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The first time Viktor opened his eyes, it was during a storm.
Jayce would remember that night forever—the way the lightning tore apart the sky just as the body on the stretcher lurched, gasped, and then went still. The glass vials shuddered in their clamps. The hexcore pulsed once, dimmed, and then held steady. And the man… the man breathed.
Not a breath like a man waking from sleep.
No, it was like the world was forcing itself into him—air, light, sound—all rushing into a hollow shell and trying desperately to fill it.
Pulsating and creaking at the sewn seams, and it— he— tried lifting his head. The man he created— moving and alive. He could feel it getting near, that spark from when an invention worked out, a reward for years of hard work paid off. It never came. He wanted more. This couldn’t be right, though; he’d meet his judgement soon.
It was like creating matter. Ineffable.
Thin eyelids lifted to reveal one violet and one hazel eye— each from a different head— paired with attractively long lashes and a crooked nose. He was.. beautiful. Absolutely star striking.
The bumpy curve of his nose, the pronounced cupids bow, and cheekbones that could cut diamond, all of it was too much. Jayce wanted to cry.
“..Viktor. Your name is Viktor.”
He spoke with utmost tenderness, speaking the words like a prayer. Viktor was beautiful.
And estranged babble left the man’s chapped lips, a sweet mixture of a “huh?” And a “bleh”, touching his jaw and feeling the texture of the bumpy hexcore, purple and pulsating with new blood. This pattern spread down to his toes, veins like rivers of light seeping across his arms like a field of lavender. Renewed, completely unlike the body parts he used to make Viktor. This beauty was the Arcane’s doing.
————————————————————
“Your mom’s been up my ass all morning” Jayce vented to Caitlyn. Ever since he acquired his position on the Council, Council member Kiramman has been on him about every little thing.
“I mean that’s my mother for you.” Caitlyn replied, unsurprised. Cassandra Kiramman was a strong woman with a strong will, and Jayce was getting the brunt of it.
“I just don’t understand. She gave me a seat on the council for my ‘innovative mind’, and yet she shuts down all my ideas.”
“You’re just not very sociable.” Cait replied
“You just don’t know how to properly communicate your inventions. All you need is the right words and you’ll be in the clear.” Caitlyn was right of course, but it still stung a bit to Jayce; not knowing the correct way to speak to his biggest sponsor.
_______
Back at the lab, Jayce tended to the hexcore. Recently, by way of total coincidence, he found out the anomaly was very.. interested in biological matter.
He first noticed this fascination when he had accidentally tipped over a potted plant gifted to him by Mel into the Hexcore. It warped, bended, disintegrated, and ultimately was absorbed by the core, spitting out a new creature, something living, something breathing, something brand new.
It was.. beautiful. Glowing violet with veins of pure light and gold, beauty in and of itself.
“Inconceivable.”
He whispered, because that is what it was.
Inconceivable.
———
After finally snapping out of admiration and admittedly, terror, he rushed to go inform Sky of his discovery. She was bright, yes? Yes. It’s smart to get second opinions.
“Sky!” Jayce yelled, trying to articulate what just happened. “It— it! The hexcore!” He tried to catch up with the young lady, panting.
“Jayce?” Sky stopped, pulling him aside into an empty laboratory. “Jayce what’s going on? You look a mess. What did it do?” She asked, somewhat concerned.
“The hex core! It ate a plant! Kinda? But then spat out a— a brand new one!” Jayce said, sounding like a lunatic.
“What?” Sky said. “What do you mean, it ‘ate a plant’.” Jayce began to explain the events leading up to him running up to sky.
“So I’m pretty sure that the Hexcore can take organic matter and change its DNA” he said, “Making it something completely new..” with a hint of dangerous fascination gleaming through his eyes.
“We have to do more experiments! We have to figure out how to harness these— these life producing properties!”
Sky, however, wanted to be more cautious, and rightfully so. “Whoa, hey, slow down. I really think we should just take this slow. Or at least be careful. It sounds.. dangerous. Remember what Heimerdinger said?”
“Fuck that, sky. This is revolutionary.” Jayce grinned with the excitement of a child, ecstatic.
“I’m not.. I can’t do this, Jayce. I’m sorry.” Sky said, regret tasting on her tongue. She looked apologetic, yet hesitance laced her features.
“That’s.. that’s okay. I can’t do this myself, Sky. I’ll miss your input, though.” Jayce smiled, a hint of sadness in the expression.
_____
The lab was soaked in soft sunlight diffused by the rain-fogged windows. Jayce hadn’t slept. He’d spent the night pacing between the stretcher Viktor was on and the Hexcore, hands stained with ink and graphite from scribbled theories and frantic diagrams.
Viktor hadn't moved again.
He sat there, half-wrapped in gauze and stained linen, his head bowed, eyelids fluttering occasionally, as though in some kind of slow, dreaming stasis. His body radiated faint warmth—unnatural warmth. The light
embedded in his veins blinked with slow, deliberate pulses, like a heartbeat being taught to beat.
Jayce stared.
A hundred questions fought for dominance in his mind, but only one made it to his lips.
“Are you… aware?”
No answer. Only the faint sound of something wet shifting inside Viktor’s chest as the Hexcore pulsed. Not mechanical. Not organic. Something else. Something becoming.
Jayce stepped closer, the rubber soles of his boots whispering against the tile.
Suddenly, Viktor’s fingers twitched.
Jayce froze.
Another twitch—then the fingers splayed slightly, curling again. Not in reflex. Not quite. Like a question forming beneath the skin.
Jayce’s breath caught. “That’s it. That’s… yes. Come on. Come on.”
Viktor’s eyes opened—slowly, deliberately, like a curtain being drawn back from the world. The color had shifted again, now a shimmering storm-grey, fractured with veins of lavender that pulsed with the same rhythm as the Hexcore. They locked with Jayce’s, distant yet unbearably present, as if gazing through him and into something deeper—something of arcana.
Jayce felt his stomach twist. This wasn’t just a man. This was a mirror of what Hextech could become. A question made flesh.
Viktor blinked once. Slowly. His lips parted—dry, cracked—and sound escaped, soft and hoarse, like wind rasping through broken leaves.
“…Ja…yce.”