Chapter One

Stirrings on Emberflit

*boing* *boing* *boing*

The last of the grandfather clock's tolls rung through the house on Emberflit and Viktor put down his tools. The clock had just sounded that it was nine o'clock in the morning, and though he had been up and working since six, Viktor's day was about to begin in earnest. He went to the kitchen, one of the first rooms that had been repaired, lit the gas stove, set a kettle of water upon it, and placed two mugs on the countertop. Then, he made his way to his apprentice's room.

He walked through the house which, though having been occupied for nearly two months now, still had many days' worth of work to do before it would feel like a home rather than a gang's abandoned hideout. Making the place baseline livable had been first priority; security had been second, establishing a workspace was his third, with expanding this workspace into a full lab being his fourth. Taking care of "unimportant cosmetic damage" such as the laser burns scoring the walls sat somewhere around tenth in priority.

The stairs below Viktor creaked (replacing creaking boards was priority fourteen) as he climbed them. Many of the rooms up here had been left to remain storage rooms, but two had been cleaned out to be used as bedrooms. It was before one of these rooms that Viktor stopped. Taking care not to make too much noise, he opened the door.

The room inside was cluttered. Clothing was just as likely to be draped over a chair as it was to be folded and put away in their drawers. This was thanks in no small part to a bag leaning against the bottom drawer, an obstacle that thoroughly made it slightly more inconvenient to put the clothes away properly. Books were laying everywhere except for the bookshelf they belonged in and illustrations were tacked up all over the walls to cover where the striped wallpaper was stained.

Only the desk in the corner of the room was neat, with the tools inside well organized and the drawing instruments on its surface corralled into a glass jar. Hanging on the wall above the desk was the lone illustration that was given the honor of being place in a frame; a realistic illustration of a leg augmentation titled "Not-so-Still Life." And there, in a bed against the opposite wall, still sleeping, was Renatus, Viktor's apprentice.

The boy was young, no older than seventeen, and had been a Sump dweller his entire life. All the good; resourcefulness, tenacity, and self-sufficiency, and all the bad; injuries, being orphaned at a young age, and a tendency to want to solve problems with violence, of Sump life had been imparted onto Ren. He was a spirited young man, one who could at times be overconfident, could ramble on about any little thing that excited him, and was deeply emotional about many things. All in all, he should have been someone that Viktor would have found to be a nuisance, but he did not.

Renatus was earnest, eager to learn, and most importantly, he respected Viktor. There were others in the city who respected Viktor and his scientific achievements, there were even some who revered him as though he were a prophet, but the way Ren respected him was different. Ren admired Viktor not for his inventions nor any grandiose belief he had about humanity's future, but admired the kind of person he was; someone who took in a starving sumpsnipe and gave him a second chance of life.

Gratitude was the base for that respect and it was a strong base. It meant that for all their differences, of which there were many, Ren never treated Viktor as an enemy. He was never the villain Piltover or other Zaunites had made him out to be. He was someone worthy of companionship. He was someone worth nearly dying for.

Viktor's eyes came to rest on Ren's arm. The limb was not a natural one, but an augment from the shoulder down. It was one of his finer creations, capable of mimicking many of the fine motor movements of an organic limb, powerful like a weaponized limb but without cumbersomeness of one, and built to endure the harsh environment of Zaun. It was the least Viktor owed Ren. His other arms had been destroyed by an attack from Piltover's Jayce, an attack he had only been struck by because he had pushed Viktor out of the way.

That had been an act of self-sacrifice Viktor had never experienced from another before and one he doubted he would ever receive from another again. Every time he looked at the boy's arm, he was reminded of it. No difference of opinion or clash of personality could ever undo that moment in the factory. He owed Renatus his life and so, no matter what challenges laid ahead, he would strive to be a worthy mentor for his apprentice. And now it was time for that apprentice to start his day.

Viktor knocked on the doorframe.

"Renatus," he said, "it is after nine o'clock. You requested that I not allow you to sleep past the hour. Wake up."

Ren left out a soft groan.

"Good morning to you too, Doc," he said with a yawn.

"The water in the kettle should be boiling soon," Viktor continued to speak, "I am going back downstairs to tend to it. If you do not come down to the kitchen within ten minutes, I will return to ensure that you have not fallen back asleep."

Ren flashed Viktor a thumbs-up.

"I'll be down. Don't worry about me."

He pulled himself up to a sitting position.

"I'm wide awake."

Viktor nodded and left Ren to ready himself for the day.

Ren brought his right hand up to his eyes and rubbed the remainder of the sleep from them. Then he took a deep breath in, held it for three seconds, and exhaled slowly.

"I'm awake," he repeated to himself.

