Rise of the Reborn: An Edgerunner's Rise to Power

Chapter 2: Welcome to the Playground

As David walked through the streets of Piltover, he felt like he was seeing the city for the first time. Even though he walked through the city daily to go to Piltover Academy, he never truly looked at the beautiful sky above him or the impressive buildings around him. He was always too focused on school and how much he hated it.

His mother, Gloria Martinez, worked hard to get him into Piltover Academy. Even then, David was allowed only through a scholarship program run by Victor, a fellow Zaun born. During his time in Piltover Academy, if David had been born in Piltover, he would have been praised for his grades and study of hextech, but as a Zaun born, most people believed he was just lucky to be there. But Piltover Academy didn't matter anymore. David had no intention to return or work with Hextech. Hextech might be the future for Piltover, but Zaun would never have easy access to hex crystals, which meant he needed to explore chemtech to the fullest.

'Well, that's enough clean air for the day. It's time to head back home.' David thought as he headed to the closest hexdraulic conveyor that could take him back down to Zaun. All he wanted to do was go home. His mission to become a chem-baron could wait until morning. For now, he needed to rest.

~R~R~E~R~P~

Early the following day, David sat in his now lonely apartment, snacking on a bowl of dry poro berry cereal. He stared at the two piles in front of him. 'Thank you, Mom. It's not much, but you left me just enough to get started.' David thought as he stared at a small pile of money he found hidden under his mother's bed, just a few silver cogs and bronze washers, barely enough for next month's rent.

In this world, his mother was a nurse in one of the many small emergency clinics dotted around the lower levels of Zaun. Her job kept her overworked and underpaid, so the money in front of him must have been from the second pile he found hidden in her closet.

Although it wasn't a pile, it was just four chemtech items, two of which were useless to him. An artificial chemtech eye, and a female prosthetic left hand with tubes implanted to feed chems to the body. He didn't need or have a use for either of those. But the last two items were the real prizes. The first is a chem-breather, a black half-mask respirator that was modified to vaporize chems for the wearer to breathe in. The second is a chemtech revolver, designed much like the revolvers he used in his past life, but this one didn't fire bullets.

Unlike revolvers from his past life, the cylinder of the chemtech revolver is replaced with a reinforced glass chem vial. So it would fire out whatever chems the vial held. The most common and affordable chems are crude mixes that harden when exposed to the open air and then explode once they hit their target due to friction caused by impact. It is a small-scale explosion due to less than a bottle cap worth of chems being fired at a time, but it's just as deadly as any Earth-made firearm.

'So my mother was using her job at the clinic to harvest chemtech from people who probably died, and she would sell her loot on the side.' David thought as he picked up the chem-breather. It was the same story from the Edgerunners anime. 'Well, here's the first step on my journey to the top in this life. I'll do it better than I did last.'

Pulling the chem-breather to his face, he activated the mask. Instantly, he heard the chems in the attached vial bubble, and less than a second later, a vaporized mist of chems filled his lungs as he took a deep breath. The chems hit his body like a shot of pure adrenaline. He could feel it in every cell of his body. He felt powerful, lighter, and ready. Ready for what he didn't know, but he knew this was why chemtech was so popular in Zaun. It wasn't just that fact that chems were easier to get and to work with than hex crystals. It was because of the feeling you get every time it fills your body.

"FUCK!" David couldn't help but shout as the chems flooded his brain. He could feel his mind-expanding, opening up to the world around him as if all his thoughts were unmuffled for the first time in his life. But instead of letting that feeling take him, he quickly shook his head and slapped his cheeks. "Not as good as I used to make, but it has potential. I'll have to work on that later." David mumbled as he put the mask down.

Turning away from the two piles, there was one last thing on the table, his mother's jacket. In the Edgerunners anime, the jacket is bright yellow, but there are no bright colors here in Zaun. Instead of yellow, the jacket was a dark green. The blood stains nearly blended in with the color. But David ignored the dry blood as he opened the jacket up, and just like in the show, something was taped inside. A strange spine-like device.

"Well, this is no sandevistan, but it's still impressive," David mumbled as he looked at the spine. Unlike the high-tech sandevistan, the spine in front of him was crude metal with tubes and small vials of purple liquid. "This thing injects shimmer directly into the spinal cord. It probably doesn't make you move at super speed. But it will definitely give a major boost to the body's natural abilities… If the sandevistan could turn you into the Flash, this turns you into Captain America when you use it… No way in hell am I going to mount this onto my back." David mumbled to himself as he studied the shimmer-laced spine.

David had already planned to push chemtech forward, so he knew he would have to study shimmer and learn how to use it, maybe purify it to enhance chems. But he refused to consume it in its current form. Not just because his mother's death was caused by a shimmer junkie but because David didn't want to become a shimmer junkie himself. Instead, he grabbed his mother's jacket. The sun wasn't even up yet, so he had some time and wanted to clean the dry blood first.

~R~R~E~R~P~

Now wearing his mother's jacket, David made his way through the upper Entresol Level of Zaun, one of the safest parts of Zaun for the average person. But he still carried the chemtech revolver under his jacket and clutched the backpack he was wearing. The backpack held both the shimmer-laced spine and the box holding his mother's ashes.

