Chapter Text
When at last the world stopped spinning, fracturing, fragmenting, then reforming, and Ekko’s brain was able to process his surroundings, he found himself right back where it all began, in the great domed chamber where the wild rune was housed.
Mindful of the intense lighting, he slowly blinked his eyes open and looked around. He was alone, but as the afterimages of the anomaly faded from his vision, he noticed there was one thing in the room that he was quite certain had not been there before.
It was a corpse. Sprawled on their front in a puddle of blood mere steps from the door, clearly struck down from behind as they made to leave the chamber.
‘Welcome home, I guess,’ Ekko thought bleakly, heart in his throat and hand on the Z-Drive’s cord, just in case the killer was still close by.
Quietly making his way closer, Ekko catalogued the scene with growing confusion. The corpse was of a slim young man dressed in very simple clothes of a style Ekko was entirely unfamiliar with, and which would have made for a downright painful experience in the frigid chill of this room. Barefoot, with thin cotton pants only reaching the knee, truly peculiar metallic ornamentation decorated the skin of the man’s legs like tattoos, right down to the soles of his feet. His head had been smashed into the floor as if crushed beneath a single heavy blow from something large, and nearby on either side of his body was what looked to be power cells, each containing an activated hexgem. The telltale colourful webbing of arcane corruption that creeped across the metal cylinders made it clear that they had been taken from the device behind him. Lastly, bloody shoeprints appeared just past where the body lay, revealing the killer to have gone through the door without a care for the scene left behind.
Ekko had taken stock of the path Jayce Talis followed on their way down here, and knew it was a straight line in and out of the facility, branching off only once the grand entrance to the Hextech gate was reached. The place was largely unmanned on the inside, or at least it had been at the time, so with any luck, Ekko surmised he might be able to make it back to Jayce’s lab, and the pipe system Heimerdinger had led them through, without running into any security measures or crazed killers.
Taking a deep breath, Ekko stepped around the pool of blood and approached the door. It slid open automatically with a gentle hiss, revealing an empty hallway beyond, the shoeprints heading straight for the lift. This too was empty, and Ekko spent the ride back up to the surface examining the killer’s prints that had been left inside. Whatever weapon was used had still been dripping blood, a small puddle and smear left where it had been set down roughly, while the killer himself seemed to have leaned against the control panel and then slid down to sit on the floor. Tired? Injured, but not actively bleeding?
The next few halls and doors opened into dim maintenance rooms, all empty, and a thin layer of dust had settled on every surface Ekko checked. When he finally caught sight of some windows, the light streaming in was that of streetlamps instead of the sun, but the stillness of the building ran deeper than that of mere afterhours. Ekko found it hard to imagine that the Hexgates would be shut down simply because their creators were presumably still missing, but for all intents and purposes, they were clearly not in use, and had not been in some time. It did his nerves no good to find that the gradually lessening drips and smears of blood continued to follow the same direction he himself was going, heading straight for the laboratory.
The door to the lab was open, and the room was empty, devoid of any hint as to what went on there, just as Jayce had left it. There were hardly any traces of blood now, but there didn’t need to be for Ekko to know exactly where the killer had gone. The grate in the floor was moved aside when he distinctly remembered it being put back in place before they had left months ago, and when he listened closely, he could hear a distant clamoring of footsteps and metal dragging against metal drifting out.
So not only had some maniac come out of the anomaly, but Ekko had been mere minutes behind him.
‘And now he’s heading straight for Zaun.’ Cussing under his breath, Ekko climbed down into the duct and set about following the noise as quietly as he could. Luckily, the killer was making no such attempt, and Ekko was able to keep up at a safe distance with ease.
The trek itself was another matter. The killer wasn’t taking the same path that Heimerdinger had followed, which was at once a relief and a concern. A relief because that path had begun distressingly close to the Firelight hideout, and a concern because Ekko now had no idea where they were, or where exactly they were headed. These vents were miles and miles of a chaotic and unmapped labyrinth that few ever ventured too deeply into; not even smugglers. What a humiliating waste it would be if Ekko ended up lost and starved to death here just because his curiosity made him follow the anomaly’s interloper instead of confronting him.
