Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

All Vi wanted was a day off.

Just one day where she could slip off her gauntlets, put up her feet, and relax. Maybe she would let Caitlyn take her out to one of those fancy Piltover spas that he had always talked about. They were a bit too frivolous for her taste, but if it would make Caitlyn happy, she’d allow herself to get pampered, albeit begrudgingly.

But today, like always, was not a relaxing day.

Another criminal had been found dead in the deep, twisting depths of Zaun’s system of alleyways. This usually wouldn’t have raised many red flags. It was Zaun, after all. In fact, Vi wouldn’t have cared less if some disease-ridden shimmer dealer had dropped dead.

Except this was the third dead criminal this week, all killed in the same manner.

When Vi saw the first corpse, it took her a few moments to even register that the pile of guts, flesh, and torn clothing once could have been a person. Others chalked it up to a shimmer deal gone bad, and Vi would have done the same if it wasn’t for the two other bodies found in the exact same condition.

“Oh… this is awful.” Caitlyn said, as she and Vi arrived at the scene far before the officials eventually would. She covered her mouth with a glove and averted her eyes. Vi remembered her girlfriend’s somewhat sheltered upbringing, and didn’t judge her too harshly for it. These sort of sights weren’t something that she was used to. 

But even after living in Zaun, growing up on the streets and witnessing the violence that took place there, Vi wasn’t even sure if she could handle staring at the mutilated body much longer.

Vi took a deep breath in, and then let it out rather harshly.

“You don’t have to look at it,” She said to Caitlyn, as she placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll look at the body. Can you look around and see if you find anything else?”

Caitlyn didn’t look at Vi, but she nodded, and began to tread around the perimeter of the alleyway. Vi watched her walk away. Then, she crouched down next to the body and began to examine it. At first, she tried to figure out what wound killed the man, but she soon gave up on that. Half of his chest was torn to shreds. It was useless to try to pinpoint one thing as his cause of death.

The other bodies looked like this too. Shredded, mangled, like a wild animal had gone after them.

“What are we thinking, Cupcake?” Vi called out to Caitlyn. She peeked her head around the corner, with one resting firmly on her chin, deep in thought.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but…” Caitlyn said slowly. “This is going to be a very bad, quite inappropriate comparison to make, and I apologize in advance.”

Vi raised an eyebrow towards her, somewhat interested in seeing what Caitlyn thought could be inappropriate in this situation.

“When I was younger, my family used to take me into the woods outside the city on hunting expeditions-”

“You mean you didn’t just pay to have butlers shoot the deer for you?” Vi teased. Caitlyn shot her a look to tell her off, but she smirked anyway, before continuing her thought.

“Sometimes, after leaving the trails, I would wander deeper into the woods. When I was very young, I stumbled across the carcass of a rabbit,” Caitlyn slowly and carefully explained, as she walked up and down the alley. She kept her eyes on the walls of the alley, purposefully keeping the corpse on the ground out of sight. “Some animal had killed it recently, and it’s insides had been torn out and scattered across the ground.”

Vi caught wind of what Caitlyn was trying to say, and scratched her head.

“You think an animal did this?”

“I’m not sure, Vi. I just don’t know if I can think of a kind of weapon that would leave a person looking like that.”

“What if it was someone on shimmer? I’ve seen that stuff-”

Vi suddenly stopped mid-sentence, as her words fell flat on her lips. Memories of that day came back to her. Seeing that creature brutally kill Grayson from her hiding spot underneath the antique shop, and then seeing Vander fight that monster later, those memories had lived in her nightmares for years, and haunted her days when she couldn’t sleep in her cramped prison cell.

And then seeing Vander-

“I’ve seen what that stuff can do to a person.” Vi said, pushing that thought out of her mind. She didn’t want to remember him like that. She would remember him as the kind, warm-hearted man he was.

“Vi, I think I found something.”

Caitlyn’s voice took her out of the unsettled state of mind she had fallen into. She whipped her head around toward the sound of her voice. Caitlyn was staring at the wall just behind the corpse. Vi squinted her eyes in an attempt to see what it was.

Just before she could, a squeak from the entrance of the alleyway caused both women to leap up into the air, startled by the sudden noise. Vi readied her gauntlets, but then stopped.

A familiar woman stood at the entrance of the alleyway, holding a rubber duck in her palm. She flicked her long blue braids behind her shoulders, and then began to giggle.

“Oh man! You shoulda seen the looks on your faces!” Jinx said with a smile, before squeaking the duck a few more times. Vi grit her teeth at the sight of her sister, although she was at least somewhat happy to see her.

