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Jayce doesn’t know how long they’ve been fighting, but he’s starting to get tired. He specifically designed the Mercury Hammer to carry some of its own weight thanks to the hex crystal’s numerous applications. Nevertheless, after hours of swinging and running and fighting, Jayce can feel the weight of the hammer in his shoulders and back. He isn’t as young as he used to be.
The Machine Herald on the other hand, seemingly has an endless supply of energy. He strides forward through the smoke of his most recent laser blast and Jayce ducks out of the way of another assault.
Gritting his teeth, Jayce slips slightly on a slick pipe and feels something pull in his leg. He scrambles rather ungracefully to the side as the Herald tosses a device at him, but he can’t move fast enough. The device whirrs and seems to pull the very breath from his lungs. He grunts in pain and tears well in his eyes. Jayce shakily looks over at the Herald as the device whips back to his hand.
“Do you like my new invention?” The Machine Herald asks, his voice flat and modulated behind the metal mask, “It took some time to figure out, but I figured out how to siphon power using the hexcore.”
Jayce feels a pit form in his stomach, “Y-you made a weapon?” This is not good. His old partner had always been against creating weaponry. Even the laser that he mounted to his shoulder was initially intended for artisans. But if he truly was creating weaponry now, he might have really gone insane.
The Herald’s chin tilts down and he takes a step forward, “As if I had a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Viktor,” Jayce grips his hammer.
The Machine Herald visibly bristles and jabs a finger in Jayce’s direction, “If I recall, you were the one who started this, Jayce. You made a choice by creating that hammer of yours. You started this whole fight.”
Jayce sighs. This is an old argument and one that has evolved over the years. “If I’m in the wrong for creating the Mercury Hammer, you’re just as responsible for creating the hexcore. Remember when you said we should destroy it?”
The Herald lets out a little cry of rage and a blast from his shoulder laser, which Jayce just barely dodges. He smells singed hair.
“I was trying to right the wrongs in the world. I was trying to work towards progress,” The Herald steps to the side, walking across a series of pipes. He continues, “We were going to use hextech to help people, Jayce. But you got too caught up in politics and forgot what we had intended to do. Our dream.”
Jayce notices the pipes creak dangerously under the Herald and he looks around, realizing everything around them is rusted and eroded.
“Viktor--”
“You became too self-absorbed with doing the right thing, that you forgot what that right thing was. It wasn’t until it was too late before you saw how far you had fallen and you had to make a deal with a snake. Too bad that went about as well as lighting a match in a factory of white phosphorus,” the Herald paces as he rants and the pipes underneath him groan precariously.
“Vik--”
The Machine Herald whirls to Jayce, annoyed at being interrupted and fires his shoulder laser at Jayce’s feet. Jayce jumps backwards and the pipes around them suddenly screech. Suddenly the ground rumbles and it seems to buckle under his feet. The last thing he sees before the entire area around them collapses is the Herald stumbling. Jayce thinks he hears a metallic-sounding scream, but he’s not sure if it’s the collapsing of the pipes or the Machine Herald. Either way, it sends chills down his spine.
In a last second sense of self preservation, Jayce activates the shield on his Mercury Hammer. A yellow electric field bursts to life around him and protects him from tons of crushing rock, metal, and debris. He can’t see much of what’s happening outside of the shield, other than he seems to be moving through the very ground itself. Finally, after what seems like years, but what is actually most likely only a few seconds, Jayce stops falling.
Fully buried in the shield, Jayce begins to breathe hard. He only has a few more seconds before the shield shuts off and then he’ll be crushed under tons of debris. He starts to panic. No. He shakes his head and tries to ignore the sound of his heavy breathing and heart pounding in his chest.
Jayce pushes forward with the hammer and luckily the debris around him move slightly. It’s heavy, but he makes some progress. He must be in a tunnel or something. He checks the gauge on the shield. Thirty seconds left. If he can push through the debris with the shield in thirty seconds, he won’t be crushed.
