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Viktor leaves Singed’s makeshift lab with a sick taste in his mouth. His hand clenched around the small metal and glass vial, as if to hide its purple hue from the dim street – or perhaps from his own eyes. He leans against a building half way down the block, unscrewing the handle of his crutch and slipping the shameful package inside.
If you take this path, they will despise you. His former mentor’s words twist further and further into his chest.
He can’t truly be considering this, can he? Every avenue has led to a dead end, each more crushing and insurmountable than the last. None of his equations have come to fruition, no combination of runes or frequencies or currents or inputs has been able to keep pace, to make sense or break through. The very nature of this thing – of the Hexcore – is resistant…consuming, failing, hungry, unsustainable, unstable. It needs more. It needs a physical resilience Viktor doesn’t have, one he wasn’t born with in this harsh world. His mind is a mess of aching determination, of migraines and strange waking dreams. The worst part is he knows his will can push beyond this, but his form is limited. This body cannot bear the brunt. It’s infuriating.
And Jayce? Too busy with his Council politics and with Mel Medarda, with meetings that keep him from the lab at all hours and that never seem to end in any real resolution…not that Viktor is ever particularly interested in hearing Jayce recount their events. And that Enforcer Sheriff…Marcus, who Viktor doesn’t trust even a modicum of the distance he could throw him (not very far at all). Perhaps they could figure this out together if his partner were focused , but Jayce is so occupied, so distracted. Viktor is on his own. Jayce will understand. He has to.
Love and legacy are the sacrifices we make for progress.
He pushes Jayce from his mind, pulse pounding heavy in his head, in his leg, in the raggedness of his chest cavity. Viktor wants to collapse where he stands, he wants to throw up the drab contents of his stomach right there on the street. Instead he breathes deeply through his nose, allowing himself just a moment to press the heels of his hands against his eyes before hooking the crutch back under his arm and pushing himself off the wall.
He doesn’t get far before he tunes in to the sound of footsteps trailing out of view behind him, off-beat to his own stilted gait but keeping careful pace nonetheless. Wonderful. Viktor keeps his head up, his steps steady, walks with the air of someone who knows these streets – or at least someone who used to. Someone who isn’t being followed. He grips the handle of his crutch tighter, doesn’t look backward. He is not easy prey. He is not easy prey.
Despite willing it otherwise, it’s only a couple of blocks further before a second figure appears from a side street, very much within his view. A large woman with dark cropped hair and mean scowl, heavy cape thrown over her left side and a squareness to her shoulders that Viktor finds intriguing. She covers most of Viktor’s path with her body alone, but her right hand juts out at an angle, blocking Viktor’s way further. He looks up at her with as neutral an expression as he can muster, she all but glowers down at him with her steel grey eyes.
“I’m sure you won’t mind coming along with us before you head back Topside. ” She says, black lipstick cracking around the word. “We won't take too much of your time. Someone would like a word.”
Viktor knows he cannot deny an ‘invitation’ such as this. Doubly so as the first figure catches up to them. He casts a quick glance backward, also using the opportunity to scan along the street – it’s empty, not that anyone would have rushed to his aid anyhow. The man behind him is even taller, but not nearly as broad as the woman. A gangly man with dirty blonde hair and a terrible squint. His nose appears to have been broken and reset – poorly – a number of times. Viktor turns back.
He raises his chin, levels the woman with a look he hopes is both cold and unthreatening, and nods curtly. She juts her chin out at the man behind Viktor, before turning on her heel and sauntering down the street.
“C’mon Piltie.” The man sneers behind him, shoving his palm roughly into Viktor’s shoulder. He doesn’t bother to respond or correct him beyond a scathing glare over his shoulder. Viktor leans heavily on his crutch as he follows the woman across the old manufacturing district, through the Lanes, some idea of where he may be headed.
—
The distasteful man leaves them at the front entrance of a club, not yet open at this time of day, an unlit neon sign on the second floor reads The Last Drop. Viktor follows the woman inside and up a flight of wooden stairs which she, surprisingly, takes at a slower pace for his benefit, pausing at the top to wait. They continue down the upper hallway before she pulls up to a door, knocks firmly twice, and waits. Evidently hearing something Viktor does not, she then opens the door, standing to the side to allow Viktor to pass through ahead of her. It’s a close shuffle with her large frame and his awkward gait, but they manage. Viktor notices a glint of something metallic under the cape.
Viktor walks into an office, simple and yet elegant in its own way. A large wooden desk stands as the centrepiece of the room. An ornate orange lamp casts its faint glow across the tabletop which is strewn with papers, ledgers, a couple of wide glass bottles, a worn fiction paperback that Viktor notes curiously, and a knife sticking straight up, its tip wedged between the woodgrain. A high backed chair sits empty behind the desk, and the whole scene framed by a large, round window, overlaid with a twisting insect-wing-like latticework of iron and that ever-present layer of green grime. A thin man stands at the window, glances over his right shoulder.
