Chapter 10: Ritual of Bound minds
After Irelia's attack the two of them arrive at the institute on the day of Reina's next evaluation. Irelia was asked to be present along with Viktor. High Summoner Soren presented Reina to the council, Viktor and Irelia stood to aside to bare witness to the system. Lady Kolminye first greeted Reina politely making sire she was comfortable before proceeding with the ritual.
With everything set up they were ready. "Lady Kissryil..." The oldest one spoke.
Reina looked up to him. She could not see his face as he sat on his pedestal next to Lady Kolminye as his hood kept his face hidden.
"We are going to attempt a ritual that should help you to forcibly remember your past. However we won't try anything unless you are comfortable with this method. Honestly, we'd prefer not to use it but it's the only way we currently have."
Reina thought for a second. "What impact will it have on me? What am I going to experience?"
Viktor seemed to smile under his mask at her question. Maybe he was glad that she asked that question.
Lady Kolminye spoke up. "You'll feel pain. And maybe suffering from migraines for days afterwards. But please know that we want to help you remember your past..."
"I object!" Irelia spoke up. The council members and Soren looked at her. Viktor was intrigued to learn why she would object to this.
"We know that you tried to read Reina's mind before, it didn't work. How can you be certain that she will remember after putting her through so much pain?" Viktor also chimed in.
"I'd also like to know. I care much for my child and I promised her that no harm will come to her. So will this ritual truly work? Or will it only be temporary?" He was concerned for her no doubt.
"Father, Ire, I understand your concern. But this is my decision. I need to remember my past, not just for myself, but for my former friends and family that I may still have. I know it hurts Ire that I don't remember the times we had together and that something I want to remember. No matter what I have to go though to achieve it." Reina was firm and also polite. She hoped that they would understand.
Lady Kolminye and the other members gathered around Reina. She had no idea she was standing on a symbol of runes in the center of the room. Lady Kolminye presented Reina with a vial of liquid and asked her to drink it.
Viktor scanned the vial but his sensors could not pick up what kind of liquid it was. As it went down her throat it felt cold. Like a cold glass of water. But it tasted strange to her after a while the liquid would take effect making her hold her body in pain. Almost as if she was being attacked from the inside.
"The walls are breaking, it's time." The youngest one stated. The council members started chanting in rune language and their bodies started glowing as well.
Viktor and Irelia could only watch as Reina was wreaked with pain from the ritual, but it only got worse from there. As the chanting continued High Summoner Soren placed a spell on Reina that held her in place. He too had to chant something different in order to keep her there.
After a few minutes into the ritual the walls around Reina's mind finally crumbled but what they saw wasn't her memories. At the same time all of the council members were pushed out of the circle by an invisible force. Irelia and Viktor could not believe what they were seeing.
A black aura engulfed Reina's body and soon her hair and eye colour changed as well. Remembering the night this version of Reina attacked her she jumped into the circle and tried to calm Reina down. She swung her arms arms around her and hugged her tightly in hopes that she would return to her senses.
A pillar of dark energy rose from the council chambers and darkened the light around the institute. Everyone present that time, summoners and champions had no idea what was happening.
"I smell magic in the air...and a lot of it." Ryze mentioned. Syndra could also feel this massive amount of magic from her floating fortress. As she looked in the direction of the institute.
Irelia held onto Reina but was eventually thrown off by a burst of energy from her. Viktor stood firm with his shield Soren too eventually gone blown out if the circle, breaking his hold of her. The council member sprung to their feet readying suppression spells and enchantments to contain her burst of power. Though Viktor stepped forward and placed Reina in a gravity field. Unable to move onside of it, it pulled her down to one knee as it trapped her inside of it. Still determined Reina raised her arm up to Viktor and a black ball of energy started to form in her hand.
"I'm sorry my child." Viktor threw his device in the air above Reina. It opened creating a chaotic storm that silenced Reina's surge of power, completely stopping it long enough for the council to place her in a containment field.
Reina calmed down now that the pain had subsided and that her moment of possession was over. At that moment, Reina's memories could be seen. Projected out like a movie playing on a projector screen.
Reina was unconscious after that, lying on the floor dreaming her memories. As the council, Soren, Irelia and Viktor watched her life unfold on front of them they were all both happy and terrified for her.