Before Ekko had too much time to work himself up about this potential, the noise up ahead reached a sudden crescendo with several huge clangs, a distant clatter, and then silence. The unmistakable sound of the killer busting open a grate leading to the outside.
Sure enough, when he rounded the next corner, he saw the duct open up onto the familiar dim light of the lower Entresol, and the scent of smog and gas reached his nose. Peering out cautiously, Ekko found himself overlooking a narrow alleyway, empty save for scattered bits of junk. At the far end of the alley, he caught a glimpse of a figure turning the corner, so once again he leapt down and hurried to stay on the man’s tail.
It was early morning now, as far as it was possible to tell at this depth, but even so, Ekko noticed that the streets were particularly quiet and absent of activity. Tension hung in the air, and what few people were out and about didn’t seem keen on lingering anywhere for too long, and kept their eyes to themselves even as they were passed by a man hauling a particularly huge, particularly flashy weapon.
Finally having the chance to at least see the back of the killer, the sinking feeling he had since the moment he’d seen the corpse solidified in his gut. The long white coat was a far cry from the pristine condition Ekko remembered, but even filthy and tattered, it was recognizable. The trimmed and slicked-back brown hair was now a long, tangled mop around the man’s head, and Ekko glimpsed a thick beard when he stopped to look around at a crossroads before continuing to walk straight ahead. But more than anything, it was the massive hammer being carried with ease that made Jayce Talis unmistakable even in this state. It was as different from the one he had brought down to the anomaly as he himself was from the way he’d looked back then, but to the exact opposite effect. This hammer was more of an extravagant art piece than a tool, ornamental to the point of uselessness for anything but bludgeoning with the uneven chunks of raw crystal laced with gold, forming a strangely butterfly-esque shape fused to the end of a white and gold shaft.
Nonetheless, a hammer was what it was, and Ekko couldn’t help but feel mildly impressed that this Jayce Talis had really hauled it through all those narrow passages he himself would have had to crawl through on all fours most of the time. Clearly it had taken a toll, because the man was favoring his left leg, and had the gait of a man who was either dead tired or more than a little drunk, and Ekko’s bet was on the former.
To Ekko’s relief, everyone else had the good sense to pick up on the feral aura the Not Quite Jayce Talis was giving off in waves, and none of them did more than eye the hammer with incredulity. It was too big to be worth the trouble of trying to pry it from its wielder, and too unique to risk pawning anyway.
Wherever Jayce was heading, he did not seem to have a clear idea of where it was, pausing at every alley and side street to peer down it and ponder before ultimately picking a direction, the only consistency being downwards, even though they were already well into the Sump. Eventually, Ekko turned a corner and found he had stopped in front of an older man sitting on the worn stone steps leading up to a residential building that had been carved out of the fissure wall. His leg was in a cast, crutches resting next to him as he drank heavily from a glass bottle.
Whatever Jayce said to him, the old man didn’t seem put off by it, only giving him a long once-over before making a few gestures, indicating directions. Jayce nodded when he finished, and then headed off again with the pace of a man who finally knew where he was going. But as far as Ekko could tell, it didn’t make his purpose any clearer— that was, until a handful of people gathered around the top of an ancient, raw stone stairway down to a particularly isolated ravine hurriedly stopped Jayce from descending, their expressions and body language revealing more concern about what awaited below than the strange man with the stranger weapon.
Ekko lingered just out of sight, watching Jayce argue with them for a minute before seemingly getting another set of directions, which apparently led him to forego the road altogether and begin clambering over a nearby ledge, apparently intending to climb down into the gorge the hard way.
Now intrigued for multiple reasons, Ekko threw caution to the wind and made his way over to the group. “What was up with that guy?” He jerked his head in the direction Jayce had gone.
The people had been watching him go as well, looking somewhat troubled. One glanced back at Ekko and seemed to recognize his Firelight facepaint, because he gave him a respectful nod and answered plainly. “He was headed to see the Herald, but a whole bunch of Noxians have set up camp just outside the commune, and they’re letting no one through. He seemed quite desperate, though, so Jen told him he might be able to climb down the slope that leads to the other end of the ravine.”
