Chapter Text
Through me you go to the grief wracked city; Through me you go to everlasting pain; Through me you go a pass among lost souls. Justice inspired my exalted Creator: I am a creature of the Holiest Power, of Wisdom in the Highest and of Primal Love. Nothing till I was made was made, only eternal beings. And I endure eternally. Surrender as you enter, every hope you have.
Dante’s Inferno
Viktor
Viktor thought he knew pain. A constant companion through his life, dogging his every step, he thought himself inured to it, numb to its growl and bite.
He had been wrong.
It had all been going precisely according to plan. The local analgesic had been easy enough, the slim needle barely registering amid the constant dull ache of pain. The tourniquet had gone well, too, and he’d ratcheded up the tightness until his entire leg went numb. A quick test with a scalpel had caused blood to well sluggishly from his thigh, but there had been no sensation. Before he let himself think too much about what he planned to do, he shoved the rubber strap into his mouth, bit down hard, and ripped the cord on the power saw. It started up with a chugging hiss of steam, clanking and rolling as it built up speed, its jagged edges smoothing into a blurred line.
Viktor was a genius, but he was a scientist, and he knew enough of failure to know that it visited fools and geniuses alike in experimentation.
Two seconds into applying the saw to his leg, and he realised his error. It cut through his skin and the fat layer below with barely a push, but his thigh was thin from years of wasting, and the saw hit bone before he had been ready.
Perhaps he had been less of a genius, and more of a fool, after all.
He didn’t think he ever would have been ready for that bright, electric pain, like being hit by lightning. His whole body seized and he screamed into the rubber, drool bubbling up at the edges of his mouth. Blood fountained from his leg, spattering across the floor and the uneven stack of books against the wall. With frantic, clumsy hands, he pushed the saw up and away from his thigh. He could feel himself going fuzzy at the edges, slipping into darkness. It would serve him right if he passed out now, and bled to death on the floor of his workshop before anyone came to find him.
Why had he been so determined to go it alone? He had been so confident in himself, but now as he watched gouts of his blood pulse thickly down his useless, twisted leg, that confidence felt foolhardy. The world tilted, and he only just caught himself against his worktable. The table rocked, unsteady even with two cork drink mats shoved under the short leg, pilfered from the Last Drop by small, mischievous hands. Vander had raised an eyebrow when he’d seen them, the last time he’d visited Viktor in his workshop with yet another mask for fixing.
‘Those cost money to print, you know,’ he’d said.
‘I bought them, fair and square, for three sweets and a new screwdriver,’ Viktor had replied, glad his guilty expression was mostly hidden by his goggles.
Now, drowning in the tidal wave of pain, Viktor leant across his workbench, not caring about the blood he was smearing all over his careful notes and schematics. He stretched out his fingers towards the hanging cord, woven with pink and blue threads, decorated with a sign;
In case of emergency.
With the last of his strength, he wrapped his hand around the cord and pulled down as hard as he could. The effort sent him tumbling off his chair, but he had already surrendered to the pain and blood loss before he hit the floor.
Jayce
The destroyed open wall of his apartment gave a beautiful view over the dreaming spires of Piltover, its lights glittering in the dark like a more glorious reflection of the stars above. When Jayce stood at the very edge of the floor, dust crumbling beneath his shoes and falling into the void below, he could see all the way to the undulating, everpresent smog that hung above the Undercity like a smoky sea.
Exile, jail, it made no difference. Not anymore. A cool wind caressed his face as he looked out across two cities, full of people living their lives, dreaming their dreams. His dream had been close enough to touch, close enough to taste. He could still feel that buzz of magic beneath his hands from those gems.
And now, all gone. His notes, his work, his plans.
The council would decide his fate tomorrow, but it hardly mattered. He didn’t care what happened to him. It would be easier, perhaps, if he simply… took himself out of the equation. His mother would be better off without the shame he would bring to her and their house. It would only take a small step, a simple movement, a gentle tip over into the void.
He only realised his cheeks were wet when the wind blew colder on the tear tracks. He shifted his right leg, tensed his muscles, began to move forwards-
A light erupted in the grey-green Undercity sea, colouring the smoke blue in a small, bright patch. The same bright blue as the gemstones. Jayce sucked in gasp and staggered back, away from the edge, unable to tear his eyes away from that ripple of blue.