They witnessed her happiest moments and the attempt on her life on the boat. After watching the mysterious person almost kill Reina. They also saw something much different to their findings.
After the assailant left Reina for dead on the ferry. Reina's power awakened and in an attempt to save it 's host, it also sunk the ship. Killing all the people that remained alive on the ship.
They saw her memories continue in Viktor's labs from when she reached out to him for help and after she woke up with her new augments. Everything finally added up and made sense. The question still remained, who was that man.
A few hours later, Reina awoke on her bed in her quarters at the institute. She was groggy as she sat up. Holding her head in pain she couldn't see due to a pounding headache.
As she sat up, she could hear people talking outside her bedroom door. She could recognize the voices. She hazily got up and approached the door but didn't open it. She could hear the conversation clearly.
"Why did this have to happen to her?" Irelia was shocked and confused as to why someone would target her. To her Reina was like angelic singer, all she wanted to do was sing for people and perform. "Why must she bare the weight of the world like we champions do?" Irelia was worried dearly for her friend. Not only was her life taken from her, but now she bore power that surpasses even the likes of Ryze and Syndra.
"It seems that Reina must be watched from now on. We won't condemn her for what happened in the council chambers but we must keep an eye on her. I trust you'll understand Irelia." The oldest of the council members said.
Irelia looked sad. Sad fir her friend. Though she did not want to get in the way of the councils work she hesitated to leave it all to them.
"Lady Irelia..." Soren spoke. "I know this must be hard for you. But please understand, with this information we now have the ability to search fir an appropriate way to help her over come this in any way we can."
Viktor also stood in the room, gripping his scepter as he listened. "Perhaps I can design some kind of device that may be able to suppress her growing power. Back at the lab I witnessed as her power or what ever it is, moving around her body as if it had a mind of it's own. It pulled the hextech arm onto the body of Reina as if anxious to awaken her. I believe this power within her is more dangerous than Reina herself."
"It moved on its own?" The council member asked. "Maybe that's why we couldn't get into her memories the first time she was here..."
Viktor seemed to be worried for Reina under his mask. His voice was more serious more father like that before. "I may not be Reina's real father...but I care for her. I promised her nothing will harm her when she came to to the institute. I've failed her."
Irelia looked at him seemingly happy and confused at his words. "I've failed her too. I though I could protect her, yet it was my fault that she went on that boat. I should've been with her, I should've been protecting her."
Reina was sitting on her bed now, listening while deep in thought. She remembered everything that happened but she felt like she was forgetting something. She had no memory of what happened in the council room after she blacked out.
"I wish to keep her at home. At my manor." Irelia firmly put.
"Irelia what if she freaks out and tries to hurt you?" Soren asked.
Irelia pulled down the collar of her shirt and showed them the red hand print around her throat. The room went silent.
"It happened a late night. A black energy fell over my room just like how the council room darkened. She attacked me buy she wasn't herself. Her entire appearance changed, her hair colour and eyes colour changed just like it was in the council room. I was a few seconds away from being with my master then she released me collapsing to the floor, returning to normal."
Viktor said nothing, Soren and the council member stood their looking at the mark until she covered it again.
"She doesn't seem to remember what happens when she goes berserk like that. She hasn't questioned me about what happened and neither have I told her about it. I'd like to keep it that way. I've already lost her once. I'm not going to lose her again. I can't."
Viktor gripped his scepter, he never knew how much Irelia cared for Reina, it was as if she was more like a mother than a sister. The other summoners were leaving the room but stopped at the door.
"Reina has remembered her past now that the ritual is over. Her mind is unstable and vulnerable, she'll need you both in order to stabilize, so for her sake...put aside your hatred for each other and help the one you care about." With the they left the room closing the door behind them.
Viktor was about to say something when Reina entered the room. "My child...how long have you been awake?" She approached Irelia.
"Long enough to hear everything." She said as she rustled Irelia's hair.
"Reina...I"
"You haven't changed Irelia, you're just like I remember you. Always keeping things to yourself, even when I lived you with father."
Irelia hugged her. "I didn't want you to worry for me."
"How could I not?" Reina replied. "I hurt you..." She said as she could see the hand print on her neck. "If I'm capable of hurting my closest friend without realizing or remembering...then what friend am I?"
