Chapter Text
Powder waits through all the back slapping and congratulating and high fives and cheering and jostling. She smiles and laughs and shakes hands and chitchats as expected. She acts, putting on her best happy face.
Well, she is happy. Things worked well for her sister's big day, and that means all their plans are going smoothly, which is very good and all. But she can barely contain her impatience. She keeps glancing towards the courier station and back to Ekko, blinking at him like in a secret code spelling out hurry the fuck up!
Ekko grins at her knowingly, not just because he's happy too, but because he likes to watch her squirm. He bounces after Scar, takes his board from him and flies overhead in a loop while his friends scream their heads off in delight. People look their way, curious. The hoverboards aren't meant to be a secret, so that's fine. Powder never knew Ekko to be that much of a show off though, and she's this close to abandoning him when he finally lands and entrusts the board to his friends again.
'You go ahead,' he says, hooking arms with Powder and waving off the rest of the Firelights. 'Just gotta go on a quick errand!'
'Don't be late,' Dip calls after him, 'Tya's been cooking!'
'We're not saving you none!'
Scar only nods. He's in on it. He's in on everything Ekko gets up to, these days, but Powder doesn't mind. The Chirean is surprisingly funny, and he makes things work between the Firelights and Silco's people. Also Powder's pretty sure he's got a crush on Sevika, which is downright hilarious .
'What are you grinning at?' Ekko asks, tracking her eyes to Scar.
'Nothing. Just be sure you invite him for our next sparring session, okay?'
'With Sevika? You sure? I thought me coming was already pushing it.'
'No, she likes you.'
Ekko purses his lips, unconvinced. 'I think you mean she likes punching me.'
'It feels like that, at first.'
'Getting punched isn't going to cure Scar of his disease.'
'The Sevika germs are strong,' Powder agrees.
They cackle, banging heads and laughing even harder. Powder's almost giddy enough to overlook the simmering doubts and fear.
'Don't tease him too much,' Ekko says. 'You can't control who you fall in love with.'
Powder shrugs. That's for sure. If love was a choice, Silco never would've chosen Vander, after all.
'Love is over-rated,' she says. 'Kind of a waste of time, too.'
'What's better? Oh, wait, let me guess: explosions?'
'Yes. And Jericho's. Noxian dumplings. Really bright and thick paint you can't wash away even with acetone...'
Ekko rolls his eyes. 'You're a freak.'
'You're boring,' she fires back.
He scoffs, fake-offended. Or maybe real-offended. But they've arrived, and Powder's back to being impatient and just a little nervous. Ekko's good at reading her, so he's quick to pick up on her mood.
'You ready?' he asks, which doesn't help.
'I... think so.'
Powder pulls out a metal pneumatic tube from her satchel, wax sealed but anonymous. She's about to do something stupid, she knows it. If it works, it'll be glorious. She'll get all the praise and bragging rights. If it doesn't? Well, Silco loves her. He'd never hurt her. He'll never abandon her—he promised. So did Vi...
'I still think it's a good idea,' Ekko whispers.
Powder gives him a level look. 'You think everything I do's a good idea though.'
'What? Did you drink some of Vi's glimmer?'
'Shut up, you do.'
'I always like your good ideas,' Ekko says with a shrug. 'You just got a lot of them, recently. Don't let it get to your head.'
'Just get used to it. I'm always right.'
'Silco has been spoiling you, this is bad.'
'Shut up, shut up!' Powder bounces on the spot. 'Ekko! Tell me what to do!'
'Just send it. We went over it already! And like I said, if Silco loses it, you can come stay with me for a while.'
'He wouldn't...'
'Then send it.' He wraps a warm hand over the back of her neck, draws her in till their foreheads touch. 'You're the smartest girl I know, and I'm not too bad, right? It’s perfect––risky too–but so was your hit on the Academy! If this guy's half as smart as we are...'
Powder looks down from Ekko's sparkling eyes, to the equally shiny metal tube between her hands. She sees her reflection in it, pulled in a long, narrow stripe, like she's made out of putty. She twists the tube and her face warps, squishing against Ekko's own reflection.
