I: The Defender and the Herald
A/N: Originally Posted on Ao3.
Jayce sank back against the wall, but an elbow from one of the older apprenta made him stand up straight as quickly as was humanly possible, maybe even faster. From beside Stanwick, Viktor couldn't help but crack a smile. He looked ridiculous, dressed up in a spotless white suit with a black waistcoat and a perfumed pink rosette. His dark brown hair was more unruly than Viktor's but forced to lay neatly for such a fine event. Someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make all the apprenta match and the youngest of them was hating every second of it.
"May I speak to Jayce?" Viktor asked. Stanwick didn't respond, too busy chattering away. Viktor let his shoulders slump and edged away carefully, hoping Stanwick wouldn't notice.
"Where are you going Viktor?" Stanwick turned back.
"To talk to the apprenta," Viktor replied. Stanwick clicked his teeth and nodded.
"Very well," he confirmed, "I doubt you'll get anything from them worth a damn."
Viktor turned on his heels and walked over to the apprenta, most of them were surprised to see him walk up. An older one, his white hair balding in patches and his mustache shaped like a handlebar, crinkled his nose so sharply Viktor expected his monocle to fall off.
"Stanwick's little Zaunite treasure," the older apprenta sneered, "good to see you can attempt formal dress. Your success remains to be seen."
"Apologies," Viktor placed his prosthetic hand on his chest and gave a short bow, "I wasn't aware Clan Giopara employed clowns to make their inventions."
Jayce snorted, but the others, save for the mustached one, were all focused on Viktor's arm. Viktor could somewhat understand why. It was elegant for a chemtech augment, all steel with a hexdraulic joint system. The fingers were delicately shaped, and tubes of cooling fluid were just barely visible like tendons along muscle points.
"Fantastic," one of the apprenta unfolded the arm before Viktor could get a word in, "the detail on this arm, who made it?"
"I did," Viktor replied, "with some help from a friend," at this Viktor shot a look at Jayce, who smiled, "I have an implant on my spine too."
"What does that do?" another apparenta spoke up, leaning around to inspect the prosthetic.
"Oh, my spine curves naturally," Viktor replied, "the implant straightens it, so I don't have to wear a brace all the time."
"And your arm?" the apprenta holding the arm asked.
"It was crushed," Viktor answered, "the foreman at a factory I was working at damaged a production line and it destroyed a major support pillar. The whole building collapsed, and I happened to get caught in the rubble."
"That foreman should have been fired," the mustached apprenta scoffed, "what with a teenager being injured."
"Three workers died in that collapse," Viktor said firmly, "including the foreman, who only damaged the line because he was sleep deprived because of unusually long hours due to an increase in demand for the product in Piltover. You want to know what the factory produced?"
"I fail to see how it would matter," the apprenta said.
"Mustache wax," Viktor cracked a smile, "from the stench wafting off yours, I'd say the same brand you wear. Are you sure you want to bring the blame up to the very top, sir?"
The apprenta glared at Viktor, and sensing the mood change, the one holding his arm quickly released it and backed away. Jayce, however, looped his arm over Viktor's shoulder and flashed his older colleague a dazzling smile. Viktor did his best not to laugh at the ridiculousness.
"I think," Jayce started backing up, "I'll spend this party with him, if you don't mind Gio."
"As long as you're both away from me," the mustached apprenta snapped, "your professor will hear about this, boy."
Viktor shrugged as Jayce dragged him off, looping him into a side alcove away from the idle chatter. When they arrived, he burst into a fit of giggling.
"That was fantastic!" he said, grabbing Viktor's shoulders, "You completely shut the old codger down. Oh, I could kiss you right now!"
"But," Viktor continued for him, an attempt to calm the excitable apprenta down.
"But," Jayce repeated, his grip on Viktor loosening, "I won't, because...we have other matters to attend to?"
"Because we're in public and your excitable lab behavior is tactless in a party environment?" Viktor corrected.
"Yes, that," Jayce nodded, "have to be polite and tactful and all that...what is tact?"
"I couldn't give you a concise definition," Viktor replied, noticing Jayce's mind starting to wander, "I was going to ask if you wanted to sneak out."
"Yes, but first," Jayce craned his neck over the crowds, "I could've sworn Caitlyn was here."
"She was invited," Viktor granted, "I heard Stanwick mention it, but she probably wouldn't come. Caitlyn isn't required to be here, we are."
