A/N: I have only seen Arcane, I have no knowledge of League of Legends outside of that, and have no doubt that any lore purists would be infuriated by what I end up writing. It felt fair to war ahead of time.
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"Or do you want to blow us both up, and become the martyr you imagine yourself being?" Silco asked him. Marcus had the weapon in his hand, one pull of a pin and the bastard would be dead. Finally dead. So would he, but he'd go out doing the job of an Enforcer. The job he once thought he did. He'd leave his daughter fatherless, but she'd have a father who, even if she didn't know it, she could actually look up to in pride without having to swallow his lies. She'd grow up the child of a true hero, not some political prop with delusions of grandeur. And this bastard would be gone. Wasn't that what he was supposed to do? Take out the bad guys?
He had tolerated Grayson's ideas about managing the Undercity, letting one reasonable crime lord take power and then keeping things under control rather than going about the impossible task of actually resolving the crime down here. The economic situation was too much of a disaster for that, and they were Enforcers, not councilmen, economists, or businessmen. It would have been hard to do a worse job than the actual councilmen, economists, and businessmen, but that was a thought above his pay-grade. Most thoughts were. It was why he was in this situation; while he had come to understand Grayson's position on working with the crime lords, he really wished that he could have done so while Vander was still in charge. Thanks to Silco, there were no 'reasonable' crime lords left to work with, and the things he'd done, the good men he'd buried…for what? For bribe money? For political power? To save his own skin?
He looked at the weapon, the same one that just killed several of his men, several good men, far better than him, the one that Silco knew, he just knew, Marcus would take and blame on a completely unrelated gang to get the heat off of Silco. Like he always did. The way the man mocked him, the way the man simply knew that when he asked for Marcus's jump, Marcus would only whine for a bit before asking how high, that was what finally pushed him over the edge. That was what finally convinced the Enforcer to enforce.
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The purple explosion above the Last Drop shocked the entire Undercity. While explosions and death weren't exactly rare down there, that was the Last Drop. That was where the bosses did their business in secret. You didn't go around there unless you were somebody or had a death wish, and it seemed that someone got their wish. Sevika was frequently up there, though she didn't know whether to be grateful or panic that she hadn't been today. If the boss was dead, then she had to make some immediate moves to keep the whole city from falling into even worse shit than it already was.
Finn would almost certainly try to take power, and that imbecile was the last person anyone needed running the place. While Silco was cruel and authoritarian, he also gave a damn about his 'nation of Zaun,' while Finn only saw the power and money and none of the finesse required for such a position. She herself was too much of a follower to take the lead, or she would have done so a long time ago, so her best option, thinking over all of Silco's associates…that one woman? The one whose cowardly son was put in charge of the shimmer plants? Yes, she'd do quite nicely, though Sevika was a little wary of helping another crime lord whose greatest fault, at least in her own eyes, was being too soft on a child that largely turned out to be a liability. That internal reminder of Silco's daughter caused her to stop calculating for a bit, start panicking, and then calm herself down so she could resume calculating. How was that psycho going to react to this? Not knowing whether the thought that she might want power or the thought that she might just decide she wanted vengeance on anything and everything or the thought that she just might go crazy terrified her more, Sevika did know that Silco was the only one who could keep Jinx under control, and with him gone…oh, this is bad.
--
Caitlyn and Vi were trying to do this stealthily. After all, who knew where this man was hiding. He had managed to avoid the authorities all this time, and Caitlyn at least refused to believe that it could entirely be due to topsider corruption, so the pair went forward on the assumption that Silco kept himself hidden away in some secretive location when he wasn't putting on the aura of the friendly industrialist. They certainly didn't expect him to be in the general vicinity of that nasty explosion that just came out of nowhere. "That was…at the Last Drop," Vi noted, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice.
When Caitlyn looked at her in confusion, she barely murmured that it was somewhere that she had fond memories, and that it was where things used to be run from in Vander's day. Sensing that there was more to the story that Vi really didn't want to share, but also not having the time to entertain some criminal's emotions when one of the most important investigations of the year was underway, Caitlyn moved to press her when several street rats caught her ear. "Wasn't that Silco's place that just blew up?" "Yeah, I heard that the guy bought it…" "Shh, I don't trust it. A guy like that, just dying? Who knows what he'll do if he hears you." That did seem to shut the first speaker up, much to Caitlyn's frustration. Moving to accost them, Vi had to stop her and more subtly ask them, "hey, what do you guys mean about Silco's place blowing up?"