They'll both take the heat, if this fails. Marcus might hear about them again. If he gets his hands on this...
Ekko gives her a squeeze, grounding her, and then he lets her go.
'It's up to you,' he says, taking a step back. 'But I trust you.'
'If I mess this up,' she whispers, 'I'll be a Jinx for real.'
'Stop,' Ekko orders, crossing his arms. 'You can't think that every time you do something risky, and anyway, isn't that what Silco calls you?'
He only does it because it riles Vi up, and because he likes to remind Powder that she's strong. He has a more complicated way to go about it, long-winded speeches about weakness, self-confidence and ghosts of the past. He likes to talk about conquering fear. About overcoming limits. Jinx, he thinks, should own her mistakes, so that she won't repeat them.
If it goes wrong, sending this pneumatic tube would be a new kind of mistake, not a repeat. So, hey, maybe she'd get away with a promise not to do it again. Zaun, she thinks, needs a risk taking Jinx more than a good kiddo Powder.
She plucks a cog from her belt pouch and gives Ekko a shaky smile. 'Okay, then. Let's go find a courier.'
Sevika blows her smoke in a fat ring and watches it warp and thin, losing its shape in the serpentleaf haze they've been building all evening. Silco's office is as good as an aquarium by now, if fish could swim in smoke.
'A cog for your thoughts?' Renata asks, coming to sit across from her now that the last stragglers have been ushered out of the office.
'I'm not sure you want to peer inside there,' Silco mutters from behind his desk.
'I'll risk the horrors.'
Sevika smiles. Things really have changed. She blows another ring, this time framing Renata's face.
The last time the three of them had been alone in this room, the dynamic had been very different. Sevika's new prosthetic arm had been a deadweight at her side, her anger and frustration further weighing her down. She'd felt like she could go through the couch, through the fucking floor, to Oshra Va'Zaun. Silco had hardly been in better shape. Besides running a dangerous, under-powered coup in the Lanes with the last dregs of their shimmer reserves, he'd been wrangling Powder and her nightly demons.
Renata had waltzed in, freshly arrived from her latest trip to Bilgewater, and proceeded to chew them both alive for rushing the schedule and fucking things up. Of course the rush had happened thanks to Vander's kids, and for a moment Sevika had been on the same team as her cousin. The anti-Jinx team. Kick the brat to the curb, toss her in an orphanage and move on.
Sevika laughs, shooting a stream of smoke through her ring and destroying it.
'I think I've never seen a more rabid pack of dogs in my life,' she says, extending her hand to Renata for her promised cog.
'Is that what's making you laugh?' Renata asks, twirling a copper cog between her fingers, but not yet surrendering it.
'Nah. What's funny is how we even got here.' She glances towards Silco, who is still frowning his way through his notes. 'I'm proud of the girls, I guess. I don't think we'd be here without them.'
Silco looks up at that, as Sevika expected he would. 'Proud? Of Vi and Powder? You?' He laughs, a nasal little bark of a sound. 'That thought is worth more than a cog.'
Sevika gives him a thin, humourless smile. 'My purse is open, boss.'
Renata flicks the cog at her, and Sevika—showing off a little, because it never hurt anyone—catches it in mid-air with her prosthetic.
Renata squints at it. 'Nice. Is it...'
Sevika grins. 'Powder's creation, yeah. Kid's got talent.'
'Mmph. Maybe you do have things to be proud of.' Renata relaxes back into her chair, propping up her legs on the low table between them. She crosses her arms and gives Sevika a more serious look. 'I agree with what you said earlier though. These were some hungry dogs. I'm not sure the boy was a good choice.'
'Who, Finn?' Silco asks, coming around the desk to join them. 'You read my mind.'
Sevika scoffs. 'Anyone's mind, when they're forced to think about him. He's been bad news since he started stirring up shit in the factories. But now I think that wasn't even his idea. What do you bet he was following someone's lead? Someone who fell down from a gangway by accident since then?'
'We'll never know,' Silco says wearily. He accepts the cigarette Sevika hands him and lets her light it. He gives her a thankful nod before starting his own smoke rings. 'Finn's just another puppy to manage. We'll keep him on a short leash and make sure he doesn't get too many ideas.'