Well. This was not at all what Ekko was expecting to hear. Noxians this far down into Zaun? Nothing was there except for the ruins of an old neighborhood that had fallen from a higher level, and an encampment of people whom even Zaun society rejected. “What do you mean by ‘Herald’?”
The word caught the attention of the others, and to Ekko’s surprise, their eyes seemed to light up, smiles spread across each of their faces.
“The Herald of the new age for Zaun,” an older woman explained, awe in her voice. “Sent by the Blue Bird herself! He heals any sickness, any deformity, and purifies all rot and filth.” She leaned towards Ekko, as if eager to share a secret. “He will deliver us from Piltover and the Noxians alike. You Firelights ought to join forces with him!”
Ekko tried not to lean back too obviously. “I see. Uh, that's interesting. What are Noxians doing down there, though? Are they after him?”
No one has an answer to this, but they claimed the number of soldiers had been no less than twenty, and they brought with them a great many supplies. It did not sound like they were there for anything short of a siege, so Ekko quickly bid them farewell and took off for the cliffs and crevices that Jayce had gotten a headstart scaling down. He had a very bad feeling about all of this.
Ekko was no stranger to this terrain, but the wind-carved rock faces were smooth and winding, the walls honeycombed with caves both deep and shallow. The only way to know where to go was to follow the most open of spaces, and the faint flow of air drifting up from the cavern at the very bottom of the Sump. By the time Ekko glimpsed the vast space just beyond, he could not be sure if he had managed to pass by Jayce via a different path, or if Jayce had already made it out, but the time for stealthy tailing was over regardless, and the sight now laid out before him only raised the stakes all the more.
A “commune” indeed; the area which once was consumed by shadow and covered in meagre, ragged tents was now aglow with sunlight streaming down through cracks in the natural ceiling, and the sloping ground was strewn with a multitude of small but intricately designed structures of smooth sandstone, stained glass, and rich tapestries, each one unmistakably modeled after the Hexgate anomaly. On the far side sat the three largest structures, a massive imitation of the anomaly framed by two half-crescent spires, much like the design at the top of the Hexgate tower itself. A creek ran along the outer edge of the encampment, and on either side of it sprouted fields of greenery. People strolled to and fro, tending the plants, harvesting them, scooping water from the creek with buckets and pottery. The air was fresh and clean, the creek was clear as glass, and the scent of fresh-baked goods and ripe fruit filled Ekko’s lungs.
None of this should have been possible. Not even the Firelight grotto could boast such a pristine environment, and the population here was at least as many as lived there. Ekko’s mind raced as he drank in every detail. How was sunlight this bright and warm reaching down here? How were the water and air so clean? Where had all these resources come from? When his gaze narrowed down to the people, his heart caught in his throat. He recognized the plain robes and wraps, the glinting gold jewelry pressed into their skin. The dead man from the Hexgates had been one of them.
“Where is Viktor?” Ekko had watched as Heimerdinger’s question settled over Jayce like the weight of the world, folding him in on himself.
The man put his head in his hands. “...He was with me in the council room when the missile hit. He… he was hurt badly. Nothing the doctors could do. But he’d been making progress with the Hexcore, so… I brought him back here, and it… responded right away. Covered him in that stuff. It stabilized him, healed him perfectly, even his disease, but… when he woke up, he was upset. He left. I was just getting ready to go look for him.”
“Why was he upset?” Ekko wondered if whatever the Hexcore was, it had similar effects as Shimmer— a seeming “miracle drug” that could heal even grievous injuries in seconds, but which also came with an intoxicating rush of power and aggression in high doses. All too easy for a population that did hard labor in dangerous conditions to become addicted, and repeated misuse caused hideous tumors and deformities.
Jayce’s voice was filled with resignation as he explained, “A lot of reasons… I’d been screwing up. I broke a promise by saving him with the Hexcore. And he didn’t… he wasn’t himself. He was talking like he couldn’t understand his own senses.”
