Chapter Text
They picked their way through the spiked road. Or well, the kid did while Viktor stared out the window. Whenever he looked at a prong for too long, he could feel the nausea rise in the back of his throat. At the very least they reached their destination unimpeded by any tampering from the arcane. He gazed at the completely unrecognizable bar, bent into something both familiar and unfamiliar. He only looked away when he heard the car doors slam shut. Sluggishly pushing open his own, he hopped out, slightly tilting when his cane hit the ground.
Steadying himself, he began to head toward the site before Jayce hindered his path, his face still raw and pained from the anguish of their earlier argument.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, hushed. “At least consider our options.”
“Jayce.” He let the name hang in the air. Savor it. There’s only a limited supply left. “You know I’ve run through all possibilities by now. This is it.”
Jayce closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “How am I supposed to stand by?”
Viktor placed a hand on his shoulder. “Just as you are currently. It is perfect. Nothing more and nothing less.”
He began to retreat his arm before Jayce’s hand shot out, grabbing him roughly. He bit down the pain that came with it.
“I’ll miss you.” Jayce guided Viktor’s hand and pressed it to his cheek. “Oh Viktor, I’ll miss you. I know it and I don’t know how to overcome it.”
They stood there, soaking up what could be their final moments. Each the other’s entire world. Or perhaps, two stars drawn to each other’s magnetism–a pull destined to be each other’s end.
“Whatever happens, I will be glad to have shared my life with you. A thousand normal lives could not amount to this. That’s enough for me to carry on,” Viktor whispered.
Jayce appeared as if he wanted to say something in return but was interrupted by the clearing of a throat. They jerked away from each other and glanced at the sound. Professor Heimerdinger was watching warily, the kid standing not too far away, Jayce’s destabilizer in his hand. It took all of his self-control not to cringe away from the duo, unsure for how long they had been staring.
“So you found him despite my warnings,” Heimerdinger supplied.
Jayce uncomfortably subsided, seeming to wait his turn to be scolded.
“Yes, Professor. But you understand that we have it handled. We can stop the spread here and now.”
Heimerdinger sighed and shook his head. “You still don’t understand, my boy. As worrying as this situation is, adding unstable quantum mechanics won’t just solve the solution. I thought you’d understand by now. Results often tend toward a more negative outcome because we need to know if two variables correlate in the first place. Then another scientist can pick it up from there and create a positive discovery. Science takes time. And three days is not time. For all we know, whatever you’re planning will just add fuel to the fire.”
“It won’t,” Viktor all but gritted out. “We tested it and it performed as planned.”
“In a controlled environment?”
Viktor fumed at the statement and then slowly let out a breath. “Then why did you call for us? You claimed to let bygones be bygones and now you are doing this.”
“Ah, that one is easy.” The professor let out a small huff. “Well, because this isn’t science,” he simply said.
Viktor blinked.
“You knew that, didn’t you?” he asked Viktor.
He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned casually on his cane, saying nothing.
“You did,” he sighed, sounding uncharacteristically tired.
“It felt obvious.”
“In a universe where magic is only a human abstraction, I assure you magic is not the obvious answer. But good on you for taking that step ahead of me. I suppose the longevity of science does have its blindspots,” he admitted
Viktor glanced away, naturally trying to set his sights on Jayce’s location. Something he had done dozens of times during meetings that stretched too long and receptions that forced him out of place, no matter how formal he dressed. The man had receded to Caitlyn’s side, the owners of the bar encircling him as–from what Viktor could tell–Jayce began to spread his plan around.
“Viktor, I fear that you might know the truth. And I fear for what I might learn, regardless of if you tell me or not.”
“I hope whatever I do shortly will not taint your memory of him,” Viktor muttered.
Heimerdinger clasped his hands behind his back and hummed. “Jayce?” he asked after a minute.
“No, your assistant.”
“Don’t do anything rash, lad. Even if we aren’t dealing with science, it is still best to approach this as cautiously as possible–”
“No. I don’t guess you would know why, but this is something that must be dealt with quickly. It’s the same as any virus–it must be eliminated the moment it appears or else it'll never truly be gone.”
“You’re going to regret whatever you decide to do next, won’t you, Viktor?”
“Maybe.”
Heimerdinger inclined his head. “If only human life had a control group. But I suppose that’s the thing with life. We’ll never know how the lot of us turned out if any variables had been played with.”
“We can guess.”
“Sure, but we’ll still never know.”
“We can choose how our life goes.”
“Now you’re just playing contrarian on purpose, boy,” he teased.
Viktor felt his lips lift.
“I would start over if I could,” Viktor admitted.
“Wouldn’t we all.”
“It’s different.” He shrugged. “I wasted my life. I was so afraid of being forgotten I had completely passed by the opportunity to be loved.”
