Chapter Text
The sun shined bright unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. You pulled yourself up and were met with streets filled with scholars, merchants, and inventors. The air was clear, cool, and refreshing to breathe in. The sharp contrast from what you’re used to seeing and feeling caught you off guard.
You flattened yourself against the wall as an enforcer passed by you, their gold armor glistening in the light. Your breathing became shaky and your heart pounded as you climbed up onto the surface. Your mind worried if you were able to fit in enough for anyone to not be suspicious of you.
You looked slightly down as you walked, trying to ignore the abiding thoughts your brain was recklessly throwing at you. You pulled your hood over your head and went to search around for an entry into the Academy.
Despite your lowered head posture, you were still attentive, eavesdropping little parts of other people’s conversations around you in an attempt to find any way inside. You thought you overheard a few students talking about some unsupervised back door.
Whether it was true or not, you didn’t really have any better options. You stealthily scurried around the Academy and found what they were talking about. The area was thankfully empty, although there were a few students around but looking away. You tried to open it, and to your surprise it was unlocked. You slid through the narrow door quietly, your legs shaking and heartbeat speeding up. The air was conditioned and cooler than outside, yet tainted with the aroma of oil and electricity. The whole place was neatly polished and put together, boldly portraying its wealth.
You walked down the halls and quickly realized within a few glances at other students that you stood out a bit. Everybody else’s outfits were all neat and put together, while you were wearing some random stolen outfit from Piltover that was given to you to help with your mission.
Instead of looking down like an insecure loner, you stood up taller with a slight arrogance hinting in your posture as an attempt to help avoid any strange looks. You walked down the hallway while passing some students who didn’t seem to care for you.
You tilted your head to the right to look for any open rooms as you walked. Most of the rooms were classrooms, each one completely filled. You crept up to the second floor, and then third, and then fourth. The fourth floor was a lot less busy and emptier than the previous ones. So empty that your steps echoed throughout the hall. Every door was shut, except you spotted what appeared to be an open door.
You moved closer and looked inside. Your eyes laid upon a desolate dorm room, and there were no sort of decorations to be seen. You checked your surroundings to make sure nobody was watching and entered the room. The whole room was relatively small, as most dorms are. There was one twin sized bed in the left corner with one white pillow on it, which matched with the plain, white walls. There was a desk in front of it with a small key that laid there unattended.
Yep. this was going to be your room from now on. Whether it was legal or not, you didn’t care. You weren’t gonna stay forever anyways.
This whole time you were carrying a full, black bookbag you had stolen from your childhood friend a while ago. You were glad to finally take it off and relieve the pressure that was tugging on your shoulders for so long.
You set it down on the bed and noticed how pathetic it looked. You made a cringed face at it since it didn’t look like something you would want to sleep on. You then pondered about how you were even going to survive here. You were in luck though, since you made sure to over prepare as you generally do. You brought all of your hygiene products, a little bit of stolen money, and your most prized possession. This being your pocket-sized sketchbook and a pencil.
Growing up, you always loved to draw. It wasn’t something you were the best at, but it was enough to make you happy. You knew you wouldn’t be busy all the time, so you brought it whenever you needed a cure for your boredom. You emptied your bag and put everything you had in its correct place and left your sketchbook on top of the vacant desk. Your bag was empty and ready to be filled.
You were only here for one reason. To steal. Silco had sent specifically you to retrieve any data you could possibly find about this “hextech” thing since you had quite the history relating to theft. You grew up pilfering small items from stores and little toys from your friends. As you got older you began to take it more seriously, often pickpocketing and stealing much more valuable objects like food and money. It wasn’t a skill you were proud of, though it was a skill you were forced to develop from Zaun’s harsh living conditions.
Silco saw potential in you, which is what made you in the situation you’re in right now. Since you grew up needing to commit literal crimes just for basic survival needs, you were dedicated to changing the undercity’s future as well.
As you were busy in your mind figuring out what to do next, a small creak in the distance caught you off guard. You flinched, realizing you left your door wide open for everybody to see you. From afar, there was a door that opened, and somebody was walking out. You swiftly got up to shut it before the person saw, but it was too late. A girl caught you standing right in the doorway, making you freeze like a statue. She responded by giving you a confused look. You awkwardly smiled at her until she decided to break the awkward tension of the scenario.
“Are you new here?” She wondered, walking towards you.
“Oh, yeah. This is my new dorm room. I just got up here and was looking around. I’m still not used to this place” You answered.
You were a great impulsive liar. Again, not a skill you really liked to possess, but it was pretty damn handy in these situations.
“Oh, okay. I was wondering since I've never seen you around before.”
She walked closer until she was standing a few feet away from you. She wore glasses and had lighter brown eyes and wore her hair up in a bun. Her skin tone was a light brown, complemented by the freckles scattered across her cheeks.