"So why are we sneaking out?" Jayce asked.
"Because you look like you're dying in that ridiculous suit," Viktor noted, toying with Jayce's rosette.
"You looked just as bored," Jayce replied, "standing around beside Stanwick while he talks to no one important."
"I am bored," Viktor sighed, "parties really aren't my speed."
"I wouldn't expect them to be," Jayce nodded, "you're always much happier in a lab."
"So are you," Viktor countered, "think we can risk sneaking up to your workshop?"
"No," Jayce scoffed, "you couldn't even sneak away from Stanwick. The entire party? No, we're young, they're watching us both like hawks."
"Very snobby hawks," Viktor agreed, "the food's not even that good. Do Piltovians actually enjoy standing around in ridiculous costumes talking about the weather?"
"You didn't use the word?" Jayce pouted.
"What word?" Viktor furrowed his brow.
"The rude one."
"Piltie? We're at a party. I'm not going to drop Zaunite slang in conversation."
"I like when you're rude," Jayce reached out to ruffle Viktor's hair, but missed when he backed away.
"You," Viktor placed a finger on Jayce's chest, "had a lot of wine before I got here, didn't you?"
"Perhaps," Jayce shrugged, "does it show?"
"You're acting like you've been working in your workshop for two weeks," Viktor nodded, "sleeping in two-hour stints and drinking coffee every hour before something goes right."
"You've lost me," Jayce shrugged.
"Deliriously happy," Viktor clarified, "and at the same time, impatiently bored out of your mind."
"I don't know how you do it," Jayce sighed.
"Do what?" Viktor furrowed his brow.
"Keep level even when you're falling apart," Jayce said.
"I'm never falling apart," Viktor replied, "we Zaunites are made of iron and glass."
"What are Piltovians made of?" Jayce asked, leaning too close for comfort. Viktor pushed him back.
"I'm sure I don't know," Viktor tried to hold back a laugh, "but it's gilded gold, perfumed to hell, and doused with wine."
"Good," Jayce leaned away and turned back to the party, "are you just going to sit around in the dark and avoid the party? If we have to be here, we might as well enjoy ourselves."
Viktor smiled and followed Jayce out of the alcove and into the hum of the party. He kept his ears peeled through the chatter of the crowd as Jayce launched into another long-winded explanation of his current project: a hammer that became a demolition beam. Even dosed with wine, Jayce's face lit up at the prospect, excitedly continuing on as if this idea was the greatest thing anyone had thought of. Viktor wasn't sure about that, but he considered that if Jayce could manage to talk to everyone like this, he'd easily manage to convince others of his own opinion. If he was engaged enough, Jayce could convince anyone of anything, that was where his tact and charm were hidden.
Someone, not Viktor but someone, just needed to find a way to bring that out.
Six Years Later
A loud clap of thunder shook Jayce awake. He snapped upright at his desk, smacking his head on the shelf above as he did. Jayce stared at the offending piece of furniture and checked his mug, empty, and covered in a dark brown film. Time for a new cup.
Jayce got to his feet and stumbled out of his workshop and across the hall into the kitchen. A coffee pot was already bubbling away, and he could hear humming.
He could hear Victory's humming.
"I didn't give you a key so you could break into my house," Jayce leaned on the doorframe.
"You were asleep," Victory replied, not looking up from the book she was flipping through, "I thought it would be rude."
"And you're peaking through my windows," Jayce placed the mug next to the clean sink, "and doing my dishes. What are you? My wife?"
"Do me a favor and don't make me puke on Ez's field notes," Victory requested, "he worked extra hard on these and I'd hate to ruin them. Look," Victory held up the notebook to show detailed schematics and horizon lines sketched all over two pages, "it's got everything I need, and he separated all the artifacts. The dear child's learning, bless him."
"You're still babysitting him?" Jayce sat down across from Victory, "Why?"
Victory set the notebook down and continued reading it. "Some people have hearts Jayce," she replied.
"And some have brains," Jayce countered.
"Apparently you missed the train on having both," Victory smirked, "still, you're not absolutely intolerable."
Jayce let out a laugh at that one. Victory didn't continue, too absorbed in the field notes to really carry a conversation. That was always an annoyance of Jayce's. Victory had that rare spark of genius, but she wasn't the type that was too social about it beyond exhibit openings. Victory was the type that could talk your ear off for hours about every artifact she curated at the University, but she thought books, ancient bones, and centuries-old relics were better company than people.