“The drive for intelligence tends to do that. It’s a lonely field. I couldn’t blame you for leaving it when you did.”
Viktor kept quiet for a moment, his brows furrowed. “But I didn’t leave,” he finally said. He met the professor’s eyes with a grave look.
Whatever Heimerdinger was about to say was abruptly interrupted by a distant rumble. Everyone snapped their attention to the swooning of a building only a few blocks away. The building's collision with the ground sent a plume of debris and ash into the air. Waiting any longer would leave this area plundered, and its inhabitants either pilgrims or dead.
He looked at Jayce with unyielding determination and his partner stared back with terror. It was as if that alone was his death ballad. Maybe it was an omen. Maybe.
“Ekko, my boy! Give me that device and keep tabs on those earthquakes! We’ll need that data!”
The kid, Ekko he noted, provided Heimerdinger a resolute nod, tossed the destabilizer to him, and dove for the machine hooked up to a nearby wall. Powder frantically pursued him, her head peeking over his shoulder as they debriefed the details with one another. Viktor interrogatively turned to Heimerdinger who just shrugged helplessly regarding their partnership.
Viktor stepped into the limelight of alarm that was slowly rising. Eyes caught his frame. The people finally started to notice him. Maybe he wouldn’t be forgotten. At least not here. Was that enough?
“If we are going to stop this, we need to do it now,” he said bluntly. He’d been lingering here far too long. This was it.
Jayce strode toward Heimerdinger, plucking his contraption out of the older man’s hands. He said nothing to him but eyed him with a slight remorse. Perhaps betrayal still stung from all that time ago.
“Ready?” Jayce asked.
He couldn’t guarantee that he was. He could take the same exact steps to death as he’d done in his previous life and he still wasn’t sure if he was ready.
He swallowed before grabbing Jayce’s wrist. “Every day here was a lie.”
Jayce flinched. “What?”
He thought briefly about abandoning this train but decided to see it through. “Every day here was a lie, but this is my deathplace, and that is not a lie.”
“Stop saying that. Our promise goes both ways. You mustn’t act like you are going to die.”
“It isn’t pretend.”
“Please don’t do this, Viktor,” he said quietly. “We don’t know what will happen.”
“I’m sorry.” He clenched Jayce’s wrist taut. “I’m sorry. The last time we happened to be in a place like this, I told you it was our affection,” he said. “I should have trusted myself to say what I truly thought.”
“Viktor–”
“But I’ve taken a new lover. And he’ll provide me what you cannot.”
At the utterance, Jayce stiffened, seeming to waver. “Death isn’t a lover–”
“Oh yes, he is.”
“Please don’t. Give me a chance. I can undo this.”
“It’s too late.”
He could delay no longer. He walked out onto the marred streets and glanced back. The duo charting the earthquakes gave him an unsettled look, their expression growing increasingly grim. Jayce was stumbling after him, almost tumbling to the ground when another tremble hit the area. Immediately, Viktor went to lend him a hand and Jayce took it with tears in his eyes.
“These earthquakes have become more concentrated around this area,” Ekko shouted, his voice being carried by the slight wind. “The longer we remain the more unstable our surroundings will become.”
“Now’s as good a time as any,” he said.
Jayce conspicuously remained silent. He nodded slightly and set the destabilizer on the ground, his hand hovering over the controls.
“I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of this,” he finally said, leaning away from the machine. His voice was shaking with barely restrained emotion. “The mystery of love. It’s beyond just using another person’s body as a temple. What I experienced that day reinforced the idea that nothing could dampen my devotion to you. Not the Noxus troops or even yourself.”
Viktor listened, waiting. His tongue lay in his mouth like lead. That moment with Jayce revealed the true mystery. It was their first step into the universe, bursting and augmenting outward before inevitably contracting and retreating inward, making a rhythm so complete that it would continue until life itself stagnated, like a heart’s beat, or breathing, or how the day fades to night before rising again.
“I don’t want you to be gone again. Don’t leave me once again. It’s you and me. Me and you. That was how it was always supposed to happen,” Jayce begged.
Viktor drew in a breath, and for a moment, in Jayce’s gaze, he saw the world’s absolute truth. The cold relentless shrouding of an impotent civilization. The crushing fabric blanketed across the universe like a patient who had just been pronounced deceased. And somewhere between the concept of time and the reality of space were two stubborn animals falling like eagles during their courting. His borrowed time was ending, yet he couldn’t take his borrowed eyes off of him.
“You have my whole heart. You always did, but you knew that,” Viktor said, looking away. He could feel Jayce paying him close attention and he suddenly felt bated. And he could sense the ensemble on him too, listening to them, waiting. “If I could redo it all, I would’ve stuck to the same path and made my choices just so and no different. I wouldn't trade the life and work we had for anything else.”
