell, but more so stuff he could create with. Techmaturgy had been a childhood interest of his, blundered by his condition and livelihood, but now? Zaun had birthed his dreams, and Zaun would see them to fruition.

And so, a theory was born. Written in quill and ink by a green window, accompanied by the snores of a giant pink waverider, and the ambiance of the lanes.

Flesh was weak. It could tear and fray and die, difficult to replace and even more so to find a replacement.

But metal?

Metal could be taken out and replaced good as new. It was strong, resistant. Alloys could be made for any needed purpose. Strength, conductivity, malleability. The list didn’t end for Viktor.

A mechanised heart never misses a beat, and never falters with emotion. So why would anyone trust their life to a fragile muscle of flesh and blood?

Viktor would bring about a new age.

He would be their herald.

_ _ _ _ _

Chapter Text

Years of routine all bottled down to this day, the final piece forced into its mould and welded to perfection. It started in the sheets, in their comforting warmth, arms wrapped around his torso and bare chest pressed to his back.

Mel’s presence did little to ease the pull of his gut. Usually, the sight of her was enough: green eyes staring hopelessly in love at him, or when her hair was let down and tousled against their pillows, her relaxation usually brought about his own.

Not this time however.

Tensions were growing, eating away at everyone and everything. War looming over the shoulders of anyone brave enough to look over them. Jayce pulled gently away from her hands, and let himself sit. Stewing in his dread, feet dangling off the bed, sheets pushed from around him.

After 2 years, 5 months and 23 days, his project would finally be finished, his gift to Caitlyn and her strike team seen to completion. Hextech weaponry. The first year was spent calculating, drawing and writing. The next was spent on prototypes. Finally, were the last few months spent on forging the final products.

A rifle powered by a single gemstone to shoot with more precision, more power than seen before. A shield, to absorb shock and use it to power the gemstone further. More guns. Bullets. So much metal and electric blue firing away.

With a sigh and a hand through his hair, Jayce finally stood up. He looked back at Mel’s sleeping form and couldn’t find it in himself to resist the urge of pulling the duvet over her and kissing her temple chastely before leaving. He had to get ready.

By ready, he didn’t need to dress up. There was no meeting today and his time would be spent in the forge. Regardless, he went through the motions: a shower, then an hour in front of the mirror, and then more spent getting dressed.

The sun was only beginning to rise over Piltover when he was out the door, bag full of notes slung over his shoulder. It was the only time the streets were quiet: in the early mornings and late nights. It made his journeys to and fro much more pleasant, especially when Mel was there towing him home by carriage or arm.

First up the steps, then down the halls, till he reached the forge: stagnant and cold and waiting to burn hot.

The forge was Jayce’s second home, he manoeuvred around it like second nature. His shirt thrown to the side, he knew the boil the furnace brought. The crack of sparks to light a meek fire, coal chucked in next, and the tiring pull of chains to fan the flames.

It roared in his ears, like it was cheering him own, praising him for letting it fester and grow. Growling with its sparking tongue for more. He threw the first brick of metal in, letting it soften as he grabbed the first mould.

Pour it in whilst it’s molten. Drown it in cold water. Soften it up by the fire and hammer it into shape whilst it couldn’t resist.

It was an agonisingly long process, each piece wore Jayce down bit by little bit, like a stream slowly dripping onto the rocks below and eroding it down. Bit by little bit.

There was no light but the fire in the forge, he had no idea how much time passed. Time seemed to always be eluding him. It then as much as it did now. The only indicator was that the final piece was done, the collection cooling on the rack: waiting to be assembled and whole.

The weight never left his chest, words carved into his skull in a never ending echo, not when he was heaving over the sink when the panic manifested into illness, not when his muscles cried with the force he had to use, not with every crack of the hammer.

Jayce took a breath, leaning against a table, wiping the sweat from his brow. Distracted himself with a swig from his canteen. It was done after all, plans set in motion under his feet. He could only walk.

“…thought I’d find you here.”

Jayce closed his eyes at the voice, wincing, he looked over his shoulder to find Mel once more: arms wrapped around herself, brows upturned in concern and quiet upset.
“I woke up alone, sheets cold, you couldn’t have woken me?”

“I had to finish it Mel.” Jayce replied breathlessly: voice scratchy with disuse, taking another swig. Turning back to stare at the fire, not yet dying out with how much he’d fed it. It wouldn’t starve.

“Finish… ah.” Mel relented, walking to stand by his side, a sweat already gathering under her collar and at her hairline. “Caitlyn will be pleased to know then, she’ll stop breathing down your neck about deadlines.”

She tried to jest, a playful giggle that quickly died with the lack of expected reciprocation.

“Are we doing the right thing, Mel?”

She didn’t know how to answer that anymore. A conversation long repeated, long unanswered: assurance giving way to apprehension, giving way to fear: regret.

“We are undoubtedly at war, Jayce. 2 years of sitting on the line has done nothing but worsen tensions. The Undercity is still a mess of tangled associations and battles for ownership. We gave them time, and we have no more time left to give.”

Jayce didn’t reply, she knew exactly why. It lurched at her heart like a parasite: always sitting there, unspoken for so long now. But she knew, she knew all too well.

“…Jayce, we don’t know if he’s down there. If he’s-“ “He’s alive Mel. I know he is.”

Mel too fell silent, biting her lip, thumb picking at her nails: Jayce grabbed her hand like instinct, stilling her fidgeting.

“Viktor is the most resilient person I know, Mel. He’s down there, doing what? I don’t know. But I am certain he’s alive down there. Helping in his own way. He doesn’t give up.”

Squeezing his hand, Mel pulled away. “Well, once you’ve finished your work, you can return home for the day. As much as I enjoy your musk, you need to wash up, and don’t try and slip away to the lab. You need rest.”

It drew a quiet chuckle from him, though he listened without question. He always did. Jayce shut down the furnace and doused her flames, left everything to cool down for tomorrow’s use. Locking it all away safely. Mel waited for him to redress and grab his things. And when he drew near enough for it, he cupped her face and pressed a gentle, chaste kiss to her lips. Mel fell into it the same as she did every time. He pulled away with a thoughtful look, a blush to his cheeks that faded quickly.

“…I just hope we’re doing the right thing.”

Mel didn’t have an honest answer for him anymore. She watched him walk away and hoped time would tell a different story than she predicted, the image wrapping itself around her from the inside out. Mel wasn’t religious,

Yet she prayed she was wrong.

_ _ _ _ _

Chapter Text

Sevika knew she was being watched. High from the rafters of a dead man’s office like a vulture waiting to swoop down and peck at her corpse. His chair was still there, top corner sliced off where she’d slit Finn’s throat right over his head. Loyalty got her nowhere in the end.

She hadn’t anticipated her thoughtful sightseeing out the window being interrupted.
“How about you quit watching me and get down here, you little shimmer freak.”

The resulting thud on the desk behind her didn’t startle her, though the familiarity did: a routine long lost to time.

“Been a while since I’ve seen you crawling around here, what’s the excuse this time? A prank? An anniversary?”

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”

It was odd, to see the sporadic, hyper vigilant Jinx reduced to something so timid and quiet. Sevika would feel pity, if she was unaware of the circumstances. She slammed her hand down on the desk, unafraid to get in Jinx’s space, almost offended by her lost tone.

She was positively sick of the repetition: the cycle of woe is me bearing down at her door, sick of the useless conversations that always ended the same.

“You brought this on yourself. You killed Silco, told me such exactly a year after you did it. You’re the one who blew up the bridge, who blew up the council. You have nobody to blame but yourself for this. You owe Zaun a favour, owe it to her and turn yourself in to those pigs upstairs so they stop crawling around our streets.”

No remark came, no scream of rebuttal or a fit of tears. No sob story that she’d heard already. No gun to the face. Nothing.

And that scared Sevika the most.

She backed off, taking a step back and looking over Jinx. So small did she seem huddled to her knees on the desk, cloaked by a hood. She imagined every scenario, a gun pulled from underneath it, a vengeful jump for her head, a knife striking for her throat.

Nothing.

Sevika sighed, and did the only thing she could think to do. She fiddled around in her pocket for that familiar cardboard box, took a cigar from it, and pocketed it away again to reach for her lighter: Finn’s lighter. She flicked it closed when the smoke filled her lungs.

“What do you want, Jinx. Why’re you here? Truly?”

“…what was he like when I wasn’t around?” Now that caught Sevika off guard. So, it’d be one of those talks again. She took one last huff before taking the cigar between her fingers.

“He was terrifying. Commanded a room like no one I’ve seen before. So small, yet he filled a room no less. A tyrant, but a genius.”

Sevika rested herself on the desk, leaning casually against it, uncaring for the timid mass sitting with her back to her. She continued,

“I followed Silco because he knew how to get things done. He knew how to lead, how to make progress for us here and upstairs. He did what Vander couldn’t.” Sevika didn’t miss the flinch the name caused at her side.

“Silco could look anyone in the eye and choke them without his hands. He could, and chose, to bend people to his will to get what he wanted. Vander wasn’t like that, he flowed with the tide instead of forcing his way against it. Being a pushover got him killed. Silco was no pushover.”

“…and yet, I came along.”

“Silco was no pushover, he was worse. A fool. He took you in arms because he saw himself in you: a struggling, weak little child who had to fight to get what they wanted. Who would’ve thought his weakness would have become his undoing.” She remarked with a cold sarcasm, bringing the cigar back to her lips for one last breath.

“He had it signed that he would hand you over for Zaun’s independence. You were the clause that cost Zaun’s freedom.”

“What?”

“All he has to do was put you pretty into a present for the Piltie police and we would’ve had it all.”

“No- no, it wasn’t my fault. He said it wasn’t my fault!”

“Silco was a fool. You made him a fool and damned us all in the process. You blew our only chance at freedom. Now we have to fight for it. Again. We’re at war because of you.”

“You’re lying! You’re a filthy, lying ogre! Like you’ve always been-!”

“You don’t need me to spell out the truth kid, you know it too.”

The cigar was knocked from her hand by a pistol, poised right for her face with shaking hands and a torn face: drowning in its own tears and agonisingly raging.

“You’re a jinx. Always have been.”

It was the final nail in the coffin, Jinx gritted her teeth so tight she swore she could feel them crack under her gums. She cried out, Sevika expected a bullet to fly through her face: it was a better end than she’d expected. But no such end came.

Sevika received the butt of a pistol to her temple, and fell to the floor: knocking her unconscious. In her last few moments till she slipped under to wake up with a blistering headache, she saw Jinx run with unstable feet to the door, crashing through and letting it slam.

Sevika had no idea about the gift, wrapped pretty for her, resting up in those rafters: a new arm waiting to be attached, yet now out of reach.

Jinx knew she’d spot it when she woke up, at least… she hoped she did. She didn’t look back.

It wasn’t long before Jinx was running through the streets, clutching the hood tight over her head. Poster after poster after poster did she run past, each staring at her uncannily: WANTED.

She bumped into walls and fled down alleyways, desperate to get away.

Yet down the street and around the corner, a similar sight was there to behold. A young girl, panting and clinging to her helmet with small hands. 3 men chasing after her like hounds to a sheep.

Her rush to escape didn’t begin long ago. She was a mining canary, sent down through the mineshafts to scout, dust and grime covering her hands and filling her lungs. It was a payless job, one she couldn’t escape. That was, until she’d stumbled upon a group talking, masked men conversing: more so plotting.
She hadn’t meant to overhear, hadn’t meant for the rock to slip out from under her palm and alert them. Now she was running.

She turned back for just a second to look back at them, they were far bigger and no doubt stronger than her. They were gaining on her.

The next thing the little girl knew was that she pummelled straight into something, knocking her to the floor.

It was a woman, cloaked and similarly on the floor, staring at her like she wasn’t real.

Jinx looked down at the kid that’d crashed into her, or had she crashed into them? There was no time for questions with how three men were charging round the corner and coming to a triumphant stop.

All Jinx knew was that they were after someone, and that someone was the little girl now huddled behind her as though she was a shield.

One of them spoke, some unintelligible in her daze, voice deepened and changed by the mask he wore: a trio of Chross’ minions. Jinx assumed it was supposed to be intimidating, as if the stature and face alone wasn’t enough.

She looked up, hood slipping from her head as she did. She sniffled when she heard the gasps erupt from them, she wiped her tears before whipping out her pistol, shooting them each down before they could think to do something.

Naturally, Jinx turned around to look for the little girl: she’d expected her to run, flee the scene in fear once a gun was pulled out in front of her, even more so once she’d killed them.

And yet, the girl was there. A little ways away now but still there. Watching, waiting. Her big, buggy eyes darting between the wall of posters and to Jinx herself.

Jinx simply got up and began to walk away. She’d done her good service for the day. She hadn’t failed. Though, she did try to ignore the quick stomps of tiny boots chasing after her.

She’d expected them to get bored, to wander off when nothing new and exciting came along. But no, the little girl stayed right by her feet: taking three steps for every one Jinx took.

“What do you want kid? Shows over.” Jinx quietly remarked, ushering the girl away with a tired flick of her hand. The kid only tugged at her clothes, drawing her attention.

The little girl spoke with her hands, a language she didn’t understand. Sign language, was the girl mute? Jinx frowned in thought, a little guilty.
“I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re saying kid. Go- go find something better to do.”

She only received an annoyed frown and more insistent gestures from the girl. One in particular pointing straight at the wall, straight at a wanted poster of herself.

Jinx could only sigh, dejected and quiet. “Yup, that’s me. Miss Evil in the flesh. So what. You gonna turn me in?”

The little girl shook her head frantically, beginning to sign again, only to stop. Pouting in thought before springing up in an animated lightbulb moment. The next thing Jinx felt was a dusty, small hand grabbing her own, and a wide toothy smile sent her way.

She couldn’t help the disbelieving laugh or huff that came out of her. “…you’re something else kid. I don’t even know your name. No- don’t start with the hands again I don’t understand that.”

Jinx wrapped a hand around her chin, humming in exaggerated thought. “Hmm, I’ll name you… bubba! Till I can figure out your name at least.” Jinx laughed quietly at the offended gawk and weak hit to her leg.

“Alright alright, you’re just ‘kid’ then. Alright, kid?” That one didn’t receive a hit, but an eye roll that had ‘fine, for now’ written all over it.

As they walked, Jinx spoke and the little girl listened. It felt so easy, somehow. To forget about it all. Maybe talking to strangers just had that effect, nothing tying you down: a new experience. But conversation and new experiences didn’t protect you when you were a wanted criminal.

A group watched from overheard, they’d been following since they’d spotted her running around manically through the lanes. Their target spotted: their manhunt over.