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Jinx was already having a bad day, so when she heard the explosion, that sounded like one of her weapons, not being used by her, around where her father was supposed to be…you've done it again, Jinx, Milo told her, his face suddenly spray-painted on a nearby wall. You're weapon finally worked. Worked right on your family. Are you happy now? Blood started rushing to her head, prompting her to grip her temples and breathe rapidly. Calm down, calm down, he's fine, I can find out what really happened. You killed him. Without information, I can't act yet, and Silco's not weak. This is all just a misunderstanding. You killed him. I just have to go talk to him. Yes, go talk to him. Talk to him. You killed him. Talk to HIM!
As the colors surrounding her started to shift into various shades of purple and blue that only she could apparently see, if the normal behavior of the people below (why are you normal? The most important man in the world is dead-no he's not, he's too strong to die-YOU KILLED HIM), she leapt from rooftop to rooftop, headed back toward the Last Drop in order to see what had happened. Maybe this would be another silly little paranoid fantasy.
--
There were no on-the-books records of where Marcus was supposed to be located right now, which only furthered the panic of the few Enforcers that knew full well that he was in the place where that violent explosion that they would normally ignore (so what if the Undercity rats wanted to blow each other up? That's hardly a topsider's problem) was just reported, and the fact that he was not using whatever means he had available to report on the situation, overtly or covertly, was a very bad sign. At best, they would need to figure out an explanation for why he was in the vicinity of the blast that almost certainly horrifically injured him. At worst…his allies didn't want to consider the worst case yet, while his enemies didn't want to jump the gun. That was why neither was prepared when the Council called asking for Marcus to keep them informed on the situation (it was a surprisingly large explosion) and if he knew what was going on. Trying to keep Marcus's location a state secret wouldn't work (these callers were the state), and they honestly couldn't come up with any other explanation until some secretary shouted that he had decided to investigate the scene personally, was currently on his way there, and thus couldn't speak freely at the moment. He would, of course, keep them updated as necessary.
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An explosion in the Undercity, no matter how surprisingly large, was rarely a topic of much concern for Piltover, but with Jayce's paranoia over the stolen Hextech crystal, the constant demand for updates, and the fact that it sounded like his worst fears had come true, that the crime lords had figured out how to build weaponry using the technology he developed…this couldn't be ignored. He wanted immediate information on what was going on down there, and was very frustrated by the fact that everyone he spoke to about it was being so evasive. At least Marcus was showing some initiative. And where the hell was Caitlyn in all this? He would have though that she of all people would be jumping at the bit to get in on this action.
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Sevika didn't even have time to start trying to make her moves before Finn and his goons found her. "Thso, somesthing just went down at the Last Drop, and we want to know how our…business interests will be affected. Is Silco sthere?" Sevika, who was still trying to figure out what was going on with her boss at the moment herself, forced her face to show no expression as she responded, "I am heading that way to find out what is going on right now. Maybe you should be a little more respectful, the man who pulled you out of the gutter," she casually tapped the weapons on her arm, "and the man who keeps making sure that I don't let my anger get to me and rip off that silly little solid gold jaw of yours, it makes you look like a jackass by the way," she grinned at his sudden indignation, "might be seriously hurt. And if he's hurt, he might get angry. And if he's angry, well, honestly, you might be the most replaceable of his men." Finn was trying not to back down, but the knocking of his feet, the twitching of his upper jaw, the one that was still made of flesh, showed what he was really feeling inside. "I'm more usthful than sthat rabid dog of his, and he should remember sthat!"