His life and work were the most wondrous parts of being human. He was in love with every moment he had, only because the inevitable answer to it all was the man right in front of him.
Jayce grimaced when another onslaught of tremors shook the terrain. As the ground lulled back into a slumber, he began to activate the destabilizer. A low mechanical whirl started and Viktor watched him nervously.
“Is it bad that I am jealous of death?” Jayce whispered lowly. “It is cruel that it’s the only thing allowed to clutch you in its arms.”
“And for similar reasons, I am jealous of life,” he murmured in return.
“But you are still alive,” he huffed.
“No, not since I woke from my very first resurrection.”
“I’m sorry,” Jayce rasped as he pushed two buttons on the chassis simultaneously.
Viktor kept a close eye on the machine, his stomach churning as each carved rune slowly filled with light, creeping through the measured lines like water searching a labyrinth for an escape. “It’ll be fine. You just can’t break our promise, all right? Don’t repeat our mistakes.”
Jayce looked shaken, swallowing slowly. “Okay.”
A grating sound rose from the destabilizer and Viktor nearly slapped it out of Jayce’s hands just to be sure it wouldn’t burn him. He didn’t, and Jayce hadn’t recoiled from pain yet so he supposed that was a good sign. Although he could tell it was vibrating as his arms shook inhumanely. In no time, it was rapid and Viktor couldn’t make out the individual runes anymore as Jayce struggled to keep it placid enough for him to execute their plan.
“What is it doing?” Heimerdinger shouted from a few feet away, his arm shielding his face as a gust of wind began to form and surround the area. “What did you two even build?”
Electricity crackled above them, reaching nearby houses and vehicles. “At this rate, the buildup it’s generating will cause it to implode in on itself,” Viktor said, breathless. His grip on his cane was white-knuckled.
Jayce was less concerned. “The resonance will stabilize it. You even said it yourself.”
Viktor narrowed his brows, his eyes never leaving the grinding machine. “That was different.”
“How so?” He didn’t look up from the prongs sparking in the atmosphere, like a flint trying to set the universe ablaze.
“We were different. We know much more about hextech now.”
“This isn’t hextech. Trust me.”
Viktor almost smiled. How easy it was to be coaxed by the certainty of Jayce’s words. Or perhaps he was looking for some consolation all along, and if that was the case, maybe he’d let himself have this one.
“Okay.”
They kept their feet steady before it all went sideways. Suddenly, Jayce shook and collapsed to his knees, dropping the device. The destabilizer shrieked–not some low mechanical whine, but rather a bloodcurdling shriek like a banshee.
Jayce was crouched on the ground, his hands over his ears. Disregarding the piercing cry emitted, Viktor moved to help Jayce out only for the other man to signal for him to stop, his eyes wide in anticipation. It was as if he was waiting for something specifically to occur.
He looked back at the onlookers, all of them clutching each other or belongings so they wouldn’t fly away in the gale. Some of them were screened by the arcane’s contamination as the roads were lifted into shields. Despite that, he knew they had minutes at most or maybe no minutes at all.
“Run,” Jayce whispered, his voice being carried away by the uproar. “We have to run.”
But they both knew they had no time. This was it. This was the moment.
Jayce leaped forward and grabbed Viktor by the hand, shoving his body into Viktor’s. Viktor was nearly knocked off his feet by that motion alone. He grabbed onto Jayce’s tense shoulders to keep himself upright. And for the moment, Jayce squeezed his eyes and reached out to cup Viktor’s cheek, like he was leaning in to confide in him. But Viktor knew what he was doing and he was powerless to stop it. He was lining himself up, performing some basic geometry so he could take the blow. Viktor struggled but that only caused Jayce to redouble his grip.
He imagined a cool night: a man about to take a step off the edge of a blown-to-bits workshop, the only thing stopping him was Viktor’s poorly planned lifeline.
“Don’t you dare,” Viktor snarled.
Jayce didn’t have the chance to dignify that with a response as a white wall of pain erupted, seizing any of Viktor’s thoughts. One second they were inseparable, the next they were thrown to the ground, feet away from each other. Pain laced through him as he landed on his knee, although it was barely registered. Because now he had a bigger problem on his hands. A bigger problem like Jayce being right.
Autonomous objects flew forward, causing Viktor to hit the deck with his hands covering his head. He could feel the ground under him jerking as if it were being pulled in all directions at once. Slowly, he craned his head up, in awe of the furious beacon steadily rising before them all. The arcane. A pure catalyst, born and bred to evolve. He slowly pushed himself up, mesmerized by the rippling gradients and the forming and collapsing of its holes on its surface.
It was…
Nauseating.
The previous feeling when he first woke up in this world returned–the looming threat of retching. But he had to be stronger this time. No dreadful crawling to a trash can. He had to own up to his myopic pursuit.