The thieves had been from the Undercity, the enforcers said. They’d followed him back to his house, and stolen the gems back. Some of them had been confiscated by Heimerdinger and were slated for destruction along with the rest of Jayce’s research, but the thieves had stolen the others.
There were gems in the Undercity. The last vestiges of Jayce’s research, his life’s work, his dream, were hidden somewhere in that sea of smog.
If his options were exile or prison anyway, then why not disappear into the Undercity before the council made a decision about his fate? He could save his mother the heartache - he could disappear before the Talis reputation was tarnished forever.
Gripped with new purpose, Jayce stepped further back from the edge, his hands curling and uncurling in growing excitement. He would say goodbye to his mother, pack whatever he could carry, and chase his dream into the depths of the Undercity for as long as he could.
*
Even in his cheapest, plainest clothes, he had been tagged as a Piltovan the moment he stepped off the bridge into the Undercity proper, and he’d been aware of being followed even as he travelled through the promenade and further into the lanes. He hoped that if he moved quickly and ignored his tail, he could make it to the shop he’d sourced the crystals from before any unpleasantness. He hadn’t thought much beyond getting to the shop, but he could figure out next steps from there.
To his horror, when he arrived he found the shop was closed, its grimy windows dark and empty, and the men caught up with him before he could plan his next move.
He’d taken nothing down to the Undercity with him except the clothes on his back and a small pouch of coins, not wanting his mother to know he was leaving forever in case she tried to stop him. He’d planned to rely on his natural resourcefulness to make it stretch far enough to keep him alive until he found work. No doubt the muggers had been expecting Piltovan riches, and they showed their disappointment thoroughly.
Jayce had tried to fight back, but the first blow had sent him spinning into a brick wall, and the resulting blurriness had made the rest of the event rather one-sided. They’d kicked him for a while after he’d gone down, but seemed to grow bored when he stopped making any noises, and then they’d dragged him into a dark alley and left him there.
He didn’t know how long he’d been lying on the damp floor. The pain had subsided, or maybe he’d just grown used to it. His eyes were open, but he could only see smears of colour, like an impressionist painting. There was no pain, so long as he did not move. Above him, the low lights of the Lanes swam in a nauseating swirl.
Flashes of blue and pink swam across his blurry canvas. His eyes were so dry, but he couldn’t even find the strength to blink.
‘See, boss? Dead Piltie.’ The voice was high and young and close. ‘You said you wanted to know about fresh dead bodies.’
More blue smeared across his vision. Small fingers fumbled at his wrist. Jayce tried to protest, but even though his mouth was open, no sound came out. It was a curious sensation - like his spirit had been severed completely from his physical body. He lay there inert, a ghost in a useless, fleshy prison.
Another figure loomed over him, right into his line of sight, close enough that some of the blur resolved into clearer lines. It was a taller figure, an adult, with a tall staff in one hand and what looked like a third arm coming out of his back and reaching over his shoulder. The man wore a strange mask of plain metal, like a modified enforcer’s mask, and Jayce got a closer look at it as the figure crouched down towards Jayce’s body.
Cool fingers tugged at Jayce’s collar and pressed against his neck.
‘He’s not dead,’ said the man, the mask modulating his voice, but not enough to hide an accent Jayce didn’t recognise. The pressure disappeared from his neck as the man drew back, leaning heavily on his staff.
‘He’s not?’ One of the children huffed.
‘He’s the one we stole from.’ Another voice, a little deeper, perhaps older than the first, but still obviously a child. Were all the children down here cutthroat little thieves, or was Jayce just unlucky to run into the same ones twice? What were the chances that his thieves would be the ones to find him?
‘He’ll be dead soon enough,’ scoffed another.
The mask continued to stare down into Jayce’s open eyes. Jayce wished he could see the man’s face. If he was going to die, he didn’t want the last thing he ever saw to be an expressionless metal plate. When the mask withdrew upwards and became indistinguishable from the rest of the blur, Jayce regretted that thought - any face would be better than nothing.
The third arm moved, opening at the end to reveal a claw, then descended down towards Jayce with a speed that would have made him flinch had he been able to move.