Caitlyn, however, was not in the slightest bit excited by the woman’s presence.

“You little…” Caitlyn grumbled, as she tried to regain her composure.

“It’s just a joke, Caity! Come on, lighten up!”

“Jinx, what are you doing here?” Vi asked, as she stood up and placed herself between her sister and her girlfriend in an attempt to stop them from killing each other immediately.

“Not much, sis, just heard that you were in town and came to stop by,” Jinx told her, as she gave her a friendly hug. “Now, what’s got you back in these parts, eh?”

Her question was quickly answered, as Jinx glanced over Vi’s shoulder and noticed the corpse lying on the ground. She curled up her nose in disgust, before putting her hands on her hips and biting her bottom lip.

“Huh… has anyone checked for a pulse?” She asked.

“His ribcage is gone, Jinx.” Caitlyn muttered as she placed a hand on her temples. Vi tried to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.

“Do you know anything about this?” Vi asked her, hoping that she wouldn’t, but still aware of the pink pop of color in her irises. Her sister has been unstable before, and Vi wasn’t sure how much worse the shimmer had made her instability. Jinx took a few moments to collect her thoughts, before turning back to face her sister.

“All I know is that the last two murders got the criminals around here pretty shaken up. Another attack like this, and I don’t think we’re looking at coincidences anymore,” Jinx explained. “And as a lady who likes to partake in a fair bit of crime myself, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little more cautious than before.”

Caitlyn gave Vi a glare, and Vi could only shake her head in response. Jinx was a problem that would be dealt with eventually, when there weren’t bigger fish to fry.

“Caity, I’m afraid that I interrupted you when I showed up. What were you saying?” Jinx said. Caitlyn cleared her throat, and then tried to regain her train of thought. She pointed to the wall above the destroyed body, past the splatters of blood. About a foot above Vi’s head was a mark in the brick. Vi turned her gauntlets over and then raised the back of her right gauntlet toward the wall. The faint blue hextech cast a glow on the brick wall, illuminating not just one mark on the wall, but five.

Five deep, jagged cuts into the brick, all equally spaced apart.

“What could have done that?” Vi asked.

“Shrapnel?” Jinx suggested, before shaking her head. “No, no, there would be more of it everywhere. Stupid idea.”

“It’s not a stupid idea. We don’t have any ideas either.” Vi told her sister. Caitlyn took a deep breath in, and carefully stepped toward the wall. She made sure to step over the body and not disturb it. Then, she raised her hand up to the intents in the wall.

Caitlyn spread her fingers as wide as she could, and then one by one, placed each finger into the five scratches in the wall. After a few moments, Caitlyn took a step back, and then looked up in the air.

“It has to be an animal. Those have to be claw marks.”

“What kind of animal could do that? A bear, maybe?” Vi suggested, to which Jinx shook her head.

“You couldn’t keep a bear a secret down here. Believe me, I’d know.”

“How would you know?”

“I love animals. I’d find him, and keep him as a pet!”

“Could it be a person on shimmer?” Caitlyn asked, looking back to Vi as she brought up her initial suspicion. Vi fought long and hard about it, but wasn’t able to come up with a definitive answer.

“I don’t know.”

“The stuff’s diluted a ton nowadays. Maybe a few years ago, but not anymore.” Jinx said, which didn’t ease anyone’s worries. In fact, it might have even made Vi’s concerns worse than before. She could deal with threats she knew about, but it was the fear of the unknown that often tripped her up.

But if there was one thing that Vi could do in the face of the unknown, it was do everything in her power to safeguard against it. Jinx’s words about being more cautious than before echoed in her mind, as she stared at her sister, and then at the rest of Zaun around her.

Vi put her hand on her sister’s shoulder, and looked her right in the eyes.

“If there is something going around killing people like this, I don’t want you to be in danger.”

“I kinda know how to handle myself, Vi.”

“I’m being serious. Caitlyn and I aren’t going to leave your side until this gets figured out.” Vi explained. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caitlyn open her mouth to say something, but then quickly shut it. Jinx looked at her sister, then down at the body on the floor, and then back up toward her sister.

“I…” In a warm, innocent tone that Vi hadn’t heard from her sister in quite a while, Jinx’s voice turned into a whisper. “I’d like that.”

Vi pulled her sister in for a hug, and then looked at Caitlyn with a bit of a grimace on her face. She knew that Caitlyn wouldn’t approve, but she hoped that she would understand. Caitlyn didn’t look too happy about this arrangement, but she shrugged.

