Chapter 21: Must plans always fail?
It was gone, all gone.
The humanoid figure continued walking through the ruined structure, the anger welling up inside him like the very fires of hell itself.
All of his possessions were ruined!
All of the time he had spent in his laboratory, all for naught! Fate was never on his side. Why him? Why did this have to happen to him? His whole life had been some joke to another person, as if he had never mattered at all. I thought I had changed that.
Burning pieces of paper wafted in the morning Zaun wind, proclaiming their fallen master's loss.
Bandits would come here, seeking valuable information to sell to the highest bidder.
"Duratskiy Zadnitzky!" The figure swore, cursing the man responsible for this.
"Boss Viktor, we have the remaining research equipment you requested. What are your orders now, commandante?" The armored hulk of a guard, Grigovic, asked.
"I still require a few more pieces of equipment from deep vithin the lab. Sergeant, I vant your squad on me. There may be, uninvited guests."
"Yes sir! Come then, brothers, let us go forth!" The guard roared as four other grizzled veterans formed up behind him with their bolt-action rifles, advancing into the catacombs of the laboratory. Viktor followed behind them, staff in hand and his death-ray primed and ready.
A large hall lay before them, the sodium lamps casting the scorched concrete in a dirty yellow glow.
"Here ve are, room 046. Give me some time while I secure the equipment." Viktor whispered to avoid bouncing his voice across the walls.
Suddenly, there was a clink of metal rolling down stairs.
"Sh*t! Quick! Get into defensive positions. Give the Boss time to get the equipment."
"Sergeant, I vant to make as little noise as possible. Try to let them pass by. Failing that, safety off, kill on sight."
"Copy that. You heard him, set up behind that rubble."
As the noise drew closer, the five guards set themselves up, crouching behind several slabs of concrete that had fallen from the fires that had raged inside the structure when the intruder had detonated the arcane reactor.
Viktor stepped inside the small room, finding the imposing steel vault he had wanted. Cautiously closing the heavy door behind him, he began the unlocking process. A quick whir of mechanisms echoed quietly as his third hand reformed itself to fit the pentagram lock. Viktor felt information surge into his mind as he connected with the computer, an incredibly disgusting feeling from the unmediated data. He entered the key codes for the safe, the confirmation codes declaring his success. Sliding his Hex-core staff into the secondary slot, he entered the final key codes.
"You three!" A loud voice cried from up the stairwell. "Get down there and see what you can find! I want everything here, even if they are just a bunch of science papers."
"Yes sir!" A chorus replied.
The sound of footsteps drawed nearer with each passing second.
A small click of gunmetal resounded up the stairs.
"You know, some of this stuff is actually pretty clever." One voice declared.
"Like what? The man decided to make a hex-tech toaster." A second responded.
"When you are hungry, why not make toast? Seriously. Its even cooler when you put the label Hex-tech on it anyway." A third voice replied.
Sergeant Gikovic slid his thumb over the safety lock on his rifle.
The body armor his soldiers wore could easily stop most civilian ammunition if it came down to a firefight. Their experience during the Ionian conflict had bestowed them significant honors from their tactics and confirmed kills, with even the stealthy Kinkou having fallen to their ambushes. No way these common thieves could even match up to veterans of those wars.
The problem would be the Boss and his contraptions making a noise. Knowing most of the Boss's inventions, they often made big ones.
Nothing would stop them from completing their task.
An entire Ionian regiment had been unable to take his squad out.
Dying to a bunch of scavengers would make for a poor death.
The echoing clunk of locks echoed out from room 046.
Sh*t.
"You hear that?"
"Someone's 'ere! Get everyone, that Viktor guy may still be around. Ohohoho, this is going to be good!"
At least we have good bait.
The lock had disengaged, the vault motors whirring slowly. With yet another clank of gears, the heavy door groaned into motion. Inside, a row of computer banks whirred onwards.
His Archives.
Viktor set to work, plugging his Hex-Core staff into the mainframe.
I must rebuild, again.
With sorrow, he began the download and following termination program to wipe the entire Archives clean.
"HEY F**KHEAD! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! GET OUT HERE AND MAKE YOUR DEATH QUICK YOU SORRY SH*T!"
Intruders.
Oh joy.
A horde was slamming on the door to the room 046.
Ten to fifteen armed men.
All clumped up.
Ha.
This was going to be easy.
Signaling to his squad the plan, Grigovic prepped a grenade. To his left, Dmitry had also taken one of his out.
Two quiet clinks of the pins being removed, the grenades primed.
One. None had heard them.
Two. Grigovic prepped himself to throw.
Three. Let fly.
Viktor could hear two echoing blasts through the vault door, swiftly followed by the legato cracks of disciplined rifle-fire.
His download was almost complete, just a few more seconds.