Jinx almost didn’t hear the whir of fan blades closing in from behind. She whipped her head around, eyes widening in fear. A whole group of them. She was in no state to fight them, she didn’t have enough bullets, they most likely had something: melee and free.

Her eyes flashed bright as she ducked out of the way as one of the firelights flew closely overhead: magenta seeming to streak through the air as she did.
“Kid, c’mon we gotta go! Now!” She urgently shouted, rushing forwards with quick steps, the kid tried to keep up but she was smaller, slower.

“Kid-! Oh Janna forbid!” Jinx quickly turned around, grabbing her and picking her up, running as fast as she could with the added weight.

She ducked past corners, under pipes and over snare traps they fired at her through darkened alleys: nothing deterred them however. They were hot on her trail. Jinx could hear the frightened gasps on her shoulder in horrific definition.

The little girl watched them grow closer over Jinx’s shoulder. A worried resolve settling on her face as she made quick work of picking up Jinx’s revolver from its holster. She copied what she’d seen her do. Pull back the safety, load the barrel, press down… and boom! A shot fired right past Jinx’s ears and towards the firelights.

The shot missed, but more were shot their way with an excited and amazed giggle. It received a not-so-amazed shout however,
“Kid!? What the hell are you doing- watch it!”

The girl naturally had no proper concept of how guns work, and very quickly grew confused when the gun no longer fired no matter much she pulled the trigger. Ammo out, she groaned childishly. Jinx turned a swift corner and sprinted down an alleyway: a brief glimpse of its name flying past. Emberflit Alley.

She ran the long ways down the alley, it was silent aside from her rushing steps. She looked around for an exit, panic filling her.

A dead end.

Jinx was met with a dead end, she turned to face the onslaught regardless. “Kid- give me the gun! Give- thank you.” With her pistol in hand, she aimed it for where the firelights would come from. Her grip turned a little tighter around the little girl.

The first whizzed around the corner, only for their hoverboard to falter, sparking out and leaving them to fall to the floor near the entrance of the alley. The same happened with the next, and every single one that came after that. They all fell with confused yelps and pained groans as they hit the pavement.

Jinx tried looking around for the cause to no answer, she simply kept her gun faced forward with a much more anxious stance. Something was up. She didn’t like it one bit.

Undeterred, each firelight stood up from the floor. “Drop the kid. You’re coming with us.” One of them spoke, Jinx’s breath grew a little heavier as they drew closer. She was well and truly cornered.

It terrified her.

A door opened to her left and she instinctively pointed the gun towards the noise. Her shoulders raised, the little girl in her arms whimpered in fear.

“I told you to keep your business off my lane. I’m not cleaning up another spill because of your antics.” The… thing spoke. It looked like a machine yet spoke like a man: an expressionless mask stared at the group, towering over them all in both stature and presence. Its voice was unsettling, monotone and robotic yet somehow still maintaining a thick accent beneath it all.

“She’s a wanted terrorist. We need to hand her in.” Another firelight spoke, taking a daring step forward and cocking her masked head towards Jinx.

“I don’t care for your semantics and excuses. Leave the girl and her child and get out.”

“We’re not leaving without Jinx.”

The machine took a step forward, its orange eyes somehow glowing brighter, clacking a staff down and holding it by its side as it glowed blue from its peak: two prongs sparking from the top of it in blatant warning: a wire seemingly connecting the contraption to his forearm.

Emberflit alley came to a standstill. Nobody dared to move, eyes darting around to see who’d make the first move. Tension settling like a thick fog around them all.

One firelight dared to step forward, the thing matched it without hesitation.

Not another word was needed as the first backed off. The rest following as they picked their hoverboards up and left: it wasn’t till they left the alley that the sound of their fans could be heard, alongside their swift exit.

Jinx immediately returned the gun towards the machine, taking slow steps back: eyes wild and burning with shimmer magenta.

“I don’t care for your bounty. It’d be a waste of potential to have you locked away.” The machine said, walking back towards the door it’d come from.

“What…what’d you mean by that?” Jinx asked, like always she couldn’t help herself. Potential? How long had it been since someone saw potential in her?

“Well, it’s hard not to know the one who cracked Hextech all on her own down here. You’re a prodigy. All you’d needed was one gemstone and a stolen book to do it. You figured the rest out on your own. True genius like that is hard to come by.”

Her guns aim fell as she let the words flow through her, like balm to a burn.

Potential.

Prodigy.

Genius.

“I believe you would enjoy my current project, it’d be something you can tinker with to your hearts content. Create something to be proud of.”

The little girl dropped down from her arms hesitantly, looking up at her for guidance. Jinx looked down at her for a moment, then held her hand once more - squeezing gently - and walked towards the machine’s door.

Chapter Text

First came the brain.

Targeting the amygdala, careful was the scalpel that punctured through his neck, cutting away till he could peel the hexcorised skin back. The chip then carefully embedded there via tweezers and a skillful needle, he remembered how his hands had shaken throughout the operation, helpless eyes trusting a couple mirrors to guide him.

Then came the blistering ache, a burn unlike any he’d felt before once the chip activated and shot the needle right into its target. He couldn’t scream, had to force down his shakes so he didn’t paralyse himself by accident.

Then he was free.

Free from the shackles of emotion, he could control them at will, suppressors shortly followed after as he wired them to the chip: chemicals firing into his skin, dampening hormones and allowing him to think clearer than ever.

It all fell into place after that, he embedded supports into his right leg, forcing the femoral anteversion to correct itself. He replaced his left hand next, hating how it shook and never seemed to relax when he needed it to. Then, he decided to get rid of the arm all together. Replacing it with pure, glorious chem-treated steel: supports on his shoulder soon followed to support the weight of his new limb.

His spine was a challenge, but it too surrendered to his metal cause. His back no longer ached with each step. The agony each incision brought was worth the painlessness that followed.

Once he’d mastered his extremities, he focussed on his innards. They’d become mangled and distorted by the hexcore’s parasitic influence, the longer it was embedded in his chest the weaker it became: and in tow, himself. He theorised the hexcore was draining itself of arcane energy trying to sustain his augmentations.

He pried that fleshy orb from his chest with his bare hands.

Crushed it beneath his metal palm and thought it weak.

What was once his greatest creation, his highest feat with the arcane, now a shattered pile on his floor.

His heart now beat perfectly in time, his lungs breathing strong and full, all encased in beautiful metal to hold himself together in his metamorphosis.

He had repaired himself, preformed his own personal, glorious evolution. And yet he knew he was not finished.

But that is where the blue haired, terroristic girl came in. Jinx. From the moment he held one of her creations in his hand, he knew she was something different: a mind unlike any other.

She gathered scraps and melded them into something. Her brain bending nothingness to her imagination and bringing result.

It reminded him much of himself.

And what a perfect opportunity it’d been to have her cowering by his door running away from firelights. If he were religious, he’d thank and pray to Janna in his gratitude.

Now, she was waltzing through his door, starry-eyed and a little hesitant. He would fix that quickly, however.

“I recommend you don’t touch anything. If you are curious, just ask.” He said, walking deeper into his lab.

A circular, green tinted window by the front door and a cushioned bench beneath it. Shelves and shelves and shelves of books, so many books. The place smelled acidic, blanketed by the stench of antiseptic. The front paved way to what could only be a laboratory, a large desk placed in an embedded wall: metal scraps scattered over it, a welding tool resting on its stand nearby. And-

Hiss!

The little girl practically jumped into Jinx’s arms at the viscous noise, drawing her attention up. She didn’t know what she was looking at, a giant pink… salamander? Some parts of it replaced by metal, Jinx gulped at the implications.

“Rio! Hush. I apologise.” The machine squatted down by the pink thing, petting its head till it nuzzled into his hands and began purring: a 3-split purple tongue coming out to lick at the man’s masked face happily, drawing a robotic, heavily distorted - yet perceivable - laugh.

Jinx sat the little girl down slowly, keeping an eye on her before she remarked purposefully “See? It’s just the metal man’s pet. No biggie, or… uh, I guess biggie, since it’s bigger than you.”

“She. Her name is Rio.” The metal man’s corrected, standing up quickly, something clicking in his joints as he did: the huff of hydraulics releasing pressure. “Come now, I will…”

The machine fell silent as he looked down, Jinx whipped her head round to where he stared: at the little girl. She was signing again, a disheartened yet hopeful look on her face.

The machine paused for a moment, raising his hands, fingers twitching in thought before he signed back at her. The little girl gasped excitedly, beaming as her hands moved wildly to speak. The man chuckled, “You must slow down, I am rusty.”

“Funny, the tin can’s rusty, kid.” Jinx snickered to herself, not hiding the slight bite of jealousy in her voice having been unintentionally excluded. “What… what’s she saying?”

“Simple things. She asked what Rio was, I told her she was a waverider. Now…” The machine fell silent in concentration, he began to sign again, and the girl replied quickly with 4 distinct gestures of her hand.

“Isha. Her name is Isha.”

Jinx looked back down at the girl- Isha- with a pleased smile. “Isha. Told you I’d figure your name out.”

Isha then tried to walk up to Rio, hand extended like how one would approach a stray cat: Rio bellowed unhappily and flared her frills.

“Oh, eh…One moment, she’ll love you once you feed her.”

Then the machine was off down the hallway, going through a closed door and disappearing behind it. Jinx crouched down, levelling with Isha with an understanding pout, or atleast that’s how she aimed to come across.

“Don’t worry kid, the big slimy salamander will love you in no time! Maybe you can ride it like a cowgirl one day.” That got a giggle from her, just as the machine wandered through the door again.

He held a crate in-hand, filled with glowing purple fruits: they looked like flower buds in a way. He took one out and held it to Rio, who quickly lapped it up from his hand with a trill.

“Be slow, she won’t bite.” He crossed past Rio to the two and offered a fruit. Jinx took one and bit in to it, grimacing at the sour and tart taste filling her mouth. Isha grabbed one and walked up to Rio, holding her hand out as far as she could.

Rio’s tongues quickly wrapped around her hand, and she giggled as the fruit was taken from her hands. Though, she grimaced afterwards with the slobber left on her palm. It drew a laugh from the machine, “I reacted the same way the first time I fed her.”

With a sniff and a bump of the head, Isha was kneeled on the floor petting and scratching at Rio’s head: swapping to her belly once she rolled over with delighted chirps.

Jinx steeled the smile on her face as she turned to the machine now stood next to her. She faces him accordingly, crossing her arms. “So, what invention do you have.”

“Ah! Yes, it’s just here.” He’d straightened up once he remembered, leading her to his desk of what only looked to be scraps and paper.

“…that’s what you thought would interest me?”

“It’s a work in progress.” The machine quickly retorted, sliding forward blueprints and calculations littered across blueprints.

“Hextech gemstones are incredibly difficult to get a hold of, you’d know personally. I am trying to create technology capable of suppressing the arcane within them, rendering them useless instead of trying to create something to overpower them.”

“Mage stomper.”

“Yes- sorry what?”

“Nothing, just something Fishbones told me once, please continue tin man.”

“…right. As I was saying, I am devising technology to suppress Hextech, it’s too powerful to try and, well, overpower.”

“So where do I come in on your grand scheme?”

“I was getting there. You really have no patience do you?”

Jinx laughed, “Ha! No, but do continue” she rests her elbows on the desk, setting her head in her hands.

“But unfortunately, I do not have such access to the gemstones. And in order to suppress an arcane weapon, I need to research the source. I need a gemstone. And, with your previous experience of breaking into the Hextech labs, I thought you could help me in doing so myself.”

“You wanna go topside and steal some stuff. And you want me to help?” She summarised with an incredulous look, cheeks squeezed to her eyes as she pouted in her hands.

“Precisely. I believe you are the only one who can.”

Jinx froze at that, standing straight once more. She looked at the walls around the desk, countless blueprints and calculations. The pieces were already in place, she was the final one.

This depended on her.

She glanced at Isha, eyes shimmering.

Something depended on her.

“I… I’m in-! Tin man!” Her voice faltered for a moment before she righted herself, slapping his back and pulling a modulated oof! from him as she did. For a moment more, she kept her hand on his shoulder, biting her lip for a moment. She spoke quietly, almost embarrassed.

“Could you teach me? Signing, I mean?”

“…of course.” He said nothing more, picking up a golden, robotic head from his desk and popping it open to continue his work.

She punched his shoulder lightly before walking over to Isha, still playing with Rio on the floor.
“We never got your name, y’know.” Jinx called from the floor, Rio’s head now in her lap.

…

“It’s Viktor.”

Chapter Text

Her mask made every breath seem heavy, she wished she didn’t need it. The air thick with smog and pollution. Caitlyn couldn’t understand how people lived like this, lived in it everyday of their lives.

She’d deceived a letter not too long ago, discreetly packaged and arriving in her windowsill one afternoon. She recognised the seal easily enough.

An hourglass etched into the wax.

A call to action, beckoning her down with directions into the Undercity, citing information she’d need. It wasn’t a tough choice. And so, she put on her more undercity-esk clothes and ventured down. Of course, she didn’t go alone. Vi was at her side: she still felt Caitlyn wasn’t prepared to go alone even after all her trips down since…since the attack.

The building was a wreck, the steps leading to the broken-in door giving way beneath her boot. Lucky for her, Vi was right behind her: catching and righting her with a grunt of effort, the fall having equally surprised her.

“You sure this is the place Cait? It looks like it’s about to collapse any second. Can’t we just, I don’t know… reschedule and meet at the tree?”

Ever since their chance encounter, Caitlyn had made the effort to stay in contact with the firelights. They had a shared goal after all: detaining and bringing Jinx to justice. It felt only right to relay information between them, sightings and rumours. Any clue that’d bring them closer to her.

She was slippery however. Rarely seen, a blip lost to the maze of the Undercity.

Caitlyn scoffed, glaring disappointedly over her shoulder. “This is where he said to meet him. I’m not going back on something this integral. He said he-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Vi sighed, following in through the doorway, wafting dust away from her face. The place was overly dilapidated, the upper floors could all be seen with the holes littered through them. Moss and cracks covered every wall, the scurry of rats filling the air. “He had information on her. I know. Just saying, he could’ve picked a better spot.”

“He obviously picked this spot for a reason. Now-“ A creak nearby silenced the both of them, they fell still, though a protective arm was thrown in front of Caitlyn. She had half a mind to not fawn over it and sigh adoringly.

“…you hear that?” “Vi! Hush!”

“Yeah, I did.”

The two practically jumped out of their skins as they turned to face the deep, haunting voice that came from the darkness that was the doorway leading further into the building. A man stepped out, a white owlish mask concealing his face. The two sighed in relief.