He swung his legs, first augmented, then organic, over the side of the bed and began to stretch. Simple ankle pumps were all they were, but they were necessary for getting his augmentation fully turned on and synchronized with the rest of his nerves. As he did this with his legs, he also stretched his arms above his head, not even flinching today as the cool metallic tips of this augmented arm brushed against those of his other. Slowly, he lowered them before himself and touched the tips of his fingers with his thumbs on each hand. A tingling sensation rushed through his shoulder and thigh and Ren knew the electronics coursing through his body were ready.

With a grunt, Ren got to his feet. He dug through his drawers in search of something to wear, tossing the rest of the clothes he had to move over onto his chair as he went, and got changed. He paused though for a moment as he was working his augmented arm through a recently modified sleeve. He had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His attention at once was pulled to where his arm augment met his shoulder. Less than a year ago, the skin there was smooth and unmarred, but now it was a veritable topographic map of mountains and valleys made of scars.

Rebuilding his shoulder and preparing it to support a complex augmentation had been a nightmare of a task and it was one Viktor was still not finished with. A fresh pink scar stood out among the others. It was from a small operation Viktor had performed to help his surviving bones handle the weight of the metal limb, the stitches of which had finally been removed yesterday. Ren brought his fingers up and pushed against the scar. It was a little itchy, but the pain was gone.

Ren gave a grunt of approval and took his attention away from the shoulder. He did not want to become fixated on his scars today. He finished getting himself dressed without further delay, brushed out his dark curls, and went downstairs into the kitchen.

The bitter aroma of freshly steeped tea greeted Ren as he entered the kitchen.

"Cream?" Viktor asked as he heard Ren enter the room.

"Yes please," Ren answered.

Viktor nodded and poured a small amount into both teas before returning the bottle to the chem-enhanced icebox. Ren took both mugs and set them opposite each other at the small table and sat down.

"Oh sweet," he commented, grabbing a crumpled paper from the table, "the Piltovan Inquirer. I didn't know you bought that."

"I did not," Viktor said, "Moyna used that to wrap her last delivery."

"Ah well, one person's trash is another's treasure."

"Treasure? Renatus, please do not tell me you actually enjoy reading that valueless tabloid?"

"These washed into the Sump all the time. So yeah, of course I've read it and oh, it's bad, I won't deny that, but I wouldn't say it's valueless," he flattened out the pages and began to flip through it, "Listen to this one, "Evil Scarecrow Haunts Demacian Countryside" or "Troll Invasion from the North? Could Happen." or oh, this one, "Professor Zachary gets REAL about Academy Scandals," what do you think of those titles?"

"They all sound like over exaggerated nonsense."

"Exactly. It's so stupid it's kinda funny and entertainment is worth something, right?"

"Its value is subjective."

"Fine. I'll have my fun at least."

Viktor made no comment, but took his place at the other side of the table. He snapped off his mask and placed it on the table before taking a sip of his tea. He gave a small contented sigh. Ren raised his own mug and nodded over a silent "thanks" to Viktor, before taking one as well. Neither knew when it had happened, but at some point, Ren had stopped wincing at the sight of Viktor's face.

In silence, they both enjoyed the aroma of the hot drink and sipped slowly to avoid burning their tongues. Viktor closed his eyes, mentally going over his extensive checklist of what he wished to accomplish that day and Ren folded the corners of the pages of the Piltovan Inquirer that had articles he wanted to read later. When he had finished scanning the paper, he broke the silence.

"So, am I clear to go back to hero work today? You looked at the incision site last night and said it looked healed up and I have been doing every exercise that you told me to and I don't feel any pain in the area. It's been over a week and I am ready to get back to it."

"If you feel that you are able to, you may resume your work, but do not over exert yourself. Aid as you are able, but do not strain yourself to injury. I would rather not have to perform another surgery on that site for a while. Do you understand?"

"Crystal. I promise I'll keep things simple. Just help with mending things and such, maybe stop a mugging. You know, simple stuff."

Viktor shook his head.

"You are one of the few I know who would consider stopping a mugging to be a 'simple' thing."

"If you do something enough, it's going to get easier. Practice makes perfect, right?"

"Proper practice makes perfect," Viktor corrected, "improper practice makes for a difficult time unlearning bad habits before retraining yourself in the correct way."

"I stopped two in the last month, so I must be doing something right."

"It would appear so," Viktor said as he took another sip of his tea.

"So, I can go?"

"I already agreed to allow you to go. Please use your best judgement and avoid unnecessary risks."

"Yes! Will do, Doc."

Ren took his mug and attempted to gulp down the rest of his tea as quickly as possible. One mouthful in though, his eyes went wide and he put the cup back down.

"Aaahhh," he gasped after forcing himself to swallow, "hot, hot, aah."

"Use your best judgement," Viktor repeated dryly.

"I will, I will," Ren reassured.

He stood from the table and brought his mug to the sink to quickly rinse it out.

"I'll see you tonight."

"Use your best judgement," Viktor repeated a final time.

"I already agreed to."

Ren departed and each was left to his own thoughts on how best to improve life in Zaun.