Heimerdinger had continued to stare quietly at the contraption that had caught his attention when he asked about Viktor. It was like a shallow, rectangular vat, propped up vertically and hooked up to a myriad of machines and monitors, now all shut down. The inside of the vat was filled to the brim with a dully luminescent substance with a pattern like torn cobwebs stretching across it. In the center was a deep indentation in the obvious shape of a thin man. After another minute of heavy silence, Heimerdinger finally let out a long, soft sigh.
“I’m so sorry you’ve both been through so much, my boy,” he said sadly.
This seemed to take Jayce by surprise. “Professor?”
Heimerdinger turned and walked back over. “I’m sure you’re expecting a lecture from me, but… I don’t think that’s what you need right now, and it won’t help either of our problems anyway.” He offered Jayce a kind smile. “I know I’ve called young Ekko here my pupil, but I’d say I’ve learned quite as much from him as he has from me, if not more! So we’ll try not to keep you long.”
Jayce was apparently so touched by this that he looked about to cry. Ekko didn’t quite know what to think about that, or any of this, but with any luck, none of it would ever become his problem.
So much for that. Who else would build a symbolic replica of the Hexgate in the style of the anomaly all the way in the bowels of Zaun, other than the Zaunite scientist who had helped create the originals in the first place? And now some murderous doppleganger of his partner was headed right for it.
Hand once more lingering on the Z-Drive, Ekko took off towards the encampment at full speed. A small bridge had been laid over the creek, and as he dashed across, he veered towards the nearest person, a young woman who was filling a pair of buckets tied to a yoke. He slowed his pace and stopped several feet away so as not to intimidate her, but when she spotted him, she merely smiled and straightened up to greet him without hesitation.
“Hello there! May I help you?”
“Sorry to bother you, but did a man come through here just recently? Carrying a big, uh, hammer thing?”
The woman nodded immediately. “Ah, yes! It was quite pretty, wasn’t it?”
That was one description, he supposed. “Did you see where he went?”
She turned and pointed deeper into the camp. “He looked quite ill, so he surely went to see the Herald. You’ll find him in that sphere on the hill, between the two pillars.” That was what Ekko had guessed, but the confirmation that Jayce was still ahead of him helped nonetheless.
“Thanks,” he replied quickly, and ran for the sphere as fast as he could.
Weaving between the smaller structures, no one Ekko passed attempted to stop him, and no one looked as though anything alarming was going on around them. At least Jayce wasn’t massacring everyone, he supposed.
And then there he was, a child leading him by the hand, directly into the great structure where the Herald apparently dwelled. He barely glanced down at the child as he headed deeper in by himself, and the child only turned around and skipped back out with a smile, perfectly at ease with the situation.
No time to dwell on the strange feeling raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Ekko tread quietly and quickly up to the entrance, finding a short tunnel-like hallway leading to a wide open space in the center of the sphere. Jayce stood just inside that space, swaying on his feet as he lifted the hammer up and aimed the top of it at something above.
The odd shape of the hammer’s head snapped open, each of the four “wing” segments shifting to reveal a brilliant glow within the “body.” Ekko remembered a similar function on the more conventional hammer Jayce had brought to the base of the Hexgates. A blue beam of hextech energy had shot out of it, serving as a key to unlock the chamber housing the anomaly. For anything else, Ekko knew the beam would have been devastatingly destructive.
4
Something was wrong. Ekko had kept moving forward almost against his will, sharp pains beginning to snap at his brain, and colourful distortions flashed before his eyes. That hammer was a product of the anomaly, it had to be. He could hear Jayce yelling, raw and guttural, echoing strangely, coming from everywhere and nowhere.
3
Ekko stopped just behind Jayce. Or rather, the center-most Jayce. Was it a trick of the hammer’s blinding light? An anomaly-induced hallucination? He was seeing quintuple. Over the Jayces’ shoulders, he caught sight of what all five hammers were aiming at. Within the hollow sphere, there was a man sitting cross-legged in mid-air, an indigo blanket draped around his waist. Neon blue tubing ran from the walls to plug into his spine, not holding him aloft, but feeding him the energy Ekko recognized as coming from the hexgem power cells for the Hexgate, like an IV drip or blood transfusion.