“At least we can keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble.” Caitlyn mumbled. Vi let out a sigh of relief. As she and her sister stepped out of the alleyway and into the street, memories of her childhood in Zaun flooded back to her, easily brushing aside most of the bad memories of the past, but leaving one still strong and poignant in her mind.

Vander’s last words rumbled through her mind, as they did every single day since that horrible, dreadful day in the abandoned warehouse.

Take care of Powder.

Chapter Text

This wasn’t the first time that the criminal underground, or, overground, in Zaun’s case, had been shaken up, and it wasn’t the first time that Sevika had a stake in the action.

Although, this was her first time with a front row seat. While Silco was still around, she was his number two. More than just some street thug, more than a guard dog, but still not equal with him, in regards to power. But still, she was there, right alongside him, ready to follow through with whatever he told her to do.

She held her grievances in, of course. She was a hard worker, and wouldn’t let her own thoughts and feelings get in the way of the job that needed to be done. Sure, she had her differences of opinion with Silco, especially in regards to Jinx, but he was the boss.

Then Sevika discovered his body, littered with bullet wounds, tied to a chair at the head of a table, adorned with whimsical trinkets, goodies, and delights all akin to Jinx’s particular aesthetic.

At that moment, Sevika felt the fury and frustration grow inside her chest. That girl was too dangerous to be kept around, and she had known it from the start. She was a liability. She wasn’t some innocent little girl for Silco to adopt as his make-believe daughter, she was a maniac, who would end up getting them all killed.

By the looks of it, Sevika was right, and Jinx had lived up to her name, once again.

Singed couldn’t bring him back from the dead. Apparently, the process was very particular, and unlike Jinx, Silco had missed the chance for a second chance.

So, there Sevika stood, alone at the top of a criminal empire that had been running Zaun for decades, and there she waited. For a sign, perhaps, for her next path. When that never came, and she grew tired of feeling sorry for herself, Sevika made her move.

Silco was gone, just like Vander died years before. As before, in order to keep the city in check, and to keep Zaun as powerful as she knew it could be, Sevika stopped simply just being a player. She placed herself at the top of the checkerboard and traded out her piece for something much more suitable for a woman like her.

On that night, the pawn became the queen.

In the months that followed, she worked to prove her worth to the citizens of Zaun. She wasn’t just Silco’s replacement. She had her own brand of power that she hoped to wield in as many ways as possible, across as wide an area as possible as well.

She took a long drag from her cigar as she sat at the desk where Silco once sat. The large-backed chair fit her far better than it ever fit him. It framed her muscle-bound, menacing physique well. She glanced up into the rafters, where she had once been strung up by that brat, Jinx, and left for hours until Silco could cut her down.

That would never happen again.

Sevika used all of the resources she had available in an attempt to find Jinx, but she soon dropped that effort as her initial frustration faded. Much of Silco’s knowledge about Jinx died with him, and she hadn’t shown her face around his office in the months since that. Sevika knew that it was a risk, not spending all her time trying to find a way to hunt down and finally get rid of that girl, but it was one she was willing to take. Silco had put too much importance on Jinx, Sevika had decided, and it had made him shortsighted. She would learn from his mistakes.

Sevika would keep her eyes peeled, and her ears open, but not to any one person in particular.

She had far too many other things to worry about besides some girl.

Like the recent murders in the past week. She hadn’t sent out the order to kill those men, especially in a way that was so gruesome, so obvious to everyone involved. She respected the effort to send a message, but a message had to be clear, and this one wasn’t. None of her men had been killed as of yet, and after asking around, none of them seemed to know a thing about the attacks.

That kept her on edge. In a city as crowded as Zaun, someone needed to know something. Things like that don’t just happen unheard and unseen. Even Piltover, with it’s technological progress, and enlightened thinkers, didn’t know what was going on. Not that they would anyways, Sevika thought. After the severance of the two cities, the elites in Piltover couldn’t leech off the citizens of Zaun as much as they once could, and interest in the day-to-day lives of the citizens faded. Who cared if a couple dealers were torn to shreds? It was probably for the best, at the end of the day.

Sevika couldn’t entirely disagree with that sentiment, but a threat to one was a threat to all, and she had dug her roots deep into this city, and would not see her connections severed by the actions of some serial killer.

The killer wasn’t Jinx, she knew that for sure. She would have left more of a mark. Hell, she would have even spray-painted her own name at the scene of the crime in gaudy neon letters. With her out of the way, that left a few other options. It could be part of some gang war. It could be a new, junk version of shimmer that caused people to behave like that. It could simply just be a bunch of coincidences, or a bunch of drug deals gone wrong.