Victory, just the name rang like a familiarity. She was Zaunite, Promenade born and raised, with freckles across her button nose and a reddish tinge to her light brown hair. She tied her hair back in a loose bun and rolled her gray blouse sleeves to the elbows, buttoning a double-breasted black vest over it and wearing sturdy knee-high boots on her feet. A white scar flicked up from under her jaw and across her cleft chin, budging onto the edge of her lower lip. Circles hung under her dark blue eyes, but Jayce wondered if that was because of the kohl she smudged around it or if she really was that sleep deprived and sickly. She was probably the only person who tolerated him. At least, the only one that wasn't law enforcement or a random passerby who had no idea what kind of manner-less idiocy came out of his mouth. Another familiarity, but a very welcome one.
The coffee pot started to scream, and Jayce got up to get it before Victory could. She shut the field journal and watched him pour two cups.
"Sugar, right?" Jayce guessed. Victory nodded.
"No milk," she confirmed, "amazing how you remember that but not what level of Zaun I'm from."
"Look that was one time," Jayce handed Victory the coffee mug, "and in my defense, you are not my first Zaunite friend."
"The other one was Entresol then?" Victory guessed.
"Well your mother's Entresol, right?" Jayce guessed. Victory nodded.
"And my father South Piltover," she added, "but tell me about your Entresol friend."
"You know all about Viktor," Jayce noted.
"Not personally," Victory countered, "go on."
"Viktor..." Jayce sighed, "What can I say? He was brilliant, strange, unconventional. He was the only person that could keep up with me."
"The only one who could tolerate you," Victory added, "am I right?"
"Roughly," Jayce nodded, "I wish it didn't end the way it did."
"What happened?" Victory leaned forwards, sipping her coffee slowly in an attempt to hide the grin creeping onto her face.
"Where do I begin?" Jayce let out a short laugh, but his smile quickly faded, "It was after we designed a construction suit for dockworkers. Viktor added an implant that allowed the operator to control the worker."
"I remember that suit," Victory nodded, "they use it for salvage operations in flooded sections of Zaun."
"Really?" Jayce raised his eyebrows. Victory nodded.
"Brought accidents down by a half," she continued, "see, at a depth like that, the mind starts to hallucinate. In a suit that strong, or even as strong as the Piltovian design, it could kill someone if the worker panics. The implant allows the operator to override the fear response, suppress it."
"So, effectively, control the user," Jayce translated. Victory shrugged and nodded.
"It could use a bit of refinement," she admitted, "I mean there's a reason it's used in Zaun, not Piltover, and only in the Sump level. I take it Viktor wouldn't try to refine it?"
"Well I never asked him to," Jayce shrugged, "we argued over the breach of free will and when he wouldn't listen—"
"Because you never offered an alternative," Victory interrupted.
Jayce looked at Victory, a little hurt, but continued, "I told the university about the invention and...they threw him out."
"Poor Viktor," Victory sighed, "all that hard work and one mistake ruins his life."
"I lost track of him after that," Jayce continued once more, shooting his friend a glare for her interruptions, "until the crystal, if you recall."
"I should hope I do," Victory leaned on the table, "the warehouse blew up what? Two miles from my house?"
"As I was saying," Jayce went on, "I was given the crystal—after no one else could figure it out like I thought—and well, I mean it was challenging, don't get me wrong, but I did figure something out."
"I actually don't remember that part," Victory noted, "more pressing matters in Zaun, Factorywood accident."
"That was when Viktor showed up," Jayce sighed, "insisting he could solve all the problems of humanity, just with that crystal."
"Pause," Victory cut in.
"Can you stop interrupting?" Jayce asked, "You wanted to hear the story!"
"I also know you, Jayce, have a nasty habit of letting your bias take the wheel," Victory retorted, "now, what exactly did Viktor say? Do you remember?"
"Um..." Jayce wracked his brain, "'The crystal can solve all my problems.' I think."
"Okay," Victory nodded, her brow furrowing, "go on."
"I refused, and when I came to, the crystal was gone. I made my hammer then from a smaller shard of the crystal and went down into Zaun, where the shard pulled me. When I got to Viktor's lab, I found dozens of corpses, their brains all hooked up to metal soldiers and the crystal. I could only guess what they were for."
"And you guessed an attack," Victory added.