He looked around, his hair blowing wildly. There, he saw Jayce shriveled in on himself on the ground, his back completely exposed by the explosion, streaks of red trickling down the clawed torso. But he was certainly alive and the damage was mendable.
He could take advantage of this short moment of vulnerability. Leave quickly and quietly. Just as it was meant to be.
He pulled himself upright, unsteady without his cane, fighting the vibration in the air emitted by the arcane and his pulsating leg. Trudging forward, he pulled back his sleeve and saw a few of the runes already illuminating due to the proximity between him and the arcane. But before fully closing the gap, he cruelly let his eyes return to Jayce. Before even fully realizing it, he drew near.
He stared and wondered if he should say goodbye, dwelling a little too long. He stood listening to the ragged breathing. Jayce didn’t unfurl. He didn't even look in Viktor’s direction. His fists were clenched tight, fighting the battle against his own body. Viktor dropped into a kneel beside him and stroked his tangled hair. Dark chocolate, rich enough to indulge a god.
“Please don’t tell me this is how the story ends,” he muttered.
He would be fine when this was over. All of the people Jayce met would continue to think sweetly and optimistically of him. Even from the start, Viktor could never compete. Not with the world at his feet.
No one answered. When he looked out again, he knew the invisible hole linking the universes was shrinking. It would be essential he threaded the needle now before anything worse happened. So he picked himself up and stumbled onward.
A few steps more, and he was face to face with the arcane. Close enough to touch it. A slight call beckoned him to, and he almost did in that moment. Almost. But he would be the one to assume control of the movement. Or else he would be no different than the Viktor from some time ago.
He rolled up his sleeves to his elbow, leaving his forearms exposed. All of the runes were buzzing underneath his skin, begging for him to answer its call and let it in. He could already feel it. He could feel it slinking into his mind, sowing seeds of a greater purpose, just like it had already done to the terrain of this world. He could feel it again. The sense of cold hadn’t quite reached him yet, but it was imminent.
He watched his arm be dragged forward, as if his body were disconnected from his mind, betraying every part of himself. His stomach lurched and he tugged it back down, clinging to any sense of control with all of his might. He couldn’t let that offset him, regardless of whether it was him or some extension of the arcane, he had to make contact.
Because, in due time, it will worm its way inside him. Coax him along with honeyed words of a more prosperous civilization and persuade him with false promises that twist his dreams into nothing more than a hollowed version of what could’ve been. And knowing that he might fall for it once more didn’t make this feat any easier to bear.
Only following through will prove to him that he was the scientist he always imagined himself to be. Only following through will rectify the damage he had done, the lives he had stolen, Sky’s own sacrifice all that time ago.
So, through his will and his will alone, he mustered the brief courage within him to jerk his arm out and brush it up against the arcane.
And then,
he was flying.
No. No, not flying. Falling. Reeled in by a force too large to comprehend, taking him outside himself into a world he once called his home. Falling slow, falling fast, it didn’t matter as instinct took the reign and he flailed for any stability. But there was nothing to hold onto and slow his fall, only the stars revolving around him. Somewhere within Viktor knew that he was still on the road, his hand outreached with pavement supporting his feet, gravity obeying its laws and not dragging him down. And yet he was still falling, nothing waiting to cushion him. An infinite descent in a crushing black infinite vacuum out on the edge of space. His breath stolen and his words lost to the infinite.
And then the infinite stopped, and he was suspended in midair; returned to a state of being that was not quite dead and not quite alive.
There you are, the vacuum cooed. And here I am, as perpetual as I will always be. Are you ready to continue our course, Herald?
Viktor gasped, lifting his head to look for the voice's owner. Nothing remained. He tried to stand straighter, his leg not affecting him in this vast landscape.
Soon it would be in his head, he could feel it. He could feel it slink into his mind, all of the cracks in his ideology and all of the weaknesses of his being. Trying to mold him into something he was never supposed to be. And it knew that he could feel it, not bothering to coerce him like the beginnings of their symbiotic relationship. He hated it. It was violating to be so well-read as if he was nothing more than a picture book. He hated the power it held over him. And yet, at the same time, he wanted nothing more than to have that power once more.
A clever man stuck in a dreadfully boring world, it said without speaking. You’ve always been quick with your hands and quick to work up a solution for your doomed society, only falling short when the problem concerns yourself. But you know better than to thank yourself for such quick thinking, after all, who are you without your partner? In any case other than fate’s, you’d be someone expendable. Here, you can be wholly yourself without the drawbacks that come with your life. Although, I’m sure you were already aware.
Viktor clutched his head, it was already digging deeper.
“Stop it,” he said hoarsely. “Stop it. Stop your conquest. Leave it all be. It’s fine just so.”