With a yell of exertion, Jayce puts his entire body into pushing. He tries to forget the exhaustion of fighting with Viktor and just focuses on getting out alive. It’s like moving a mountain--it very well could be, depending on how far he fell. Sweat beads on his brow, but he doesn’t stop. He sees light peak through the darkness around the yellow shield.
And then the shield flickers… and falls.
All of a sudden, thousands of pounds of rock slide down on top of him. It’s too fast for Jayce to scream. Everything around him goes black and the weight of the rocks begin to suffocate him.
Distantly, Jyace thinks he can hear something that sounds like lasers. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would dying sound like lasers? Wouldn’t death just be silent?
The rocks shift above him and suddenly he can breathe again. Jayce gasps and coughs. Eerie yellow light pools around him and something claw-like grasps at his arm, dragging him away from the unstable debris.
Jayce lies face down on the damp, rocky ground and takes a moment to remember how to breathe. He coughs a few more times and feels a sharp pain in his side--he absently wonders if a couple ribs are broken. Finally, he turns over to see his saviour, the Machine Herald, slumped against the wall, looking just as terrible as Jayce feels.
The Herald’s mask is dented, his already wild hair is somehow even more crazy, and his left leg is bent at a strange angle.
“Wow,” Jayce wheezes, “You look like shit.”
“I could have left you under all of that,” the Machine Herald intones.
Jayce furrows his brow and slowly peels himself off the ground into a sitting position, “Yeah, um. Thanks for that.”
Jayce looks around. The only light they have is from the ambient glow of the Machine Herald’s eerie robotic eyes on his mask and the ever pulsing light of the hexcore in his staff. They’re in a tunnel of some sort, but with the strange lighting, he can’t tell how far it goes or exactly how stable it is.
“What is this place?” He turns back to the Herald.
“An old mining tunnel, most likely, “ the Herald responds, “There are many beneath and around Zaun that have been abandoned without proper safety policies put in place. This is a running trend, you see.”
“Okay,” Jayce nods slowly and tentatively leans against the wall adjacent to the Herald. His back and his leg hurts, but he tries to put that in the back of his mind. He asks, “What now?”
“Hmm,” The Herald seems to chew on his words for a moment and then finally says, “My armour has a built-in distress signal that calls for aid if I am direly injured. I shall have to wait for help.”
Jayce smirks, “What, is your cult gonna come and rescue you?”
“No,” the Herald responds very quickly, nearly cutting Jayce off. Then a bit softer, he adds, “No, not them.”
“Your cult is kind of weird, Viktor,” Jayce grins a little more, suddenly feeling a little hysterical after nearly being buried alive.
The Herald sighs exasperatedly and Jayce tries not to laugh as he sees him roll his eyes behind the mask. “I do not claim them. I actively try to dissuade them from worshiping me. I am only trying to give aid where I can, but… some people are desperate to latch on to whatever hope they can get.”
Jayce can’t help but laugh out loud and the Herald just stares at him. The laugh echoes in the tunnels around them. Through his laughter Jayce says, “You have to find that at least a little funny. I mean, worshiping you of all people?” The Herald just continues to glare flatly and says nothing, which prompts another fit of laughter from Jayce. Maybe it really is just delayed hysterics from nearly dying, but suddenly the Machine Herald’s dented helmet and unamused gaze is very funny.
Finally after his giggles have subsided, Jayce wipes a tear from his eye and repeats, “You really don’t find it funny? At all?” He cocks his head to the side and purses his lips, and decides to push the Herald’s buttons, “Oh that’s right, you don’t have emotions anymore. I forgot. You did some sort of weird lobotomy thing to your brain and got rid of all that. Your ‘greater evolution’ thing.”
With a little bit of irritation bleeding into his voice despite himself, the Herald replies, “Glorious Evolution.” Jayce feels a little satisfaction that the Herald fell for the bait. The Machine Herald continues, his voice returning to his carefully cultivated flatness, “And no, actually. The lobotomy is a myth. I ran the statistical likelihood of success versus failure and despite the accuracy of my instruments, it is far more likely for there to be negative after effects. I have… other methods to dampen human emotions.”
Jayce scrunches his nose, “Ew.”
The Herald turns his head away and just responds, “Hmm.”