Jayce nodded slowly, "I begged Viktor to stop and...he just ordered the soldiers—"
"Golems," Victory corrected, "I've never seen an automaton soldier design, even from Viktor."
"Well he ordered them to kill me!" Jayce threw his hands up, "I didn't know what to do so I just—broke the crystal...how did you know the soldiers were golems?"
"Because you lack a certain context," Victory said, setting her now empty mug on the table, "while you were working on that crystal up here, an accident in Factorywood had caused hundreds of people to go psychotic, toxins eating brain matter and whatnot. Utterly terrifying time, trust me. Viktor offered to help save these people, and when the warehouse blew, we found their bodies. I'm assuming those are your corpses."
Jayce nodded, "You think there's something I'm missing."
"Possibly," Victory confirmed, "but I don't think you're completely at fault. If I'm right, and you are missing something, Viktor could've explained."
"And I could've listened," Jayce added, "I tend not to do that."
"I've come to accept it as a fact of being around you," Victory said, "but you're not wrong."
Jayce stood, cracking his neck, "Well, I need to get back to work, you need to stop breaking into my apartment."
"Never gonna happen," Victory replied, "but good luck, maybe you can explain what you're doing to me for once."
"Do you explain what you do?" Jayce asked.
"I've explained how horizon lines work thirteen times Jayce," Victory shouted as Jayce walked out of the room. Jayce gave a contented sigh as he returned to his workbench and the blueprints in front of him. He liked talking to Victory. It was full of familiarity. It brought back memories of happier times without cutting into the scars of long-healed wounds. Jayce sat down and glanced up, locking eyes with an old sketch he could vividly remember doing.
The image of a young Zaunite stared off to one side, a half smile on his lips despite a furrowed brow. One part of his hair was shaved to fuzz, and wide circular glasses sat over his eyes. Jayce stared at the sketch for a moment, and regret caught him by the throat. Victory was right, he could've done more to help the Zaunite in the picture, but he didn't. Why?
Because deep down, he didn't trust a Zaunite to be anything but trouble.
Viktor stared out at the pouring rain, shifting his bag once more and leaning on the door to his apartment. Viktor lifted the bag flap covering his groceries, making sure nothing was damaged. He wouldn't be able to afford a replacement, and he didn't have the time to go get it either.
Things were so much easier before the Gray Lady halved the skull of his wealthiest patron over a stupid engagement that would've amounted to nothing.
Volkage also had the only other spare key currently sitting six feet underground in one of his fancy silk suits and Viktor had dropped his running from the store.
Through the slats of a sewer grate.
Where it was promptly carried off by something excitedly cackling about his garbage.
Viktor sighed, sometimes Zaun was a load of hot toxic garbage, but at least it was Viktor's hot garbage. At least it was home.
Viktor tried the door again, no luck. Unfortunately, he'd remembered to lock it this time.
"Yay," Viktor muttered, pulling the iron cap off of one of his prosthetic arm's fingers and turned to the keyhole. Under the cap was a lockpick, but Viktor would be a liar if he said he liked using it.
The latch clicked and Viktor leaned on the door as it opened.
"I'm home," he shouted into the empty workshop, ambling over to his cupboard to put away his groceries. After everything was away, he kicked the door shut and sat back at his desk.
It was three o'clock, Volkage usually showed up now for weekly maintenance. The folding electric emitters on Volkage's prosthetics were a nightmare to build, but it was nothing compared to their maintenance. Viktor remembered boxing the Baron's ears once after he'd gotten an admission that Volkage once used the emitters to light a cigarette, something Viktor had, coincidentally, told Volkage his hexdraulic left lung was not built for. His flesh right lung wasn't built for it either, but at least the right lung didn't mean one cigarette could cost two gold hexes because the compressors seized.
That idiot Baron was lucky he paid well, or Viktor would've turned him away the second he approached with the damn emitter design in the first place.
There was a crash of thunder, then a knock at the door. Viktor glanced up and pulled his iridiscope over to see who was there. A Sumpsnipe, white-haired and soaked to the bone, shivered on his doorstep, looking around like he was afraid of something. Viktor pushed the iridiscope aside and stood, approaching the door slowly.
"What is it?" he asked through the door.
"Uh," the Sumpsnipe let out a huffy sigh, "it's raining."
"And?" Viktor leaned on the door so the boy couldn't open it himself.
"Can you let me in?" the Sumpsnipe asked, "I'm pretty sure there's a vigilnaut out here."
Viktor opened the door and the soaked boy rushed in.