“Thank you, Sevika.” Viktor hears him say as the woman – Sevika, he surmises – enters behind him and closes the door, taking a silent position to the side of it. The man gestures to a small chair placed at the near side of the desk. “Please, please. Sit.” His voice is papered with a veneer of hospitality, the kind Viktor doesn’t trust.
So this is Silco. Viktor is not so out of touch with his old home that he does not know of this man.
“I would prefer to stand” Viktor lies. His back and leg protesting against his pride and the thrum of quietly contained adrenaline in his pulse.
Silco arches an eyebrow but says nothing about it, turning back to the window for a brief moment.
“Your work is fascinating, we’ve been keeping tabs for a little while now. The Academy, the Hexgates, new inventions year after year. And from such…humble beginnings.” Spoken by anyone in Piltover the comment would have been an insult. From this man, however? Viktor is unsure of how to take it.
Silco turns to face him then, hands clasped neatly behind his back. And for the first time, even backlit by the green glare of the window, Viktor sees the thick grey scarring that runs across the left side of his face, deep and jagged and carved into his skin like the Fissures themselves. He sees the dark, unnatural colouration of his sclera and a piercing orange iris that seems to shine of its own accord, reflecting no light; it reminds him of an eclipse burning, brimming at the edges. Viktor holds his expression evenly as Silco continues to talk. He knows what it is to be gawked at.
“I admire that.” Silco says, and Viktor…almost believes him… “No one ever expects much from us, do they? Perhaps we can be of use to one another.” A smile crosses Silco’s lips that is more genuine than expected.
Viktor hears movement in the rafters above them, casts his glance upwards for a second but sees nothing there. He reminds himself to breathe.
“I do not think that is the case.” Viktor says. His voice is careful and level, he sees a quick shift in Silco’s demeanor: the pleasantries are over. This is a businessman.
“You know who I am.” Silco says. It is not a question.
“I am aware. Yes.”
“Then you must know what I can offer you. What they cannot. And what a valuable asset you can be with your current position in Piltover. A talent such as yours would be properly appreciated within my operation.”
But Viktor knows only what he stands to lose. He is on the cusp of something big. Something that frightens him, that could change everything . Something that a man like Silco should absolutely not get his hands on. He squeezes tight over the handle of his crutch. He needs to deflect.
“You must know they intend to continue increasing the presence of Enforcers in the Undercity.”
“The Undercity. ” Silco half-laughs the name out of his mouth, a sharp barking sound. The edge of it cuts across Viktor’s ears like a knife.
Beneath the biting derision, Viktor notes that Silco doesn’t seem thrown by this information. Perhaps his poker face is that good. Perhaps it is not new knowledge. Viktor can play this game.
“I do not presume to know your business, nor do I have any particular insight on the workings of the Council. But the balance is tenuous at the best of times.” Viktor says coolly. “Even if you may have your thumb on the scales at present.”
Silco walks to a side table where an elaborately cut crystal decanter sits with a dark brackish liquid inside. The clink of its lid tinkles through the room, an almost innocent sound, and he pours a glass for himself, making no move to offer one to Viktor.
Silco sits down heavily in his chair, it swivels lazily, creaking with the movement. He takes a long drink, letting Viktor just stand there. In the back of the room the woman shifts her stance, floorboards similarly creaking under the weight.
“Don’t be foolish. Topside tolerates you, the stain of your existence on their excellence. You already have connections here. Old ones, it seems.” Viktor tenses, knowing he refers to Singed, wonders for a moment how much more Silco knows about him and his life here. “You climbed your way out of the Undercity before, an impressive feat given…” and with that Silco gestures with his glass towards Viktor’s crooked body. Viktor doesn’t dare move.
“For a mind such as yours I am sure the allure of the Academy, of a better future, was irresistible. I can’t fault you for that, dear boy, I may even respect you for it. You might have left this place behind, but I would welcome you back nonetheless, we would. Yet you mewl at their feet even now…” Silco makes a noise of humoured disappointment, taking another sip from his glass.
“I am no defender of Piltover–” Viktor starts, but Silco immediately snatches the conversation back from him.
“But you are happy to benefit, no? To throw your lot in with the ones who have done this to us. To you. For the chance to breathe their clean air, wear their clean clothes. But those clever hands of yours are anything but clean. Same goes for your golden boy up there.”
Viktor braces himself at the sideways mention of Jayce, sure that his face has betrayed him now.