“Well I like having human emotions,” Jayce crosses his arms over his chest and then winces, forgetting that he may have broken ribs. He slowly uncrosses his arms and lays his hands on his thighs, picking at the dirty fringe of his coat.
“I did not ask for your opinion,” The Herald continues looking away down the tunnel, casting an eerie yellow glow with his eyes on the uneven surface of the rocky walls around them.
Despite the jagged rift that has formed between them, Jayce is secretly relieved that his ex-partner did not lobotomize himself. Something about that never settled well in his stomach. He knows Viktor experimented heavily on himself and that he is more robot than human at this point, but there is still a part of Jayce that hopes that somewhere in there… there is still some of the old Viktor that he knew and loved.
The Herald turns back to look at him with his unnatural eyes and Jayce realizes that he’s been staring. Jayce clears his throat awkwardly and begins, “Remember when we didn’t leave the lab for a couple days because we were preparing for some symposium?”
“This happened on too many occasions to count. We had many tight deadlines,” the Herald responds slowly and narrows his eyes, “Why bring this up?”
Jayce shrugs and winces, realizing that movement also pulls on his ribs a little. Truthfully he was bored and talking was better than sitting in silence. Instead, he said, “I don’t know. I just think about the old days a lot. I guess I miss it sometimes.”
The Herald lets out a scoff and shakes his head slightly, “I try not to think about the old days.”
“That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told,” Jayce blows a raspberry.
The Herald levels another flat look at him but Jayce knows his old partner well enough that he can imagine exactly what it looks like--tightened jaw, lowered eyebrows, downward tilt to the mouth. He almost misses seeing it.
Jayce continues, “Oh please, you raid my lab almost on a weekly basis and we wouldn’t fight like this if you didn’t miss at least some part of it. We’re like an old divorced couple, you and I.”
The Machine Herald brings himself up haughtily and counters, “If you hadn’t refused to share the Shuriman crystals, I wouldn’t have to raid your lab. We could collaborate like we did in the past. And we wouldn’t have to fight if you just stay out of my business, Talis.”
Jayce leans forward, sneering, “Well, if you didn’t try to turn innocent people into zombie-robots, I wouldn’t even have to see your stupid face anymore!”
The Herald lets out a bitter half-laugh and says “Very mature, resorting to using petty insults. Besides, I wear a mask. You don’t even see my face.”
“Why is that even?” Jayce wonders,cocking his head to the side and narrowing his eyes.
“I hardly see how that is relevant.”
Jayce shifts position and gestures to the Herald’s face, “What, are you horribly disfigured now?”
“No. I just prefer to wear it,” the Machine Herald says dismissively.
“That’s very evasive of you. I never took you for one to be interested in your appearance,” Jayce leans back against the wall again, “No offense, but you never really cared for dressing up or anything. Now you wear… capes.”
The Herald responds with some bite to his words, “I see you have at least a weeks’ worth of stubble on your chin, dark circles under your eyes indicating lack of sleep, and you're letting your hair get longer than usual, not to mention the telltale signs of graying above your ears indicating that you aren’t dyeing your hair. Clearly things have changed for the both of us.”
Viktor had always been very perceptive and some things never change. Just as Jayce knew how to push his old partner’s buttons, the Herald knows what to say to make Jayce hurt. Jayce grinds his teeth together and doesn’t say another word. The Herald won this round and Jayce can almost feel the satisfaction roll off of the other man. It was stupid. He feels stupid. An uncomfortable quiet lapses between them. This time it was Jayce’s turn to look away as the Machine Herald stares at him.
Minutes tick by in silence. Something down the tunnel drips rhythmically. The Herald seems perfectly content to sit in silence. Jayce meanwhile stews. Oh, what the Herald said is true. Jayce hasn’t been taking as good care of himself as of late. Ever since their falling out, Jayce has been on a downward spiral of self-sabotage. He just doesn’t know how to get out. He grinds his teeth again and tries not to imagine the self-satisfied smirk behind that stupid mask.
Suddenly, the Machine Herald turns his head to Jayce and asks, “Do you still work alone?”
Jayce works his jaw and manages an annoyed, “Yes.”