"Thank you," the boy turned back, wringing out his hair, "not actually sure what I would've done if you'd said no."
"I'm sure," Viktor nodded.
"So," the boy looked around, eyeing the laboratory, "is this a chop shop?"
Viktor snorted at the suggestion, "I'm a mechanic, but no, this isn't an augmentation parlor."
"So, you don't make augments for fashion," the boy translated, finding a seat and hopping onto it, "Just utility."
"That would be correct," Viktor confirmed, "I did Baron Volkage's arms."
"Did you do his thugs?" the boy raised an eyebrow.
"If their augments are brass plated, yes," Viktor confirmed, "if they're plain iron they weren't me."
"You know originally his arms were from a chop shop," the boy pointed out.
Viktor nodded, "The original sockets were up to his armpits but got infected by the Gray, I had to sever up to the shoulder joints and put in an exo-philtrator."
"What about yours?" the boy asked. Viktor looked at the boy and tapped his left arm on the wooden bench.
"My left arm was crushed in a warehouse collapse," Viktor noted, "gave me a limp too but I didn't replace that leg until a few years later though, both legs got the Gray. This," Viktor tapped the dial on his temple, "helps me move them with less difficulty, or it did.
"What does it do now?" the boy asked.
"Nothing," Viktor sighed, "but the anchors are too hard to remove. The implant on my spine keeps it aligned, and on the lower end allows my lower body to move."
"It can't move on its own?" the boy frowned.
"Another warehouse collapse," Viktor replied, "without the implant I'm paralyzed."
"Oh," the boy spun in the chair, "they're cool, I guess. I'm not one for augments."
"There are quite a few younger Zaunites with that mindset," Viktor granted, "most of the ones looking to learn mechanics could do with learning about them anyways. Zaun is full of augmented workers. Not all of them got those augments for fashion, I doubt the majority had working limbs when they got them. Personally, I'd prefer they get their augments with a good mechanic, rather than at a chop shop."
The boy considered this for a moment, then nodded in agreement, "Chop shops don't even make good augments."
"Oh, they're awful," Viktor snorted, "mostly scrap and poorly refined scrap at that." Viktor paused and scoffed, "I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on the people who run them, one helped me put in my spine implant."
"How nice of them," the boy muttered.
A loud noise out on the street brought the conversation to a halt.
"You said a vigilnaut was outside," Viktor confirmed. The boy nodded. A knock, more of a loud bang, sounded at the door.
"Viktor!" a gravelly, augmented voice shouted. The boy's head snapped towards Viktor.
"You're Viktor?" he raised his voice.
"Hide," Viktor ordered.
"What? No!" the boy stood, "You need to—"
"Right now, I need to get you somewhere that vigilnaut will not find you," Viktor interrupted, pulling the boy off the chair and looking around.
"I don't have all day, boy!" the voice shouted, "Now!"
Viktor shoved the boy into a closet and shut the door, locking it.
"Hey!" the boy protested.
"If you value your limbs, you'll stay quiet," Viktor hissed. The boy went quiet, but Viktor knew he was getting a nasty glare through that door. He hurried over to the door and pulled it open.
The vigilnaut lumbered in, shoving past Viktor as he walked. A veritable giant, this vigilnaut was an old foreman at the Dredge with a sour temper, but in fairness Viktor didn't know many vigilnauts with pleasant dispositions.
"I tracked the kid to Emberflit, but I lost the damn brat," the vigilnaut snapped, sitting back in a chair, "with the rain, it'll be a miracle if I find him at all."
"And so, you came back without him," Viktor concluded with a nod, "why?"
"To tell you to find someone new," the vigilnaut stood, "give me the rest of my pay."
"The agreement was you brought Ekko to the lab, alive and unharmed," Viktor said, crossing his arms, "you don't get a single cog until then."
"I told you," the vigilnaut raised his voice, "I can't find him."
"If you want your pay, look harder," Viktor raised his voice in kind, not one to be shouted down by a big man with a loud voice.
The vigilnaut glared at Viktor, "I'm looking as hard as I can."
"Clearly not," Viktor raised his eyebrows, "or the boy would be—"
"Wait," the vigilnaut interrupted, shoving Viktor aside and lifting a cannister from Viktor's workbench, "how did this—"
The vigilnaut slammed the cannister down and started up the stairs. Viktor ignored him and went to inspect what looked like a machine. A broken hexcrystal, suspended by its own inertia, floated behind a plate of thick glass, contained by a three-stroke radial engine clamped to both sides. Beside it on the table was a hand-switch that hooked up to it, probably a quicklever to start the rotating strokes after the engine was on.