'You think your chembarons are bad?' Renata asks. 'You should come with me on my trip back to Noxus. Meet that general, your new client. Jericho Swain. He's a reasonable man, easy to deal with. The people around him?' She laughs, the sound distorted by her rebreather. 'Sand vipers, if vipers could use hemomancy.'
Sevika scowls at her cousin. 'We have it this good because we've got things under control. Noxus is—'
'Under control?' Renata barks, jumping forward in her chair. 'You made your glimmer demo in front of the uninvited Kiramman heir, and you have things under control?'
'What?' Sevika gasps. She looks to Silco, but he's blowing smoke rings at the ceiling, studiously avoiding both of them. 'In front of who?!'
Silco sags against his room's window, cooling his brow on the glass pane. Zaunites come and go outside, weaving around each other, begrudgingly parting for the odd passing car. Everything has returned to normal, the security cordon established for the demonstration dispelled and the Last Drop re-opened for the night. Music thrums through the floorboards, and Silco tries to relax into the familiar sensation after the shouting match in his office.
He shouldn't have to justify himself to Sevika of all people, but Renata knew exactly what she was about, and wouldn't let him explain things on his own terms. Calming both furies took a lot out of him, at the end of an already strained day, itself capping an exhausting week spent preparing for Vi's big moment.
It all paid off in the end, so Silco doesn't mind. Even Caitlyn Kiramman's presence may turn out to be a stroke of good luck. Sevika and Renata are too skittish to see it, and Vi may resist, consumed as she still is by her rancour against Piltover, but Silco's plans have given him many strange bedfellows over the years and he firmly believes that they'll need allies in Piltover eventually. Not to keep enforcing the status quo, as Vander had with Grayson, but to topple it, to carve a new future.
And Silco can see it. A glorious vision of Zaunite prosperity. Cait may not come into authority for another decade, but when she does—and she will, being the sole heir to her house—her attachment to his girls could change everything for them. For all of Zaun. It could render Silco's plans obsolete and redundant in the best way possible. Such a friendship, such an understanding, could tip the scales and crown Vi and Powder as the undisputed leaders of their new nation...
He closes his good eye, letting the shapes outside the window distort and blur, happily losing himself in that hypothetical future. But she comes running, breaking him out of his daydreams. A blue dot bobbing across the street, hurrying back to him.
Silco opens his good eye, an increasingly familiar pang nestling in his chest. His arcane artificer, his precious daughter...
Powder looks up, searching for him, and her smile flashes brightly when she sees him waving at her. She runs on, disappearing out of sight. In mere seconds she's hammering up the stairs, screeching his name. Silco doesn't have time to make it to the door before it flies open and he's smothered in a crushing embrace.
'I'm starving!' Powder yells, letting him go to give him a critical once over. 'You're not ready yet? Come on, we missed lunch and you said we were going out. Are you not wearing a cravat? You don't need one. Let's go! Let's go!'
'Yes, yes.' Silco lets himself be dragged out of the room and down the stairs without protest. 'Don't forget to tell Sevika.'
Powder grunts. 'The ogre will eat all the buns if she comes with. Vi said she'd wait for us in Bridgewaltz because she's gone up to the ferry. Who was that girl she was going with? I saw you talk to her.'
Silco laughs mirthlessly. How long can a Kiramman induced headache last for? 'She's Vi's new friend,' he says, unwilling to drop names in the Last Drop, even in the relative privacy of their quarters. 'She was visiting from Upside.' Powder shoots him an unhappy look, like she doesn't appreciate him joking at her expense. If only he were! 'I'm deadly serious. I think you'll get to meet her properly soon.'
'I don't want Piltie friends,' Powder says. 'Who would?'
Silco pokes his head through the tap room door to wave Sevika over, then turns his attention back to Powder. 'She'll be a useful person to know, even if you don't like her. But she owns a rare collapsible rifle. A model I've never seen before. Incredible craftmanship. I'm sure if you make friends with her, she'll let you study it.'