But this was a killing spree, and none of those other things, and Sevika knew that in her gut. It couldn’t be written off that easily. There had to be a connection somewhere.

She would find it. Or, it would find her. But eventually, the truth would come to light.

In the meantime, Sevika would put the cigar to her lips, take a drag, and continue to oversee the empire she maintained from her perch above it all.

“So, is this just an elaborate scheme to figure out where my hideout is, or do you actually care about me?” Jinx asked Vi, as she took her sister and Caitlyn down a series of winding, twisting pathways. Caitlyn had thought about doing that, but with the amount of circles that Jinx had already made them walk through, she was sure that Vi’s sister was at least one step ahead of them both.

“I do care about you, Jinx.” Vi told her. Jinx flashed a quick smile back at her sister, as they took a sharp left turn down another alleyway. Caitlyn swore that she had taken them down this alleyway before, but she never had been the best with keeping her bearings in Zaun. She was used to the open-air of Piltover, and being so clogged and congested down here made her a bit claustrophobic.

Vi was just happy to have her sister back, no matter how much Zaun had changed since she had been thrown in prison. Or, by extension, how much her sister had changed. But Vi could see remnants of her younger sister still in Jinx, and could see more flashes of Powder flickering through every single day.

She had seen it during the dinner party, as she fought to keep her sister from doing something she would regret for the rest of her life. Even after she collapsed to the ground babbling incoherently, Vi held out hope that her sister was still in there.

When she suddenly stood up and fired at Silco, Vi feared that Powder was gone for good.

Except, she wasn’t. In fact, that was when Vi saw it the clearest. Jinx cried over the corpse of Silco, then turned back towards her sister, tears still in her eyes.

“Violet…” Jinx whimpered, like a scared puppy, in trouble for something she couldn’t help herself from doing. In that moment, Vi saw the scared little girl that Silco took from her all those years ago.

She would not let it happen again. In a matter of seconds, Vi found herself wrapped around her sister, holding her as tight as possible, afraid to ever let go again. Jinx dropped her weapon to the ground, and sobbed into her big sister’s arms.

Jinx, Vi, and Caitlyn walked out of that place together. Caitlyn urged Vi to turn her sister in immediately, but Vi couldn’t do it. Against Caitlyn’s better judgement, the three of them hid out as well as they could. News came that the council had voted to split Zaun and Piltover into two separate cities, and in the chaos that ensued, Jinx was able to get back to her home city undetected, while Vi and Caitlyn dealt with the aftermath in Piltover. After a few turbulent months, a weary peace had formed between the two cities, and Vi finally thought she had a chance to breathe again.

Which was wrong, obviously, otherwise she wouldn’t be jogging through tunnels with her sister after leaving the scene of the the third gruesome murder this week.

“Do you know how many sewers and maintenance tunnels there are in this city? It’s gotta be in the thousands! You can go nearly anywhere!” Jinx told the group, as she led them deeper and deeper down a dark cylindrical tunnel. Vi wondered if this place had even seen people in years, based on the lack of drifters occupying the tunnel already.

“Aren’t you worried that this is a little dangerous?” Caitlyn asked. Jinx shook her head, and began to walk along a pipe on the ground like she was walking a tightrope.

“Dangerous?” Jinx scoffed. “Nope! I use these tunnels to get around every single day! I only got hurt one time down here, and it was after a rat bit me.”

“Was it one of those big ones?” Vi asked. Jinx nodded, and Vi winced before letting out a groan of disgust.

“That’s gross.”

“Did you go to the doctor? What if that rat was carrying some disease or something?” Caitlyn wondered. Jinx just let out a little giggle in response.

“You worry too much, Caity. Because of that, I don’t know how you and my sister ever got together in the first place.”

“I pushed her up against the wall and said that she was hot.” Vi admitted. Caitlyn’s pale face immediately changed to a shade of bright pink, visible even in the dark tunnel.

“There was more to it than that…” She muttered, with quite the fluster in her voice. Vi gently nudged her in the shoulder, and smiled to herself. Jinx shot a sideways glance at her sister and her sister’s girlfriend, then rolled her eyes.

“You two are so cute. It does make me want to barf, but still, it’s cute.”

Sevika tightened the screws on her mechanical arm. It was a worthy, versatile replacement for her old arm, but it needed daily adjustments. She had grown accustomed to carrying at least a few tools around with her wherever she went. It came in handy, plus, it didn’t make her dependent on the mechanical prowess of anyone else. She could do it herself. She liked that.