2
The man was motionless, unarmed, unprepared, and he stared down at Jayce with an expression that sent a shock of pain through Ekko’s heart. He knew that expression all too well. It haunted his dreams. Jinx. Her nose bloody as she lay on the bridge, looking up at him with fear, with hurt, with betrayal, once more the timid, sensitive girl whose company had long ago been his favorite in the world, instead of the irreverent maniac she had become. In that moment, years’ worth of resolve to end her life had crumbled to dust. Just a sinister ploy to buy time for her to trigger one of her own grenades in a murder-suicide attempt? After the months spent with Powder, he was no longer sure about it having been a ploy instead of an opportunity she simply took advantage of.
1
A massive beam of white lit up the room like the sun itself had been unleashed. An earth-shattering blast, quick as gunfire, and then it was gone. Ekko caught only a glimpse of the gaping hole in the man’s chest before the Z-Drive’s cord reached its limit, his hand having pulled it without even consciously deciding to. The view before his eyes snapped back four seconds in time. Jayce screaming. The hammer glowing. The man, his chest whole once more, stared down in dawning heartbreak. Ekko kicked out at the leg Jayce had been favoring on his journey here, striking the back of his knee. His leg folded in an instant, sending him off-balance as the weight of his hammer dragged him down. It fell to the ground with an almighty clang of metal and crystal on stone, the head’s mechanism snapping shut and sealing away the glowing light once more. But Jayce had still managed to keep one hand wrapped around it, even as his other clutched at his injured leg.
Without wasting a second, Ekko laced his fingers together and slammed his elbow down onto the muscles between Jayce’s neck and right shoulder with the strength of both his arms together. Then he grabbed Jayce’s left wrist and twisted it behind his back, leaning all his weight down onto the larger man until he collapsed, his stunned right arm and the long handle of the hammer pinned beneath him.
“Sorry, man,” Ekko said breathlessly, planting a knee on his lower back to keep him still. “But I can’t let you do that.” There had been no ploy in the man’s defenseless act, and no hesitation in Jayce’s. Just a cold-blooded murder. Ekko had stooped low many a time in his efforts to serve the greater good for Zaun, but he had founded the Firelights with a code of honor that was absolute, and it dictated that even a man like Silco deserved a fair fight instead of cowardly surprise attack. It was more than he’d ever given his victims.
In the wake of the flurry of action, a beat of deafening silence passed. And then Jayce howled, like a dying animal, like a man who had just lost everything. It was almost enough to startle Ekko into lurching back, but he felt Jayce’s muscles tense in preparation, and sure enough, in the next second, he began to writhe wildly, trying to free himself without any concern for his own safety.
“NO! GET OFF OF ME! I HAVE TO! I HAVE TO DO IT! I CAN’T FAIL!”
“Jayce!”
Struggling to keep his balance on the thrashing madman, Ekko looked up at the sound of a new voice to see that the floating man had descended, tubes now unplugged and retreating back into the walls. He now looked at Jayce in open shock and concern, reaching out to him as he stepped closer.
Jayce must have caught sight of this out of the corner of his eye, because his efforts to break free suddenly doubled, and Ekko had to drape himself entirely over him to prevent that.
“DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T YOU TOUCH ME! GET BACK!”
As if physically struck by Jayce’s words, the man staggered back a few steps and clutched his hands to his chest. He opened his mouth, but words seemed to fail him.
“Hey! What the hell is going on in there?!”
A shout from the entrance, a multitude of running footsteps, and Ekko turned to see the last collection of people he could have expected to run into down here.
Though her eyes were an unnatural shade of pink now, her face gaunt and deathly pale, and her hair kept in two long braids, the sight of the girl he had danced with just hours ago took all the breath from his lungs. She had frozen in her tracks, pistol in hand, and now stared down at him with a strange expression, as though she had seen a ghost.
Just as he remembered that, in this timeline, their last encounter with each other had indeed been on that bridge, and he’d laid low in the months since while his leg healed, the rest of his brain registered the identities of the other people crowding around. There was Vi, the one who had shouted, her hair toned black, pulling a bald man with a scarred face along by his arms she was keeping behind his back none too gently. Beside her was none other than Caitlyn Kiramman, whose eyes darted around the room as if she could barely grasp what she was seeing. And lastly, a small girl in a miner’s hat peered out from behind Jinx warily.