Silco can practically see the cogs turning inside Powder's mind. Things fall into place, and she smiles up at him. A cat's smile, with cream on its whiskers.
'Okay! Guess I'll try.'
Silco returns her smile and ruffles her sort messy braids. 'That's my girl.'
There really is no alliance he won't forge to protect her. There's nobody he won't kill, bribe or parlay with, if it means Powder and Vi's success.
It takes Vi a while to find them, but in the end she's faithfully guided by the sound of Powder and Sevika arguing. Silco is the first to notice her, and steps away from them to meet her.
He presses a hand between her shoulder blades, lowering his head in confidence. 'Home?' is all he asks.
'Should be. The working girl she spoke about is one of the funicular drivers, Mariri. She's a vastaya, the kid of the old fate spinner who was always set up by the temple in the Black Lanes, you know the one? Her brother works at one of Renni's factories.'
Silco nods pensively, already considering Vi's meaning without her having to spell it out. It freaks her out a bit sometimes, when she catches herself thinking the way he’s been teaching her to think. The calculus of politics.
'The parents are both dead I assume?' he asks. 'Well, never mind if they are, the boy can easily be brought in. I'll talk to Renni, you arrange room and board for them with our crews below. Double the boy's pay and get him trained on glimmer.'
Vi nods. Having Mariri on their side will help in case Caitlyn returns, and given how impossibly earnest she was to the last, she has no doubt she will, and soon. She says as much to Silco, then relates the offer she made, a bid for information.
'What did you learn?'
'The name of the Arcane technology they are developing. Turns out she's a close friend of Talis. He's calling it Hextech.'
'And what did you tell her?'
Vi hesitates. She looks into Silco's mismatched eyes, but sees nothing there to worry her. He's curious, but not tense. It's like he doesn't believe she could fuck it up, even though she's been repeating her conversation with Caitlyn Kiramman on loop for the last hour, wondering if she should have said something else, done something else. She spoke from her guts and wanted to scare that stupid girl, so far out of her depth, but was it the right thing to do?
Vi takes a deep breath and comes clean, the words spilling out of her in a hurried jumble.
'I told her I was the one behind the original lab incident, and how Marcus hunted us down and tried to jail me after getting my family killed. I told her the truth she wanted to hear about that day, that I trashed his place for revenge and that he couldn't come after me because he needed to protect his reputation, and that you know he led the old sheriff to her death. I told her I was there, saw it, but didn't tell her how it happened, just that his attacks while looking for us started shit down here, which is true anyway! I just... I wanted to make sure she couldn't share that easily, but also give her all her answers, so that if she comes back—' Vi stops, gulping for air. 'If she comes back,' she repeats, slower now, 'she won't be looking for those answers, right? She'll be back for some other reason. Because she wants to.'
Silco slaps her back enthusiastically. He grabs her shoulder and shakes her. 'Very well done! You're outdoing yourself today.'
Vi blinks at him, a little dazed. 'Really? That was the right move?'
'I wouldn't have done it any differently,' Silco says with a nod. He bumps their foreheads together then, and whispers: 'I'm very proud of you, Vi. Today is your day.'
The words wash over her like a tide. A complicated mix of emotions rises in her in response, a whirlwind of feelings. How can this man's approval mean so much? She feels more empowered now, more like an adult than she had while running from Piltover with a well earned pack of goods bouncing on her shoulders.
'Thanks,' she says. She's pretty sure her face is glowing the same shade as her hair.
Silco gives her another pat and lets her go, walking away and waving for her to follow to the Noxious Noxian's stand, where Sevika and Powder have escalated to blows while they talked. Sevika has Powder in a headlock with her mechanical arm, plucking a sticky dumpling out of her hair with her free hand.
Vi shakes herself. It is her day, and she was promised a celebration. She can pick her feelings apart another time.
'What's happening here!' she calls out, joining them. 'You couldn't even wait for me?'
'I just wanted one dumpling,' Powder says, pummelling Sevika's side.
'You eat mine, I eat yours,' Sevika retorts. 'What kind of world do you think this is, girl?'
'Let me go!'
'Jinx, come here,' Silco says. 'I'll get you another one if you promise to behave.'