There was a thoughtful silence as if it truly was sipping every one of his words down, slowly deciding whether or not it liked the taste.
Why? it promptly said. I am nothing but a gust accelerating the planet’s rotation. It was going to happen regardless of a catalyst. I am just a purifier. So, tell me, child of the arcane, what is your plan? With what weapon have you drawn to strike me?
“Leave it all be,” he repeated. “I was wrong. I will return to you if that’s what you want.”
I don’t want anything. A suffocating tension clenched the breathless air. And what about your partner? You are willing to take his everything and leave him with nothing. You will lose him whether or not it is by my hand.
And, despite it all, that had hurt. Because he knew he had already lost him. In failure, there would be nothing, and in success, he would be utterly destroyed by a force he constructed. And he had forced Jayce to agree to leave him when he called upon their promise. It was painful to think about that, but what they had, he suspected, was more than most people found in an entire lifetime.
If you reclaim your title, I shall give you this world’s previous degenerate state. And you will give me your fire in return. Be my vessel once more. Let the sublime glory of the thin line between chaos and order reign supreme throughout every and all worlds.
He nearly doubled over with the power extended to him. Outstretched like it was nothing more than a teasing piece of candy. But he couldn’t fall for it. It was in his head. He knew better.
“I– I can’t.”
He couldn’t let himself be manipulated. Not again. Not ever. For once, he had to stand for humanity. He had to be the tumor, spreading humanity’s cancer rapidly enough to match the arcane’s pace.
You have every chance to stop this, it spoke, displeased. I have offered you what you requested, unless… It fell quiet and Viktor’s breath quickened as he realized it was poking through his head. I will offer what you desire. I will give you his safety and he will not be harmed by me and the path I am willing to take. And, if you so desire, we shall look over him–for now and for infinity. But he shall be mine and yours and ours as all things must be, but with us, he will be safe.
Viktor shook his head and he could feel the vastness of the abyss press up against his mind like the beginnings of a headache.
“Nobody’s life is for anybody to decide. I know that now. I’d known that a long time ago too.”
Nobody wants to be anywhere and nobody wants to leave. That is all life has come to. A foil to the infinite that I offer. I am merely giving them ambition. We can give them everything they want. Everything they dream of.
And wait… That’s not right. He would be fascinated if it weren’t for the circumstances.
“You’re not the arcane I once wielded,” Viktor said, slow and heavy as he stumbled through what he had just heard. “Something like you shouldn’t have these thoughts, let alone thoughts at all. But you’re not just the arcane, you’re something else. Something that was dying and could only be sustained by the breath of someone else. A- A hybrid of sorts. A chimera.”
I only sought to right the wrong you left.
It was him, always him. Humanity forever corrupts and he was humanity. Just as he corrupted the Hexcore, he had corrupted magic itself.
It continued before he had the chance to reply. The choice is yours, Herald, it said. A miserably amused tone somehow tainted its voice. You can continue this path of defiance, turning your face away as I offer you all I am able. You can hold dear to then–times simpler–but you know that then will always pass to now. And you know I vow to deliver now as you were once my delegate. But you can still raise your impotent hand and fight my truth.
It seemed to have wanted to say more before pausing.
I see, it hummed. A Trojan horse.
He felt his stomach sink like the drop before a spray of bullets. He knew better than to ignore the feeling, but there was not much left of him to abide by it.
You’ve littered yourself with my language. How daft to think I wouldn’t recognize it. Do you think it will avail you and betray its nucleus?
Viktor inhaled sharply.
You are something destined to fall under my power, a man so deeply hurt that he cannot fall out of temptation, it said. It was louder now, reverberating throughout the infinite. Perhaps powerful enough to chime into the minds of their spectators. He deeply hoped Jayce couldn’t hear any of this. Even if my words–which are written on your sickly frame–do as you say, you will be your own failure, for my words are never false. You may pretend you are better. You may pretend that your imperfections will not get the better of you, but I know you better than that. And if you had my power, you would abandon this path you’ve deluded yourself into following because you will see that you never had a choice. It was always going to be this. I am your way out of this delusion. I am your only choice, and you will see it, and you will follow it. And your body will lay unremembered.
“There’s always a choice,” he sputtered, praying that he could hold onto himself a little longer. This had to be a trap and Viktor must have fallen right into it. It sounded too smug to be losing. But that could be deception. War itself could be deception. And he was at war with himself.
The stars purred against the inky black of the void he was suspended in. And slowly, the waves receded, revealing a terrestrial dimension swelling outward within the infinite. The screen he had once used to see through his soldiers and communicate to Jayce. He’d forgotten how isolating it made him feel. Regardless of his expanding spirit, he was still alone more than ever.