Paying almost triple the price for a more connective wire was now a worthy investment.
With a click and an electronic ping, the download had finished.
The termination program was now running its course.
Good.
The cacophony outside had stopped as well.
Retrieving his staff from the socket, Viktor opened the vault doors.
Treading over cracked bone and bloody limbs, he moved onwards, not caring for the carnage the grenades had wrought.
Nor did he look upon the concrete walls, painted with the grey matter and blood of the thieves.
"Sergeant! Come! Our vork here is done."
"Yes sir! Any ideas what we should do with the bodies?"
The third robotic hand that arched over Viktor's shoulder hummed in response.
"Yes sir." Grigovic replied, understanding what the Boss was planning.
The five soldiers hurried up the stairs. Viktor slowly ascended the stairs, turning his body around after moving several meters.
Accursed fire poured forth from his hand, turning the hall into a seething furnace of annihilating energies. The pulsing blast reduced bone and tissue to its base elements, water bubbling and carbon crackling.
Viktor turned his back on the inferno, going forth to seek a new laboratory.
The bastard would pay heavily for this.
This 'Defender of Tomorrow' person was pathetic.
A simple and ignorant fool.
Heimerdinger's introduction had proved that much. The man's ideas of freedom and justice were so simple it hurt. Everything about him was emotionally or egotistically driven, making him incredibly predictable and obvious.
The news of Viktor's destroyed lab had impacted the research significantly, but at least some of the research had been salvaged.
Heimerdinger himself had orchestrated some background deals to loan some mana crystals to Viktor, the city of Zaun having such high interest in him that most of his 'normal' deals were researched heavily which often lead to his research being heavily plagiarized. Somehow, this Jayce person had caught wind of the deal and, with righteous fervor, assaulted the laboratory. He could not just stop at retrieving the crystals either. The man's xenophobia had lead him to detonating the laboratory power source, reducing most of it to a smoking ruin.
But there were more consequences than just Viktor having to find a new lab.
This Jayce had dealt a massive blow that had reignited the embers of a cold war between the two nations of Zaun and Piltover. More and more firefights had been rumored, but both nations had hushed such speculation. The rivalry between the two cities was ridiculous, allowing radical anti-Zaun political parties to spawn in Piltover (there were also radical parties in Zaun, but they had always been there mainly due to business interests).
But Heimerdinger was slightly different.
He was a good yordle, being incredibly hard to sway from his calm demeanor and disrupt his natural swagger. He could do and say things that few others would dare and get away with it, especially among females who adored his small stature.
Heimerdinger had taken a surprising likening to the robotic inventor, mostly on the grounds of their progress into the sciences. Thanks to both of their cooperation, the research had been going on smoothly and quickly.
Achieving artificial acceleration of arcane energy was incredibly hard, so hard that no one had managed to do so.
Their combined academia, however, had granted them a formula confirming the potential for interaction.
It was just a matter of establishing how could one accelerate something that does not apply to most physical laws.
Sure one could accelerate magic, but that was done through one's natural connection with magic, something that scientists and magicians alike could not describe well enough to completely agree on a single definitive answer. Actual physical interaction with the arcane realm was almost impossible, for the most part.
This theory said differently.
It was supposed to be possible, but how could it be possible?
Heimerdinger was set on the theory with Viktor on the experimentation, leaving himself time to work on the establishing the correct magic to use.
Months had passed since the agreement and the research had been going well, but we are still stumped on how.
Damn that Jayce.
Xerath walked along the path towards the Summoning platform, still deep in thought on the research.
Someone wanted him to take part in a match, surprisingly.
Most Summoners considered him unworthy of being summoned because of his nature while there were more… welcoming choices.
He brought power to the field, massive amounts in fact. But other champions were more appealing and mobile.
They could suddenly appear behind someone and annihilate the unfortunate champion.
Unless the unfortunate had something ridiculous such as mobility of their own.
All the while, he had artillery bombardments that could rend entire armies asunder.
And yet they preferred heroic archers?
That made no sense to him.
The match began.
He was facing off against Ahri, not surprisingly.
Many Summoners adored her, but that was a typical human reaction. It often went far more than just adoration, with Ahri often having to reject so many offers that she had very little time to spend with her friends.
Xerath had often seen her with friends, considering how she had picked up with one of the larger groups, which included those such as Caitlyn and Ezreal. Yet she always seemed slightly bored with the mundane chatter her friends talked about, often preferring to form jokes that wrought havoc on their sides. Even then, she seemed unsatisfied somehow.
On the Rift, she was a powerful mage. Her raw power was lacking compared to Arch-mages, yet she often came through with her exceptional reactions and agility.
She was predictably unpredictable with her options of both offence and defense.
I may have trouble defeating her.