“Wait, Ekko?!” Vi had to continue to shout to be heard over Jayce’s ranting and raving. “What are you doing here? What’s—”
Jayce gave another hard thrash that almost managed to knock Ekko off, so he cut her off. “A little help here, first!”
To Vi’s credit, she didn’t argue, only shook Jinx’s shoulder to get her attention before leaving the bound man to her and heading over.
“We have to get the hammer away from him,” Ekko explained through gritted teeth, cautiously shifting his weight so that Vi only had to contend with Jayce’s grip as she tried to wrench it out from under him.
Jayce panicked at this, regaining some coherence. “NO, NO, NO! DON’T! I’VE GOT TO! I CAN’T FAIL, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I CAN’T FAIL! I PROMISED!”
Caitlyn gingerly circled around the scene until she was at an angle to lean down and peer at his face. Then she went white as a sheet and lunged onto her knees to duck under the hammer’s shaft and grab his shoulders. “Jayce?!”
The surprise was enough for Vi to finally pull the hammer from his grip, nearly toppling over as the sudden relinquishment unbalanced her. “Wait a second, that’s JAYCE?!” Setting the hammer down and leaning it against the far wall, she quickly rushed back over to get a better look as well.
Jayce had gone still as soon as Caitlyn had called his name, and as Ekko felt the tension bleed out of his body, he began gradually easing off of him, letting his arm go free first.
As if he felt no soreness in it at all, Jayce twisted it back around to grasp Caitlyn’s wrist, but he merely held onto it. His head was bowed to the ground as he struggled to regain his breath, and with great effort, he pushed himself up onto his elbows before lifting his head to look at her, drops of sweat staining the stone dark beneath him.
“Cait…” His voice was a hoarse mess, but it was still thick with a sense of desperation and despair.
Before he could say more, Caitlyn’s hands were cupping his face, pushing back his bangs, her eyes frantically searching for the man she knew.
Ekko could not claim to be truly familiar with Jayce Talis, but now that he had a chance to get a good look at the one before him now, even he could commiserate with Caitlyn’s horror.
The Jayce Talis that lay in a dirty, bedraggled heap could barely even be called a shadow of his former self. Beneath his dark beard and a thick layer of dirt, his cheeks were hollow from weightloss, and his skin was sun-starved. His eyes, though feverishly bright, were sunken, surrounded by crow’s feet and the dark bruises of sleeplessness. His lips were badly cracked, to the point of scarring in some places, and overall he looked as though he had aged a decade in the deepest pit of Stillwater— at best.
“Oh.. Jayce,” Caitlyn whimpered. “What happened to you?”
Jayce seemed to have no reply to that, and merely lowered his head again before beginning to stiffly work his way into a sitting position. When Caitlyn hurried to help support him, he didn’t refuse her.
Vi was shaking her head in disbelief, but then turned to the man who had not moved from the center of the room, his eyes still transfixed upon Jayce.
“Viktor,” Vi addressed him, and the name made Ekko cringe, his suspicion confirmed. “What happened here?”
So this really was what Viktor had become.
Heimerdinger had spoken of him highly every chance he got, praising his genius as well as his kindness, his resolute dedication to improve the living conditions of Zaun, only to find himself at death’s door all too soon thanks to those very conditions. A straggler of the last generation to suffer the worst of the congenital effects from their mothers’ lifelong exposure to the Gray, before the new ventilation system made the complications less terminal at least. Not even the wealth and fame of being one of the greatest innovators in Piltover had been enough to prevent the corrosion that would have been eating him from the inside-out. The Firelights had sheltered many people in those dreadful end stages, either hopelessly addicted to Shimmer –which at best bought them only a few more years of lessened pain– or critically in debt to whichever chembaron who had sponsored the augmentations of the ever-rising number of limbs and organs the disease spread to. That was the scheme of the century, having to lease out every extra second of time bought by those procedures until you owed more than even a healthy human’s lifespan. And anyone who could afford such “sponsorships” would then have themselves an “employee” who couldn't quit, couldn't complain about the wages or hours, and certainly couldn't refuse any order you gave them. As such, Viktor had to have gotten no augmentations to treat his condition, and the painful price of that warranted enough of Ekko’s respect to make up for his going topside.