“I picked this place for how dilapidated it is. Nobody would think to come in here. I can’t believe you two blabbermouths get anything done, but I’m glad to see you’re here safe.”

Ekko promptly removed his mask as he spoke, voice growing familiar once more.

Caitlyn grimaced and flicked her eyes away, fixing her posture and steeling herself accordingly. “Uhm, anyways. Jinx. What information did you receive on her?” She pulled a notepad and pencil from her pocket, Vi gawked at the sight of it: who the hell just carries around a notepad?

Ekko tilted his head at the sight, shaking it minutely in tandem. “Well, a few of my guys spotted her running about the lanes a few days ago. They followed her and had her cornered but the herald intercepted it and forced them away.”

Caitlyn’s quick writing paused, “The… sorry what?”

“The machine herald. Herald of the machine. Whatever way people say it, he just showed up one day and started offering aid to people. Prosthetics, medicine, illegal augments, you name it. We think he took her in.”

“Great!” Vi clapped her hands together, waltzing over and wrapping an arm around Caitlyn “So, we can just head on over to Mr. Machine’s house and get it all over with.”

“Not that simple.”

Vi deflated, brows drawn tight and frowning under her respirator.

“He’s got some sort of field around his alley. It blocks signals, it sent my friends flying off their boards. It was like they’d short-circuited out of nowhere. We don’t know what it is or where it’s coming from, plus, the herald’s… he’s threatening, and we don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Where can we find them?” Caitlyn demanded, resolve ringing heavy in her chest. Ekko sighed, pulling a piece of paper from his jacket pocket.

“…Just be careful.”

She unfolded the sheet, dirtied around the edges and slightly torn in others: an ode to its use. It was a map of the Lanes, carefully drawn and marked with what Caitlyn assumed to be key locations to the firelights. It reached all the way to the fissures, it was impressive: to fit so much on so little space.

Caitlyn swiped away to floor and laid the sheet down, Ekko followed her and sat, cross-legged, on the opposite side.

“They saw her running through here,” Ekko pointed, trailing his finger across the page as he spoke. “She didn’t get very far once she noticed she was being followed, she had a kid with her-“

“A child? Why would she have a child with her?” Caitlyn looked up at Vi, who’d chosen to stay standing, both exchanged worried glances.

“-we don’t know. Just that they were walking and talking like they knew each other. Either way, the kid was slowing her down. She turned and cornered herself off here.”

“..Emberflit Alley?”

“It’s where the herald lives. Used to be a street nobody owned, sometimes people would squat inside the buildings but that was it. He bought up two buildings on the far side towards the back of the alley and now nobody dares to go inside unless they’re there for him.”

“And you believe Jinx is now residing with him?”

“The herald refused to hand her over, so we believe so, yes.

“Sounds to me like another person taking advantage of a desperate situation.” Vi scoffed, jaw tight as eyes unfocused.

“Vi…” “I know. I know, ignore me.”

Caitlyn took a deep breath, looking back to Ekko. “So, what do we do now?”

The following conversation was short, a plan set in motion, with a map to Piltover’s most wanted treasure. Caitlyn had all the information she needed.

Now she just needed Hextech.

“Well,” Caitlyn mumbled as they stepped out of the building, back into daylight and on the streets. “I just hope that oaf has finished creating our tools. We can’t begin our mission without them.”

Vi shrugged, kicking away a stone with her boot. “Well, of course it’d take a while. He’s making them from scratch, no? And remember, It’s not an if: it’s a when. Keep your head high.”

Caitlyn couldn’t help the sigh that roused from her, her finger picking away at her thumb, eyes to her feet as they go one, two, one, two on the floor. “I know. I just can’t help but feel idle in all this. Just waiting and waiting and never doing. I hate it.”

“Cait, you’ve been coming down here at least once a week since the hospital let you out after she’d abducted you. You’ve been scouting, collecting information, making connections. That doesn’t sound idle to me.”

An arm was thrown over her shoulder, shaking her up a bit before quickening her steps: keeping pace. “I say, we get a bite to eat. Then, you can head upstairs and pester your councillor friend over your stuff. How’s that sound, cupcake?”

“You’re just suggesting that because you’re hungry.”Caitlyn huffed, taking Vi’s arm off of her and smirking quietly. “And I’m not a cupcake.”

“But you’re so sweet, like a cupcake. Or would you prefer blueberry?”

“I’d prefer Caitlyn.”

“Cait it is then.”

Caitlyn scoffed and shoved her away, and Vi could only laugh: wondering through the streets for something to eat before heading back to the bridge.

Chapter Text

Jayce.

He was in that weird state of mind, the one where you’re between sleep and consciousness: an eerie void of muffled noise and half awareness that left you wondering if you were dreaming or not.

Jayce!

He’d been working tirelessly for the last few days, he had to make sure everything was safe: that it was foolproof and perfect. It kept him up at night, or maybe that was just the coffee he’d been practically huffing for the past few days. Or was it a week? Had he slept-

“Jayce!”

Jayce fumbled awake with a tired, weary shout. “I’m awake-! I’m..” he cut himself off with a yawn and he stretched his arms overhead. He was forcefully tuned around on the rolling stool he’d fallen asleep on. He looked at his desk briefly, was that drool on his blueprints?

“Jayce! Goodness, you sleep like a log. I was about to shake you awake.” Caitlyn stood over him, slight annoyance scrunching her face: softened by concern. “And yet, you don’t look like you’ve slept at all.”

“I’m fine Cait, just been finishing everything up.”

Caitlyn felt the urge to mention the many dirty mugs scattered around the desks, and the mass of wrinkled blueprints and graph paper. She chose against doing so.

“Well, speaking of, are they done?” She seemed to perk up as she asked, a tight smile to her face like she was ready to be disappointed again.

He’d hoped he would have a little more time to catch his bearings before the inevitable was brought up once again. It felt like all they’d ever spoken about the past two years.

“Cait, they-“

“Please don’t give me another ethics exam, Jayce. We have a solid lead now, we need them now more than ever. So tell me, are they ready?”

“…I was going to say they’re ready.”

Caitlyn froze up, mouth gaped like a blubbering fish. In a way, she didn’t believe him at first: couldn’t believe him. Waiting for them to be completed had become the new norm. The end felt so far away before. Now that they were actually done? It didn’t feel real.

“Oh…” was all she could say before Jayce was getting up in front of her: stretching with a groan and the crack of popping bones before he walked over to his big storage cabinet.

She’d heard him speak of it, it was a place they put everything away into when they weren’t working on it to save space. He loved how it helped clear the space, someone else had found it pointless.

“I finished the shield last night. Had to test out the shock absorbency- it works as intended!” Jayce shouted from inside, the sound of shuffling and clanking coming from within.

He emerged again with a timid smile, in his hands was a rifle, her rifle, and he held it out to her. “I hope you like it, I added the triple-scopes like you asked and-“

Caitlyn had grabbed and placed the rifle on the nearest table, choosing instead to surge forward and hug the man: hiding her teary eyes in his shirt.
“Thank you.” Her voice warbled, she felt him hug her back.

“I’ll get everything else out, I… I hope you trust the people you’re allowing to use this stuff.”

“I’d only accept the best in all of Piltover.” She wiped her eyes as he walked away again and she took the opportunity to admire her new rifle.

The gemstone’s holding cell was sleek and discrete, the whole thing was in fact. Cubic and sharp in design in what had become Hextech’s style. It didn’t resemble her old one in the slightest, she didn’t hate the fact as much as she thought she would. It felt like new beginnings.

She was too busying admiring it whilst Jayce grabbed a gemstone, offering it to her to truly get a feel for the rifle’s feel. It popped it like it belonged, her rifle seemed to come alive with the arcane flowing through it. Lighting up across the seams and pinging with every scope that’d shot up from the inside. She held it to her eye. It felt perfect.

“I have only one thing to ask, sprout.” Jayce quietly murmured, running a hand down his hair as he placed down the last of the requested inventions. “Only use this stuff when it’s absolutely necessary, please? I want you to be safe, but you can do so without extensively harming someone.”

“We are going to face dangerous people, we need all the firepower we can get.”

“I underst… people?” Jayce had thought she’d just misspoken and wanted to be sure. “I thought you were only going after Jinx?”

“Plans have changed, our contact from the Undercity has informed us she’s hiding away in this ‘Machine Herald’s company. Some kind of augmented metal man with a few screws loose. We were told to be cautious when encountering him. He’s been aggressive in the past.”

Caitlyn didn’t miss the gulp of Jayce’s throat or the worried hand through his hair in her peripheral. She picked her rifle up, weighing it in her hands again “But, I assure you I will only do what’s necessary. Enforcers honour.”

Jayce visibly relaxed in front of her, a tired smile on his face. “Thank you Sprout, stay safe and… and good luck.”

Caitlyn smiled and began walking out of the lab, she’d have her team come up and arm themselves accordingly later. Despite his concern, she didn’t feed into Jayce’s concern for her probability.

After all, she’d never felt luckier.

Jayce hadn’t truly been able to test the rifle to its potential since, plain and simply, he’d never shot a gun before. He wanted to see the results however.

A trip down to the shooting range was necessary, it checked off all the boxes: a demonstration of the rifle, and experience for Caitlyn with it. It was windy, a gentle breeze wafting through the air, Caitlyn knew she’d have to account for it.

“Do you think we’ll need these?” Caitlyn waved a couple noise-cancelling headphones at Jayce: stored at the first post for any one using particularly loud artillery.

Jayce shrugged “Hextech isn’t particularly loud in any case. I think we’ll be fine. Plus, my ears have survived plenty so if anything: you should use them.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Caitlyn in fact, did not listen to him and put the headphones back. She slotted the gemstone back into the holster: watching it glow and power up.

The first target: hidden a ways away amongst the treelike, Caitlyn knew its location by heart, could position her gun for it in her sleep. Practice made perfect, after all; something her father always told her. She took aim.

A second passed.

Then one more.

The rifle beamed, the unexpected recoil sending Caitlyn back a step: more than she was used to. She observed the target through her scope once more; slightly too high, the drop off was less than her old rifle. She bookmarked the fact in her mind.

She took aim and fired again. She didn’t miss. The target left steaming and burnt through where she’d shot: powerful and precise.

Caitlyn aimed again.

Practice made perfect, after all.

Chapter Text

“Say ahh!”

Isha opened her mouth as wide as she could till a wooden popsicle stick was pushed down on her tongue, she swatted at Viktor with all her might and spat at the wooden taste.

“So, is it looking good so far?” Jinx asked, watching from afar at the dramatic display.

Viktor proposed that since Jinx had just up and found Isha on the streets, that the girl would need a check up. He became all the more convinced of its necessity when Isha had signed that she hadn’t been to one in years.

“All looking normal, though her gums appear a bit sore. Nothing a good routine of oral hygiene couldn’t fix however.” Viktor tossed the popsicle stick in the trash nearby.

So far he’d checked her blood pressure and her eyes - she hated that part the most, her eyes were watering long after they were finished. He’d wanted to do some blood work too, just to check her vitamin and mineral balance and all her blood levels, but Isha had squealed at the sight of a needle and ran to hide behind a sleeping Rio: who almost crushed her when she’d rolled over in her sleep.

Viktor grabbed a stethoscope next, tapping Isha’s shoulder to grab her attention from her melodramatic gagging and swiping over her tongue. He held it out to her for a moment.

“What is that?” Isha signed, eyes wide with curiosity, she trusted the two of them, some weird device wouldn’t hurt her.

“This is a stethoscope, Its used to listen to your heart and lungs, to make sure they’re working correctly. I’ll let you use them first to see what it’s like.”

He called over Jinx, who got up and played her part of a perfect patient. She didn’t mind being the test subject, it eased Isha’s worry when she saw what was happening and why. So, Viktor plugged the ends into her ears and showed her where to hold it against Jinx’s chest.

She gasped once she heard the steady beats, then Viktor moved it to the side and Isha could hear the intake and exit of each of Jinx’s breaths. She giggled slightly at the weird sound.

“See? Just like all of them, it is nothing to worry about.” Viktor gently took the prongs out of her ears, wiping them down before placing them in his own and holding it over Isha’s heart.

He was just as relieved as he had been with every other successful observation, her heart was strong and healthy for her age. So he moved over to her lungs,

That was where he froze.

Viktor was glad his mask hid any furrow of his brow, he tried to keep himself relaxed as he told her to take deep, slow breaths.

“Hm,” was all Viktor could say at first as he took the stethoscope off. He already had suspicions of the cause, with what Isha had told them about her past. Her breathes were too shallow and crackly-sounding to not be a concern.

She told them how she worked in the mines after being sent there from the orphanage she’d previously lived in. Where there were mines, there were fissure gases.

The same gases that rotted Viktor’s lungs away.

“I believe I will have to find a respirator mask and build an inhaler for you, though it is nothing to worry about.”

Despite saying it was nothing to worry about, Isha immediately froze up and looked down right horrified. Jinx was quick to hold her
“Could’ve said it a little nicer tin can.” She’d remarked whilst stroking Isha’s hair.

“I do not think I could have. Luckily we’ve caught it at an early age. I believe her time in the mines is the root cause, it’s best to keep her lungs settled and clean for now. A respirator mask can filter the air for her and, if she was anything like me at her age, an inhaler would do her good.”

“Well, see Isha? No biggie! It’s the stupid mine’s fault that your lungs are busted. Mine are, and tin can’s are too!” “Actually mine are-“ “Nobody’s perfect, and you’d look awesome with a mask. Don’t you wanna look like canny over here?”

Jinx swung an arm around Viktor’s shoulder, poking at the cheek of his mask. Isha grimaced, and Viktor’s shoulders tensed as he swatted Jinx off. “I don’t want to be metal.” The two girls laughed like twins.

“I still need to check your organs, c’mon, up on the desk.”

The examination went just as quickly as the rest, a simple tap method on her stomach to listen to the reverberation of her organs, though Viktor did try one last time to show her that blood work wasn’t scary. He demonstrated it on himself even, though Isha looked even more mortified at his purple, almost black, blood and the way his hexcorised skin writhed under the needle. So much for easing her worries.

Isha easily went off to find Rio once he deemed her check-up complete. She ran through the door and up the stairs faster than Viktor had ever seen her run.

“So, where’s my check-up doc?” Viktor turned his head to look at Jinx with a disbelieving tilt of his head.

“You want an examination?”

“Well,” Jinx quieted at that, a shadow over her face. “The doctor… he… he was the last to ‘look me over’” she giggled pitifully at her own words. “That… wasn’t fun.” Her eyes almost dulled at the memory, she sprung back up without another second. “But it worked! I’m here and clear! So, check-up?”