‘If he is indeed the one you stole from,’ said the man, as the claw curled into the front of Jayce’s shirt, ‘then he may be of use to us.’
‘Only good piltie’s a dead piltie,’ said one of the children, sourly.
‘You should not always listen to your fathers.’ The claw lifted, purple steam hissing from its many articulated joints, dragging Jayce upwards. Pain shot through his chest where his ribs were bruised or broken, and his hands fell limply at his sides. ‘Help me get him back to the lab.’
A lab. That sounded promising. Perhaps a fellow scientist would sympathise with his plight, maybe even help him recover his gemstones from these gods-damned children.
‘What’s in it for us?’ There was a flash of bright green, then, mixing in with the purple and blue.
‘Hmm, the reward of helping save a life.’
The following silence was unimpressed.
‘And perhaps I still have some sweets left in the cupboard.’
‘I want to make fireworks again!’ The youngest, highest voice cried.
‘Eh, that can be arranged.’
Cheers erupted, and small hands grabbed at Jayce’s arms and legs.
Jayce was half carried, half dragged through the Undercity. Somewhere along the way he lost consciousness, the blur fading fully to darkness, and he woke on a hard mattress with several springs sticking into his back.
He blinked a few times, his eyes sticky with sleep. The blur had gone and he could see again. There was a low light in the room, the sound of a scratching pen, and he sat up to get a better look.
Pain exploded in his temples and he fell back down to the bed, gasping.
‘You may want to move a little slower.’ It was that accent again, only stronger now, no more modulation from that metal mask. ‘Someone hit you pretty hard in the head.’
Jayce twisted, trying to get a better look at the source of the voice, only for further pain to erupt across his ribs. He gasped again, hot tears prickling his eyes.
‘Ah, yes. They also hit you pretty hard in the chest.’ There was the sound of chair legs scraping, then heavy footsteps, accompanied by the clunk of a staff. A man came into view, tall and thin, gaunt cheeks under a mop of dark, messy hair, and the largest eyes Jayce had ever seen, the colour of molten metal.
‘You,’ Jayce rasped. The man had the same silhouette as the one who’d rescued him from those bloodthirsty children, only now he was sans mask and third arm-claw device, and looked almost normal save for the staff, which with his clearer vision Jayce could now see was more accurately described as a cane.
‘You gave the children quite a fright.’ The man tilted his head to the side. ‘They were worried you’d come down to exact your revenge.’
Jayce huffed a laugh, and his ribs burned in protest. He patted at his chest, feeling only bandages and skin - his shirt had been removed. His wrist, too, was bare. His rune was gone. He wracked his brains to try and remember if he’d still had it in the alley, or if it had been taken after the children had found him.
‘The doctor bandaged your ribs and your head wound,’ the man continued. ‘We left your trousers on, so don’t worry - your virtue and dignity are both still intact.’
Jayce no longer had any dignity after his embarrassment in front of the council, and he and his virtue had long since parted ways, but it didn’t seem like the time to bring that up with his apparent rescuer.
‘Where am I?’ he rasped.
‘You are in my lab, on Emberflit Alley.’
Jayce’s face must have gone as blank as his brain, because the man coughed, and added, ‘in the Undercity.’
The bed had wooden sides, raised higher than the mattress. Jayce used them to lever himself up slowly, painfully, and finally got a good look at his surroundings.
Calling it a ‘lab’ was perhaps overegging it a bit, but three of the four walls were blackboards covered with scrawled chalk equations and papered over with diagrams and drawings. Two long workbenches were littered in metal and wires, and a pair of goggles lay abandoned on the desk. There was one window, high up on the opposite wall, and it was sealed. Faint, wintry light filtered through, tinged blue-grey.
Jayce was in a small cot bed to the side of the chaos, covered in knitted blankets and threadbare sheets that smelt faintly of some spice that reminded him of his mother’s baking. His rescuer watched him take it all in, intrigue clear in the purse of his lips.
‘You saved me.’ Jayce swung his legs over the edge of the bed, biting back a groan as pain shot up his ribs again. His head throbbed in time with his pulse.
‘You are lucky the children found you when they did. I doubt you would have lasted long out there without help.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’ Jayce asked. ‘If anything, I’m a danger to the kids while I’m alive, since they stole from me.’
