Chapter Text
Blue was a beautiful colour. To Viktor, it represented clear skies, clean water and the future of his scientific career. As a child, he had never really cared for colours. Everything he’d had to wear was covered in dirt and grime, distorting its original colour beyond recognition. But now, the colour blue was inseparably tied to Piltover and the life he had worked so hard for. Seeing it illuminate the Undercity’s streets now in a vibrant explosion, he felt confused.
The initial blast knocked him off his feet, throwing him through the alley and into a trash bag which graciously cushioned his fall enough to keep him conscious. It hurt. It hurt so much the pain was almost blinding. But not blinding enough for him to miss the blue particles of energy slowly floating down from a broken building and destroyed streets.
Little flicks of light, falling from a cloud of blue, which was quickly followed by and explosion of violet light, closer to the ground. The second blast pinned Viktor to the ground, made rocks splitter against the wall behind him and glass cut through his skin. He could feel blood running down the side of his face, but whatever wound it was coming from was getting lost in the pain radiating through every part of his body.
But the pain was secondary right now.
There was hextech floating around him. Falling from the sky. Exploding a warehouse.
Panic and excitement were gripping him at the same time and before he knew it, he was scrambling to his feet, dragging his leg and limping towards the broken and burning building. Screams were filling the night and somewhere in the distance, he could see the mangled body of a person trying to drag themselves across the ground. Smoke was burning in his eyes as he looked back at the building, and suddenly movement caught his attention.
It was a child. Falling through the air with her hair as blue as the hextech. She was reaching upwards as the distance between her and the ground got shorter and shorter.
A yell ripped from Viktor’s lips as he threw his hand forward to try and reach her, try and keep her from hitting the pavement, but as his body crumbled under his own pain, the girl crashed through the toxic water of the pier right next to him. More rocks hit the ground and Viktor had to shield his head with his arms which instead took the beating. It hurt. Everything hurt to bad. But he could taste the energy of hextech on his tongue and he began crawling across the ground towards the water.
At first he couldn’t see her. The water’s surface was covered with smoke and reflective oil, but the moment he spotted blue hair among the green, he reached into the toxins and pulled. The girl came up coughing and sputtering, gasping for air and flailing her arms. It seemed to take her several seconds before she recognised a hand was clutching her shirt and she finally climbed her way out of the water.
“Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Viktor asked, his own voice sounding distance to hear ears and he briefly worried he might have a concussion, before focusing his attention back on the girl now kneeling next to him. Her eyes were wide as she nodded, her hair dripping as she watched the particles hit the ground.
“It worked…” She whispered, before turning towards him and grinning with an intensity only a child or scientist could manage.
“It worked! It worked! It worked!” She yelled, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms up in celebration. Viktor felt stunned, as the girl turned in circles, before abruptly stopping.
“VI!” She screamed, running past Viktor before he could even do so much as lift his hand. “Vi, it worked!”
“What?” Another voice asked and when Viktor turned around, the smoke had cleared enough to make way for a girl standing between the blue, with a body lying behind her.
“Did you see me?! My monkey bomb finally worked!”
He wasn’t close enough to see the girl’s expression, his eyes still stinging from smoke and hextech, but he could see the moment her body shifted, her shoulders stiffened and she turned fully towards the little girl. Had Viktor been able to move without screaming in pain, he would have run up to shield the little one from the anger clearly brewing to the surface.
“You did this? Why? Why did you do this?” Her voice was breaking in disbelieve, in pain far deeper than physical and he could see her trembling hand lifting to point at the body behind her.
“I… I didn’t…” The little girl’s voice became choked by tears and hiccups and Viktor rose alongside her tone, pushing himself onto unsteady legs.
“I was saving you. I only wanted to help. I only wanted to help. I only wanted to help. I only wanted to-“
“I told you to stay away… I told you to stay AWAY!” A slap echoed through the ally and Viktor stumbled and he saw the little girl fall.
“Hey!” He yelled, hoping to interrupt the fight as his trembling legs struggled to support him. “Leave her alone!”
But the older girl stepped closer as the younger one kept crying, quickly working herself up into hysterics.
“You’re a jinx! You did this! This is your fault!”
“Hey!” Viktor yelled again, finally stumbling close enough to make out dirty pink hair, before the girl’s eyes landed on him. She stared for a moment, her cheeks covered in ash and tears, before she looked down at the other girl again and shook her head.
“Mylo was right. You’re a jinx!” She said, before turning and running down the alley, smoke obscuring her after mere meters, leaving a crying and screaming child on the ground behind her.
“Hey… hey little one,” Viktor whispered, clearing his throat against the burning in his lungs before he carefully lowered himself to the ground next to her. Tears and snot was running down her face, as her hands were clutching the shirt covering her chest as if she could physically hold herself together. Her eyes were closed and Viktor hoped they would stay that way, as right in front of her knees, the dead body of what might have been a man was resting in a puddle of blood. Blood which was now soaking through both of their trousers.
