"Finally; it's perfected." The mad chemist's bandaged visage turned up in a shadowed grin. He held a sharp maroon beaker before his eyes, the contents steaming and sizzling. He tapped in once, grinning again as the liquid churned sending more plumes towards the ceiling of his lab. Various beakers, tubes, documents, vials, files, and piles of research surrounded him on his charred desk. Many experiments had brought him to this moment.
He held it aside with two fingers and peered down at a sheet of wrinkled parchment. The words scribbled there detailed the procedure required to utilize his newest creation: DRINK. He chuckled mildly to himself, casting the sheet to the floor.
"Something so powerful, taken so long to produce, is so simple to use." His mask of wrappings tilted up once more. "If that arachnid bitch hadn't been so stingy with her webs, I'd have been in my new world days ago, but no matter." He laughed, hard, the wretched sounds reverberating off the metal walls encasing his madness. His cheer died down and he relinquished his mask, showing his scarred lips to the chilled air. He licked at his skin, sweat flowing down his mouth.
With a single motion, he held the vial above his open mouth and turned it upside down. The boiling liquid fell through the air, burning the oxygen it passed through. Singed smiled one last time as it slipped past his teeth and down his throat. He replaced the empty vial on a stand with several others, pulled up his mask, and sat. His hands laced together on the desk playing idle wars with the digits. He glanced around, his eyes darting to different objects. A stool. A chalk board covered in equations and theories. A cabinet filled with forgotten procedures and experiments from an age past. The remnants of the ingredients of his latest mix.
The scientist lurched forward suddenly, tossing fragile items off his desk. They clattered against the floor as his insides raged. He barred his teeth, chortling through his mask. He gripped the desk tight, leaving inch-deep marks in the metal. His skin burned, his muscles collapsed and reassembled themselves. His body was a tumult of activity, his clothed and bandaged body unraveling itself. He continued laughing, quickly turning into a cream, as fabric and blood fell from him. He beat his failing fists into his desk, tearing it apart in seconds. Then, skin began protruding from his chest. His eyes watched the scene, the skin tearing his garb to shreds exposing his taut, singed muscles. But it no longer looked like his chest. Bulbs seemed to form from his pectorals, pushing outwards carrying the peaks with them. He coughed blood out, feeling as though he had just been punched in the crotch. He stared in horror as the bulge between his legs decompressed and vanished. He thrashed around wildly, grabbing and destroying anything his morphing hands could grasp. He held a thick tome up, and before he could tear it with his hands, the skin of his palm cut through it like butter. He screamed again, blood mixing with paper and ink. Kneeling in the mess of his lab, his eyes blurred by tears, he came to a rest. His body stopped moving, the skin flat and unblemished against his muscles and organs.
He breathed heavily, the pant bearing a higher pitch than mere minutes ago. His eyes widened. He touched at his skin, feeling for all that was new. Fingers went first to investigate the new mounds that had formed below his collar. They resembled the mammary glands of a human female, firm and round. He squeezed one, gasping under the sensation. He picked up a leg of his shattered desk and tossed it javelin-style at a vat of chemicals and watched it melt.
He continued searching his body for any other surprises. The muscles in his neck, arms, abdomen, and legs had all increased. Not by much, but noticeably so. They were thick and tense, the abs well-defined beneath bloodied bandages. Then he noticed his fingers. They were still thick, but now leaner, pointed, angled. No longer the thin sausages he bore previously. He tore at his mask, shoving it to the ground. He ran out of the mess and into the sight of a crooked mirror. The image in the cracked glass stared back at himself, or rather, herself. Singed, the Mad Chemist of the Noxian military, esteemed Zaun scientist, and revered champion in the League of Legends, was a woman.
Singed touched the glass, her eyes traveling down her exposed body. The skin was the same color, certainly that which she was born with, but it was so different, so changed. She clenched her fingers, watching the muscles tense as she flexed. For all intents and purposes, the procedure was a success. She was stronger, faster, her senses more acute, but it had carried a price.
"Something went wrong," Singed spoke, her voice that of a gruff woman. She ran back into her lab, more bandages sprawling through the air in her wake. She tossed papers around, grabbing ingredients and staring at various beakers before throwing them away. She scanned each document and analyzed every note, until her eyes came upon her chalkboard. It had remained untouched from her metamorphosis and still displayed her hard work in thick, white lines. She studied the board, fingers following the equations with a heavy mind.
"I used the web, the soil of the Shadow Isles, yes, yes, poured under the full moon of- yes! Got it, got it; I followed that, too! What fucking-!" Her shouts cut short as her gaze met the end of the board. "Oh no." She touched the equation, the symbols explaining the use of an unorthodox material Singed always avoided. Except this time. Her eyes narrowed.
"I knew I shouldn't have used magic. Science is a field for definitions, facts, reliability, but I had no other options. I needed that powder. I tried everything else. She said there wouldn't be a…" Singed's eyes widened. "She lied." Her body went slack, her eyes glazed, blurring out the culprit equation. "That damn dirty deceiver!" Singed screamed, wrapping her newly acquired appendages around the blackboard and threw it so hard across the room that it exploded in a shower of mineral and wood. The debris clattered harmlessly against her new body and bounced on the floor. She stood motionless, her eyes frozen in place.