Viktor was frozen in his seat, a million questions ringing through his mind. He grunted as one of his injectors sprung and dampened the feeling.

“I… fine. Up onto the desk then.”

He repeated everything he’d done with Isha onto Jinx: blood pressure, her eyes, though he paused when he got to her mouth, shining a light down and wrenching her jaw open further to get a closer look.

“you have a cavity in one of your molars, remind me to fill it in at some point.”

Jinx pulled away, rubbing at her jaw with an annoyed look. “Rude- that hurt!” She worked her jaw for a moment, glaring up at him accusingly “And dont look at me like that, I brush!”

Viktor looked at her with all the blankness his mask was capable of. “When’s the last time you brushed your teeth?” He received an indignant scoff,

“When’s the last time you showered?”

The two stood in silence for a moment, staring at each other.

“…I still need to fill in that tooth of yours.”

Jinx barked a laugh at him, pointing a finger at him. “Ha! The tin can isn’t even waterproof! Some engineering that is.”

“Hush now and keep your arm relaxed. You’re not getting any of the numbing cream I offered Isha.” Viktor quickly began the preparation, holding her arm straight as he wrapped a tourniquet around it: searching for a suitable vein.

Jinx relented with a bored huff, only flinching slightly when he began drawing blood from her inner elbow, her breaths grew heavier and she squirmed.

“Jinx stay still, I can’t focus with you- you.. Jinx?” Viktor looked up from her arm to find her curled into herself, clutching at her hair and mumbling to herself.

He carefully pulled the needle out and sealed the wound with a puff of cotton and tape. He didn’t care that it wasn’t even half-way full, he reached a hand towards her carefully, she flinched away.

“No-! Don’t- I can’t, not again. Don’t do that again! I can’t move- I need to- No! No! No no no-“

“Jinx. You’re not bound, you can move. What’s the matter-? Jinx-!” Jinx lunged for the door, Viktor held her back, she was in no state to leave unattended and manic. Jinx had told him that she had moments, lapses of hallucinations of both the auditory and visual variety. She’d told him that things made the voices louder sometimes, that things made them ‘talk’ to her.

He was glad Isha was upstairs and therefore unable to witness the episode. It took over half an hour for Jinx to calm down, for her eyes to stop raging with bright magenta and for her breathing to settle. At first she’d tried fighting him, scratching and kicking him before scurrying away on the floor, holding herself and mumbling and crying. It was like she wasn’t seeing him.

She sat there, silent as a mouse, curled away in the corner. Viktor resisted the urge to go over to her, worried he’d crowd her clearly vulnerable space, he gasped as another injection rung through his spine.

Viktor decided to check her blood in the mean time. Placing a droplet onto a slide and looking at it under a microscope. What he saw didn’t shock him any less than Jinx’s earlier admission had.

Shimmer. Her blood was positively filled with it. The amount should have poisoned her with its quantity, yet: it hadn’t. Her blood had almost adapted to it. He did further tests on it: pH, blood-glucose, the sorts. All coming out with abnormal results. He could hear her steps drawing in close from behind.

Viktor felt a calm sense of solidarity between them. Both changed irreversibly. Both different. Both anomalies.

“You’re a walking corpse. Just like myself.” He spoke quietly, sliding the microscope over to her, she didn’t look down it.

“…death just… always seems to elude me.” She mumbled back just as gently, a crack to her voice with how much she’d screamed before.

Viktor felt the urge to chuckle, an amused huff leaving him. “Heh, if I don’t know that feeling all too well. One second kindred has their arms around you, and the next…”

“…you’re plucked away like a leaf from a tree.”

“Like cotton to the wind.”

The two fell silent after that, basking in the shared experience, a loneliness they hadn’t realised they’d had, quenched and eased. They were freaks of nature in their own right, ostracised for their differences.

One, a person brought back from the brink of death via needles carrying the burn of every burden she’d ever held seering its way back into her skin. The other, forged into a monster of their own creation and born anew against his hand.

“If you are up to it,” Viktor mused quietly, standing from the desk without looking back at Jinx. “I can make them go away. I can ease your hallucinations with a few surgeries, they are invasive… but effective.”

Viktor could feel the meek press of a forehead pressed to his spine over his cowl.
“If I make them go away, they’ll be gone for good…I don’t want to lose them all over again.”

“…alright. Alright.”

She pulled away once he turned, her eyes bloodshot and weary. She hugged herself like a child.

“…how about we… go for a walk, up to Piltover. We can.. go over the bridge like you wanted and find the Hextech laboratories. Take out some unnecessary feelings over helpful retrieval?”

Her eyes seemed to clear at that, she wiped away her tears, a smiling wide. “Yeah- yeah! They deserve it, and we’ll show them that.”

Jinx flung the front door open, looking back at Viktor with that manic look in her eyes “We’ll show them all.”

Chapter Text

The blistering cold almost seemed to seep into their skin.

They entered through the Kiramman vents. All trailing after each other, following her lead through the maze of seemingly endless tunnels. Her team, her elite strike force, was carefully assembled at Caitlyn’s word. Herself, Vi and three others:

Steb, a vastayan enforcer who’d worked on the force for years: a quick thinker and proactive with an eye for opportunity and the experience necessary for such a position.

Loris, an enforcer on medical leave after the riots of the undercity left him severely injured, returned to the force at Steb’s recommendation.

Maddie, a newer yet bright enforcer with an unforgettable presence. Cunning as she was clever, and personally recommended by general Medarda herself.

They wore their respiratory masks and goggles to protect them from the gases residing in the tunnels. It wasn’t reasonable to release the gases yet. It’d cause outcry, harm to the innocent; Caitlyn decided against it, for now. They were quick to close off entrances to prevent gas leaks. Cutting corners this way and that.

It was only a matter of time before they reached the Lanes. Ekko had shown them that the herald resided nearer the lower divisions of the lanes, closer to the fissures where the air was heavier.

Perhaps they’d get lucky and find them out in the open. Or, perhaps they’d have to pay a visit to Emberflit alley. Caitlyn didn’t care, she simply led everyone forward, Hextech in arms, towards the nearest exit.

One by one they climbed up the ladder, Vi went first and popped open the entrance: one by one they filtered through with Loris being the last and sealing it off.

Then they began their search.

Viktor and Jinx begun their walk through the still-busy streets. All they needed to do was get to the bridge entrance, it was heavily guarded by enforcers at the mid-way point, so they planned to climb it and walk along the tall structure till they could hop onto Piltovan soil without detection. A simple, but risky plan.

It’d been a fight to get Isha to stay home alone for the time being, she’d angrily signed that she wanted to come along: that she could help. Viktor insisted it was too dangerous and they only wanted to keep her safe. She’d relented with a teary hit to his thigh and ran off upstairs.

He’d rearranged his cowl to sit more akin to a cloak, it was all that shielded them from any bystander, Viktor adjusting his cape to do the job, though despite it all, Jinx’s braids hung out from the bottom of her cloak with how long they were.

“So, Jinx, how exactly did you enter the academy? Through the roof? A window?”

“The front door.”

Jinx skipped forward with a wide smile, Viktor blubbered about for a moment, confused. “The- surely you did not just waltz in through the academy entrance? Who would’ve let you in?”

“No one did, cause no one was there, Canny. Progress day and all. Plus, I made a diversion.” Viktor connected the dots quickly enough.

“The fire. It was you.”

“Bingo!”

Viktor added 6 strikes to his mental chart of Jinx’s kill count. For a 17 year old, it was far more than one would expect it to be, and the number is only what she’s told him. He shivered.

“Well, regardless, today is not progress day. The academy will be swarming with students and the labs were reinforced after you robbed them the first time.” Viktor explained, Jinx slowed in her skips and turned around, looking him up and down confusedly.

“…really? How’d you figure that out?”

“I- eh.” Viktor muttered, groaning at the unexpected jab of his injectors, he’d gotten too flustered in the moment, getting caught up in the past. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I- It was an educated assumption. Why wouldn’t they reinforce it?”

She looked him over before shrugging and continued her skipping. “Well, I’m sure there’s some way into it other than the door. Oh! What if we run across the Piltie rooftops till we get there! I did that when I was younger, almost fell off, but I caught myself!”

“…what were you doing in Piltover? Let alone on the rooftops?”

“None of your business magnet muncher. Now hurry up we-“

“Freeze where you are!”

Jinx flinched at that voice. That posh accent, the tongue spitting hatred. She turned, down the road, there she was: not alone. Caitlyn Kiramman, with a rifle pointed right at her, and next to her?

“…Vi?”

Jinx was yanked out of the way by the collar, a bang quietly registered in her mind as she watched the flash of electric blue soar past, right where her head used to be before Viktor yanked her out the way. “Jinx!”

A large man stepped in front of the group, a shield widening and powering up: protecting them. Hextech. Viktor felt sick at the sight, his grip growing unintentionally harsher at the injectors springing into him once more.

Despite her dazed state, Jinx was no fool. She knew they were outnumbered- they hadn’t expected this, hadn’t come prepared. She followed suit after Viktor and ran.

He pulled down a loose pipe and kicked at an already weakened wall, leaving debris and dust to spill out in their wake: it was smashed away by a single, gauntlet-powered punch.

“Jinx! This doesn’t have to be a fight! Just surrender!” Vi shouted, racing forward: ducking and weaving effortlessly. Another blast soared past them, hitting a corner: embedding into nearby brick.

“Canny, this would be a great time to try out your Zappy-trap things!” Jinx shouted, making quick work of running ahead. Viktor groaned and reached into his pocket, mumbling a prayer to Janna under his breath as he pulled the tabs on them and threw them backwards.

It seemed to happen in slow motion as they hit the ground. Bouncing for a moment before skidding and landing slightly ahead of the enforcers.

1 second.

They drew closer, there wasn’t enough time to try and evade them now. Vi activated a force field on her gauntlets, shielding them from whatever he’d thrown on the ground. She thought they were grenades, or something of the sorts.

2 seconds.

The traps opened up, four prongs now poking out of the flat base and humming quietly: louder and louder in harmonious crescendo as blue light began emitting from their centre. The five braced as they ran over them.

3 seconds.

Each of the five cried out as electric blue surrounded them, pulling them down towards the pavement unwillingly. It felt like they were underwater, atmosphere upon atmosphere pressing down on them and forcing them still and flat to the ground. Nobody could move.

But Vi wasn’t nobody.

Using her energy reserve and with a push of her Gauntlets, she was flung up in the air and off the ground, she seized the opportunity to get out of its range- of the crushing weight, she landed a few metres away. Grunting in pain and getting up anyway.

“Jinx!”

She screamed, not faltering for a second. Jinx loudly shouted a bewildered ‘what!? Canny your traps suck!’ at the sound of somebody still after them,

The second Vi rounded the corner to continue after them, she was met with two blunt prongs to the stomach and a face of metal staring at her. She didn’t waste a second and pulled back to punch, steaming with the pressure build up inside: her other gauntlet grabbing the thing harshly poking her, only for a shock to roil through her gut, spreading through her body like poison.

The prongs glowed in that same electric blue as they spent waves of burning electricity through her, leaving her unable to move, unable to fight back this time. She screamed so loudly it echoed through the lanes, she watched Jinx freeze in her steps ahead.

The streetlights flickered till the bulbs burst, leaving the street dark, covered by roofing overhead.
The machine said something to deaf ears once she’d crumpled to the floor, seizing and twitching with the electricity still ravaging her from the inside. Without another word, he dashed away, taking the next corner and disappearing from sight with Jinx.

She could only sob, crying out with each violent shock that rung through her bones, she couldn’t hear the rushing steps towards her with the ringing in her ears.

“Vi? Vi?! Oh god- what did they do to you!?” She felt cold leather touch her face, her head pulled into a lap.

She didn’t know that Caitlyn cradled her, or that Steb had been quick to check her vitals; that Loris stood over them, shielding them away or that Maddie was standing guard beside him.

All Vi knew was that she failed.

Again.

Before her eyes rolled back, and sleep graced her mercifully.

“Vi-? Vi! Those fucking-! Somebody watch Vi I’m going after them.”

“Kiramman. We have no clue where they are now. It’s best we get back, we’re all injured, Vi especially. We need to regroup and recover.”

“Agreed. We’ve not the strength to go after them right now. Loris is right.” Maddie agreed, looking down worriedly at Vi. Steb said nothing, silent as always as he signed at Loris.

“Put away the shield and carry her. We’ll stand guard.”

Loris dutifully listened, and Vi was pulled into a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. And they began the what-would-be slow journey to walk back towards the bridge. All but one.

Caitlyn stood there, seething as she looked down that street.

She replayed it all in her mind. Her first shot, her second, and the third that she’d hesitated on in order to brace for impact.

She could’ve evaded the trap, could’ve chased after them. She could’ve taken the shot.
It was like Jinx was smirking at her from around that corner, waving her painted fingers at her and laughing.

Laughing at her. At all that she’d done to her. Mocking her grief.

Caitlyn fired aimlessly into the street, the blast breaking a corner clean off of the wall. Nobody was there. Jinx was long gone now, hiding away somewhere. Caitlyn panted shakily, gun still poised and aimed.

“Caitlyn?” Maddie put a hand on her shoulder, nodding her head towards the others when Caitlyn finally turned around.

They were all looking at her, waiting for her command and guidance. Caitlyn looked back at the street once more, and roared in frustration: powering her rifle down and stomping ahead. Picking up the now burnt-out and used-up trap they’d walked right into.

The others slowly progressed across the bridge. Caitlyn made quick time ahead: she had other, more important plans.

She found him talking to Mel, tucked away in a corner of his lab. She didn’t care for how the doors slammed open and scared them both hard enough to flinch.

She carelessly threw the now burnt metal onto the table in front of him.
“What is this?” She’d practically snarled the words out, panting a mess and seething.

“Cait- what?-“ “Figure out what this thing is and get back to me.”

Caitlyn shouted, she wasn’t sure if she’d meant to, she ignored the way Jayce’s face fell even further as he stood up and held a hand towards her. Always so concerned, never with enough urgency. Enough importance.

“Miss Kiramman, are you alright?” Mel had questioned, her face similarly drawn in worry, scanning over her demeanour and roughed up state. “…you’re injured- please, sit down for a moment. We can-“

“You can’t do anything! We can’t do anything till you figure out what that thing is and find a way to disable them remotely. End of conversation.”

“Did something happen whilst you were down there?”

Caitlyn crumpled like paper under the rain. Angrily grabbing at his shirt and pulling till she could cower into his comfort. “S-she- Vi was- somehow- Ugh! They did something to her- enough that she passed out- god she was barely there when we found her! And that- thing on the table, it dragged us to the floor like something were on top of us. Nothing we’ve ever seen before- you need to figure it out or else Vi- s-somebody else could get hurt.”