Hesitating, Viktor placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder and began turning her away from the sight.
“Hey, breathe. Breathe little one. You are alright.” He highly doubted she was, but meaningless platitudes were the only words currently swimming around his head, in an accent much stronger than usually as his own panic was jet to subside.
“I’m a jinx,” She mumbled, the words repeating themselves over and over and over until Viktor carefully shook her shoulders to catch her attention.
“Hey! We need to get out of here. It’s not safe. Do you hear me?”
When she nodded mutely, he felt some of the panic slow down.
“Good. Good… I’m Viktor. I… I’ll get you out of here. Okay? Can you tell me your name?” Keeping his eyes locked on her’s, he lifted his arm holding the crutch in such a way that it would block the majority of her view of the dead body. No child needed to see that.
“P-Powder,” She stuttered and Viktor forced a smile onto his lips.
“Hello Powder. Can you stand? I won’t be able to carry you, but if you hold my hand, I can take you somewhere safe.”
“Where?” She asked, already moving to stand and he stumbled to follow her. Every muscle was screaming in pain and his bad leg had grown disconcertingly numb. All he could do now was hope he hadn’t worsened his already delicate condition.
“To my home,” He eventually answered, as his breathing had calmed from the torture that had been standing up. “In Piltover. You’ll be safe there.”
The girl, Powder, immediately took a step back, her tears calming as distrust and confusion overtook her sadness.
“You’re a Pilty?”
“No!” Viktor answered with a vehemency he hadn’t even expected of himself. “No. I’m from Zaun, just like you. But whatever happened here… I don’t think you’re safe in the Undercity right now. I know hextech when I see it.”
Powder blinked, the suspicion slightly moving from her body as she she tilted her head.
“Hextech?” She echoed and Viktor nodded.
“The blue explosion.”
“You… you know what that was?” Excitement was sneaking back into her voice, clashing against the tears still streaming down her face and the shiver in her body.
Viktor looked around, his eyes scanning through the smoke to look for hidden figures lingering, listening. Finally, he nodded again, holding his hand out for Powder to grab.
“Yes. I work on it. But we need to go. It’s not safe here.”
With a moment of hesitation, where Powder’s eyes skipped from the dead body, towards the blue particles dying down around them and the direction the other girl had run off to, she finally took Viktor’s hand and pressed her face into his side as they made their way through the Undercity of Zaun.
*
When the world erupted into an explosion of blue, Silco was thrown through a bristle wall and onto the street several floors below. He couldn’t tell which body part hit the ground first, but what he did know that he was flickering between awareness and unconsciousness for as long as the smoke was blue and in the sky.
Blue turned pink as all the shimmer he had stored at the warehouse went up in flames and smoke. Right now, he couldn’t feel the anger associated with losing a year’s worth of work, as his head was pulsing in so much pain he yearned for death.
Somewhere next to him he could hear a man dying, suffocating to death from his own blood, and Silco blinked until his vision focused. The warehouse was burning now as the initial explosions had stopped, leaving destruction and smoke in their wake. Pushing himself into a halfway sitting position, he felt his shoulder slide back into its socket and a pained groan escaped his lips. His eye was bleeding again, burning as the destroyed eyeball was irritated by the smoke. His pulse was roaring in his ears and dizziness was taking over his system as he tried and failed to stand up.
As a hand grabbed his arm, he almost drove a knife right through it, before his belayed hearing registered the voice of Ran.
“Boss! Boss can you hear me?” She yelled, her own voice distorted by the smoke coating her vocal cords and the obvious concussion wracking havoc on Silco’s mind.
“Yes,” He eventually said, forcing bile back down his throat as the dizziness grew worse when she helped him to his feet.
“We gotta go Boss. The enforcers will be here soon!”
He nodded and regretted it almost immediately. Behind Ran, Bock was stumbling through the broken street, a bloodied Sevika cradled in his arms. Her hand, shoulder and arm were mangled to bits, destroyed beyond recognition and Silco was surprised to find her chest still moving.
He probably should have protested when Ran pulled his arm over her shoulder to keep him upright, but the world was still swimming before his eyes and he didn’t trust himself to stay upright. They moved as fast as their broken bodies allowed, but as they turned a corner, Silco found himself stumbling to a stop, forcing Ran to follow suit.
“Is he dead?” He asked, his trembling hand gesturing towards the body of what was clearly Vander, lying on red stained stone, unmoving. Bock shuffled closer, staring at the body intensely, before flinching back in surprise.
“No. Boss, he’s uh… breathing. Barely though.”
“Take him with,” Silco answered before the thought had fully formed in his mind and he pushed himself off Ran to stay on his own swaying feet.
“Ran, take Sevika. Bock, take Vander.” He commanded and while his people shared a quick unsure look, they quickly moved to follow his instructions.
Soon, Silco found himself stumbling away from the burning remains of his warehouse, with the mutated body of Vander in tow, barely breathing, just a little bit alive.