Silence wrapped the room in a shroud, the tiniest paper settling quietly in a pool of dried blood. Even the potions further into the lab seemed too scared to make bubbles in their viscous states. Steam vanished, leaving Singed alone in her wrecked den.
"Hm, hm?" The sound echoed outside Singed's door, a hallway leading towards the Noxian labs proper. The door creaked open, revealing a scraggly head of wrinkles and static-charged hair pointing out in all directions. The person wore fogged goggles, but pulled them up onto their forehead. The being's beady, black eyes, smaller than olives, looked Singed up and down, then replaced the goggles.
"Gonna take notes?" Singed said.
"Mmh, hm, no, no, no! Not a, hmm… no! Quite, yes? Done! Game Changer, changed game! I'll say! Hee hee hee!" The knob of the door rotated around, the man's hand twisting it.
"Yes." Singed stood straight, looking down. Her body was unfamiliar. So many decades spent in her skin, and she felt… wrong. Stronger, faster, more acute, but it wasn't the same. She flexed her fist. "I have work to do."
"Yes, yes, of course! Yes, indeed. Shall I, shall I… yes?"
"No. I'll set up. I'll have a job for you, soon. Standby, Grayn."
Grayn smiled back, a wicked grin that pronounced his buck-toothed overbite. "Indeed!"
Singed pulled the bandages tight, her breasts compressing into her chest painfully. She grunted and loosened the fabric. After finding a comfortable medium, she finished wrapping her body in the cloth. Not that is mattered anymore. The brew, dubbed the Game Changer as Grayn had so callously put, healed her scars and burns from a lifetime of harmful experiments. There would likely be more in the future, so she didn't bother changing the habit of wrapping up.
Her red armor was gone, destroyed in the transformation, but she had planned for this. Maybe not this, but she had created a new set of armor created for an augmented, toned body. Though some new modifications would need to be made.
Business called for attention, so the modifications would have to wait. Singed opted for her old hextech gear buried in an old trunk that she was surprised to have relocated. The dark brown would serve well in hiding her new… assets from anyone who did not scrutinize for too long. Her freshly grown black locks, however, were plain to see. She didn't have time to burn them off, though. The gas mask was missing, probably lost during a battle years ago, so Singed settled on her standard bandage mask.
Gear in place, the chemical prodigy left her lab and headed to the west. She doubted her quarry would be pleased to see her.
The League of Legends. Its halls were a sort of dull, drab grey with dim lanterns lining the walls. There were enough rooms within the various wings of the institute to house every champion and then some but they were mostly inhabited by summoners. More moved in every month while the champions were satisfied living in their original homes. Champions mostly used the League as a cross-faction recreational area and place to view matches. Matches went on all day and could be viewed in many rooms within the institute through magical spheres that showed everything in real-time. The most used room for viewings was the mess hall, where many summoners and champions would place bets, cheer, and boo for and against the battling teams.
Singed arrived in the mess just as a match came to a close. She stood far enough away from wandering eyes so no one would notice her. Purple team destroyed the enemy nexus, prompting cheers from around the room and a few sour faces appeared within the crowd. Singed caught sight of LeBlanc, a powerful Noxian mage, dancing in the view screen. Singed's eyes narrowed as the screen vanished.
People grunted as Singed shoved past everyone in her way. A few made rude comments, but she had no intention of stopping.
"Singed," and eerie voice called to her. She cursed under her breath, coming to a stop. "You've been absent for days, working on that new brew of yours. I assume your appearance here means you were successful."
"You could say that," Singed replied, making no attempt to hide her feminine voice, as she turned around. Before her stood Swain, the general of the Noxian army. His visage stiffened, his hand clenching his staff tightly, as his eyes widened infinitesimally. His pupils traveled up and down Singed's new form. Her chest was bound but still visible to those looking close enough. She had long, dark strands of hair protruding from her scalp that nearly reached her shoulders.
"General, I'm a little busy. Perhaps we could finish this some other time. Like, not-right-now," Singed stated coldly.
"We need to discuss this." His tone changed, but his voice was still commanding.
"Right, right. Yeah, of course, and we will, but certainly not now." Before Swain had time to protest, Singed had already disappeared in the scattering sea of champions and summoners.
She reached the summoning chamber without further interruption just in time to see the participants of the last match leaving the room.
"There goes Ashe, Ryze, a summoner, there's Zac," she whispered from behind a corner. "But where's-" The sight of a fluttering, golden cape cut her sentence short. She sneered, shoving through the remaining people.
"Well, if it isn't sweet, little Singe-" Singed grabbed LeBlanc by the throat and tossed her to the floor. She turned to dust and vaporized upon contact. The true LeBlanc sauntered up seconds later. "Psh, you're no fun. You always see through my mimic."
"I don't have time for your games, Deceiver." Poison tipped her words.
LeBlanc grinned, her fingers teasing her chin. "But it looks like you most certainly took your time with them." Her eyes scoured Singed's body, much like Swain had done, but her eyes had a hunger to them that made Singed shuffle her feet.