Viktor chimed in. "You should not blame yourself for the hurt that you've caused Irelia. The fault was not your own. You were neither conscious nor aware of what was happening."
She approached Viktor and tightly hugged him. Viktor gently stroked her hair with one arm.
"Father...i need you to tell me something." Reina eased off of him.
"What would you like to know?" He asked her.
"What did you do to make Irelia so mad at you? Since my memory has returned I know that Irelia doesn't bare hatred towards anyone for now reason. Then why you?" She was standing in front of him, looking up into his eyes through his mask.
He sighed and leaned against the wall. "Well...there would come a time that you would ask me to remember that time. I thought that Irelia would've told you."
"It's better for the person responsible to bare the weight and talk about it. She deserves to hear it from you." She responded.
"Fair enough." He took a seat. Leaning against his scepter he spoke to them truthfully and without faltering. He wanted to prove that he wasn't the same man as back then.
"I guess I should start from the beginning." He closed his eyes and reopened them speaking clearly.
"I was a very different man before I met you Reina. I was a very hated hextech bioengineering and I did things that were deemed less than human. I stole from people in order to get my work done, I bribed others to achieve my own personal goals. I've threatened and exploited others for my own gain. Back then...i was willing to do anything to achieve my vision. The Glorious Evolution was my ultimate goal for humanity. I've done several things that would explain Irelia's hatred. But I believe the two most important things which it aches me to tell you."
"Please I want to know." Reina cooed him.
"Don't you hesitate now." Irelia sternly struck.
"Remember the war that was waged in Ionia between Noxus and it's people?" He asked her.
Reina nodded. "How could I forget...it was the war that made my mother sick."
Viktor seemed to hurt when she said that. He feared she may blame him for her mothers death. Though he knew he deserved nothing less than that. But Reina was the last person he would want to hate him too.
"I was the one that made and supplied the weapons for Noxus."
The truth hit Reina in the gut like a rock sinking to the ocean floor. She felt as if everything about Viktor that she believed was a lie. The death of her mother, her father making them homeless in order to pay for her treatment, it was because of that war. And to learn that it was Viktor that gave them the weapons for it only made it worse for her.
"Though when I made those weapons I had no idea what they were going to be used for. They paid me and I made them. Though the kind of person I was back then, I doubt i would've cared. The second reason to which would explain it is you Reina."
She looked up at him. Tears in her eyes, her face droopy from sadness and anger. It's because of what I did to you that saved your life. Irelia believes that I only saved you to turn you into a weapon and she believes that was my ultimate goal when I found you that day. And honestly...she wouldn't be wrong."
Another punch in the gut to her. She thought of him as a father no she didn't know what to believe.
"When I had first found you, I wanted to experiment on you at first in order to achieve my goals yet again. I had fallen into the same person that I'm trying my hardest not to be currently." Viktor's voice wavered. Irelia thought that she would never see him break like that. To her it felt like her was crying.
"But when I met you I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to turn you into a monster like myself. I couldn't destroy your life like I did the lives of your people. After I met you I wanted to change my actions and become a better person. I..."
"Stop!" Reina said. Black energy started rising from her. "I don't want to hear it." She looked up at him. Viktor could not only see her pain but feel it as well. It was as if she was transmitting her feelings onto him.
"Everything I've come to believe and trust about you was a lie. You destroyed my families life...my life. My mother got sick due to the chemicals that lingered after the bombings. She died l before I could remember her face."
"Reina, I'm sor..."
"Don't...just. Don't..." She clenched her fists. "Leave...I never want to see your face again. Don't even call me."
Viktor slowly stood up. And bowed his head. "May happiness come to you." And with that he stood outside the door after closing it. It felt as if his legs had left him, his heart felt heavy, breathing spaced and weak. His mask wet from his overflowing emotions overpowering the augments. Managing to stay on his feet he slowly walked away from the door in the direction of the portals to take him home.
Irelia stared at Reina as the black energy slowly dissipated. "Reina, I don't think you should've done that. As much as Viktor has done in the past he cares for you..."
"Irelia please..."
Silence falls over the room. Irelia had never seen Reina so torn, so broken before. She always knew Reina as an upbeat laid back and happy person. Even when she lived a homeless life she was always happy. This was a drastic change, but a change that she didn't exactly hate. She hugged her friend lovingly then left a few minutes later.
Chapter End!