Sevika did a much better job of hiding her own fear and disgust at the reminder of Jinx's existence. "Maybe you can tell him that yourself when he's available. Or, if he doesn't have her under control anymore, then maybe you can tell her that to her face." Finn had already been reaching when he said that, trying out of desperate bravado to pretend that he still had cards to play in this little game of intimidation, but that reminder let his body language and his verbal language match up far better. "I only have sthe greatest respect for our boss, and he knows sthat full well, doesn't he?" "Of course," Sevika responded, confident that he had been kept docile for now. She didn't expect that to be the case for long, and slightly wished that he had given her an excuse to rip that damn golden jaw off, but she had to move carefully until she actually knew the situation.
If Silco was actually dead, then the maneuvers needed to keep the 'distinguished industrialists' under control would have to be done quickly before their power struggles turned into a bloodbath, which would in turn destabilize and destroy the Undercity even further, which in turn would give Piltover the pretense it needed to send an army and wipe out the place without the last bleeding hearts upstairs having the right to object. Having already decided on Renni as the most reasonable of the chem barons if it really came to that, she pushed, leapt, and jumped past the gathering crowds fascinated at the prospect of seeing something unusual going on in order to get to where…it was worse than she'd thought.
The upper half of the Last Drop was blown to smithereens, purple smoke billowing up and also some sort of blue energy (was that the new weapon the boss was working on? Did Jinx screw up again?). Such thoughts were interrupted when she saw the bodies scattered around the ground, or what was left of them. She couldn't see Silco anywhere, though doubted that she could recognize him if she did, but she did see several Enforcer helmets. Enforcer helmets from dead, blown-to-bits Enforcers. So, not only was Topside going to be baying for blood, but the man most qualified to stop them and keep things under control was missing, and just saying he was 'missing' would be optimistic. Okay, Sevika thought, using action to control her rising panic. Action was why she betrayed Vander, and why she supported Silco's dream in the first place. Action was what was needed now. Keep the chem barons united. A war between them will ruin everything. Secondly, we need to a scapegoat to blame this on. Sacrifice someone to topside to keep them off our backs until we can get everything back in motion. If his death were certain, I would honestly put up Jinx, but I can't risk his reaction if he comes back and finds out. Finn's been hinting at rebellion already, maybe I can blame him. Regardless, I need to keep Jinx from doing something stupid, probably the most impossible of my needs, and we do all of this before the Firelights hear about it and make their move. Alright, Sevika, you can do this. No time to mope, that was your punishment for being born in the Undercity.
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Jinx found her way across the rooftops easily enough. That way she avoided the crowds. There was no reason to kill anyone. Yet. You already killed Silco, Milo chastised her, but she ignored him. He was just a stupid painting of a teddy bear right now anyways, with the pinks and blues in all the wrong places. Gazing at the destroyed remains of the Last Drop, seeing the smoke that could very well have come from one of her bombs, her heart shattered in six pieces. No. YES. nO. YeS. Silco is sTronG. But he's dead. Deadstrongdeadstrongdeadstrong.
Her headache caused her to grip her temples, breathing in heavily and deeply, until she noticed a man crawling out the wreckage, one limb missing, clearly bleeding out. Hey, it's Chuck, she thought, thinking on all her good times with the bartender who insisted he wasn't named Chuck in spite of clearly looking like a Chuck. Jumping down to kneel in front of him, she smiled and waved. "Hey, Chuck!" His only response was a painful groan. Jinx was very annoyed. "Chuck, you're supposed to say hey back! Uhh! Anyway, what's going on?" His vision was clear enough to see who he was talking with, and this seemed to scare him for some reason. "Marcus…came to talk…Silco…explosion." "Marcus? The Enforcer? Now why would they be talking today, it's not time to meet…".
Her thoughts moved back to what Silco had just been yelling at her about, about killing all those Enforcers and bringing attention to them. Chuck confirmed it, with both of his mouths. The fleshy one on his normal face told her, "Marcus…angry…about you…please help me," while the blue neon zig-zag oval that barely resembled a mouth said, much more quickly and clearly, "yes, Jinx, he died because of you. The Enforcers killed him because of you. You're still just a Jinx to everyone you love." The pain welled up inside of her, flowing, going back, flowing, dying, rending, turning into resolve. "That's very mean, Chuck," she responded, and shot him in the back. I did this. The Enforcers did this. I did this. The Enforcers did this. She ultimately decided that the Enforcers did this. Jinx had punished herself enough already.