Jayce and Mel exchanged a look, Mel was more confused than anything. “…who? Jinx? Were you able to incapacitate her?”

“…no. She- she got away! Ugh! That machine thing helped her- he helped her hurt Vi. They’re both threats to Piltover. They made these things.”

Mel took a deep breath, sharing a look with Jayce, looking for clarity. “Is this the ‘Machine Herald’ you were referring to? I- we will discuss it at the next council meeting. Especially if they’re as dangerous as you say they are. Jinx alone is a mad genius, but working alongside someone? Who knows what she’s capable of… thank you for bringing this to my attention, Caitlyn.”

Mel gave a parting hand to Jayce and left, swift purpose in her steps. Jayce took the opportunity to wrap his arms fully around Caitlyn, rubbing her back. “…are you okay?”

Caitlyn sniffled, shaking her head only for the tears to flow even harder: clutching at straws for sanity and an inkling of comfort. She felt like a kid again, so vulnerable and unguided.

“…I don’t know anymore.”

Chapter Text

“Thank you for helping me do this, Jayce.”

“You’re lucky I can pull strings like this, I would prefer you still be resting, but I can also understand why you’d need to see your contact.”

After the incident a little over a week ago, when they’d ran into the Herald and Jinx and left injured - worse so Vi - and put on leave to recover, Caitlyn had been restless. She begged the nurses to let her go back out there, whilst the trail is hot, to no avail.

Till Jayce visited her for maybe the 10th time, and her begging finally wore down his walls.

As a councillor, he was able to get her out earlier than the rest, though not without restrictions. Jayce vowed to stay by her side in her further ‘recovery’ which gave Caitlyn the perfect opportunity.

She needed information, and who better than their eye in the sky and underground, Ekko.

“This… herald. We need all we can get on him. You- well, you didn’t see what happened. None of us saw what happened to Vi. But that’s just it. They separated and neutralised us in a matter of seconds, we can’t afford to ignore any potential weaknesses.”

Jayce simply nodded, looking around every corner and alley that they passed. Anybody could notice the tension in his shoulders, his anxiety led many eyes towards him: easy pickings, they must’ve thought. Till their eyes landed on Caitlyn nearby, rifle in hand.

Despite her confidence, worry began to eat away at her skin, crawling around beneath. Ekko should’ve been here by now: the usually empty street she requested to see him at.

She expressed as such, a worried murmur towards Jayce that they were taking their time. She expected a hum behind her, maybe some consoling words, none of such came.

She turned around immediately, met with only an empty street.

Her gun came up easily, “Jayce?” Caitlyn surveyed around her, looking for anything, any signs of where he’d gone. It was like he’d just… vanished. It sent goosebumps down her skin.

“Ja-“ Caitlyn’s shout was muffled by a gloved hand, she tried biting down on it, thrashing against the hold now surrounding her as she was pulled into an alley. She grunted as she was shoved to the wall, a forearm to her throat.

She was ready to sent her head straight into them, only to freeze at the sight of a familiar mask.

“Of all the stupid things you could’ve done, you brought a councillor down here!?” Ekko whispered in that loud, angry tone you’d use when you couldn’t be too loud. He pulled away, running a hand through his hair and pulling off his mask.

“I-“ “Do you realise what it’d look like if I were seen with him? Not only does it put a big target on his back, but it puts one on mine too. What were you thinking?”

“It wasn’t my choice. It was either he comes down with me or I don’t go at all. Plus, I dressed him down, I hoped he wouldn’t be recognised.”

“Hoped?” Ekko guffawed, gawking at her in utter disbelief. “You thought nobody would recognise Mr. Picture on a blimp? The face of Hextech?? You really thought that?” With a smile and a look up and off to the side, Ekko perfectly recreated Jayce’s poster face before he glared at her disapprovingly.

Caitlyn shied into herself slightly, sighing, he did have a point. She hadn’t really thought this through as much as she thought she had. Oh well.

“That doesn’t matter anymore. I still need to talk to you. I need to know everything you have on the Machine herald.”

Caitlyn faltered as Ekko laughed, it’d been a scoff at first, followed by a quiet uncomfortable laugh.

“We know next to nothing about him. He’s still a fresh face down here. He showed up one day and offered his services to the injured and needy. He’s everyone’s last-resort.”

“Why last resort? Surely there’s better resources.”

“He’s the last resort because some injuries are too severe for our resources down here, and they’d bleed out trying to get into Piltover. Most of all, he’s the guy who gets shit done.”

Caitlyn raised a brow, silently urging him on.

“Factory accident, lethal fights, if you’ve lost a limb and unconscious. You get taken to him because he’s the closest thing and doesn’t charge for his services. But… people always come out different. Maybe it’s their scraping with death that changes them but some believe he messes with people’s brains. There’s no proof of that yet though.”

“Is…is that really it?”

“That’s all I’ve got.”

Caitlyn frowned. That was nothing in the grand scheme of things. No intel, no weakness. It was all worth nothing. Sighing she banged her head backwards against the wall.

“…thank you anyway, Ekko.”

“I’ll keep you updated, if we spot either of them. Alright?”

Caitlyn smiled, small and grateful, as she left the alley: she perked up suddenly, remembering something. “What did you do with Jayce?”

“Oh. Right.” Ekko laughed nervously, clearly having also forgot before whistling into the street. And out from the shadows of a corner, out popped Scar with a tied up Jayce held by his collar.

“Let me just- oh” Caitlyn had begun to walk over to help untie Jayce, that was until Scar cut the ropes and untied the cloth gag himself and let Jayce stumble to the floor as the blood returned to his limbs.
“Sorry about that, Jayce.”

“…it’s…no, actually, it’s not fine but whatever. You got what you needed?”

Caitlyn resisted the urge to give a disappointed no and instead nodded her head, helping Jayce stand with an offered hand. “Yes. It wasn’t much, but it’ll have to do.”

Jayce looked over Scar with a scrutinising glare before turning to Ekko, looking him over before relaxing: putting his trust in Caitlyn’s trust of the guy. He held out a hand.

“Jayce Talis. I’m a friend of Cait’s.”

Ekko only crossed his arms, looking him up and down. “I know who you are.”

“…ah.”

“Word of advice, councillor? Stay out of Zaun. Your face down here won’t do any good. And I don’t mean this in a ‘you don’t belong here’ way because let’s face it, you know that. I mean it in a ‘this is for your safety’ way. Now get back upstairs.”

Jayce stood with his lips tightly sealed, taking a deep breath through his nose before he turned to Caitlyn. He nodded his head in gesture of leaving.

“Right. We’ll be off then. Thank you, Ekko.”

“Anytime, Kiramman.” Ekko pulled his mask back on, walking away with Scar in tow before pulling their hoverboards off and soaring away on them, disappearing soon after.

And so, it was back to Jayce and Caitlyn, slowly making their way back through the lanes towards the bridge. They talked, quiet and under their breath when the streets began to grow busier: Caitlyn guiding Jayce behind her by his forearm.

At the bridge, they kept talking. Mundane things: plans, next steps, news. It was almost peaceful, in that gentle serenity, a quiet moment away from chaos. Just to talk. To be normal. For just a moment.

They split off at the promenade, Caitlyn planning to go to the hospital once more. Jayce took his time walking. Of course, he was heading to the lab. Where else would he go? He spent most of his time there now after all. Whether it be working on Hextech or sorting through his council paperwork- he hated that goddamn paperwork.

He stopped by the little corner cafe on his way, it was a place he and… he frequented when the nights turned to mornings from how long they- he’d stay up. He ordered himself a black coffee because it was the only thing with enough caffeine to keep him awake, and a cream-cheese bagel, simply because he craved it.

He ate it on his way up to the lab, telling himself he’ll be mindful of any crumbs but actively ignoring any that fell on his way up the stairs and towards the lab.

He held his cup and bagel in one hand and fisted around in his pocket for his keys, he went to unlock the door, and paused instead.

“- -i can’t believe - - worked, it - - -“

“- - -you so! The rooftops are - - - -“

There was someone in his lab. Two at the minimum with the voices he could hear. Was it Sky returning from her medical leave?

Jayce took a deep breath, and unlocked the door as quietly as he could.

And stepped inside.

Chapter Text

“Told you it’d be easy.”

It was a simple remark, seemingly meaningless compared to the view Viktor had. There they both were, stood atop the peak of the bridge of progress, looking over Piltover and all its lights. Though, he couldn’t find it in himself to call it beautiful.

“I’ve never climbed this high before.” Viktor wasn’t lying. Before, he could barely climb the stairs to get to the lab and even as a little kid with all the spry energy he had, he could’ve never imagined he’d complete such a feat. That, to him, was beautiful.

Jinx shrugged and moved forward, climbing down and continuing her slow walk across the thick, taught wires. Swinging the small bag she’d brought with them in her hand“It’s all downhill from here! Easy on your rusty joints.”

The plan was the same, silly one they’d thought of a week ago. It was the kind of far-fetched nonsense a child would dream of during imaginative play. Climb across the top of the bridge to escape the enforcers below because why would they think to look up?

And it worked. They walked right over their heads and into Piltovan ground, but not quite yet. They couldn’t continue to walk along the bridge, they’d end up right in the street where everyone could see them. Viktor had pointed it out himself. Jinx had laughed, and with a beckoning hand, told him to follow her lead.

And that was the story of how Viktor ran across the rooftops for the first time in his life.

Engaging hydraulics, powering over the gaps that separated the houses. Viktor hadn’t laughed and shouted with such adrenaline in many years. It all lead them to the heart of Piltover, the academy and by extension: the Hextech labs.

“Shit!” Viktor had, admittedly, overestimated his abilities with a long jump, leaving him barely clambering onto the tiled roof with uneven breaths and a thumbs up. “I’m okay!”

“I didn’t ask!” Jinx had shouted right back before taking exactly 10 steps back, making her own runway to leap across. She took the jump.

She fell short.

Before she could scream, a hand clasped her forearm, dragging her up and onto the roof. A tile slipped out from under her foot and crashed to the street below. The pair could only look at each other for a moment, a silent exchange of ‘that happened’ before they giggled childishly and got back up: picking up right where they left off to keep running.

It was easier after that, a rush towards their goal. It peaked at showing off with tricks and jumps onto ledges, hands thrown out and catching and pulling up.

And as the sun set, despite Viktor’s frantic warnings, Jinx lit a flair: cobalt coolly streaking across the orange sky with a maniacal laugh and an angry machine trying to snatch it from her hands.

Climbing the academy itself was harder: hundreds of windows could easily give them away. They took it slower, careful steps around the back of the building: waiting and listening then moving. Over and over. Till they reached it.

It took Viktor, some rope, a grapple and a careful descent in order to get an opening - Jinx would simply call it kicking a window in.

He landed with a heavy thud, and Viktor’s first instinct was to take a deep breath: the distantly familiar scent of books and metal. He hadn’t set foot here in over 2 years yet not much had changed.

His desk was exactly how he remembered leaving it, yet it was spotless: untouched yet clean. Somebody had been maintaining it, Viktor couldn’t bear putting so much thought into it. Jinx followed in soon after, swinging in and landing with trained elegance.

“Hm. I can’t believe that actually worked, it sounded too easy.“

“Well I told you so! The rooftops are the best way around… as long as you don’t fall.“ Jinx didn’t wait a moment before snooping around in draws, looking around and reading - skimming - papers that seemed useful before storing them away in her bag.

Viktor took a single step before freezing as the door opened, it was a quiet thing: he would’ve missed it if he weren’t being so paranoid about being caught. But when he looked at the door, his perfect heart missed a beat and his suppressors fired immediately. No. It couldn’t be. Not after all these years. Not now.

Jayce Talis.

Stood there in the doorway with darting eyes and a gaped mouth: a steaming cup and bagel in hand and keys in the other. He hadn’t changed one bit. Still as groomed and proper as he’d been before. Though, his outfit was unusual: perhaps fashion had changed in his leave.

“Who are-“ Jayce looked between the two till his eyes squinted, scrutinising over Jinx till recognition washed over him. And his eyes returned right back to Viktor: a hatred brewing in his eyes.

“You’re him. Aren’t you? The machine herald. Caitlyn was right- you are conniving with Jinx. What are you doing here?” Viktor had only seen Jayce like this a handful of times in the past: posturing and angry and threatening. Though, it never used to be directed at him.

“We are only here to take what we need. Leave and call the enforcers. This is not a fight you can win.” He was glad how unrecognisable the mask made his voice, deepening it and making it sound like static.

Jayce only scoffed, an almost arrogant smile taking to his face, he stashed his keys in his pocket and, slowly, made his way to his desk, placing his cup and bagel onto it as he reached to grab something from below it. “I’ve been robbed twice in my life, three if you count now. I’ve learned the enforcers take too long.”

Jayce pulled what Viktor recognised as the mercury hammer out from below it, it powered on with a quake: the head splitting open and revealing the true brunt of it: Viktor froze where he stood.

“And I’ve learned how to defend myself.”

Jayce emphasised by pulling the handle down and back, an energy pulse blooming at the tip: Hextech blue and beaming, waiting to be fired.

“So, you’re going to put back whatever you’ve taken. Or I will call for the enforcers, and collect two of Piltover’s most wanted in one day. Your choice.”

Viktor groaned as yet another shot fired into him, this was bad. This wasn’t how they’d planned it at all. On the journey, he’d waited for the other shoe to drop, it’d been too easy. Now he knew why.

He looked behind him, where Jinx was stood by the desk, he could see her hand inching towards pow-pow resting in its holster at her hip.

She aimed it at Jayce. Jayce aimed at Jinx.

And fired.

“Wait!” Viktor flung himself in front of Jinx. Hands held out in front of him and open palmed. The pulse fired into him, his systems frying under the energy- his body cramped with the shock, curling into itself. He was lucky he wasn’t fully human any more, for once he was grateful for what Jayce had done to him in his death. Viktor wasn’t sure he’d have survived that close of a shot otherwise. Jinx might not have. He stood his ground, shakily and weakened: trying to be firm.

“Wait? Did you wait to electrocute Vi and hospitalise her? You almost burned her from the inside out. This is your final warning, herald.”

“Canny move! I had the shot!” Jinx shouted, frantic and spitting.

Jayce aimed the hammer once more, now straight for Viktor, he pulled the handle back farther: the pulse grew, humming violently as it began to shake.

He wished it didn’t have to go this way.

Jinx couldn’t see what happened at first, something releasing steam and pressure. She froze when she saw what was in his hand. His mask. Viktor had taken his mask off. Sure, she’d known it was a mask but never had she seen his face- now he was showing it to some piltie for pity points? Oh come on!