Through the images depicted, he was pulled from below, slightly feeling the rumble of the ground under his body. Cries from the people as rubble fell. Ekko and Powder must have abandoned their spot long ago. Vi and Caitlyn were helping Vander up–who had been crushed by a fallen tree. Jayce locked his eyes on Viktor’s fixed body, which was perpetually reaching out to the arcane. Then everything went still, and he was reeled away from his body once more. Back into the infinite.
Now you know that you have no power here. So here is the path I’ve drawn out for you. You and I will finally converge once more–an inseparable being always meant to be. Then you will have the choice that you are so desperate to believe is real. You may draw your weapons, unleash your blow, and take me out using my native tongue to betray me. But if you do, this world will crumble. So too will your partner. You cannot remove the knife from its body, for that will only expedite death, it stated, sincerity dripping like poison from its tongue.
It had to be bluffing. Sure, this world was corrupted, but it would revert to its original state if the threat was removed, correct? He presumed so, but now he was uncertain. The more he lingered on it, the more he thought about the natural order of things, and nothing could ever be made whole again if a piece was removed.
But it does not have to go this way, it countered wolfishly. You can follow the path dedicated to you, and you will have the power to make this world into your image, and your partner shall be ours to keep safe.
Viktor shook his head. A new plan was beginning to brew in his mind. Desperate and unruly, but a plan nonetheless. He could never compete with a force ancient and enlightened, but then again, was that truly the force he had been talking to all this time? He couldn’t measure out the details, for the arcane would easily probe it out of him. It had to be half-baked if he wanted this chance.
He needed this chance. He had to try.
He returned his gaze to the images of the terrified people projected onto the void by an invisible force, and he looked between each face. People he hardly knew, but Jayce knew them. Jayce fought beside them… against him. He owed them this much. And he watched Jayce’s apprehensive face, caught in between a flash of pain and some desire to reach out to Viktor as if he could pull him back in once more. But a promise delayed him, and Viktor hoped that Jayce could fulfill his wish.
The time had come.
“Fine,” Viktor said, turning away from the view and hardening his resolve. “I agree to the terms of our deal, but this world is to remain as it is. We will not tamper with it any more.”
It is of your command. I am but a humble trigger. You are the one to decide when to aim, when to pull, and when to shoot, it said. He could feel it surrounding him like a siege, trying to starve him of his empathy. It’s ready to press in and charge, whispering of a better life and better future to him.
He gave himself a final consideration. Let him think lucidly one last time. He could still feel that great pressure from beyond. Jayce. With his mouth clamped tight, not daring to breathe, he gazed at Viktor’s still form. And the thought of that sight crushed him, but his heart must be stone.
“All right,” he said, wishing godspeed to whomever his final thoughts rested upon. “So be it.”
And as he conceded, the power instantly flooded him.
His body began to rework itself, the human form too weak to handle such potent abilities. Stars above and stars below. The cascading arcane crashed in from all around him, filling the previous cracks of his being, and all of his imperfections washed away in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t quite like last time because last time it had no reason to will him into doing this. He had done it to himself. Now it had to beguile him through persistence and a storm.
A staff materialized before him, the arcane resting diligently within the curled tip.
Here we are, the glorious evolution, it sang happily. It’s restitution at last, is it not? I knew what you wanted even when you tried to hide that ugly part of you. Something so unbelievably human, but all is right now. You want to help all of these forlorn souls, abandoned by their own universe. Powerless against the rising tide. We can help them attune to our forthcoming world. You wish to save them with every inch of your mind and we can give them that.
He reached out to grab the staff, his arm returning to how it was when he was the Machine Herald. All previous mistrust of the arcane dissipated. He couldn’t quite remember why the mistrust formed in the first place. He was more himself than he had ever been. Omnipotent and logical, that was how it was always supposed to be.
Let us distribute salvation, the arcane crooned.
At the proposition, he was ejected from the celestial realm. And he felt the road beneath his feet, so terribly imperfect. Unlike him. Yes. Unlike him. Except his leg still hurt, and if he looked down, his feet were human. Unchanged.
Come forward, Herald. Let me encompass you, you are almost there to perfection, but we were not close enough for me to transform you. Let me grant you the power you deserve.
He looked up and it was still levitating ahead of him. He stepped forward, once, then again, and again, closer than he ever was. Behind him, he could make out somebody weeping.
“Viktor?” A tentative whisper crept into his ears. It sounded like his former mentor.
You thought you could fool me. But I am you. All that you are is also me, it said, disapprovingly. You thought you could bring yourself closer and wield me, and with my power and the written language on your skin, you would dispel me. Break free of the path before our sights were set on your partner, but there is nothing to break free from since I am supplying you with all you want. Did you really think you could break free from my embrace through the embrace of your partner as you had done before? But with the promise of his safety, there is no need to be so crass anymore.