Viktor had a guess as to who brought it into his lab.
"Shit," came a whisper from the closet.
"I agree," Viktor scoffed, "Just what I needed."
"Where is he?" the vigilnaut marched down the stairs and started straight towards Viktor, his watery eyes blazing.
"Who?" Viktor stood up straight, expecting the vigilnaut to stop. Instead, the lumbering beast grabbed Viktor by the collar and shoved him into the door.
"Don't play dumb," the vigilnaut snarled, "the boy, where is he? That thing," the vigilnaut pointed to the radial engine, "is his. Where are you hiding him?"
"I'm not," Viktor lied, "but by all means, blame me for your inability to do a simple task."
"You lying sack of shit," the vigilnaut's grip tightened, "you were never going to pay me anyway, were you?"
Viktor smirked, "Oh there is a brain up there. Here I was thinking the Dredge and that megalomaniac had killed every cell of it."
The vigilnaut growled, "You know in the Dredge liars don't live long."
"We're not in the Dredge," Viktor reminded the vigilnaut.
"The concept still applies," the vigilnaut said.
Viktor felt nails dig into the skin of his back, under his spine implant. Viktor gritted his teeth as he heard metal start to creak under the force, sending a searing pain through his back.
A final groan from the iron and glass implant and a chunk came clean off. Viktor heard in clattering to the ground like a shattered window. The pain came next, a cold, searing pain that shot up Viktor's back and forced a scream from his mouth.
"Put him down!"
Viktor's head lolled back, and he saw the Sumpsnipe out of the corner of his eye, holding a wrench like a bat. The engine was hooked to his belt, lit up in a blurry array of blue-green light. The vigilnaut dropped Viktor and flexed his mechanical arm.
"I suppose if I'm not getting paid," the vigilnaut sounded like he was grinning, "I'll just kill the Sumpsnipe while I'm here."
The vigilnaut swung his heavy fist at the boy, who ducked under it and swung the wrench into the vigilnaut's gut as he went. The mechanical arm spread across the vigilnaut's torso, so the swing couldn't do much more than wind him, but it was a precious few moments.
There was no way the boy knew that.
"Vigilnauts are supposed to be here for our safety!" the boy shouted as the vigilnaut turned, "That was your job! Not beating on defenseless people!"
The vigilnaut lumbered forwards, almost stepping on Viktor's legs before the boy knocked his leg askew and sent his opponent tumbling to the ground. He was up faster than reasonable for his size, growling incoherently. The boy tightened his grip on the wrench and swung it once more, missing the vigilnaut's arm by a distance but severing the cooling unit. The arm was an old piece of augmentation, fueled by a small combustion engine, standard on Dredge foremen. It needed extensive mechanizing to even anchor properly, and after that the engine unit needed to be cooled constantly. This vigilnaut had crushed the exhaust port, so without the cooling unit, his arm would overheat much faster than normal.
Viktor boosted himself up onto his hands and grabbed the vigilnaut's ankle. With as much force as he could muster, Viktor pulled back, sending the vigilnaut crashing forwards. The boy scrambled out of the way before the vigilnaut even began falling. The second the vigilnaut hit the ground, a whistling sound started coming out of the arm. The boy quickly dragged Viktor back. just in time too, because the whole arm let out a blinding flash, hitting them both with a shockwave.
When the glare faded, the boy stumbled to his feet and switched off the radial engine. He looked way more tired than he should've. Viktor flinched as the pain came racing back, like hot needles against his skin. Viktor gasped for air, unable to even scream from the pain. It had been a long time since he'd felt any real pain, longer still since he'd felt this pain.
"We need to go," the boy said firmly, starting to help Viktor to his feet, "that vigilnaut works for the Dredge, either Baron Voss or—"
"Urgot," Viktor choked out, "I know."
"Then we need to go," the boy repeated, "we need somewhere they won't find us."
"Not Zaun," Viktor grunted as the boy pulled him over one shoulder, "topside."
"Piltover?" the boy furrowed his brow, "Who would help us in Piltover?"
Viktor hissed as the boy's unsteady footing sent a jolt of pain up his spine, but he managed a single word in reply, one he knew the boy understood.
"Six."