It had confused her at first, almost angered her in how stupid it seemed. Viktor wasn’t stupid. Yet the councillor’s face had fallen: taken over by paling shock. The hammer retracted, dropping from his hands, and landing heavily on the floor, his eyes darting over his face.

“…V-Viktor?”

He couldn’t believe it. Had the countless, sleepless nights finally caught up to him? Jayce pinched his arm tight, no. He was wide awake.

The Machine herald, the newest threat to Piltover who showed up just under 2 years ago? It all made sense now: the timeline added up. Once that mask was removed, it had all clicked into place.

Viktor was the machine herald.

Viktor was alive. He’d changed. He was living in Zaun. He was augmenting himself: augmenting people. He was helping people. He helped Jinx. He hurt Caitlyn. He hurt Vi. Viktor was alive.

Jayce let out a quiet, almost delirious laugh, running a hand through his hair and taking a step forward. “I- I knew it! Everybody else had given up on you but I knew you were alive!” Surely what Viktor had done had some reason behind it. Right? Some confusion, maybe he felt threatened, that’s why he did it. Something justifiable. There had to be. Right?

Viktor didn’t move, he simply let his mask clatter to the floor once Jayce wrapped his arms around him for the first time in 2 years.

“I- we’ve been waiting for you to come back-! Me, Mel, god I can’t wait to tell her- you… you’re really alive.” Jayce pulled back just to stare at his face, at his eyes, his cheekbones and moles: he cupped his jaw in hand and stroked his thumb under his eyes: feeling the transition between skin and hexcorised metal. Like all he could see was Viktor, not the herald he so vehemently hated and shot moments ago.

Like he’d thrown it all away, like it meant nothing.

Jayce was still as gently obsessive as he had been, time hadn’t wavered it nor did change inhibit it. He was still Jayce.

“You… you’ve gotten taller” Jayce chuckled, like he almost couldn’t believe it. Viktor was tall enough to meet his eyes without a tilt of the head, without straining his back to stand up straighter. He felt proud, seeing him succeed in such a way.

“I came to collect my work, Jayce.” Viktor replied, keeping his voice even, unattached. “…I need a gemstone, it is impor-“

“What? Viktor I can’t-“ Jayce’s interrupted, eyes glanced over and behind Viktor, Jinx was still sat there: watching, listening, idly spinning her pistol on her finger. “I can’t do that.”

“Please, Jayce. You must understand.”

“What would you use it for? You- you’re working with her, Viktor. I… as much as I want to trust you, I can’t.”

Viktor took a deep breath, picking at a seam of his gloves. He couldn’t give the real reason. Perhaps something baked in truth, a lie of omission, a half truth.
“I removed the Hexcore from myself Jayce. I… I am without a power source, the hexcorisation is draining my life force in its place. I theorise a gemstone might suffice till I find a more permanent solution.”

“You…” the words died on Jayce’s tongue. Viktor was always good at telling things without the direct words. Viktor was implying that he was dying, again. Everything he’d done, they’d done, to save his life would be for nothing.

His eyes met Jinx’s again. A big what if coming to the forefront of his mind. What if Viktor was lying? What if Viktor was just a pawn in Jinx’s sick game to get a gemstone again? And yet, what if Viktor was telling the truth? What if Jayce didn’t give it to him and something happened?

“Viktor I- I can’t. This, this situation is too complicated. I can’t fully know your intentions. It’s a gemstone, refined Hextech. I can’t let it get into the wrong hands.” Jayce pointedly looked at Jinx. “Not again.”

“Please Jayce.” Viktor grabbed the hand Jayce still had on his face, holding it tight and practically begging. “Please, I need you to trust me. Please just… just do it for me, for what we once were.”

“Viktor.”

“For what we once had. Please, Jayce.

Please.” He pleaded one last time, a whisper of adoration long lost to time seeping in, he could hear Jinx moving around behind him.

It’d been a fickle thing - what they were - only truly lasting a year before drifting apart: new priorities, new discoveries, new ailments. At first, it’d just been Jayce and Mel. They’d gotten together after a gala where Mel had confessed over wine and tart cakes. Jayce was utterly swept.

The two were happy together, dreamy and perfect. They were never open about it however, the pressure from people knowing would’ve been draining. Only those they were close to knew: Jayce’s mother, Ximena, and Elora. Though, Mel had a suspicion her own mother knew too. And lastly, Viktor.

Oh Viktor. He hadn’t the slightest clue before. Always absorbed into his work. It took him too long to notice the lingering pair of eyes always watching him. Of touching hands always pressing against his back or shoulders. Of invitations to go out with the two.

Viktor had mistaken it for pity, at first. After all, dating was never a priority of his: he hadn’t the looks nor the energy to do such things, he’d rather put his time where it was needed in his work. He allowed himself to dream, however unreal his fantasies were, but never to act.

That was until one night, alone in the lab, had turned into something unfathomable.

_ _ _ _ _

It was another long night, stuck in the lab till the sun fell behind the horizon and the streets grew silent. It was routine at this point, nothing but the occasional mug of sweet milk and blistering resilience to tide him over till he felt he’d done enough for the day. Though, Viktor had come to realise, it never felt like enough.

His time could be spent more wisely: dedicated to his craft he’d spent the last 5 years revising and refining. Hextech was a revolutionary thing, each new discovery with it brought about a profound fascination within him: igniting the long suppressed inventor within him.

It was just like any other night, scribbling away on the blackboard till the numbers made sense, a disappointed sigh when they didn’t and thick resolve washing over him in tandem.

That was until Jayce and Mel waltzed in, quiet and somewhat hesitant in their steps. It made little sense of why they were there: they should be away at a gala, fancying up investors and promoting the future of Hextech. Yet, they were here, their faces glowing with a beaming hopefulness.

“Is eh.. something the matter? I’ve never seen you leave so early, let alone return to the lab after a gala.” Viktor dared to ask, he’d lost his train of thought: deciding to just put down his chalk and turn to face them. He stumbled a little when he’d misplaced his weight on his foot wrongly.

“Well, where else would we think to find you? Always cooped up here like a poro to its nest.” Mel remarked, walking over with a gentle swish of her hips: Jayce trailing behind and standing behind Viktor, a careful hand placed to his lower back. He was too observant and considerate. “Jayce and I would like to invite you to an outing, privately, I know you dislike public attention.”

Viktor shook his head, picking his chalk back up and rereading his work to get back on track. “I’m flattered but I’d rather my time be spent in the lab. Long walks and fancy dinners are eh.. not my thing.”

“It’s nothing grand, just conversation between the three of us.” Jayce added, leaning over Viktor’s shoulder, pointing. “Also, you missed a negative sign right there.”

Viktor was proving to be too in his head to work effectively, it drew a frustrated sigh out of him.
“…is this a roundabout way of you trying to get me out of the lab? Because I assure you, I’m-“

“Viktor,” Jayce continued, commanding in that gently smug way in how he spoke “We will meet you at 5pm tomorrow, no need to dress up or walk far. Just be ready and we’ll come find you. Councillors orders.”

Mel chuckled, sliding a hand onto Viktor’s upper back, tracing the line of his spine. “You wouldn’t want to miss our date would you?”

The chalk froze in Viktor’s hands, like a gear had shifted and thrown his inner mechanisms off. “I- you… excuse me?” He could barely speak, blubbering out his words in confused disbelief. He shut up when Jayce grabbed his hand and dragged it away from the black board.

“5pm tomorrow. We’ll be waiting for you.” Was all he said before pecking a chest kiss to his knuckle in time with the press of lips against his cheek. Some live wire inside him sparked and the bulb that was his brain shattered in that moment.

Mel and Jayce walked out after that, a brief remark for Viktor to go to bed on their way out, and Viktor was left flushed as a rose and steaming: a lipstick mark staining his cheek and his hand frozen in the air.

_ _ _ _ _

That’d been so long ago now. The kind of memory turned sienna and fading at the edges yet it rung loudly in Viktor’s ears as he stared at Jayce. His injectors sunk into him once more, here he was cruelly using their past affections. Yet, a part of him craved the attention of old vows. Of a time forgotten. Of Jayce.

Jayce, who was staring down at him with glossy eyes, eyes that darted down to his lips, lips that Viktor bit the dry skin away from.

Jayce should be thinking. Should be pushing away and rushing to the enforcers. Should be screaming, fighting to protect his work. He should be doing anything but lean in that tiny inch closer. He should not be tilting his head, eyes half lidded, holding him close: soft breath, beating heart.

Amber stared up at him. His favourite colour.

Jayce wondered if he still tasted like sweet milk, of star anise and sugar, of caffeine. He leaned in, a hand tangled into Jayce’s hair: fingers sifted over the freshly trimmed fade, resting at the back of his neck.

They locked in a stare. Silent and waiting till it all imploded. It was unclear who moved first, the press was all the same. Cushioned and soft, something metallic. Jayce pressed in with hunger. Taking and taking and taking. Nails dug into the back of his head and he didn’t care.

So long had he dreamed of the taste again, of a velvety tongue against his own once more. Of amber. Of anise. Of an accent. Viktor was no better, just as depraved, more so even. All teeth and biting. Licking over his teeth like he’d steal a taste of Mel on his tongue. Jayce felt feet moving his own below him, pushing him back, forcing his back to a desk.

Hands wandered, trailing down his sides and squeezing at his waist. Jayce sighed into Viktor’s mouth, who lapped up the noise with a heady tongue and a feverish kiss.

Jinx was… disturbed by the sight. Till she saw Viktor waving a hand behind himself, then she finally understood. It was a distraction. A weird, very intimate distraction, but one nonetheless. She quietly got up and began sifting around, checking off a mental list of all the stuff Viktor wanted to find. But she couldn’t find the gemstones.

The last one she’d stolen was the first ever made, served pretty on an anvil platter for her to take. Now it was nowhere. “Fuck.” She shot out under her breath. “Viktor I can’t find them!”

That pulled Viktor out of the kiss, turning his head towards Jinx, Jayce whined and pouted dazedly. Viktor’s injectors piercing him once more. It had all gone wrong: their plan lead astray, Jinx’s exclamation only cemented the fact, he had to act quickly. His left hand trailed mournfully over Jayce’s sternum, pushing“…I wish we stood on better terms, Jayce.”

Jayce forgivingly smiled, dazed. “We can now. We can fix it, together, Viktor.” Jayce had breathlessly mumbled back, leaning in once more only to seize up as electricity flashed through him.

His nails dug into Viktor’s spine before his body registered the sensation.

The lights flickered above, Jayce cried out in pain just like Vi had. The charge left by the blast from the mercury hammer had resided within him, Viktor simply used his body as a conduit to expel the energy. Sending it into Jayce instead. Viktor slowly laid him to the floor; ignoring his twitching; ignoring his cries; ignoring when he fell silent, hopeful in his assumption that he was unconscious. Viktor wordlessly picked his mask up once more, clasping it into place. He didn’t need her to see his brewing torment.

“What do you mean you can’t find them?”

“I mean that I can’t find them! They’re nowhere.”

“Did you get the blueprints?”

“Of course I did, why wouldn’t I-“

Viktor kicked open a door at the lock, peering into a storage cabinet littered with inventions. Viktor honed in on one: the hexclaw. It’d been all his, his design and engineering. Now left to rot in a closet. He pulled it out, folding it in on itself and held it close.

Jinx looked back one last time to the twitching Talis on the floor and brightened with an idea. “Wait!” She rushed over to the mercury hammer, flipping it over till she found what she wanted: she pried the little case open and popped out the gemstones that’d been powering it with a proud smile, showing it off and waving it at Viktor. He only turned around with a blunt reply.

“We’re done here.”

Jinx’s face fell. Shoulders growing stiff as she stood back up. Viktor didn’t say another word till they were back in Emberflit, and that was only to greet Isha when she’d come rushing downstairs after she’d seen them arriving through the window.

Jayce was left there, lying on the floor: shaking and twitching, for half an hour till somebody came in, that someone just so happened to be Mel Medarda herself.

“Jayce?” She called out, she’d been looking for him: first checking the forge and just now checking the lab. She saw him on the floor, it looked like he was having a seizure, panic rushed through her.

“Jayce!” She fell to her knees at his side, cradelling him as tears filled her eyes. What had happened? She looked around, one of the windows was smashed in, the lab trashed with too many things thrown around. Someone had broken in and attacked him.

Bile rose in her throat. She screamed out for help in the silence. It took too many minutes for someone to notice, longer for enforcers to arrive and 5 minutes more for medics to rush inside.

She stayed by his side as he was assessed and taken away on a stretcher. Keeping pace and staying by his side all the way to the hospital: pointedly refusing a separate carriage to be by his side.

And all Jayce could say in his delirium, the only word uttered quietly, a soft declaration, a name.

“…Viktor”

Over and over, till he finally passed out.

Chapter Text

The sterile smell of hospital never got any easier to stomach: with its eerily quiet halls and the occasional rush of a doctor or nurse passing through.

First it’d been Vi, now it was Jayce. The same symptoms, similar injuries: the answer was obvious, context easily identifiable.

Him. The machine herald. He was undeniably behind both attacks, Vi’s had been more focussed: presenting in two adjacent burn wounds on her stomach, whilst Jayce suffered a larger burn at his sternum: eerily resembling a handprint.

Caitlyn’s heels filled the silence as she walked those halls, growing with familiarity with every quiet visit. Most days they didn’t speak, Vi was either asleep or babbling incomprehensibly with the pain medication they had her on. Some days she was better, ‘silly’ would best describe it.

Now Jayce was in that same condition, though he’d remained unconscious since he passed out in the carriage. It made Caitlyn sick.

She pushed through the door and was greeted with the beeping of vital monitors. Now double what she was used to. She’d requested this room purposefully: one, so she knew where Vi was and could two: keep her safe. Now Jayce lay in the once empty secondary bed at the other side of the room.

“Cupcake..! You came back!”

Though, Vi’s loud wayward greeting brought a smile to her face. She waved a paper bag in front of herself before taking the chair that’d became her own in Vi’s recovery.
“I only went down the street to get you something better than hospital food.”

Caitlyn had to hold Vi down so she didn’t rip out any cords she was hooked up to just to get to the bag, and when she did get her hands on it she tore through the food like a starved lion with a happy moan with her first bite.

“…cupcake… have I ever told you… how much I love you?” Vi spoke around her chews, muffled around her food.

“Over blueberry muffins? No Violet, no you have not.”

It was a rinse and repeat cycle most days, sitting there and chatting over food when Vi was awake and slowly being weened off the pain medication. Today was slightly different, with the clink of heels entering the room, it was one of those days.