And now, here he apparently was, back in Zaun as a miracle-worker called “The Herald,” and very, very nearly, the victim of his own partner’s murderous rampage. He was pale and gaunt in his own right, long brown hair touched with white even though he should have been no older than mid-30s. His figure was tall but slight, built with a sense of fragility that reminded Ekko of Jinx. But now that he could really look closely, he realized that the indigo blanket around Viktor’s waist was in fact the only thing clothing him, and the purple and gold clinging to his body from neck to fingertip was something not even the most sophisticated of augmentations could achieve.
It almost looked as though his skin had been flayed clean off, but the raw cords of muscle and fascia beneath were not the red and white of flesh, but a glossy, dark purple with golden bronze accents. Even what seemed to serve as veins and nerves were now like shimmering cables and wires, and his ribs and breastbone resembled manmade machinery more than anything organic. He was as beautiful as he was eerie.
At the mention of his name, Viktor seemed to snap out of the stupor he had been in since Jayce had yelled at him. His eyes –his eyes were iridescent– shifted to Vi briefly before his somewhat stunned expression evened out into an a closed-off neutral. Wordlessly, he pulled up some of the blanket around his waist and arranged it to wrap around his shoulders, each movement slow and meticulous, then he turned away and strode towards where a long, ornate staff leaned against the wall. Everyone else in the room remained just as silent, on edge and yet entranced as they waited and watched him take up the staff and make his way back over.
“Jayce has been touched by the arcane,” when at last he spoke, his voice was quiet and calm, as if the nearly incomprehensible statement was as simple and straightforward as a remark on the weather. “He is not fully himself.” Slowly, as if he was approaching a cornered animal, he crouched beside his old partner and reached out.
Despite Viktor’s efforts, as soon as Jayce caught sight of that slender purple hand in the corner of his vision, he lurched away faster than anyone could have expected, crawling backwards until he hit the wall. “DON’T YOU TOUCH ME!” To Ekko’s surprise, there was far more panic in his voice than rage.
Caitlyn nearly toppled over when Jayce had shot out from her grasp, and Vi jumped forward to steady her. Viktor had not so much as twitched, and continued to hold himself very still, but hurt was once again evident in his eyes. “And it seems to have affected him far worse than I even realized.”
“Actually,” Ekko spoke up, unsure of how to even begin to explain his suspicions without making the situation an even more confusing mess for everyone involved. “There’s a possibility that this Jayce Talis isn’t exactly the same one we all remember."
All eyes turned to him, even Jayce’s.
Viktor stood back up, head cocked to the side in curiosity. “What do you mean?”
Deciding that the best course of action for now was to assume Viktor knew about the anomaly –a fair guess, considering the aesthetics of this entire place– and only bother with quickly explaining what Viktor was most likely to understand. “A few months ago, Jayce, Heimerdinger and I got sucked into the Hexgate anomaly. I don’t know what it did with Jayce, but Heimerdinger and I ended up in an alternate timeline. One that was… pretty different. I just got back from it, and Jayce, this Jayce, apparently did a few minutes before me. I followed him all the way from there to here, because uhh,” —perhaps not the best time to mention that Jayce had killed someone— “he definitely wasn’t like this going into the anomaly. The chances of this Jayce being from a VERY different timeline than this one… isn’t zero.”
As expected, the information was met with jaw-dropped stares of confusion and incredulity, except for the scarred man, –whose one good eye continued to intently look on all too keenly– Viktor, who thankfully seemed neither confused nor incredulous, and Jayce, who glared daggers at Ekko.
“I’m from this timeline, same as you,” he snapped. “you and the professor broke into my lab, told me about your tree problem, and then we went and found the anomaly.”