"You bitch; what have you done to me?" Singed pushed the magician into a stone wall but the mage was left unharmed and in a fit of giggles. Signed searched her face, LeBlanc appearing completely relaxed. "You knew this would happen."
She stopped laughing. "Of course I did, little boy. Or, should I say, little girl." Her statement was followed with a giggle. "I'm not one for education, but I thought I could teach you lesson."
"What in blazes are you blabbing about, you crazed witch?"
"You judge others too harshly. If they're alive, you want to kill them. If you can't kill them, you judge them, find weakness. That works for you, I'm sure, until you decide that one of those weaknesses was being a woman." Singed remained silent. "Yes, you said that once. Perhaps twice. But I made sure you'll never say it again."
"When will it wear off?" Her voice softened but her muscles hadn't. LeBlanc laughed again.
"Never, baby cakes. This change is permanent." Singed stared at her, wide-eyed. "You got what you wanted, didn't you, chemist boy? You're new and improved. An added bonus being that you won't go down for being punched in the Zaun jewels. Keep your chin up. You're good at that." Singed stared through LeBlanc as she walked past the frozen chemist. "Ta ta!"
Singed was soon alone in the summoner's chamber. Sconce's flickered on the walls, the summoning platforms dim. Singed opened her mouth then shut her jaw, clenched her teeth and flexed her fingers. The straps of her outfit squeaked under the friction of her stretching muscles, threatening to snap.
"Singed," the eerie voice returned.
"General, please," her voice was dark, subdued. She didn't bother turning around this time, instead simply tilting her head to the side. She continued balling her hands into fists. They quaked uneasily as she looked at one of the fragile torches on the wall. She flinched as her shoulder was grabbed roughly and she was spun around. Swain looked no different. He didn't look at Singed's body this time. The raven on his shoulder stared where its master did.
"You are a powerful asset and I will not lose you to some failed experiment."
"It wasn't a failure," Singed admitted. Swain rose a brow.
"It wasn't? You are no longer a man."
"Obviously. And I'm afraid the change is… permanent." If Swain was affected by the news, he made no show of it. "But I'm stronger, faster, my senses are enhanced ten-fold. The potion did exactly as intended, only there was a catch. I don't know if my sex change will negatively impact the final result."
"Then I expect to see your new capabilities at the first opportunity." Swain said. "If you can make this work, your appearance matters little. If this doesn't, though, then I want you to find a way to reverse the effects as soon as possible."
"Don't need to tell me twice."
Swain glared. "But only if you know for certain that you are worse in combat than you were before. Otherwise, you are to remain like this until you can create something superior."
Singed blanched. "You can't be serious. I'm not staying this way!"
"Singed, you are a deadly scientist. One of the best I've ever known. I need you to be as powerful as you can." Singed nodded slowly, turning her gaze from her general. "Contact me with the results of your combat test. After you give me the report, we will never discuss this again."
"Understood…"
Swain tapped his cane on the pavement, and was a swish of his cape, left the room. His raven crowed sharply as they stalked around the corner. Singed simply stared.
A minute passed in the quiet din of the League. Sounds echoed down the hallowed stone walls, itching Singed's ears like unpicked wax. Her skin crawled under her wraps. Tender, strong muscles brimmed along those bones, but ached in discomfort. She could see potential in this form, but it hurt. Singed lived in pain, fought and grew by its unforgiving, unwavering code, but this…
This new pain was excruciating, on a level she couldn't describe. It wasn't that tough, biting, numb pain brought on by needles or flames, by the crushing blow of a truncheon. Nor was it the sick bubbling created in the pit of her stomach, the corrosion of her esophagus as a failed potion wound its way through her digestive track. It was something wholly new, and terrifying. She never believed this pain could exist, and she couldn't even point it out. Trying to label it was like trying to hold the dots in her eye still, resisting the urge to blink to better see them.
Swain would get his report. Some kind of paper documenting the new skills and abilities granted by the Game Changer. But not for any reason other than to satisfy him. A new plan needed to be constructed, something that would result in a return to her, his, form. He would become him again. The desire burned deep in his chest. Yet, where to start?
A test subject, where many experiments began. To test… no, observe. The opposite effect. Another Game Changer? No, LeBlanc would not part with another powder, and nowhere did Singed know to locate it on his own. Then how to stimulate change?
Why, the only ones who can. The League would do it. They released those filthy laws, bound by magic, that altered the champions' abilities, the rules of the game they all took part in, and even altered living form. It should be a simple matter to convince them that a certain champion was… deserving of new parameters. Now to select the subject.
"And I'll leave that to you," Singed spoke aloud.
Grayn trembled out around the doorway, shuffling into the room. He wrung his hands together, peeling already dry skin.
"Yes, yes, sir, quite. Away, away! Hee hee! Yes…" He adjusted his goggles. "And, mmh! What might I, hee hee… do for you-oooh!?" He tugged on his ear, twisting the lobe in his fingers.
"Find me a subject, alone and isolated, female, who can be… changed. Report to me and I'll take care of the rest."
He turned around, his feminine face grinning. "It's time for science!"