Plus, it gave her time to get used to the new arm, after that brat Jinx’s sister stole it from her a few months ago.

The bottle of cleaner on the desk in front of her was nearly empty. The last few drops were currently soaked into the towel in her hand, which she used to work the dirt and grime out of the cracks and crevices in the mechanical appendage. After years of doing it, it became almost like a form of mediation for her. Daily mechanical upkeep, where she could empty her mind and have a few moments to herself.

Which is why, when the door to her office suddenly burst open, Sevika was annoyed. An out of breath member of her syndicate stood in the doorway, eyes wide with fear, which pissed her off a bit more.

“Ma’am, there’s-” He began to say, before she quickly raised her fist into the air. He snapped his mouth shut.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t holding a gun, barging into my place like that,” She said sharply, not moving her eyes from the current spot she was cleaning on her arm. “I’d be looking at a man with a hole in his chest, with the blame for his death solely on himself.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He muttered, and ducked his head slightly.

“Do you know how to knock, or do I need to teach you?” Sevika asked him. She waited for a response for a few seconds, before shaking her head and dropping the topic. Sevika lowered her fist, and then nodded in his direction.

“There’s been another murder.”

Sevika turned her eyes upward. She sat up in her chair and rested her elbows on the desk in front of her.

“When?”

“I don’t know, but recently. Within the past hour. I was on patrol at the city’s borders, and I was on my way back to the Last Drop to meet up with the other guy on duty, but he didn’t show,” He explained quickly, continuing to brush hair out of his eyes as he did so. “So I went along his route to try to find him, and…”

Sevika took her elbows off the table as she saw the man begin to visibly shake. She stood up, and made her way over towards him as he continued to talk.

“He was dead. Ripped apart, just like the other three were.”

Before, Sevika had taken notice of this serial killer, but from a distance. Now, her empire was under attack, and she wouldn’t stand for that. She shifted her priorities around in her mind to account for this change.

“As soon as I saw what happened, I ran back here to tell you. I… I thought you needed to know.”

Sevika’s aggressive attitude faded away, and she placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“That was the right thing to do. Normally, I’d tell you to go to me as a last resort, but you trusted your instincts, and I respect that,” She explained, somewhat attempting to get him to calm down. “Did you tell anyone else about what you saw?”

He took a deep breath in as he tried to regain his composure, and shook his head.

“No. Only you know.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way, at least until I can make an official announcement.” She stated, before turning back to her desk and grabbing her spare set of tools. She placed them in her back pocket, then grabbed her leather duster from underneath the desk.

“It was awful,” He whimpered. “I… I just talked to the other guy this morning, and… and now he’s-”

“Listen to me. I need you to keep it together, or else I won’t be able to do my job.”

Sevika extended the blade on her metal arm, and then retracted it, just to double check that it was working.

“I don’t take too kindly to one of my own getting plucked off like that. Now, I’m going to make things right, but you need to help me, got it?”

He nodded back to her in response, as she shrugged out her shoulders and then laced up her boots.

“You’re going to take me to his body. Then, you’re going to take the next two days off. Stay home, get drunk, I don’t give a damn. Just don’t talk to anyone. You will not say a single word about this incident until after we figure out who killed that man, and then string the killer up in the front of the Last Drop for everyone to see.”

Sevika took another drag from her cigar. She held the smoke in her lungs for a few moments, before letting it out her nose.

“In the meantime, none of this night happened. You didn’t see anything. This conversation never happened. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Sevika.”

“Good,” She said to him as she rolled the cigar between her fingers. “Show me what happened.”

Chapter Text

Memories were hard to categorize, especially in a mind so clouded and shattered as his was. Every time he thought he had latched onto something, something solid, something he could hoist himself up on and try to take for himself, it fizzled away, just out of reach.

He screamed a lot to cope in the beginning.

Soon, it became obvious that all his whining, roaring, and eventually, howling, would fall on deaf ears. Every time he saw a memory become clearer in his mind, he started to hope. But hope was a dangerous thing, he would soon realize, for how fast hope could turn into agony, as those flashes of consciousness slipped through his fingers like water.

No, not fingers. Whatever was done to him took away his ability to think about the sharp, gnarled appendages attached to his limbs as anything other than claws at this point. It had always been this way, though.

But it hadn’t. It hadn’t been this way, he tried to tell himself, something had been different. He used to be something else. He had to have been something else, maybe a long time ago. The nightmares and flashes of his past made sure that he knew that for a fact.