“I’m Sky. What’s your name?” She reached her hand out for you to grab. You shook her hand with slightly sweaty palms and answered with another lie.
“Ash.”
This was a fake name that you had to use to hide who you truly were. You weren’t entirely sure what it meant, you just really wanted a name that sounded cool.
“That’s nice.” she said as she let go of your hand. “By the way, do you need me to show you around or have you been here before?”
Your eyes widened a little from the open opportunity.
“Yes, I would love that, thank you.” You gave her a welcoming smile that hid your true intentions.
She turned around and walked towards the staircase, expecting you to tag along beside her, which you did as expected. You were a little quiet, brainstorming lies left and right, overthinking every possible scenario. However it didn’t take too long before Sky broke the tension.
“So, what are you majoring in?” She asked.
“Oh! Uh, biology. Yeah I just really always liked… life stuff, you know?”
She gave you an awkward side eye which made you immediately regret your words. You internally cringed as she cleared her throat, probably thinking you just had really bad people skills.
“Yeah, I like biology too. Not a huge fan, but I enjoy it.”
To aim the conversation away from the topic of yourself, you instead asked about her.
“Well, what about you? What’s your major?”
“I’m not majoring in anything actually, I’m an assistant here.”
Your interest was piqued. Sounded like she could be accessible to some useful information.
“An assistant? So, what do you do exactly?” You questioned, a small smirk tugging on the side of your mouth.
“I just help Jayce and Viktor sometimes, that’s all.”
“Oh! Okay… Um, am I supposed to know who those people are..?” Your tone got much quieter and softer as you spoke. But Sky was more than happy to inform you about them.
“Haha no, you aren’t supposed to, but do you really not know them? Especially Jayce, he’s quite popular.”
“I’ve heard of him like once. Again, I’m pretty fresh.” Your words were tinted with confidence to avoid any suspicions. Silco told you a little bit about Jayce, but you had never seen the guy.
“Okay well, Jayce is a pretty prominent figure here in Piltover. He’s known as the ‘golden boy’, and he helped create the very popular hex core alongside Viktor.” You noticed her voice alter in tone a pitch higher and slightly smiled as she said that last word. Her admiration soon turned into confusion as she thought, because it was strange you had never heard of this ‘Jayce’ celebrity.
“Wait,” She interjected, her tone making you immediately realize her confusion. “how long have you been in Piltover fo–”
“So then who's this Viktor guy?” You immediately cut her off before you accidentally exposed yourself. You could see she gained a little suspicion, so your first instinct was to distract her by prying more into these celebrities she apparently held a deep admiration for.
It was pretty effective because her interest instantly shifted more towards describing Viktor. “Oh, him? Well, I’m pretty sure he’s actually the mastermind behind this whole hextech. He’s super smart, and nice, and–” She went on as a deep pink tinted her cheeks.
You slowly tuned her out as you realized this was a total jackpot. Not only was she friends with the original inventors of the reason why you were here, but this potential close friend was additionally what seemed like a sheer lovesick fool. You genuinely felt terrible for thinking these things, but you knew the people in Zaun were counting on you. People deep in love have a tendency to be vulnerable, an easy target for you to manipulate.
You weren’t expecting to make connections when you came here, but now you had to find out where these two scientists were and how to become friends with them, if you even could. You realized you got a little too deep in thought, and wasn't listening to Sky’s yap session.
“Sorry, I kinda got carried away. But anyway, this is the lobby.” She continued to show you around. She showed you where all the classes were, the restrooms, the cafeteria, and even the library.
That wasn’t your main concern anymore, however. After she was done giving you the tour you planned to try and find where they were. It took about an hour before she finished showing you around, and lastly led you back to your dorm room.
“Well that’s the place. You probably have to unpack and do all that fun stuff, so I’ll see you around. Hopefully soon.” Sky waved at you.
“We prolly will. But anyway, goodnight.” You waved back as you stood at your doorway, shutting the door as she walked away to who knows where.
You then sat on your vacant bed, scanning the room, lost in thought as usual. You stretched out of exhaustion while running your hands through your hair, feeling the oiliness. You felt gross and sweaty after trying to avoid people and tell countless impulsive lies. Sweat would build up a lot on your body specifically when you were nervous. To waste time and to feel cleaner, you hopped in the shower for a good 25 minutes, and afterwards made sure your hair was completely dry.
You walked out of the bathroom and looked out of your window. The evening hours were approaching slowly as seen with the sun setting gracefully, leaving a beautiful contrast of colors in the sky. You grabbed your bookbag and prepared to go out and start searching for stuff. Whatever that stuff was, you didn’t know. You were just gonna look around for either the inventors or physical information about hextech.