Vi bites down on a smile at Sevika's look of outrage—no doubt because she's too old to beg for another dumpling too. They end up with one each anyway, wrapped in greasy paper so they can nibble on them as they cross the market. They stop at every other stall, gazing at the goods on display, taking their time. Sevika points out there's a lot more from Demacia now. Powder whines until she's given a note and free reign at the bookmonger. They pick up cigars, a jar of foreign honey, fresh inkpots, grilled calamari and seaweed wraps, and Vi finally singles out silver earrings on a jewellery stand.
'I want to get pierced up here,' she declares, pointing at her left ear. 'Oba said she'd do it.'
Just like that she has them, and a nose piercing besides, because Silco is being so free with his notes. She packs them away in a hidden pocket inside her jacket, flushing with pleasure.
'You're still waiting for me to get tattoos, right?' Powder asks her with a sudden look of anxiety.
Vi rolls her eyes. 'I already promised, didn't I?'
'Should we head home?' Silco asks, glancing down at his chrono. 'Tomorrow is another long one.'
'If you pick me up,' Powder says, wrapping her arms around his neck. 'I'm tired.'
'You're getting too heavy for this,' he says even as he complies.
'I'll stop by Babette on the way,' Sevika declares.
'Yeah, I'm good,' Vi says when Silco looks to her. 'Let's go.'
And so they do. All four of them, chatting companionably, satisfied with their evening together, pockets flushed with well deserved rewards and treats. Vi can barely believe it, looking down the warped tunnel of time, to an era where Powder was all she had left in the world. But it's real. It's her present—no matter what the future ends up looking like.
They're going home.
- Epilogue -
Viktor isn't shocked when nobody asks him the right questions, but he's rather annoyed that nobody will listen to his answers.
On that fateful morning of the break in, Jayce had sent a runner to report it, then helped Viktor tidy up and figure out what was missing. Unlike his own previous lab disaster, there was no damage and no arcane gems unaccounted for, which was a universal relief.
Within minutes of enforcers arriving on the scene, it was being called a robbery. Once Viktor had explained nothing was missing besides a notebook, and that the doodles on the board were just mocking the tower's schematic (a particular string of equations was a rather clever joke on its shape and girth he hadn't cared to elaborate on), the robbery became something else.
'Espionage,' Marcus had declared after a moment's thought and a stroke of his chin. Neither him nor Jayce took Viktor seriously when he insisted their thief was from the Undercity.
Well, on one thing they agreed: 'Of course a clan would hire this sort of... talent from the Undercity,' Jayce had said. 'Wouldn't want to be implicated if they were caught in the act.'
'What would a trencher do with that sort of knowledge anyway?' Marcus had added. 'Besides sell it to a great house or clan for a big payout?' He'd tapped his chin some more, an anxious rhythm. 'Maybe to a foreign power, if we're very unlucky.'
Industrial espionage became everybody's soothing belief of choice, the council included. As if imagining Noxus with Hextech was as dreadful and inconceivable as a smart Zaunite. Viktor's very existence seemed the exception that proved this unspoken rule.
He's used to it. Or likes to tell himself so—his own soothing mechanism, to keep from blowing a vein, or something more explosive and damaging.
So when the pneumatic tube comes to him, sealed for his eyes only, Viktor gives speaking up one last try. He waits for Heimerdinger's weekly visit, because rushing things would seem suspicious. Although, perhaps not. The professor is a kind Yordle, a good tutor, and a well of knowledge. What he's not, however, is a savvy politician, nor very empathic. It's unlikely he would have found a visit suspicious, even to discuss Zaun.
'And how is your health, my boy?' Heimerdinger asks when they've finally run out of diagrams to peruse. 'Is it quite alright for Jayce to leave you like this today? Your operation was so recent.'
Viktor smiles at him weakly. The operation on his spine was months ago, but that would be a blink to Heimerdinger.
'I'm well, professor, thank you. Jayce is running an errand for me, but I don’t need him to tour you around the lab. Here, I have something to show you...'
The yordle's ears perk up as Viktor pushes a sheet across the workbench. He picks it up with a thoughtful hum, eyes already jumping across it.