But they weren’t enough to give him hope that he would ever be better. Maybe he was just delusional.

He had always been this creature. He had always been a monster, hunting the streets of Zaun, sinking his claws into whoever needed it the most. That calmed him down. That would drive the delusions from his mind.

The hunt revealed who he really was, and he was eternally grateful for it.

It started off in the caverns deep underground. He wasn’t quite sure how he even got down there in the first place, but by the time he had the ability to take in his surroundings, his teeth were already coated in the blood of a dead, rotting corpse. It wasn’t a filling meal, but it would hold him off long enough to think straight.

That supply lasted him for a while. There were enough shimmer-addicted drifters deep in those caverns that he could find one who had recently dropped easily.

But those ran out eventually. His mind began to fog. He needed to eat. He couldn’t just sit in the deep recesses of that cave any longer, he needed to hunt, just like every instinct in his body told him to.

The first living drifter he killed didn’t put up much of a fight. The man was nearly dead anyway. His prey didn’t even see the beast leap out of the shadows until it was too late, and by then, his mouth was full of warm, fresh blood, and it ignited a new fire inside of him. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. His claws dug into the still twitching body to hold it steady as he took his fill for the evening.

It was incredible.

Yet in the back of his mind, the part where the nightmares and the flickers of memories came from, something grew stronger. Images flashed in front of his eyes. Lights, colors, the silhouettes of people, all accompanied by an overwhelming feeling that nestled in the center of his chest.

It wasn’t a feeling that he could drown out by feasting more from the now cooling corpse, in fact, it seemed to grow heavier, and heavier until it settled in his stomach.

Then, and only then, did the monster hear a fragment of memory for the first time. He first thought that it was a trick of his highly sensitive ears, but the more that he listened, he began to realize that the sound was inside his head.

“... good heart. Don’t ever lose it.”

As the words settled in his mind and he began to comprehend them, a splitting pain erupted in his mind. The monster dropped to all fours, threw his head back, and let out an agonized howl. His claws dug into the blood-soaked dirt underneath him as his muscles spasmed with every wave of torment that tore through his body.

Eventually, his stomach muscles clenched. Bile rose into the back of his throat before the monster retched the remains of his meal onto the ground in front of him.

The pain stopped.

He took in his surroundings. The body next to him, which had been appetizing just moments earlier, was nothing but a heap of rotten trash that made his stomach churn. He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to look at it anymore. It made him feel… something. He didn’t know what it was, but the anguish he felt when it ripped through him was something he never wanted to feel again.

Back in the dark corners of his makeshift den, lined with the bones of his previous meals, the beast tried his best to remember the words that appeared in his mind just moments ago. The fog hadn’t crept back in yet. He could do it. He knew he could. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and sat down.

Think. Just think. Try to remember.

Maybe it hadn’t always been this way. Maybe things were different. Maybe he didn’t have to scavenge like this. Maybe, just maybe, he had something.

Maybe he had what the voice was talking about.

It was hard to form words. He could understand words just fine. Sometimes he would listen to the drifters talk from far enough where they wouldn’t see him, but he could still hear. He didn’t know why he could understand them. He didn’t remember being taught those words.

But he was willing to bet that maybe, if he could understand the words he heard, maybe he could make those sounds too. Maybe he could speak. It might be tough, and he knew that, due to his mouth full of fangs, but he could try.

It started with a growl, which was easy enough. Then, he shifted the low, guttural growl to the top of his throat, and felt the sound turn into something that felt more like a howl.

“G… ooo…”

There it was! The start of it! His heart began to race, and his tail swished back and forth.

Now, he just had to finish it. The last sound was tricky to replicate at first. He could growl and then howl, but couldn’t figure out how to mimic the last sound until he flicked his tongue in frustration, and he heard it.

“G...ooo…” He started to try to say it again, but the last sound was lost to him once again. He shook his head and continued to try. “G- g… ooo… goo…d. Goo...d. Goo- goo… ood.”

The beast licked his chops, took a deep breath, and tried one last time.

“Good.” He said. His words were rough, gritty, and didn’t sound anything like the voice in his head, but it was his words. It was just the first word, but still, it was something.

That’s when he discovered something interesting. Unlike the memories he tried to latch onto in his head which never stuck with him, this did. This hope didn’t immediately go away.

“Good. Good. Good, good, good,” The beast spoke, his words growing in volume and energy, as his tail wagged back and forth. “Good!”