'Here it is… The Last Drop.' David thought as he walked up to the well-known bar. 'This place exists, but I know Silco doesn't exist in this world. Maybe this world's version of Vander actually killed Silco when they were younger.' David knew there was no Silco because almost every Zaun kid knew who the chem-barons were and what territory belonged to who, just like he knew this part of town belonged to Vander. Even though Vander was no chem-baron, he was still respected enough to have his own slice of the city. Silco was a name that didn't exist, so David figured Singed must have created the shimmer drug on his own in some cave.

Walking up to the bar's door, David pushed it open and walked in without hesitation. As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he spotted Vander, the large man behind the bar counter cleaning glasses. David expected to see Vander, but the girl surprised him. She was a pale, rail-thin teen girl with hair gathered into long, ankle-length twin ponytails. The girl wore old pajama pants and a loose, baggy shirt while eating cereal. Once David walked in, she turned and stared back at him.

'This is Jinx?' David thought in confusion. While there was no mistaking it, this girl was Jinx, but instead of looking crazed with wide blue or pink eyes and bright blue hair. This Jinx had orange eyes and vibrant red hair. 'Wait, didn't Jinx have an expensive in-game skin that looked like that?'

"We ain't open yet, but even if we were, you ain't old enough for a drink, kid." Vander's rough voice pulled David out of his thoughts.

"I'm here to make a request, " David said as he walked up to the bar's counter. He let the surprise of seeing Jinx wash off him as he slipped into business mode. "I'm going down to the sumps, and I'd like to request a guide to the break," David explained. He spoke respectfully, out of habit, but Vander deserved respect.

Hearing David's request, Vander eyed the boy for a moment before pulling out a smoking pipe. "The sumps, huh? I don't know why you'd want to go down there, but the risk isn't worth whatever you're after," Vander stated as he lit up his pipe and took a deep breath.

Instead of replying immediately, David removed his backpack. He pulled out the box of his mother's ashes and placed them on the bar top. "My mom used to pray to Janna, so I would like to return her to the wind," David stated bluntly.

Vander released the smoke he was holding as he read the label on the box. "Gloria Martinez, she was a good woman. She patched up my oldest a few times. You must be her son, David Martinez." With another puff of smoke, Vander gave a soft nod and turned to the teen girl who was still eating her cereal. "Pow, do me a favor and wake your sister. Tell her to get ready."

The young teen girl looked up at David and locked eyes with him for a moment. She then turned to Vander. "Gotcha," she said simply, and then snatched up her bowl, downed the rest of her cereal and milk, and slammed the bowl down before skipping away and through the back door.

Vander turned to David, tapping his pipe onto an ashtray. "I got a guide for you, but you'll have to wait," Vander explained.

"I don't mind," David replied, taking a seat at the bar and slipping his mother's ashes back into his backpack. "How much?" he asked.

The point of hiring a guide through the sumps wasn't for them to lead you to your desired destination. No, a guide was your protection. Walking through the sumps alone would get you robbed, maybe even killed. That's why you needed someone to watch your back. Safety in numbers, and if the guide you hired was well known, you were less likely to get attacked. But even with a guide, safety wasn't a complete guarantee. Nothing in Zaun was. Since there were people out there who would attack a chem-baron if they saw them alone on the street.

"I ain't gonna charge ya," Vander stated. He then pulled a glass and a bottle of blue liquid from under the counter. "Gloria Martinez was a good woman. We need more people like her in this city. Here, my daughter Powder, that girl you just saw, this is her favorite drink." Vander said as he poured David a glass.

"Thank you, but I have another request," David said as he picked up the drink and sipped. Instantly, his face twisted, one of his eyes shut, and his mouth started to water. "Holy fuck, you need to stop feeding that girl all this sugar." David couldn't help but say.

"Ha! You might be right. She's always been a little hyper," Vander laughed. "But what's this second request of yours?" He asked.

David spoke once more after licking his teeth and putting the glass down. "Do you know a man named Maine? Big dude, dark skin, runs a crew," David asked. He really didn't know if any of the Edgerunner crew were in this world, but he figured if he was born as David Martinez with a mother who stole and sold augments, the others could be in this version of Runeterra as well.

"Yeah, I know the guy. What do you want with him?" Vander asked.

"He knew my mother, and I might have something he wants. I want to meet with him. Can you set up a meeting?"

"Well, I guess I can help you with that, too. They usually come around the bar at night. But I'll make a call. They should be around by the time you get back. If they aren't doing a job, that is." Vander explained.

Before David could reply, there was a loud thud in the bar's back room, and a woman suddenly shouted, "YOU LITTLE BRAT! GET OVER HERE!" Another thud could be heard, and Powder's voice could be heard with a giggle. "Hey! It's not my fault you don't wake up unless I kick you! You bear!"

"Excuse me for a moment," Vander said, sighing as he walked towards the back room.

David didn't mind waiting. It gave him time to think. 'Vander is here, no Silco, a red-haired Jinx who looks my age. Vi is probably in the back. Maine and probably the rest are here… Caitlyn most likely had her in-game back story… This world is too mixed up, and I can't rely on meta-knowledge… But I'll deal with all that after I put Mom to rest.' David thought. He then tried to take another sip of the blue drink, but it was even harder to swallow a second time. 'Fuck, she might not be crazy Arcane Jinx in this world, but this much sugar has to be bad for the brain.' With that, though, David pushed away the drink. Instead, he pulled the chem-breather from a hidden pocket inside his jacket. David took a quick, deep breath of the chems. He had a busy day ahead of him.