Much to Jayce’s chagrin, the Herald does sound smug when he says, “I always was the best lab partner.”
Jayce doesn’t give him the satisfaction of answering, but the words are true enough. Jayce didn’t ever take another lab partner partially because he couldn’t work with anyone the same way he once worked with Viktor.
After another couple of minutes, the Herald asks, “How is Miss Kiramman?”
Jayce gives him a suspicious look, “I thought you said you try not to think about the past?”
“I am merely trying to pass the time,” the Herald shrugs casually.
Jayce shakes his head slightly and looks away. He can feel the Machine Herald’s eyes on him and tries not to think about the eyebrow rise under the mask. Jayce sighs and finally says, “Cait’s good I guess. She’s Sheriff now.”
“Yes, I did hear that,” the Herald nods, “I sent her flowers in congratulations.”
Jayce turns back to him with a disbelieving look.
“They were anonymous of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Jayce rolls his eyes and rubs his hands on his thighs, “Viktor, you can’t just send flowers to the Sheriff of Piltover. You’re a wanted criminal.”
“Did you forget to send her flowers?”
“What?” Jayce splutters, “I--We… She…” He pauses to collect himself and pinches the bridge of his nose. After letting out a long breath, he finally says, “I haven’t really spoken to Cait in a while.”
“I see,” The Herald says, “And how is Councillor Medarda?”
Jayce lets go of his nose and looks towards the ceiling, avoiding the Herald’s piercing yellow gaze. He tries to keep his voice level, but it wavers, “She went back to Noxus.”
“Oh, I did not know,” the Machine Herald is silent for a while and Jayce does not give any further explanation. Finally, the Herald says, “My condolences.”
Jayce gives a rueful smile, “Rich, coming from someone like you.”
“Our values may not align anymore, Jayce, but isolation is one of the cruelest practices. Yours is self-imposed, I think,” the Herald casually brushes off some dust from his leg.
Jayce hears himself growl and points angrily at the Herald, “Oh we’re talking about values? Need I bring up zombie-robots again?”
The Machine Herald sat up straighter, “Jayce, we have been over this before. They are not zombies.”
“Viktor, you can’t ask for consent if they’re dead!” Jayce is shouting now and his voice reverberates off the tunnel, distorting back at him strangely.
“I give them the choice when their consciousness is in the automaton! It is ultimately up to them whether they want to stay!” The Herald is shouting now too. His voice is frightening and sounds even more like a machine as it echoes through the tunnels.
The argument is old and Jayce knows it by rote at this point. They'll argue in circles and Jayce knows it will never end. The past few hours suddenly catch up with him and Jayce leans back up against the wall. He shakes his head and breathes out hard through his nose. “No, stop, I’m tired. I don’t want to fight.”
It’s difficult to figure out exactly what the Machine Herald thinks after that. He seems to stiffen as if he is still looking for an avenue to continue the argument and Jayce braces himself for the biting words. But after a moment, the other man just settles back against the wall. “Fine,” He responds, then adds after a moment, ‘I am simply trying to--”
“Just drop it,” Jayce pinches the bridge of his nose again.
“Hm,” the Herald just scoffs slightly, but drops the issue.
They sit in silence and stare at each other in bitter silence. The dripping down the tunnel is monotonous and constant. Jayce doesn’t know how much more of that and the Herald’s company he can stand. He begins to weigh his options of stealing the hexcore staff and booking it down the tunnel when the Herald sighs and says, “Ironic that I am the one who tried to remove my humanity, but you are the one who truly became an insufferable recluse.”
Jayce bristles and grumbles, “Go fuck yourself, robot.”
That actually gets a slight chuckle from the Machine Herald, which sounds metallic and unnerving. Jayce grimaces, “Guess we’ve just ended up back where we started before we met. Alone and unwilling to work with anyone else.”
The Machine Herald just stares at him passively and doesn’t respond. It strikes Jayce as a little odd, but he doesn’t get the chance to comment as the walls around them suddenly start to rumble.