He could say it! He could speak!

“Good! Good! Good!”

He jumped around the confines of his den, barking the word as many times as he could in order to taste it’s shape on his tongue. He said it as quietly as he could, and then he roared the word as loud as he could, echoing down, out, and through the walls of his cave.

He took a deep breath in, barely able to keep the fanged smile on his face contained and prepared to shout it once again. He readied himself and then went for it once again.

“Good heart!”

Immediately, he froze in place. That was the second word. He didn’t know how to say the second word. But he did. He said the second word.

“Good heart!”

Again, despite not practicing, and not even trying to say the second word, he had done it! It was like he already knew how to do it, or maybe, had known how to say it. Maybe he had forgotten it.

“Good heart!”

He placed the claw that wasn’t covered in metal on his furry white chest and felt the pounding in his chest. Was this what the voice was talking about? It seemed right. He patted his chest along with the feeling of the pounding within it.

“Good heart.”

That’s what it was. Deep inside him. That was it. 

But the second thing that the voice said to him, what was it again? He closed his eyes and tried to think.

“Good heart…” He mumbled to himself, in the hopes that the words would flow past his lips without trying. “Good heart… good heart… g- good… heart… l- lo… lost… it. Lost it.”

He slammed his claws against his chest harder, as he shook his head back and forth.

“Lost… good heart… lost it! Lost it!” The monster began to scream, more frantic and scared with each passing moment. His eyes widened, as his breathing increased. He darted back and forth in his den, the excitement of the past disappearing, and now replaced by that same pit in his chest that he felt earlier.

He had a good heart.

He lost it.

The creature clawed at the walls of his cave, frantically looking for something, anything, not knowing that he wouldn’t find anything. He placed both of his claws over his ears and begged the voice to return. It would tell him how to get it back. It had to tell him how to get it back.

“Good heart!” The monster cried as streaks of warm tears spilled out of his eyes, and he frantically clawed at his own chest. “Good heart!”

His cries fell on deaf ears, as they always did. He made the mistake of hoping, once again. He wasn’t more than what he was now. It was all just delusions that made him think differently. He was a beast, a predator, and wouldn’t ever be anything different.

But still, when his mind wandered back to the voice he heard, the water-filled his eyes once again, and he curled around himself on the floor of his den, one claw still clutching his chest.

“G- good… good… h- heart…” He whimpered. Then, he closed his eyes, covered his ears, and waited for the fog to cloud his mind once again.

The pain in his chest got more manageable as the days went on as he hunted down more half-dead drifters. He didn’t like the pain and would wait as long as he could between meals to avoid it, but eventually, the hunger in his mind would overpower the fear of the pain returning.

One day, after dragging himself out of his den on a quest to quell the hunger pains, he was in the middle of his usual prowl when he saw something interesting. Two figures in the distance. One was much bigger than the other figure, and by the looks of it, was hitting the smaller figure. He crept closer to the commotion and took a deep breath in through his nose. Both figures were drifters. He could also smell the traces of shimmer in their veins. But more important than that, he could hear their conversation.

“... fucking bitch! Give me it!” The larger one yelled toward the smaller drifter.

“I don’t have it! Let go of me!” Cried the smaller, and by the sound of things, younger drifter. The monster in the shadows felt his mouth begin to water as he stared at the helpless, easy prey. It would be quick. It would be delicious.

But the flicker of pain in his chest caused him to hesitate, and he let his gaze wander to the larger drifter just in time to see him strike the smaller one once again. Without meaning to, the beast let out a quiet growl, only audible to him. His mouth watered once more, but this time, the pain in his chest didn’t accompany it.

Purely out of curiosity, the monster leaped from the shadows and darted toward the larger of the two drifters. With a ferocious roar, he tackled the man to the ground and dug his claws into his chest to hold him steady.

Despite the screams and thrashing underneath him, the things that would usually make the pain in his chest flicker to life, he felt no pain. In fact, he felt much better than any other time he had hunted before.

When he sank his fangs into the man’s throat and didn’t feel a thing pulling him away from the rest of his meal, the creature grew more ravenous, tearing, chewing, and taking more than his fill without repercussions.

The hunger was gone. He was sated.

And it felt wonderful.

After weeks of testing, he soon figured out that he could get by with not just eating corpses, but by taking down a very specific type of prey. He watched the ones who passed by the rest of the drifters, looking a little too well off to be living down here. Their eyes would shift back and forth, and they would keep their hands in their pockets, obviously hiding something. Eventually, when they were alone, he would make quick work of them.