Xerath almost had his ultimate.
Ultimate? HE WAS THE ULTIMATE BEING!
Why would one constrict their power in such a weird form of "Oh look, you killed one beast. You can now unleash your greatest power available to you."
It was beyond him.
But he knew that his ultimate signaled another portion of him becoming available.
That meant he could terminate Ahri.
However, the defining defense and energy values the Summoners had placed on him meant he could well die if one of her teammates showed up or she got the drop on him.
But he had a plan, which hopefully his 'jungler' would go along with.
Ahri had the upper hand.
As soon as she got her ultimate, crystal-pylon-guy would be dead. That was the plan her Summoner had described in immaculate detail.
Idiot.
This is going to go poorly. The Summoner had never considered that Xerath would also be able to unleash his own payload, which was far superior in terms of raw power. She had been at his mercy too many times to say that he was weak.
Underrated if anything.
But still, 'The Summoner is always right', the instructor had said when she had first entered the league.
Fine, this idiot is going to get me killed. Then he will just rage like the pathetic asshole he is.
One minute later, the ultimate limiters had disengaged.
Ready to take the weakened Xerath down, Ahri dashed forward on a burst of hot arcane flame.
"MAOKAI! NOW!"
Ahri spun around, finding the monstrous treant that was rampaging out from a large brush.
Suddenly morphing into a wave of earthen magic, the monster was upon her.
The immense surge in the vitalizing magic caused immense roots to wrap around Ahri's form. Maokai struck out at Ahri, who just managed to squirrel away from the monstrous shield-arm it wore. The shockwave sent splinters of bark and branches glancing across Ahri's body, small drops of blood glistening on her arms and legs.
A blast of foxfire broke fast against Xerath's wards like a wave against a boulder. Generating a Mage Chain, he scored a direct hit against Ahri, the cyclic projectile deforming into a set of arcane chains that impacted hard into her.
He ascended into his enlightened form and began channeling a ball of lightning.
Ahri saw the blast coming. Knowing about the spell he had just cast on her, getting hit again would mean serious consequences.
She worked quickly to rid herself of the roots and once again surged across the battlefield, narrowly dodging the energy pulse.
Another aerial blast came right down on where she had landed, her senses rent asunder as her magic was ripped from her body. The League's damage control systems had allowed her form to survive the blast, but when her 'health' reached zero she would be transported back to her base after a long delay, which often began with a massive blast of pain flooding her body.
Another aerial blast was coming down from the heavens. The heavens seemed to open up as the electric force cracked and fractured the ground where she had just been. The lightning shockwave sparked a mere foot from her.
Too close for comfort. She could withstand only one more blast before the termination process would begin. As she landed, she let fly her spirit orb directly at Xerath. She may heal just enough to withstand his final blast.
Xerath's rooted form could not dodge the spirit orb flying toward him. He could feel it rend through his form, the swirling ball working like a saw blade on his magic. He grimaced in pain as it flew through his physical form, then once again as the orb flew back to its sender through him. This was his last chance to get her as she retrieved her orb. His ascension would end shortly, so his superior range would end and so too would his chance at getting the bounty. I need to make this count.
Ahri felt the calming sensation of stolen essence flow into her. Every champion gave off a slightly different flavor of essence, some of them being more delicious than others. Xerath's wasn't exactly great, but it was pleasantly strong and defining.
But there are more pressing matters.
Like the final blast about to bombard her.
The cacophonous blast ripped through the earth, the lightning pyre visible across the entire battlefield. Ahri had just managed to dash out of the way, but she was slow.
The shockwave wracked her legs, causing her to howl out in pain. But she had gotten out of Xerath's range.
Ha. Hahaha. Hehehmm…
Tabia.
Tabia?
What was that?
Who was that?
A shrill voice was crying out through the air.
"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee!"
Something heavy landed on her head.
Her head smacked against the ground.
Damn, she thought in her final moments, I forgot about the Treant's little sapling.
Ahri had been slain, but there was no real point saying that when she would be coming back to life in a minute.
His form descended back to his more mobile form.
Maokai's aim had been impressive.
"Nice aim, Maokai."
"Compliments from a mage such as yourself are not welcome." The deep voice replied.
A cold being, unlike Mother Nature. But could it be that this is what happens when magic runs uncontrolled? Perhaps he should learn from this.
He was just informed that Ahri's Summoner had lost his temper.
Funny man.
Suddenly he heard a shout from above.
It was Pantheon.
High up in the sky itself.
Surrounded by dozens upon dozens of spears.
All falling towards him and Maokai.
Sh**********-
"THE CODEX RAKKOR CALLS THIS MANEUVER STEEL RAIN!" The warrior cried as he slammed into the ground with explosive force.
"Enemy double kill!" The announcer voice cried.