--
Renni normally wore a mask when she oversaw the Shimmer operations. She didn't like breathing the air down here, it reminded her of her miserable little childhood. It was a childhood that had made her strong, which was why she forbid her son from doing the same as her, but it was a strength gained through memories she rather not dwell on. Today, she chose to forgo, for it was that very son that she was overseeing. He had to see his mother's strength if he was going to develop his own. Working with the same children that he would one day rule over, seeing both how they lived and how pathetic they truly were, it would do wonders for him when he eventually inherited her barony, and she was proud to see him working just as the others did, not letting up for even a second. Not even acknowledging her, except as his superior. A small, foolish part of her lamented that, but mostly she was glad that he understood how the world worked.
She might have contemplated the thought more if she weren't so rudely interrupted. "Ma'am, there's been a development," one of Silco's goons rushed up to her. "What is it?" She snapped back, not wanting to seem weak but also not wanting to display any disloyalty. "There's been an explosion at Silco's office, and we're not certain what happened, or whether Silco is dead or alive. Sevika has called a meeting of the barons, but she wants to speak with you privately first." Not being naive enough to just assume that a man like that was dead, she assented. "Very well," and, taking one last glance at her son, working the mechanics of a device that could easily spray gas that would disintegrate his lungs if he weren't careful, her chest swelled with pride and she went to figure things out. Oh, what have you done now, dear leader?
--
Ekko's contacts on the streets had gotten word to him that Vi was back in town. This was surprising, as he thought the girl long dead, but also a good thing. Reuniting with his old friend would be good for personal morale (he knew that he needed some these days), but she also used to be competent at what she did. If she actually survived Silco's attacks back as a teenager, then he couldn't imagine her being any less so nowadays, and with his current situation, well, he could spare some men and risk a little to find out where she was. Of course, if the rumors that she was traveling with an Enforcer were true…well, he was no stranger to fighting former friends, and that was still a threat worth dealing with and thus still something to focus on.
Going through what he remembered of their interactions, piecing everything together the way the gear of a cloak made another gear turn and then another, all fitting together into a single conclusion…well, she was obviously going to look for Jinx. Vi would still believe in her sister, after all, even if Ekko knew all too well that the Powder they both once knew and loved was far too gone for such considerations. So, to find her he would either have to find Jinx, or find the places Vi would suspect to have information on Jinx. Which meant the brothels, where all information could be found, or Silco's less secure operations. Luckily, he had a lot of experience with the latter. And so, he found himself headed toward a small shimmer shop disguised as a bar when the explosion happened.
Was that Silco's place? He gave himself a few seconds to think over every operation they had planned today, but knew it was a waste of time; they had no plans to take out Silco himself whatsoever. Yet. Sorry Vi, he thought, but figuring this out is going to take much higher priority. So he abandoned his search and instead veered off to find out what the hell had just happened.
--
Heimedinger thought about the fact that his promising young student's most significant rises in career status had coincided with explosions. One led to his dead-end research being discovered and prompting him into the series of actions that would lead to that research changing the city and possibly the world (for the better or for the worse, Heimedinger still felt it was yet to be seen), and another seemed unrelated (though that also had yet to be seen, he feared) but happened to occur right after the new Councilor's first major actions. There were many who thought that there were no coincidences, but he had lived long enough to have seen plenty of coincidences that never turned out to mean anything more. He had also lived long enough to see that patterns could emerge, even from coincidences. Something bad was happening in Piltover, and he really wasn't certain what to do about it; maybe in a few decades, he'd have a solution, or, considering his new economic proposal, maybe a shift in revenue could slowly let them ease the burden on the poor over the next forty years…he'd have to consider that for later.
For now, he had to lend his voice to the Council's latest worries. As short-lived species, they favored quick solutions, so they'd want to respond to this 'explosion' matter with immediate haste, throwing the weight of the Enforcers around, most likely. He doubted even Jayce could cure his bloodlust here; the boy thought like too many young inventors. You've got to fly, even if it's on an airship fueled by explosive gas. See what the miner could do with it, not what the mass-murderer could. The old yordle sighed as he shuffled his way into the Council chambers to hear the latest updates. Two of them were already calling for what amounted to an invasion of one of their country's own provinces. Yes, today was going to be a doozy.