The threat was weak, even to Jayce’s own ears. The man cocked his head even further, and there was an amused twist to his thin lips now. Jayce wasn’t sure why he was trying to convince his rescuer that he was dangerous - perhaps something had been knocked loose in his brain when the muggers had got him.
‘You came down here alone, without friends or enforcers. I doubt anyone topside knows where you are.’ Those sharp golden eyes tracked every movement Jayce made, every minute twitch of his expression, and those thin lips quirked higher. ‘Why did you even come down here?’
Jayce shrugged. He examined his saviour - a man around his own age, a whipcord lean body emphasised by the angle of his hips propped up by his cane, and those molten eyes glowing in a sharp-cut, pale face.
‘It seems almost suicidal,’ the man prompted, and Jayce realised he was staring.
‘I had nothing to live for,’ Jayce admitted, not sure why he was spilling his soul to a stranger. ‘My research - everything was taken from me. I face exile or Stillwater. I only thought - if there were still some gemstones down here, then perhaps I could continue my work…’
‘So you are mad.’ The man hummed. ‘I assumed as much.’
‘I’m not mad.’ Jayce flailed around for what he was. ‘Just… driven.’
The man snorted.
‘You almost died in a dark alley in the lanes. Driven is certainly one word for it. But…’ and he bit his lip, still watching Jayce so closely that Jayce felt like a pinned specimen squirming under a microscope. ‘You are clearly not without intelligence. And your research… intrigues me.’
‘The enforcers took all my notes. But I could probably recreate it, if given the time,’ Jayce said, slowly, sensing an opportunity. ‘If you could lend me the space in your… lab, then perhaps I could-’
He’d begun to stand, but pain had shot through his side once more and stolen his voice; the man pressed the end of his cane into Jayce’s shoulder and pushed him back down to the bed, amusement plain on his sharp face.
‘You are hardly in the position to make any promises, Jayce Talis,’ he said, that accent curling around his name so delicately that it made Jayce shiver. The hard end of the cane was still pressed into the meat of his shoulder. How did the man know his name? ‘Here’s my offer to you. I find myself in need of an… assistant, for want of a better word. If you work for me, for two years, and at the end of those two years, you have proved yourself sufficiently… capable, then we shall see about restarting your research.’
Jayce gaped at him. Jayce couldn’t believe he was actually considering the offer. He barely knew the man - and what he did know was damning. The man was in league with the child reprobates who’d stolen his gemstones and blown up his apartment. But Jayce had come down to the Undercity well aware that it would be a one-way trip. Stillwater, exile, or stay here, in this tiny, makeshift laboratory, working for a man mad and intelligent enough to build himself a mechanical third arm?
‘I don’t even know your name.’
The pressure of the cane released, and the man rested it back against the floor with a clunk. This close, Jayce could see that the angular lines of his face were softened by a few small moles.
‘It’s Viktor,’ he said.
*
Jayce dozed on and off, the pain waxing and waning, as he listened to the soft clinking and clattering of Viktor working on the other side of the glorified lab. The pain was waxing with intent when loud chatting and clattering echoed from behind the walls, stamping feet on wooden steps, and the door burst open.
Two children fell into the lab in a riot of pink and blue, bringing with them a bag that smelt greasy, meaty, and delicious.
‘Violet, Powder,’ Viktor said, not looking away from his desk, his goggles on as he soldered. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Vander sent food.’ The larger child, with bright pink hair, held up the bag with the air of a conquering warlord holding up the decapitated head of their enemy. ‘Said you hadn’t eaten today yet, and you need to keep your blood sugar up after the leg thing.’
‘And we got extra for your pet Piltie,’ trilled the younger, blue-haired child.
Viktor switched off his soldering iron and pushed his goggles up with a sigh. They left imprints on his cheeks below his dark rings and made his hair stick up. He looked like the epitome of a mad scientist from a children’s book.
‘Put it on the side, please, Violet,’ Viktor said, with a distracted wave. ‘I’ll eat later.’
Jayce levered himself upright, hissing as the pain flared again. His stomach rumbled loudly enough that both children swung around to look at him.