Caitlyn turned and was greeted by a small nod from Mel, quickly slinking away to the opposite side of the small room where a curtain was drawn: Jayce.

She came back out after a couple minutes, crestfallen. Caitlyn offered her an empathetic look. “Still not awake?”

Mel shook her head, “No. Vi woke up after a couple days, didn’t she? I don’t understand why Jayce is taking so much longer.”

“Wait Jayce is here? Hi Jay-!” “Vi!” Caitlyn slapped a hand over Vi’s mouth with how loud she shouted, she quickly redirected to Mel. “The doctor’s believe it’s something to do with frequency difference or relative focus. Vi’s was concentrated to two points whilst Jayce’s was more generalised. Though, they are uncertain.”

Mel’s shoulders tensed, a deep breath rising then falling. Her face tight like she was considering something, unconsciously biting her lip.
“…I think Jayce suffered much more than we first realised.”

“What makes you think that?”

“When I found him, there, on the floor. He-“ she took a deep breath, choosing to sit on the bottom edge of Vi’s bed. “He was…mumbling to himself, over and over and over. Calling to someone. He was calling out to Viktor.”

Caitlyn couldn’t hide the quiet gasp that had wracked through her, because how could that not send a pang through her heart? Viktor was dead. He died during the council room explosion, Jayce told her so himself. Told her that he’d tried to feel a pulse, tried CPR, tried and tried and tried till failure. Mel continued tearfully.

“…I believe he was hallucinating him. Seeing a dead man in what could’ve been his final moments. If I’d been a second sooner maybe he wouldn’t be in this state, but if I were a second later…I- I don’t want to even consider the possibility.”

Mel looked up once Caitlyn placed a hand on her shoulder, her own crossed over to lay atop it. “It scares me. How close that possibility could’ve been. The chance haunts me.”

“When I found Vi,” Caitlyn began, squeezing once on Mel’s shoulder before pulling away. “I was furious, I wanted to take it out on the world just because she’d gotten hurt. Then, after looking back once more, it was like something rotted inside my chest. Seeing her there, so weak and sobbing? It’s a sight I wish on nobody. And yet.”

“And yet.” Mel finished for her, looking forlornly across the room once more. “…We can’t let this information get out, that they’ve directly attacked a councillor. As much as it pains me to want revenge, it would do no good. We need to take this slowly and carefully. One wrong step could send us into a war zone.”

Caitlyn sprung up like a soldier, face scrunched in almost offended disbelief“How can you say that? We’ve tried playing the diplomats and it’s done nothing but allow them to attack us! I understand your position but we need action or they will continue to pummel us into the ground.”

Mel straightened where she was sat, brows drawn and face turned away. She bit her lip harshly, shoulders tense. “Caitlyn, I mean this with the most sincere respect, you don’t understand my position. If we attack in what we consider retaliation, to balance the scales, they will take it as nothing short of an attack themselves, and retaliate in tow. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy of violence that I will not allow Piltover to fall in to.”

“If we do nothing they will know they’ve won.”

“And what would come of it if we won? A hostile takeover of the Undercity? Do you think that would truly end this war? That it would end with peace? You do not understand politics Caitlyn, please keep your nose raised to your befitting station.”

Caitlyn scoffed, and turned to Vi, taking away her now empty muffin wrapper and placing it back in its paper bag. “I know enough from my mother.”

“Yet you are not her.”

“She taught me everything I needed to know!” Caitlyn snapped, teeth gritted like scared prey baring its teeth. “She gave me the Kiramman key. I know everything I need to know to end this war. Don’t you dare question my integrity as an enforcer nor a Kiramman.”

Mel frowned, regret painting her face. “I meant nothing of the sort…I apologise. This is beyond all of us, I meant not to degrade you in any way. You are a capable and intelligent woman, times are hard. Arguing like this does nothing good for any of us.”

“…and yet.”

Mel couldn’t stop the huffed laugh that came out of her. “And yet.” Finally did she look up again, a careful smile. “Hello, Violet.”

“Hi.. pretty piltie.” “What- pretty piltie? You never call me pretty piltie.” Caitlyn gasped, throwing a similarly scrunched up pout towards Vi that couldn’t not draw a chuckle from Mel.

“Cause you’re cupcake, Cait, not pretty.” Vi slurred, Caitlyn could only scoff indignantly, Mel laughed a little harder.

They spoke for a while, mostly jokes at Vi’s medicated expense. Simple things, really, it was another one of those days. It was simple things like this that had brung Mel and Caitlyn closer: a shared grief between them, a fear of the unknown.

But once more, today was different.

An hour or two had passed when their comfortable conversation was cut: a quiet groan piercing through their words. Mel was the first up, lips falling silent as she sped-walked across the room.

Caitlyn followed as soon as she heard that relieved “Jayce!” Fall from behind the curtain. He was finally awake.

His eyes were barely open, closing randomly as he mumbled nonsense, his hand weakly squeezing Mel’s own which held him. It took what felt like hours for him to register his surroundings, though it was only minutes in reality, his eyes opened just that little more.

“…V?” He weakly smiled, looking right at Mel. Caitlyn pretended not to see the tears brimming her eyes.

“Mel, hun. It’s me, Mel. You were gone for a few days.” She gently cupped his face, stroking his cheek with her thumb.

“Mel.” Jayce’s smile widened, like he was melting into the sheets under her. Somehow beaming despite his condition: gooey and smiling once she gently pecked his temple. His heart monitor sprung up at that. Caitlyn took the time to get a nurse to come check over him whilst Mel kept him occupied.

Plain and simply, Jayce was due at least another week in the hospital, just to be sure of his recovery. Luckily, but not to anybody else, now that he was awake, Vi would have somebody to loudly chat to across the room.

“JAYCE!”

“what?”

“When are you gonna fix my hands?”

“What hands?”

“My big hands”

“You have big hands?”

“Yeah you made them.”

“I made your big hands?”

“Yeah with your bare hands.”

“…woah.”

“I miss my big hands.”

“I miss my hammer. I miss working-“ Jayce let out a gasp so loud it made Mel jump beside him.
“Mel! Mel, Melly my sunshine, need you to write a letter.”

Mel let out an amused sigh, almost doting as she looked at Jayce. “To who, Jayce, and about what?”

That was the last thing Caitlyn heard before she stepped out, she was glad she didn’t smoke nor drink, she’d have plundered the streets with its fumes and drained the alcohol supply within hours.

It was like the room had some form of repellent for her anger, leaving it to fester along the walls outside so that when she dared step out again it would swallow her whole.

She hadn’t expected a guest to be waiting for her.

“For two years I have watched from the sidelines of your schemes. You have much strength, child. A mind as sharp as yours coursing with such pain could do much when refined.”

Caitlyn turned to the window, finding none other than general Medarda leaned against it. She tensed up, because why was Ambessa here? How had she found where she was keeping Vi and Jayce? What did she want?

“Calm your mind child, I am not your enemy.”

Caitlyn sighed at that, it only slightly eased her tension.

“Why are you here?”

“Well, for the same reason you are. It’s not everyday that a councillor is assaulted by electrocution now, is it?”

Caitlyn gulped, Ambessa stood from her relaxed slouch. “We all have people we wish to protect in Piltover, I understand your pain, and I know that that pain can be sharpened like a blade. The Undercity has overstepped.”

Ambessa took four steps over to stand beside Caitlyn, a strong hand was placed on Caitlyn’s tense shoulder.

“My daughter has a peaceful heart, but she knows not the ways of war. You have something she doesn’t: guts. You have the strength and guile to fight for your people. You are a wolf amongst sheep.”

Ambessa drew in closer, breath sharp against listening ears.

“I hope to end this war, as do you, on the side of the victorious. The Undercity has cut deep, a serrated blade in our sides, it is only best to cut them deeper, where it hurts.”

Caitlyn could feel the steeling of her chest before the words were even uttered.

“You have the key to the Kiramman tunnels. The Undercity suffocates itself on its own fumes, you can hit them where it truly hurts. You can avenge your loved ones. You can take their air.”

Vi. Jayce. Her mother.

“I will be waiting, child, war is patience. You will quickly learn.”

And with that, Ambessa walked away. Down the halls and disappearing behind a corner. A million thoughts raged through her mind: The Kiramman vents. The air. The Undercity. The Kiramman vents. The chem barons. The Undercity. Jinx. The Kiramman vents. Jinx. The Kiramman vents. The herald. The Kiramman vents. The Kiramman Vents.

The Kiramman Vents.

The herald.

Jinx.

Caitlyn turned on her heel down the corridors, taking two steps for what should be every one. Till she was met with burgundy once more, met with knowing eyes.

There was no time for diplomacy in war.

_ _ _ _ _

Jayce’s letter was posted through the door by the next day. A quaint apartment, located a couple streets away from the academy grounds. The quiet squeak of wheels signalled somebody retrieving it from the floor.

Sky hadn’t been expecting any letters, much less so with the Medarda’s crest on it. A call to action if you will, the letter read that Jayce was unable to attend to the labs for an indefinite amount of time and personally requested her, Sky Young, to take the role of lead researcher in his absence. Something about trusted colleagues and like minds.

Sky sighed, all this time and she was finally invited back. She’d been researching from home all this time, in all honesty she was scared to return to the Hextech laboratory. Her last time there was…

Beyond unpleasant.

However, after the incident, she could barely get around anymore. Sure, she’d been supplied with a wheelchair and even a rudimentary prosthetic leg, but they’d do her no good. The academy was full of stairs, elevators always packed with students, it’d be hell for her.

Unless she got a better leg.

She’d heard a rumour floating the streets when she went out shopping for groceries and the like, a man down in the lanes who could build fascinating things, the Undercity was a world for revolutionary prosthetic technology, but this man? This machine? His was supposedly beyond that.

If a wheelchair would do her no good, she’d need a better prosthetic. And who better to turn to than the one with good reviews and a free of cost charge?

It was a simple choice for Sky, to put on her less-than-efficient leg and begin the walk across the bridge. Her younger self’s home: the air thicker than before, streets meaner than before.

It still felt like home, in that childish nostalgia.

So, Sky travelled deeper and deeper down, asking for directions, following pointed fingers. Till she found it. Emberflit Alley.

She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. For every other rumour that she’d heard,

Spoke of a much darker fate.

Chapter Text

Another explosion boomed in his face.

Soot covered his mask in a thick layer, he had to wipe it from his eyes: leaving being a streaky mess. He had half a mind not to toss the experiment across the room: let it crash to the floor.

Another failure that’d brung him no closer to an answer. Viktor was a scientist, failure was every other day, a natural process of discovery as each dead end opened up a tiny pathway leading to success.

Viktor had found no such pathway yet.

The gemstone stood stubborn and unaffected inside the now steaming vessel he’d put it in, like it was mocking him for even trying to figure out a way to disarm it. He scribbled out another line of thinking in his mental list, a part of him regretted making them so fortified in his younger years.

A burst of steam left his own ventilation system as he packed it all away, sick of the sight, his innards were running hot in frustration, it’d do him no good to continue working on it. Suppressing compact arcane energy from a perfected gemstone would prove to be much more time consuming than he’d hoped.

He switched to an easier task, blueprints. Ever since Viktor had retrieved the hexclaw, he’d been working on an improved design: better range, better dexterity and control. Something he wasn’t able to do before, with council regulations and all.

He was still deciding on a name, he didn’t want his associations with Hextech any longer than necessary: that part of his life belonged in the past. Where it should stay.

The bell above the front door rang, it’d been happening more frequently to the point he had to swap out the bell for a nicer one that didn’t ring like tinnitus every time someone entered. Tensions were growing at the bridge, more incidents in the upper lanes and lower promenade. Yesterday someone threw tear gas into a crowd, he hadn’t any idea which side the blow had come from.

Viktor looked up, only to turn back away pointedly. “She’s not here. Send your business elsewhere.”

Jinx had left early in the morning with Isha, something about a secret hideout of Jinx’s where they could continue their champion’s ’fight to the death’: he wondered what the two bugs that they’d taken with them were for. Though, that didn’t matter at the moment.

Sevika stood in his doorway with that stone cold glare she always wore, leaned against the frame like she belonged with a cigar hanging from her lips. She took it between her fingers, blowing out: she watched the smoke be sucked away by the air filters and fans.

“Well it’s good that I’m not here for that nutcase. I’m here for you.”

Sevika closed the door behind her and put her prosthetic arm infront of herself, Viktor couldn’t resist a look: curiosity getting the better of him. Surprisingly, the engineering was all too familiar: a spitting image of Jinx’s work. Viktor straightened, Sevika continued. “It got busted up in a scuffle, and I’ve heard you’re the guy to fix it.”

“Jinx made you this?” Viktor stepped forward, grabbing at the prosthetics shoulder and pulling it up and out of the socket: it was hefty and heavy, Viktor felt the need to check if her shoulder provided proper support for it.

“A while ago. Found it in the rafters after she knocked me out. Had a lovely little note attached to it. Almost took me out when I used it the first time.”

“Ha, her creations are quite inspired.” Viktor placed the arm on his desk, swiping it to make space: it barely fit. He wedged beneath one of the plates and pulled it off, looking into the inner workings. “Hm. Her wiring is usually better than this, this is… uncoordinated.”

Sevika only scoffed as she took another huff of her cigar. “How long will it take you?”

Viktor pried it open some more: a leaking pipe, charred remains of…fireworks? Jinx never failed to surprise him with the things she churned out. “Eh…a few hours? Though I must admit I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking at currently.”

“The thing has a mind of its own. Like a rabid dog on my shoulder. And the whole slot machine gimmick? I still don’t understand it.”

“Slot machine..?” Viktor wiped down his mask, staring at the mess in front of him. “…come back tomorrow, I fear I need to dissect this fully before I can repair it. I will ask Jinx for her assistance in this, whenever she returns.”

Viktor got to work immediately, unscrewing what he could see and slowly pulling it apart, keeping it ordered as he tried to think in Jinx’s shoes: see what she’d been trying to achieve. Perhaps it was a simple ‘fuck you’ to Sevika: making something so complicated to use and difficult to repair. Viktor never understood Jinx’s grievance with her.

“You know, you’ve caused quite the ruckus upstairs.” Viktor didn’t slow at the words, simply listened with quiet calculation. “Rumour has it you broke into some lab and stole Hextech valuables. All unscathed.”

Viktor pulled a pipe out from a chamber, it spilled oil across the remaining mechanisms.

“You have them scared.”

Viktor did pause at that.

