Chapter Text
The last rays of sunlight were dissapearing behind Piltover skyline, an harmony of voices, laughter and champagne glasses accompanying the sunset. Mel Medarda conducted the conversations with her usual elegance, always perfectly correct, always perfectly reserved. She didn't mind spending hours in empty chatter with merchants and high-ranking figures, especially if there was something to be gained from that conversation, if she could use her charm and her closeness to implant an idea or a suggestion in the mind of whoever had approached to talk to her, attracted by the always radiant presence of the councilor.
But no matter how many friendly and trivial conversations she wanted to endure that evening, her eyes were looking for only one person at that party. The man of the moment. Piltover's golden boy. Jayce Talis.
She found him as usual, on one of the furthest balconies, as if he wanted to escape the world without leaving the room. He hadn't been like this before, Mel remembered the time when young Talis had been the heart and soul of every party in Piltover, when his smile and voice had lit up the room completely. When there had been joy and a bright, pure hope in his eyes.
But even though he still had his friendly smile, even though he had that same expression of warm kindness when he saw Mel approach him, the sparkle in his amber eyes had long since faded, as if a part of his soul had been torn away.
“Good evening, Mr. Talis,” she said, with a courtesy that they both knew was no longer necessary between them.
“Good evening, Councilor Medarda,” he said, in the same polite tone, bowing his head slightly. Although the relationship between Mel Medarda and Jayce had grown closer in recent years, they both knew how to maintain their composure in social settings. Still, no one could deny that there was a special warmth in the gestures and gaze of both of them when they talked to each other.
“Tomorrow is a great day.” The counselor commented, after a few seconds of silence in which Jayce lost himself again in the infinite, in the world where he always traveled when he wanted to escape from real life. “They say that Heimerdinger has proposed you give the Progress day speech.”
Jayce let out a heavy sigh, closing his eyes for a moment.
“I don't even know what to say, Mel.” He answered, a hint of nervousness reflected in the way his fingers rested on the balustrade. “I'm not even the one who should have that honour.”
“You are thinking about him, right?”
Jayce remained silent, his lips forming a thin line on his face.
“I visited his grave this morning.” He began to speak, his voice breaking slightly. Mel placed a compassionate hand on his arm. “Sometimes… I can almost hear him, when I’m in the lab, for a moment, I forget he’s really not there. If only I could…”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jayce.” Mel interrupted, pressing her fingers gently against his forearm. It must have been the millionth time she’d told him that, but there was no help for it, Jayce was never going to fully believe it. “I know these last four years have been hard, but you’ve kept going, that’s what Viktor would want. And you know it.”
Jayce’s gaze wandered back into the sunset. Mel gently turned his face with one hand, trying to get him to come back to her.
“He was a bright mind and a kind soul, just like you. We all miss him.”
But not as much as he did, not as much as Jayce, whose eyes had lost their light since the day Viktor left, since the day they found his lifeless body on the streets of Zaun. Jayce had attended the funeral, but he hadn’t been there, his eyes empty and his mind many, many worlds away.
“I know he would be proud of you.”
Those words brought Jayce out of his reverie. He looked into the eyes of the counselor. Mel, his friend, the one who had been his support when his soul had been teared appart. Leaving a everlasting wound.
“I don’t know, Mel.” He answered, his gaze rising to the tower of Piltover, where the blue runes of the Hexgates began to light up the sky. Ready for a new journey. He heard Viktor’s voice in his mind, the same night they had presented their revolutionary invention to the world, hurt and disappointed. “I don’t know if he would be proud of me.”
------
Silco put his fingers to the bridge of his nose, his patience draining by the minute, drop by drop, with every voice and every complaint from the idiots in front of him.
One more day, one more empty and useless assembly, where the chemical barons did nothing but blame and attack each other, like dogs barking from their cages.
“I don’t give a shit about the air and the god-damn water if my merchandise can't even cross the border.”
Smeech’s comment provoked another round of blame and insults. The topic soon turned to the fights between gangs and who had raided whose headquarters.
“Enough.”
Drop.
Drop.
Silco raised a hand and caused a second of silence. A necessary and welcome second of silence.
“Your goods will reach port, the enforcers will not be a problem. Jinx will take care of the Firelights.”
The mention of Jinx (unfortunately) sparked
another heated discussion. Silco noticed Sevika beside him letting out a dry, ironic chuckle.
“You know that’s not the only problem, Silco. The enforcers are going deeper into the Lanes each day, we need to fight back.” Ranni replied, standing up and slamming one of her hands on the wooden table.
Drop.
Drop.
“And what about your mage, Silco? They say you have him hidden in one of the mines. I think it’s worth paying him a visit before the Pilties get the better of us.” Smeech suggested, earning a menacing look from Sevika.
More shouting. More discussion. More empty bickering.
Silco lit one of his cigars as soon as the meeting disolved. Inconclusive. As usual.
He leaned back in his chair. Closing his eyes, he let the smoke out very slowly.
“They’re right.”
Sevika lit her own cigar as the older man watched her inquisitively.
“That... Hex technology is of no use to us if we don’t use it to defend ourselves. Piltover is years ahead of us.”
Silco thought for a moment, letting the ash fall to the floor beside him.
“He won’t do it.”
“You’re too protective of him.”
Sevika stood up from the table and kicked one of the nearby chairs in frustration.