‘Oh, he’s awake,’ said the pink-haired one, who on closer look was less a child and more a teen, maybe similar to Caitlyn’s age. Jayce pushed thoughts of Caitlyn down to stay buried with the thoughts of his mother, too painful to dredge up now.
‘And hungry.’ Viktor pinned him down with a golden stare. ‘Perhaps we should eat.’
Jayce tried to eat politely, but the moment the first bite hit his tongue and exploded with salt and fat, he devoured it like a man possessed. He paused only to breathe when he absolutely had to.
Violet and Powder watched with mixed expressions of delight and disgust.
‘Are you sure he’s a piltie?’ Violet asked. ‘I thought they were supposed to have manners.’
‘Even pilties get hungry,’ Powder said, rather philosophically in Jayce’s opinion.
Viktor, who had barely touched his own food, limped over to a cupboard and rummaged in it, pulling out a bottle of pills.
‘Painkillers,’ he said. ‘Better on a full stomach.’
Jayce eyed them warily. He may have been stupid enough to walk into the Undercity and immediately get himself attacked, but he knew better than to accept drugs from strangers. Viktor rolled his eyes, shook out three pills onto his palm, and swallowed one dry. He tossed the bottle onto the cot, next to Jayce.
He didn’t drop dead, so Jayce was confident that he could trust them. The pain was also climbing to an unbearable level.
‘How many should I take?’ Jayce may have been reckless, but he wasn’t actively suicidal. At least, not anymore.
‘You’re a bit larger than me.’ Viktor looked Jayce up and down. ‘You might need two.’
Jayce took two, and the world went delightfully fuzzy and floaty.
‘What’s in these?’ he asked, examining his hands, which looked strange and glowy in the lights. Giggles sounded near his ear, and something flicked his temple. He grabbed for whatever pest was bothering him, but he was too slow. His muscles felt like they were pushing through molasses.
‘Hmm. On second thought, I may have built up a tolerance.’ A cool hand smoothed back the hair fallen loose from its pomade prison, and tipped him back onto the cot.
*
When he surfaced again from the drug-soaked sleep, the single window in the lab was dark, and the children had gone. Viktor was still at his desk, tinkering at a machine that Jayce’s sleep-blurred eyes couldn’t make out.
‘Wha’ time is it?’ Jayce groaned, rubbing his face with his hands. His head still throbbed, but it was a far away pain, and as long as he didn’t move, his ribs were manageable.
‘Late.’ Viktor spun around in his chair. ‘Do you have anywhere to go?’
‘Go?’ Jayce’s eyes burned thinking of his destroyed apartment, his bedroom at his mother’s house, preserved like a shrine.
‘Yes, go.’ Viktor’s accent was laced with irritation. ‘You said you have nothing in Piltover anymore, but surely you did not just walk into Zaun with only the clothes on your back.’
Jayce stared resolutely at the ceiling as the hot flush of embarrassment crawled up his neck. Viktor heaved a large, wheezing sigh.
‘Of course,’ he muttered, ‘of course.’
A horrible thought struck Jayce, then, watching Viktor hunched over the desk. ‘Is this your bed? I can - I can leave…’ He had no money, but perhaps he could find somewhere that would give him bed and board for manual labour. Maybe even down in the mines he’d wanted to invent for.
‘No, no.’ Viktor was scrubbing his hands through his hair, making it stick up even more than the goggles had. ‘You won’t find anything. Not without money. The cot is for late nights. I have other… lodgings I can use.’
His face looked torn - Jayce realised that Viktor didn’t want to leave Jayce alone in the lab.
‘I promise I won’t touch anything,’ he said, pushing himself up and clenching his jaw against the reignited pain in his side.
‘Promises? The Undercity does not work on promises. But I suppose we have little choice.’
Viktor used his cane to stand, his back clicking like a wind-up clock. Jayce winced in sympathy.
‘If I’m to be your assistant, you’ll need to trust me eventually,’ he pointed out. Viktor ignored him.
‘I’ll return in the morning.’ Viktor frowned at Jayce. ‘If I find the place ransacked, and anything stolen, I will find the men who beat you and send them to finish the job.’
Jayce bit his lip, but nodded.
‘I understand.’
Viktor limped out, and the door shut with a click. The sound of a heavy lock thudding into place followed shortly after. Viktor had locked him in.