“Jinx threw the first hit to their careful balance on top of us, and they recovered: but not without a scar. But you? You’ve hit them again. Their comfort is toppling out from under them, I haven’t seen so many enforcers on the bridge since the riots. Do you remember them?”

Viktor had only been young when they’d occurred. Young enough to remember. He could still taste the pepper bombs, his lungs still choked on the smoke. It’d crept down all the way from the bridge down to the fissures, alongside the distant, echoing gunfire. “…I do.”

“Silco got close to clawing his way from their boot. Fear got him the farthest anyone has for Zaun. Now he’s dead. But you? You’re down here, tinkering away. You’re a wild card to them. They’re waiting to see what you’re truly capable of.”

“I am no leader.”

“You want freedom for Zaun? For kids to run around, free to breathe and learn without fear a blue belly is gonna whisk them away to Stillwater? Beat them down in the streets for no good reason? You don’t get to choose your place in this fight: it chooses you. So are you gonna fuck around with wires all day, or are you going to fight?”

Viktor’s silence was enough of an answer, that, and the fact his hands were clenched so hard they were bending the metal between his fingers.

“…There’s some celebration happening in a few months time. ‘A decade of Hextech!’ Some big display with all the elites. They’ll be showing off, you could make a statement.”
Sevika turned to the door, looking back over her shoulder. “Your choice.”

“Wait.”

And so, she waited, looking back once more to an arm being tossed her way, she caught it easily enough. It snapped in to her shoulder adequately, and it was a little small, however that was made up for by the sharp prongs that extended from her knuckles as she clenched her fists. She could see her reflection in the blades.

“I’ll have it finished by tomorrow. Take that in the meantime.”

Sevika smirked, taking one last drag of her cigar before putting it out on the doorway, letting herself out in post. “You’ve got another visitor.” She called out, holding the door open.

“What can I help you with?” Viktor asked to the room, not looking away from the arm and he began trying to pry open another chamber.

“I uhm, I heard you were good with prosthetics?”

The screwdriver Viktor was holding immediately slipped and pinged out of his grasp as he whipped his head around so fast something click in his neck, the clattering of it hitting the floor filled the silence.

There, stood in the doorway, was Sky. Viktor’s suppressors fired immediately: he tried to appear composed, fixing his posture and thanking the mask he wore. “Yes, what exactly do you need?”

Sky leaned forward and reached for the bottom of her trousers, pulling the fabric of her right leg up to reveal the prosthetic below. “I lost my leg a while ago and this has been causing me lots of discomfort. I was hoping to get something more suited?”

“A-ah.” Viktor coughed, taking a step away from his desk. “May I ask how you lost your leg? So I may be prepared for the eh, joint process.”

“Workplace accident. I’m sure it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. It’s all healed however, so I don’t think it’ll be an issue.” Sky walked further into the space, looking around. Viktor felt sick.

After all this time, in his selfishness and cruelty, she was still covering for him. To a complete stranger no less. Her kindness truly knew no bounds, his suppressors fired again.

Viktor lead her to a chair where he could properly examine the prosthetic, he scoffed at the craftsmanship: an unsavoury comment or too about weight balance and user comfort. Somehow, Sky laughed at that.

He took the prosthetic away and began with his normal rounds: forcing himself into a work mindset to try and quell his distraught. Measurements of her hip, measurements of her left leg for reference, and questions about her general use for the prosthetic.

“This should be an easy process. Though I must warn you, it will require surgery to prepare your hip. It must be reinforced to comfortably support the leg. It is a simple graft and structure, replacing the skin surrounding, and including, your joint at the hip. Do you wish to continue?”

Sky spaced out for a moment, taking in her surroundings: apprehension crawling up her spine. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable looking of places, with the… jars, and deadly tools lining the walls. She came back to herself at a “Sky?”

She nodded, and Viktor couldn’t ignore the worried gleam in her eyes. “I’ve heard good things about you, I trust in your skill and experience. Plus, you remind me of someone.”

Viktor stood up and turned away at that. He helped her walk towards the back of his shop, guiding her to the back rooms where the environment was much more sterile and suited for surgery.

“It will take time for your body to grow used to the metallurgy. Months at the least. Once it is healed, you can return to test your new leg. Then I can make the necessary adjustments and you’ll be on your way.”

It felt like routine beyond that point: laying her down, sterilising his tools and putting her under anaesthesia. He wasn’t lying when he said it was a simple surgery, it took him a careful couple hours, but it was done: the last fusion made.

Viktor looked down at his work, proud in his success. Till he felt a buzzing in his leg. His right leg. An almost magnetic pull. Daunting, familiar red buzzing behind his eyes.

The leg he’d stolen from Sky was calling out to her, like it knew its origins and wished to return home. Viktor wasn’t sure what to do, because what could he do?

…

What couldn’t he do?

Viktor stepped outside the operating room, resolve in each step he took. He threw off his trousers and slammed his right leg onto the table.

He could return what he’d stolen. Give back what he’d selfishly taken. Make amends for his archaic horrors. The saw cut through with struggling effort: catching on the hexcorised flesh and sparking wildly. His nerves were squealing like pigs to the slaughter under his skin. His suppressors hopelessly fired.

He only breathed again once the saw had cut clean through.

Viktor staggered his way back to Sky’s unconscious form, cradling his- her leg like it was sacred. He pushed the flesh to her freshly made joint. Only in that moment did Viktor understand Jayce’s past fascination with the flesh.

It morphed to her body, crawling between the cracks and securing itself: glowing bright magenta and swirling. It corrected its form, somehow shrinking and fitting to her stature once more, almost seeming to spit out the augments he’d attached to it.

It was home.

It took Sky roughly 12 minutes to wake up. In that time Viktor had come up with an excuse.

“It seems that I had a leg very closely befitting your measurements on hand already. I modified it slightly, but I hope this isn’t an unpleasant surprise.”

Sky stared down at it in silence for a few moments, tears welling in her eyes as she wiggled her toes. She looked up at the machine, her gaze catching on his leg; or rather his current lack of one.

“What…what happened to your leg?” She asked cautiously, a hint of worry behind her thick-rimmed glasses.

“A minor malfunction in eh.. my knee. It was no matter, I needed to revise the mechanisms regardless: removing it entirely makes the overall renewal easier.” He gestured to her new leg. “Though, I reassure you, you will have no such issues.”

A couple minutes later, Sky was able to stand unassisted, without pain, for the first time in years. She hadn’t openly questioned it, only gratefully thanking him as she left: taking with her the adrenaline that had settled Viktor.

Fuck. Viktor put his head in his hands.

In hindsight, Viktor knew he hadn’t thought this through at all. He had so much work to do and now required a new leg on top of it all. One step forward and three steps back.

On top of that, how would Sky react to her leg? He’d told her she wouldn’t require one till months later. What if she recognised the flesh? Made the connection? He was nothing short of a fool acting on impulse.

Viktor carefully dug out his injectors: removing the cartridges and replacing the formula. The concentration had proven to be too weak, he was faltering more than he should be. He needed a level head, lest he make such mistakes again.

And in that quiet moment, he vowed to himself, to Zaun. He would make Zaun known, he would cause a scene and make a statement. His very existence was a statement. He’d flip the stakes,

And Piltover would tremble under his boot.

Sky went home with only one, lingering question on her mind. It’d haunted her across the bridge and all the way back to her apartment. A slip she hadn’t initially noticed, but caught nonetheless later. She hadn’t uttered it herself in any regard.

So how did the herald know her name?

Chapter Text

It all seemed to fall apart at once.

Yet another meeting of the same topic with new material: the uprising of the Undercity. Mel traced the council table, dragging her fingers along the filled cracks. Despite her efforts, her warnings and worries, the council - what remained of it - seemed determined on their goal.

There was no question who was behind such coordination: siphoning in the ideas, drilling in the lines and laying the seeds to make it seem as though they were their own.

“I’d hoped your time in Piltover would change your perspective on such matters, Mel.”

“My time in Piltover taught me more on such matters than you ever could, mother.” Mel spat back, uncaring for her sharp tongue: a woman so ruthless and cold deserved no such softness.

Ambessa stood by the door, held open by Rictus, she stood tall, arms crossed calmly behind her back. Face drawn in that motherly sympathy Mel had grown to ire.
“Repeating conversations does nothing but reaffirm the truth, a truth you already know. I sent you here to protect you, keep you safe from the dangers of Noxus. Your heart is not made for such terrain, I was right in sending you here, sweetheart.”

“You will call me no such name. You threw me here with nothing but my name and Elora. I carried myself. Piltover strengthened me, taught me everything father couldn’t.” Mel finally turned, tension radiating from her entirety, she scowled unforgivingly. “I know what you’re doing. What you’ve been sowing in their ears, you disgust me.”

Ambessa only shook her head, that pitying look never loosening from her face. “They are willing to do what you are too scared to. The Undercity is fighting back and you have the tools at your disposal to set them straight: they are a threat, and you are foolish for thinking otherwise.”

Mel could only scoff, it’d been an uphill battle ever since Ambessa had come to Piltover. Like an infection, she was seeping in to every other councillor: Salo, Shoola.

She could only hope that she hadn’t slipped inside the hospital room whilst she wasn’t there and whispered into Jayce’s ear too. Jayce had only recently been discharged, they’d planned the council meeting around his release date. Mel could only hope that such poison wasn’t spat into his ears. He was all she had left.

“Does it make you happy, to see me fail under your palm?”

“I only ever want you to succeed Mel, you are the only thing holding yourself back from true potential: your sense of morality clouds your judgement.”

“You know nothing of-“ Mel was forced to hold her tongue the second councillor Shoola walked through the door: unaware of their argument but sensing the remaining tension lingering in the air. Mel righted herself accordingly: poised and composed with a quaint greeting.

Then came Salo, and finally Jayce. Jayce seemed… different. Slower, more distant and closed off. She chalked it up to his continued recovery, perhaps medication making him sluggish.

“I believe it is due we speak of this… machine herald figure. Councillor Talis?” Shoola questioned, and all eyes turned to Jayce. The only councillor to have met him face to face: the only one to have been attacked by him, Mel prayed the statistic remained as such. Though she knew her prayers meant little.

Jayce sat there for a moment, bleary eyed as he stared off into the room: focussed on nothing and everything at the same time.

“He’s ruthless. Not to be trusted. Caitlyn was right in her assumptions that he was working with Jinx, it was the two of them who broke into the Hextech laboratory. From what I’ve checked, they stole various documents and a gemstone, along with a hextech prototype.”

“Well from what I see,” Salo spoke, face tight in unhidden contempt “They have proven again and again to be dangerous and hostile. We gave them 2 years and a strike force to prove their compliance and none since has been provided. They attacked said strike force and came onto our land. I think the message is clear.”

Mel opened her mouth, a counter on her tongue, desperately clinging onto a peace that kept slipping through her fingers: grip looser and looser with every passing day.

“For once, councillor Salo, I agree with you.”

Her heart dropped at that, a sinking pit forming in her chest and dropping into her stomach. Jayce had said that. Jayce, the one person who she had on her side for peace, speaking against it.
“Jayce, what-?”

“They do not listen to reason. I tried. He lured me in with false promises of compliance and neutralised me at the first opportunity. They are cunning, they are strong. They have proven to be able to come into Piltover unnoticed, they are undeniably dangerous.”

Salo only hummed with an odd sense of vindication, after all, he and Jayce had always been at odds. Yet when it mattered, it seemed councillor Talis had stepped up to justice.

“The strike team proven ineffective against Jinx. She is too elusive to be scouted out by one group alone.” Shoola added, glancing around the council room. “It is imperative we increase our forces. We must neutralise the threat of the undercut before it can bring more harm.”

“We cannot do that. It will only make them angrier, violence at the bridge will increase. We’ve seen it in action once, we cannot repeat it.” Mel helplessly rebutted, glancing helplessly around the room: glancing at Jayce. He did not meet her eyes.

“If I may,” Ambessa finally spoke, each council member looked to her, like salvation incarnate. Mel’s nails dug into her thighs.
“Whilst the first attempt proved unsuccessful. The Kiramman strike force has potential. They learn on the field, gathering information with each encounter. One failure is another days success.”

She gestured around the room, radiating confidence, beaming with trust and power. “I believe it is time for phase 2,” Almost like she’d been summoned at the words, Caitlyn walked through the doors. Hardened like steel, glowering like a soldier: not just an enforcer any longer.

“Commander Kiramman.” Ambessa announced to the room, the title shocking Mel. What had Ambessa done? Just how much had she been plotting under her nose? How much was Mel blinded to? She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper.

Caitlyn stepped into the centre of the round table: meeting the eyes of every council with calculated coldness: her tone just as icy. “Phase 2 involves the precise weaponisation of The Grey. We funnel it through the Kiramman tunnels into Chem-baron territory and take them down without ever coming into contact with them. The more we cover, the greater the chance that we hit Jinx, and once we have her. We can use her to lure out the herald.”

Ambessa stepped forward, resting her hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder: she looked right at Mel. Glowing. She knew she’d won. Mel could only stare at her in raging horror.

“Councillor Talis has agreed to manufacture specialised masks to protect our enforcers from The Grey. So we may use it without harming ourselves. Due to their own non-compliance, the Undercity will be forced to yield.”

Mel practically crumpled in her seat. Shaking with fury. Not because she’d lost her council’s favour; not because her feet were swept out from underneath her; but because even after everything she’d done,

She’d only proved her mother right.

The rest of the council meeting fell on deaf ears, a ringing stung in Mel’s head. The only words she truly registered and understood were blurred at the edges: ‘We will initiate tonight’. She stood wordlessly once it was all over, not so much as a look at the others: a farewell nor heartbroken scream like she was a child back in Rokrund being told she was being sent away, far away from home. Never to see them again. Childishly weak in her eyes.

She took a carriage, back to the Medarda estate, each step heavier and heavier than the last. She looked at her desk, documents she’d forgotten the meaning off. She felt a burn under her skin, unlike anything she’d felt before.

Was it betrayal? Despair? She wasn’t sure.

She screamed into the open air no less. Screamed till her throat ran raw and sore. Screamed till her lungs squeezed empty. Screamed till she collapsed to the floor and all she could manage was pitiful, childish whimpers and cries against the polished wood of her desk.

“Mel?”

Mel didn’t cease her tears at the soft voice, she only turned in to the familiar mass now sat beside her: holding her, pressing tight. Elora had always been there, every step of the way. She’d seen the worse of Mel: her stress, her fears and her doubts. Always there by her side, picking her up where she fell and covering the cracks before she could step on them.

Mel let herself cry, body wracking with each sob. At least now, she wasn’t alone. Elora would always be there for her: a step for every one of her own. Her caring shadow. Elora had always been there; will always be there.

…

Right?