Ekko had figured that much had to be the same, for Jayce to have known that the drain in his lab led to Zaun, but some things being the same wasn’t good enough. “And before that? What major events have happened?”
Jayce growled in frustration. “The chembaron who ran the Shimmer factory I raided attacked the memorial for the councilors who died when Jinx launched a Hextech-powered rocket at the council room. Before that, there was a massacre of Enforcers on the bridge. Before THAT, Jinx robbed our lab, which is where she got the Hexgems and our research. That familiar enough?”
The memorial attack was news to Ekko, though apparently not to anyone else, judging by their reactions. But before anything more could be said, Viktor suddenly seemed to be distracted by something, his head tilting back slightly while his eyes unfocused for a few seconds before they snapped over to land on the scarred old man with a dark glare. “I’m afraid this matter will have to wait. The Noxians are not at all pleased that their plan has failed.”
The man was impressively unphased, and merely shrugged in a less-than-sincere show of contrition.
Caitlyn jumped to her feet. “Viktor! I…” she faltered, but quickly steeled herself. “I can help get them to at least leave you be for now. I know you have no reason to trust me after everything, but I have to try.”
Viktor gave her an appraising look, neither trustful nor suspicious. “May I ask, why the change of heart? The one you’ve hunted is right before you, and we have no means of defense.”
Ekko glanced over at Jinx, who herself was exchanging a glance with Vi. To his surprise, she seemed to be quietly telling her sister not to intervene.
Caitlyn kept her eyes on Viktor, expression twisted with remorse. “I know. But I.. I’m tired of all this. I’ve been tired. Revenge won’t bring my mother back. It won’t even make me feel better, and the cost has been… No amount
of good deeds can undo my crimes, or hers, but… I want to– I have to, believe that it’s not too late to make the right choice.”
It was a hard pill to swallow, even now that Ekko knew he had to agree with her sentiment. Another glance at Jinx left him momentarily startled to meet her gaze directly before she hurriedly looked away again. But in that instant, he could swear he caught a glimpse of the girl he loved behind those haunted eyes.
Viktor watched Caitlyn for a few seconds longer, then gave her a faint smile and a nod. “There is always a choice.” With one last brief look at Jayce, he headed for the exit. “Come, doctor. Let us return you to your comrades.”
“Wait, you’re just gonna let him go?” Vi spoke up finally, hurrying to follow Viktor and Caitlyn.
“This is not a place where people are to be kept against their will, nor executed for any reason,” Viktor responded without looking back. He paused beside Jinx, holding out his hand towards a circular device on her belt.
Jinx seemed torn, but she gave it to him anyway. “Fine. But if he tries it again, he’s getting it right between the eyes.”
“I appreciate the warning,” the old man said, his singular good eye watching impassionately as Viktor took two differently coloured vials from where they plugged into the device and examined them briefly before handing them back to Jinx –to her surprise– and offering the device to the man, who slipped it into his pocket with a nod of appreciation.
Jinx, the small girl who clung to her, Ekko, and Jayce soon found themselves alone in the spherical chamber together, an awkward silence hanging over them.
Ekko turned his attention back to Jayce just in time to notice he had begun to shift towards where his hammer still rested against the wall a ways away. Ekko darted between them. “Nope, we’re not doing that again. Come on, let’s get you someplace else for a while.”
Jayce snarled at him. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“Maybe not entirely, but I’ve seen what you’re capable of, and it’s not something I’m inclined to just sit back and watch.” Ekko offered him a hand up, but Jayce shoved it away and painstakingly climbed to his feet on his own.
Jinx’s eyes flicked back and forth between them before she decided to cut the tension with her usual tact. “So are you two coming to see if the Noxians are gonna kill us all, or not?” Without waiting for an answer, she spun on her heel and strode outside, the little girl lingering just long enough to shoot a narrow-eyed warning look at Jayce before hurrying to catch up.
Ekko sighed. Jinx’s multiplying act had officially gone too far. To Jayce, he said, “can you please just.. not start anything for a while? Take a minute to get your bearings at least, man. You look like you’ve been through hell.”
Jayce grimaced, but there was resignation in the way he began limping for the door, so Ekko took it as a good sign.