Forgetting his broken ribs, Jayce jumps up and looks around wildly. Bits of rock fall from the ceiling, but nothing large just yet. He leans down to grab his Mercury Hammer and makes to run away, then pauses to look back at the Machine Herald. The man struggles to his feet using his staff, but can barely support himself. Jayce wavers a moment and takes a step back towards his old partner.
“Viktor…” Before Jayce can say anything else, a large shape bursts through the wall between them. The force of the blast through the wall throws him backwards, sending him rolling through the grimy dirt of the tunnel. Jayce scrambles to right himself and pulls his hammer up to defend himself as the ground still shakes, but he stops short when he sees a huge robot lumber through a new opening in the wall.
It turns to the Machine Herald and greets him pleasantly, “Hello Creator.”
The Machine Herald, now lying in a heap on the floor a few paces away, responds, “Hello Blitzcrank. Thank you for coming.” As if he hadn’t just almost been crushed by his own creation bursting through the tunnel wall directly on top of them. It would be funny if Jayce didn’t suddenly feel like he would have to fight for his life again.
Jayce hefts his hammer, “That thing could have brought the whole place down on us!”
Blitzcrank turns to him, choosing to ignore Jayce’s jab and politely responds, “I scanned to see that this wall was load bearing. Though we should move quickly because this tunnel will collapse soon.”
With that, the robot turns and with all the gentleness in the world, gathers the Machine Herald up in its arms and begins to trudge back through the hole in which it came. Jayce feels his mouth drop open, disbelief stunning him into silence. The tunnel around him quickly goes dark as the ambient light from the Herald’s eyes and staff go further away. He hesitates, unsure what to do.
Light blooms around him again as the large robot--Blitzcrank, that’s what the Herald called it--and the Machine Herald reappear. Jayce stiffens and hefts his hammer, but the Machine Herald simply considers him for a moment before sighing, “You may as well follow.” Blitzcrank turns and begins to walk away again as the Herald adds, “Unless you’d rather be crushed to death.”
Wordlessly, Jayce follows behind, carefully picking through the uneven floor and sticking close to Blitzcrank’s hulking form. The walls rumble around them and the occasional debris fall, Blitzcrank keeps a steady pace through the winding tunnels. It never stops to check for directions or doubles back, it just constantly goes forward, knowing the exact route to the surface mapped in its mind. Jayce wishes he had the same confidence, so he follows in silence.
Eventually, Jayce can smell the distinct Zaun Grey wafting around them. They are close to the surface. It doesn’t take much longer after that for them to emerge into the night air, smelling the ever present sickly sweet smog. For once, the Grey doesn’t feel oppressive or stuffy, not after spending a few hours underground. He takes a few gulps of the air and coughs. Well, maybe not.
Jayce barely has enough time to see a flash of silver and suddenly a scraggly kid is up against his back, knife pressed into his side. “Uh…”
Blitzcrank gently lowers the Machine Herald to the ground. He leans heavily between the large robot and his staff. “Naph, let’s go back to the lab.”
The boy snarls, his voice positively venomous, “You didn’t leave him down there? You’re not gonna kill him?”
The Herald looks from the boy to Jayce. After a moment, he speaks, “No. Come along, something snapped in my leg that I’ll have to repair when we get back to the lab.”
With that, the Machine Herald turns and begins to limp away, still supported by Blitzcrank and his staff. The kid, whom Jayce is trying to get a better view of over his shoulder, stands and considers the words. Finally, with a little grunt, the kid pushes away from Jayce and runs to the Machine Herald’s side. He glowers back at Jayce--all dusty hair, dark eyes, pale skin, a smattering of freckles across his cheeks, and limbs too long for his body.
Jayce grimaces and calls after them, “I thought you worked alone.”
The Machine Herald pauses and looks over his shoulder, “I never said that, Jayce. You did. My ultimate goal is to help people. If you recall, that is what we both wanted when we worked together. Sometimes collaboration is beneficial for success. Perhaps you will remember that one day.”
He lowers his chin slightly and says, “Goodbye old friend.” He sounds almost sad. The weight of the history between them lies heavily in those words as the Machine Herald turns and walks away, leaving Jayce standing next to the rubble, feeling crushed in different ways.