“Tell him what you want, but we’re running out of time. He needs to stop playing the ideal world.”
Silco sighed. Sevika’s words were especially annoying as he knew she was right.
“I know.” He admitted, grey smoke escaping from between his lips. “There’s no place for fairy tales in war.”
------
The ventilation system was a perfect passageway, stealthy and practical, perfect for an ambush.
Jinx moved forward as cautiously as her legs would allow, peering through every opening until she found her target.
After escaping through the vents, she landed on one of the metal beams that held up the ceiling. There were hundreds of them in that old factory. They allowed her to clearly see the man working a few meters below, a dim blue light illuminating the room.
The lab was filled with prototypes and all kinds of gadgets. Jinx fantasized about what she would take first. She moved along the beam until she was right on top of her target.
Poor fool. He was so focused that he wouldn't even see the ambush coming.
With a reckless leap, Jinx took her feet off the beam, a brightly painted grenade already prepared in her hand. She let out a startled cry when she didn't quite hit the ground, but something cold and metallic stopped her fall, graving the girl by one of her legs, right on top of the man she intended to surprise.
“You're getting predictable.”
She heard her target say, a strong accent marked in his words. He didn't even raise his head to look at her, he just kept working in his silly little chair with his silly little goggles.
“You're no fun, magic-man.”
Jinx replied, crossing her arms, still upside down. The mechanical arm that had stop her fall gently lowered her to the ground.
“I'm not here for my sense of comedy... and I guess you're not here to hear my jokes either.”
The man finally looked up at the girl with blue braids, who, without any apprehension, had placed her arms on the table and was staring at what he was doing, her cheeks restings in her hands.
“Nah... Silco's mad at me again.” She replied, with a small pout. “Something happened with a shipment and he says I'm... unstable or whatever. So, what is this?”
Jinx took one of the many projects that filled the scientist’s lab table in her hands. It looked like a head, but it had no mouth or eyes.
“It’s a prototype.”
He answered, returning to his work. He was writing a series of runes on a notebook that Jinx didn’t understand, at the light of a strange floating polyhedron with the same runes, which emitted a blue glimmer in its core.
“That's creepy as hell, why doesn’t it have eyes?”
“It doesn’t need to see, just follow orders.”
The scientist answered nonchalantly. He put his pen aside, taking a deep breath, as if he suddenly had trouble grasping for air.
He opened a drawer next to his table, taking a small vial of bright, violet liquid between his slender fingers. Ah, Jinx did know what that was.
“Jinx, since I’ve had the pleasure of your visit, will you help me with this?”
He asked, lifting the work goggles that had covered his eyes until now. His irises, golden and tired, focused on the girl as he offered the bottle.
“You're just like the old man.” She snorted, but didn't hesitate to take the bottle of shimmer and the syringe that the scientist offered her afterwards. She swiftly crouched in front of the scientist chair.
“If it helps... your father is also mad at me.” He commented, lifting one of the sleeves of his shirt, the purple and marked veins betraying that this was not his first experience with shimmer. Nor would it be the last.
“And what the oh-so-great Viktor did to make him angry? Did you hit him with your cane in his icky eye?”
Viktor let out a small chuckle, shaking his head. Over time, he had learned to appreciate Jinx's eccentric character. She was a bright girl, although volatile. She made a good lab partner, when she was really interested in the project.
Jinx loaded the shimmer syringe and slowly injected the fluorescent liquid where Viktor's veins were dark and marked. The scientist twitched in place, a wave of pulsating energy running through his body in an instant. His golden eyes glowed with the color of the shimmer, then returned to their original dim gold, leaving him exhausted, but relieved of pain.
“Thank you, Jinx.”
The girl watched him for a moment, her head cocked, like a bird examining a mirror on the sidewalk.
She then stood up energetically. What Viktor would give for that vitality.
“And what is that?”
She asked, pointing to the strange polyhedron of blue light, which moved in a pulsating, hypnotic way, like a heart. Viktor moved one of the levers that controlled the core to the left. The runes spun and the light faded, only emitting a small glow from the gem at its center.
“Something I’m trying to solve, but… I’m missing some pieces of the puzzle.”
He had been trying to stabilize the gem for years now. All of his inventions and advancements while he had resided in Zaun, under Silco’s protection, had always been overshadowed by his greatest challenge.
If Jayce was here… he found himself thinking often. Only to be overcome by a cluster of resentment and rage. No, if Jayce were there he would sell his invention to the highest bidder in Piltover. He would go to parties to talk about his discovery as if Viktor didn’t exist, as if he wasn’t a fundamental part of Hextech. Jayce, always kind. Always perfect. Jayce.
How he hated that he was the missing piece. That without him all the alleys in his mind would lead to a dead end. It was like going in circles. His thoughts were an open, dark sea and Jayce was the lighthouse on the shore. Bright, but out of reach.
No. He didn’t need him. He would get out of that dead end on his own. Like he always had. He didn’t need any golden boy to guide him out of the darkness.
He just hoped that he was just as lost without Viktor.
“Well, then we have to find those missing pieces, right?”
Jinx’s voice brought him out of his trance. Before he knew it, she had painted a smiley colourful face on his automaton.
“I’ll figure it out, tell Silco not to worry.” The golden-eyed scientist replied, turning his attention back to his notebook. “I’m the magic-man, aren’t I?”