“You could give so much to Zaun. Your brilliant mind. Your ambition. Your drive.” Silco leans forward on his elbows, his voice velvety and convincing despite his derision but a moment ago. “You’re like me, Viktor.” It’s the first time Silco says his name. It makes him feel sick.
“I am nothing like you.” He spits the words out, bile in the back of his throat, his knuckles white around the handle of his crutch.
“We’re survivors. We persist.” Silco leans back again with casual ease, seemingly unbothered by the sudden venom in Viktor’s voice. He turns his head, looking down at the glass in his hand, swirling the amber liquid lazily…contemplatively. Viktor can only see his bad eye now, his other side cast in green shadow. “Even with all the pain this world has inflicted on us we do not simply sit down and take it.”
Silco stands once again, leaving his glass and rounding the large wooden desk, hand brushing over the handle of the knife wedged deeply into its surface. He does not pick it up, but a smudge of blue paint comes away on his finger, which he holds up to consider as he did the alcohol in his glass. Calmly. Indecipherably.
“We are willing to change what must be changed, to part with what must be sacrificed. We are aware of the price of progress .”
He steels himself against the word. Refusing to flinch as the man approaches. Refusing to acknowledge what Silco is insinuating.
Viktor does his best to keep his gaze affixed on the other. Feeling fairly certain of what Silco sees in front of him. They are men of a similar make: thin wiry bodies, sharp features, only an inch or two between them in height – but there is an additional hardness to the older man. In the deeper creases of his face, the hard thin line of his lips, the piercing acuity in his eyes. Both of them.
Silco stands in front of him. A distorted mirror. Reflecting something Viktor can recognise all too clearly in himself, but at an angle that unsettles him. Too close. Too uncanny. A dissociative unease creeps up his twisted spine and Viktor looks away. Breaking first and taking a half step back, he readjusts his grip on the handle of his crutch as if Silco can see the vial of Shimmer stowed away inside.
Viktor knows it. Knows that Piltover has softened his edges since he left this place all those years ago. Even as his illness has rendered him more jagged and othered, the city still acts like sandpaper. He is by no means one of them . The Topsiders. He despises their decadence, stays out of the most of their light, keeps to his work and his small comforts. He will never carry himself with the ease of someone born without this weight on their shoulders, someone who has always stood so tall, someone like Jayce. Such a city is not built for a man like Viktor, even if he has fit himself into the crevices of it to do what he can within its walls, with its resources. But here he can plainly see what he has quietly hypothesised for a number of years now: he is no longer one of these people either. No matter what he tells himself of his work to save them, the sacrifices he has already made, the ones he may yet still make.
“But…hm. You are resourceful. You seem to have gotten what you came for, and I suspect you do know its price.” Silco speaks smoothly, like he can read Viktor’s mind. Like he can see right through him. Viktor clenches his jaw tight. Lifts his head to meet Silco’s eyes in defiance but the man is no longer looking at him. He’s moving away now, towards the window once again. Viktor feels like he has lost a game he did not truly know the rules to.
“Sevika. Show our guest back to the bridge.” With heavy footfalls the woman moves from her sentry spot next to the door, her presence felt behind him. She pauses like she knows this routine, knows that Silco wants her to wait a moment. He turns back to face them. “Viktor. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Do say hello next time you visit home.” And with that Sevika’s hand comes down on his shoulder. Not quite as rough as Viktor is sure she is capable of, but firm enough.
Viktor says nothing. Does not trust his voice. He turns to leave, his crutch landing heavily with each step back down the corridor.
—
Jinx drops down from the rafters, her boots hitting the floorboards the same instant the door slams shut. She stands behind Silco, eyes peeking around his shoulder as if the two of them could be seen through the door.
“I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.” She says.
“He could teach you a lot, my dear.” Silco replies, his tone shifting into something softer, but still contemplative of the interaction. So this is the brilliant inventor poached by Piltover. The traitor? Perhaps not. Not yet.
Jinx’s tongue clicks against her cheek in disdain but she doesn’t answer. Silco turns, slipping by her – or her by him, they move so smoothly, like water over stone – to retrieve his glass from the desk.
“And I think you could show him some interesting things, also.” Silco muses, downing the last of the drink.
—
A blockade greets Viktor as he attempts to cross over into Piltover. Loud voices, crushing bodies. Distress and anger bubbling over amongst the crowd. There are children here, clinging to the legs of their parents. He pushes his way to the barricade with some difficulty, grabs the arm of a masked Enforcer, and demands to know what is going on. He flashes his Academy credentials and tells them to call for Councillor Talis. Immediately.
Viktor waits on the bridge, under the cautious watch of the Enforcers, for Jayce to arrive. Silco’s words burn in his mind like an eclipse threatening to uncover the sun and blind him at any moment. The vial of Shimmer stowed secretly in his crutch feels much the same.