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Two shimmer addicts sat on a stool, holding out their hands in hopes that someone, anyone, would take pity on their poor forms and toss them a little bit of food. Or money. Or maybe, though they hated themselves for thinking, a little more of that wonderful poison that put them in this situation in the first place. Of course, now everyone was too busy panicking over the possibility that Silco had actually bought it to pay attention to them (not that they would have anyways, except maybe to stare in repulsion), and that got the two addicts talking. "Good, I hope he's dead. He's the one that did this to me." "Did he do it to you? Did he forcibly ram it into your veins?" The other asked, not really in the mood to entertain the lie they normally maintained. "I never saw this shit under Vander," the other snappily replied. "Yeah, I made some bad decisions, but don't let those up top get away with it. No man is an island, or rather no island can survive without the surrounding water, and they're the ones who polluted the water." "They? I thought you were talking about Silco?" "I'm talking about all of them. Silco. The Council. The Enforcers. I wouldn't have ever considered any of this when Vander was still around." "Things sucked under Vander as well," he held up a shaking, decrepit hand before his companion could object, "but yes, things got worse when he died. He always wanted us to be comfortable in our poverty, but never had any real plans to get us out of it. He loved the people of Zaun, but never really cared for Zaun itself as much as he thought he did. Silco loved Zaun, but didn't much care for its people. Silco hoped to make Zaun great so it could be loved. Vander hoped that, by being loved, it would become great. Both of them failed, and now here we are, rotting away, still demanding more of the same stuff that turned us into this. Maybe we're the most pathetic of them all." "You think that they were both wrong, then? What would you have done?" The first one laughed, then immediately regretted it when his shriveled lungs seized up and sent painful coughs racking through him in response. "Do you think that, if I was the one with all the answers, with even an ounce of basic wisdom, I'd be hear dying on the streets waiting for kindness from people who gave up on it a long time ago?" Not having anything else to do, he thought on the matter. "Uniting Zaun and Piltover in the first place was a mistake; we were always too different to be one, and making the 'City of Progress' was always a doomed project. A people needs to be together, united by a shared story. Piltover didn't care what you were, just what benefit you could provide the Council. Maybe, in the early days, it even cared for how well you innovate, how well you came up with solutions that decreased the rate of disease by 4% or left us with 6% less homelessness or whatever. That was a mistake. By giving us all nothing but better numbers to live for, we left the bad numbers behind, and they hadn't nothing. That was Vander's problem, he only saw how to get the numbers right, less technical starvation, less raw numbers of deaths, but he couldn't give the people anything to live for. Silco did give us just that, a dream of a free Zaun, the power and pleasure offered by shimmer," oh, how he still craved it even as he cursed himself for feeling so, "but he still only saw that freedom in numbers. The number of new technologies developed, the number on the balance sheets listing how much the chem barons made this quarter. That's where we learned to find greatness, it's what Piltover taught us, and it's been Zaun's downfall ever since." The other one looked at him like he was crazy. "What are you even talking about. We do not need vague nonsense and empty platitudes about numbers. We need food, a greater 'number' of it, we need less pollution, a smaller 'number' of it, I don't even begin to understand what you're trying to say." The first one sighed. "You're right, you don't. We need to cultivate the type of people who could provide food, the type of people who would think to reduce pollution. Piltover thinks that their doing that, but they only care about the material end, there's no one here who really sees the spiritual needs, the community needs. Vander almost did, but we all know where he ended up." The second rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't give me that religious crap. It never solved anything, and it never will. We need a better system." "We need better people in the system," the first disagreed. "There will be always be bad people who make it up top, we need a system to prevent it." "The fact that bad people will always exist and make it to the top is exactly why improving the system will do nothing!" Some passing soul tossed them both a coin, which shut them up as they negotiated over who would get to spend it. Once it was settled, rather than return to the argument over meta politics, the second instead switched to current events. "So, if Silco really did bite it, who will take over now?" "I'm afraid we are cursed to live in interesting times, my friend."