'I see, I see,' he mumbles. Then he neatly places it down on the bench and smiles to Viktor. 'Lovely idea!'
'It is, isn't it?' Viktor agrees. 'Doable, you think?'
Heimerdinger jumps from his chair, startling his sleeping poro. 'Of course! I mean, what isn't possible? With your mind, your talent, and the resources the Council are pouring into your venture! The sky is the limit, if even that! I do recall seeing you fly quite well yourself.'
'I meant to develop it. Do you think the Council would agree to it?'
Heimerdinger stops in his stride and gives Viktor a startled look. 'A sewer for the Undercity? I'd welcome the idea, but I doubt you would obtain the funding to research it. At least not so early. It's a very neat piece of work you've come up with here, very cleverly done, but the resources it would take—and the technology, still unproven... These things take time, my boy. Perhaps you should submit something smaller to the Council's attention once the tower is built and made secure? That will give you a few years to refine the concept on paper.'
Viktor smiles. He nods silently, accepting the professor's words with as much grace as he can muster. Pushing himself to his feet, he leads the way to the exit, careful not to trip over the poro weaving between their legs.
'One last word,' Heimerdinger declares as he steps out of the lab and turns to look up at Viktor. 'I am sorry about this nasty business with the break-in. It seems Jayce has some tough luck with his labs! But I wanted to congratulate you for the way you've stuck to your work. Both of you are doing this academy—and me—very proud.' He bows, ears bobbing with the gesture. 'Continue in this fashion and you will go far! We will make Piltover into a shining jewel. Don't let yourself be discouraged if your goals take time to achieve.'
His speech finished and their fare-thee-well exchanged, Viktor locks the door and makes his way back inside, to his cot in the small room Jayce and him have taken over for their all-too-common late nights. He opens the latch of his small crate and digs through it until he finds the metal tube.
He goes to sit at the edge of the cot with it, slowly unravelling the original diagram tucked within. A sewer system, designed and labelled by the same hand that had mocked their tower as a phallic monstrosity. Unlike the rough sketch he outlined to show Heimerdinger, this is lovingly detailed and extensively labelled. There's a lot to take into consideration, after all, when you're planning something so ambitious.
And yet it's so simple. The runes are correct, though Viktor is pretty sure he could come up with something more streamlined. The only reason the little thief suggests a single enormous pipe is secrecy. It would make more sense to split the work across several points and use four or five gems.
Viktor rubs his brow with a bony knuckle. His nose stings at the simple memories of the fumes of the Undercity. The taste of the water, oily and acrid, is back on his tongue like he never left. He thinks of the colourful shimmer of the water other children swam into while his leg and shy nature kept him away. The colours of chemical spills.
He tries to imagine the same scene but with the clear, pure water he sees every day in the fountains of Piltover. And he can't.
Heimerdinger praises the little thief's work and encourages him to wait years for something that is ready now. Something that would save lives. Something Zaunites could arrange themselves, if only they were trusted with gems—or even trusted to think for themselves and desire such a thing. This isn't some monstrous tower. It's four freshly cast pipes and the water turned off for a couple of hours while they're swapped.
What had Heimerdinger called it? A lovely idea. But not one he's in any rush to sponsor or even study.
At last Viktor feels something rip inside him. Something that had already been thin and strained, and that he has no words for. He isn't sure it can be mended, but what's one more broken part, at this point?
He rolls the blueprint and carefully tucks it back into its tube. Pushing himself up with his cane, he begins to pack. The note he leaves behind for Jayce says:
News came from my family, so I will be away for a couple of days. Nothing serious, but I haven't visited in too long. Heimerdinger has been over and is pleased with our progress, so may I suggest you also take some time off? We drank more coffee this month than all of last year.
He takes his own sketch of a closed loop, self cleaning sewer system with him, crumpling the paper and stuffing it in his bag before heading out. He locks the lab behind him and makes his way to the funicular.
It has been a long time since he's seen any of his relatives. Once they're done catching up, maybe they can point him in the direction of Vander's statue, and from there, hopefully a meeting with his secret student.
They have a lot to discuss.