Right, that was his plan. A painfully fallible plan. An aching reminder of how human he currently was.
People were still attempting to talk to him. Shouting in the streets, a heard of uproar. Because that was all that humanity came down to. Too much feeling, too much of it relied on ignorance. But once they were all on the same page, they could be healed again. That was what he had always striven for, the betterment of humanity.
You love to breathe life into the empty. That’s what you did for me, it agreed. You love to prove that you are more than your Zaunite roots might say you’re capable of.
A small alarm rang in the depths of his mind. Wrong, it chimed. He willfully ignored it.
And, as a part of you, I know more about yourself than you could ever know, it said. You wanted to take a stand. You talk about taking a stand against the injustice of the world, but now you know there is no stand to take if autonomy continues to reign. This was the only way to show them.
No, that’s wrong, a larger part of him countered.
And the sight of this cycle of violence only fueled your belief that we must become better than ourselves. We must perfect every little imperfection lest we fall back into the senseless little habits of life.
Wrong. He had these thoughts many times but they were the wrong thoughts. Because he was given a second chance, for some unbeknownst reason, and he had to live with the fact that he had been looking at it all wrong. He had to be better this time.
He closed the gap, close enough to put his hand through it. Every fiber of his being itched him to do so, although he remained at a standstill. A greater force held him back.
Unfortunately your fate was sealed far earlier than you deserved. But it was death that led you to me. And now we will be whole again, Herald. And we will give the world what it seeks, a life everlasting and a body that will never die.
Jayce’s voice in the dead of night, a plea radiating with grief that had yet to land: For the love of god, Viktor. I am begging you.
His leg pounded as he struggled to remain standing. It throbbed more than ever, and even with salvation only a few inches ahead, he kept to himself. Why was he trying to fight the pain of mortality? It had everything he could imagine, so why was he fighting so hard?
Come now, Herald, it said lightly. It is unlike you to get cold feet, my bearer of unified chaos.
Right, that was what the world needed. Only he could deliver what the arcane yearned for. A civilization destined to appease and contribute to an ever-expanding spirit. All he needed to do was move.
He stood still. Waiting. He did not want to move.
He would not move.
Let us move these ambitionless creatures to tears with our formidable path. I will supply you with the power to do so. Come now.
The magic slithered from its epicenter like a serpent, streaks of pure white discourse creeping around him. They threatened to pull him in, only willing to lie in wait for a little longer. A tingle of aversion sounded in his muffled body. A small instinct to withdraw that even the arcane itself could not hush.
Let us repair this broken world and make it to our likeness. That is what you want. You want to build this world that bears no tears. We will terminate humanity’s destined descent into suffering. Rid every one of those scandalous emotions that make you hate, that make you cry, that make you die. That is what you want.
He drew in a breath, trying to wade through his thoughts. The film over his mind made it difficult to do so. It was supposed to know what he wanted. That was what he wanted. Yes, maybe at some point in his life. That was what he wanted. But it still didn’t understand.
“Who’s to say that’s what I want? It’s not what I want,” he choked out against himself.
The drifting magic around him began to constrict. He felt it in his mind, tearing thoughts away to make him only light and unfeeling. It urged him that he was in a state of delusion, that he could not trust himself unless they reunited once again. Maybe he couldn’t trust himself. But this? He knew he hadn’t come to despise himself just yet. He did not move.
Again, Jayce’s voice rang through his mind. The reason why our ripple formed a wave in Piltover was because of us. Even with the sadness tinging his voice, it was no doubt a declaration–something careful but boastful. As if he was still happy they did it together, even if that way of thinking was a fault of Jayce’s.
The magic applied a pressure that stung. It didn’t pull him in. Still trying to coax him along.
What do you want? It sounded irritated, snarling almost. It never sounded like that before. Because perfection should never be angry. Perfection should never cause misery, except it always did.
Maybe he didn’t want perfection like he initially thought. He never wanted any of this. Maybe he just wanted something better. A better body. A better life. A better home. And the only thing that came close to that would be the years augmenting their shared dream. A lab filled with affection and conversation and natural light. But he somehow lost that as he worsened. It seemed he could never do a good job becoming better, in any slight sense of the word.
You dwell on your past. I can give you that. I will lend you an infinite space and infinite time to keep your partner safe. You will be at peace and be my vessel. I will build you the home of your dreams and you will rest, it whispered harshly.
“No,” he murmured. He had to keep his mind. Do not lose it any more than you had. “No.” It was like he had been plummeting off a cliff, his outstretched hand finally finding something to latch onto. “If there is no struggle, there is no rest. That is not what I want.”
He had to climb out. He was so tired, but he had to climb out of this grave he had dug for himself. And he could do so. He didn’t always have someone to follow home, but now he did. He had for some time now, and only now was he ready to finally pull himself out.
Shouts came from behind him, but he was too afraid to look back. Cries of distress from Ekko and Powder, uncertain commands from Heimerdinger, Caitlyn, and Vi, although Jayce’s broken protests stood out above them all. It burned his heart and he knew then that he couldn’t turn back. Because it would only give him another choice, another course of action, and he was sure that if given the chance, he would take it and despise himself.
We will keep them alive. I will give you the power to keep them safe, make them into your image, and with it, we shall find death and number his days as well, it said. That is enough struggle to feed the hunger of a starving man for decades. And then you will have your rest.
The words were trying to suffocate him. They were trying to pull him in like quicksand, and once he realized the deception, it would be too late and he would be trapped. But he identified it before he got too close. He knew it was trying to change his mind, change who he was, just to win him over. He knew that much and was certain he didn’t need to know anymore. He was slipping, but he had found something to hang onto. He found a choice to pursue and stand by. Once this was all over, he would build Jayce a home with natural light with whatever was left of himself.
“You think you know what I want,” he muttered. He could feel it trying to dig its roots deeper, but Viktor knew all it would hit was bedrock. The flurry of the past few days only solidified his foundation. And maybe they would solidify his person too. “Maybe you did know what I wanted. When I hear you, I see only a reflection of myself. You spit back fleeting fallacies bundled with the idea of perfectionism in hopes of winning back your vessel. You granted me the ability to deliver your power even in knowing my plan because you were so sure that you and I were the same. You thought you could bury the human feelings involved in choices, and for a brief moment in time, you did. But there was a slight hitch to your endeavor…”
The arcane around him stuttered before tensing.
“You thought the pain in my leg would motivate me to join you. But here’s the thing, you’ve been tempered by human affection. It narrowed you from seeing true objectivity and it made you thirsty enough for knowledge to let me speak,” Viktor said, managing his own.
Before it could make the first move and strangle him, Viktor jutted an arm out and sunk his hand deep into the core of the anomaly.
It slid right in, and the arcane began to soak into his skin like water clings to a sponge, illuminating every rune carved into him. He could hear the faraway screams from within the anomaly, like a chorus of a thousand shrieks, occasionally syncing up to hit one dignified note before deteriorating into nothing but bedlam. Distantly, he was screaming too. He wasn’t fully sure, too overwhelmed by the power surging through him. Submerging any feeling, any action, any willpower.
He could hear the chaos behind him before his hearing was impaired by the sheer amount of magic in his body. Chaos always. Shouts and screams. Some he recognized as his name, others as the children of blight. He heard a stampede from behind, and he was unsure whether they were running away or toward him. He wanted to look back but his body did not seem to listen to his wants.
His awareness came in droves, he had been standing, he knew that, but then he was not. He was on his knees, convulsing as a sharp stab of pain took his thoughts. He choked on spit and blood and gasped for air, his ears ringing. On the edge of his perception, he saw Jayce’s blurry figure in front of him. His vision doubled and his body curved into itself.
A hand on his shoulder chased away the numbness that was beginning to build, gracing him with unconditional strength like a man being knighted. He couldn’t hear his words and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to. By then he knew there was no coming back from this. His life was vaguely held in the margins and soon it will be entirely off the page. Oh death, be swift with me and take with you my greatest mistake. My legacy.
“Viktor.” Jayce’s voice generated a burst of consciousness. “Don’t leave me. We promised not to do this anymore.”
He felt himself shudder, forcing broken words through frayed vocal cords. “Just leave me be. I am not myself. I’m falling apart, and I can’t bear to have you here.”
The feeling of spiking sensations radiated underneath his skin. Prickling to be released. But there was no liberation. He was just waiting for the magic to read the command he etched and follow through with apoptosis.
“I will be lost without you,” Jayce pleaded. His voice was slightly drowned out by the humming in his ear. The humming of an encroaching tune, one he familiarized himself with long ago. A formless music waiting to play, called down by the ashes of life to take him with. Beautiful… Senseless.
“In what direction do the lost veer?” He struggled against the shackles the arcane put on his body. Give him confirmation that he will find his path again. “Look around you. These people who are honored here today were no accident. It was no solitary decision to bring them here and witness our cycle. It only proves my theory that goodness has followed you and will always find you.”
Jayce’s voice slowly softened. He couldn’t be sure if it was purposefully done or if it was the fault of his slowly failing body. But it became softer nonetheless, and he liked to imagine himself in that lab with natural light. The moon rising to penetrate a night so sightless that even the stars couldn’t be seen. Tinkering always. There was always something to be done and something to say. And Jayce always had to be the last one to get a say in.
The tingling had faded, his body relaxed now that had done its one job, and Jayce’s image slowly blurred into the horizon. In the next moment, it melted away entirely into a sightless black, and finally, cold oblivion.