Between meals, he continued to practice his words. The people who he listened to had interesting conversations. Apparently, they had begun to take notice of his actions. Well, nobody lived long enough to tell others what kind of beast lived in the depths of the caves, but they knew that something was killing people in the depths of Zaun’s Sump, and they eventually gave him a name.

In reality, they gave him many names, but none of them stuck in his mind long enough for him to remember, except for one.

It was spoken by a drifter who swore that they had heard the call of the beast, before the sound of metal scraping against stone. The creature listened intently as the drifter lowered their voice, and whispered a name.

When he went back to his den, he immediately tried his hardest to make the sounds that the drifter had created. It was tough, as they weren’t easy sounds, like a growl or a howl, but he would try his best.

“W… wa… waah…”

He cleared his throat and took a breath.

“Wa… wahr…”

He could do this. He just had to form the words with his mouth.

“Wahr… war… w- wi…”

No matter how hard it was.

“Wahr… wi… ick. Wahr… wi-wick.”

No matter how wrong the name felt on his tongue.

“Wahr-wick.”

No matter how the pumps on his back whurred as he said the name, how a flicker of pain formed deep in his chest, or how his mouth began to water as he thought of blood. This was it. This was his name. It had to be. They called him that, and now he would claim it.

If it didn’t feel right, he would make it feel right. He would find a way. He always did. Though it was a new name, it felt familiar, in some sort of way that he didn’t think he would ever be able to understand.

The monster said the name one more time, pushing past the flashes and distant echoes of sounds in his mind. No more distractions. No more delusions.

This is who he was.

“War-wick.” The monster growled as a grin spread across his lips, and the flickering pain in his chest went silent. It made him feel good.

It made him feel more than good. It made him feel unstoppable. He took in a breath of air, held it in his lungs for just a moment, then let it out in a mighty roar that announced his arrival into this world.

“Warwick!”

Chapter Text

“Look who’s back? Long time no see.”

Vi recognized the voice immediately, as soon as they entered the sanctuary, home to one of the only living trees in Zaun. The last time she had been here, it was after being dragged there against her will by the same person whose voice she heard now.

Ekko rode his hoverboard down to the trio, green lights flashing underneath as he slowly came to a stop in front of them.

“Ekko, it’s good to see you.” Vi told him as she went in for a hug. Caitlyn tipped her hat to him, and Jinx looked around the base for anything interesting.

“It’s good to see you too, Vi,” He said with a grin, then turned to Jinx. “Why’d you bring them here? I mean, it’s great to see those two anytime, but don’t you two usually stay topside?”

“Our arrival is not under the best circumstances, I’m afraid.” Caitlyn muttered, then glanced toward Vi. Ekko’s expression darkened, and he slowly nodded.

“I’m here to make sure my sister’s safe.” Vi explained.

“Awe, you do care.” Jinx cooed. Vi slugged her gently in the arm.

“Well, you won’t find a place in Zaun much safer than this, I can assure you of that.” A short, yellow, and brown-furred Yordle said to the group, as he passed by them, carrying a set of tools in his hands.

“Professor Heimerdinger?” Caitlyn asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

The professor let out a short laugh, then fiddled with his tools.

“The better question is: what am I not doing here? Ekko keeps me very, very busy, with all his new knick-knacks, and doodads.”

“He keeps my stuff from exploding.” Ekko clarified.

“It was about time that I got out of the stifling walls of Piltover and got back into the mindset of an inventor,” Heimerdinger explained. “Of course, it takes a very long time for me to adjust my way of thinking, but every day I feel closer to finally understanding the machinations of Ekko’s genius!”

Ekko shook his head, a little dismissive of the title of “genius”, but he moved on quickly.

“Anyways, back to what we were talking about. I wouldn’t be too worried about your sister, Vi. She can handle herself just fine, as I’m sure we all know.”

“See, Vi? I don’t need a babysitter, cramping my style.”

“You absolutely need a guardian, Jinx. I had to stop you from tagging the tunnel four times before we got here.” Caitlyn told her. Jinx crossed her arms and frowned.

“It’s called art.”

“It’s illegal.”

“Boring.”

Vi cleared her throat, drawing the attention of both her sister and her girlfriend, and turned back to Ekko.

“Look, I know that you, Jinx, and the Firelights have your own business going on, and I don’t want to get in the way of that,” Vi said. “I just want to stick by my sister’s side until we figure out what’s going on. After we get whoever’s been killing people taken into justice, I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Taken into justice? What, you think you’re gonna just lock up whatever’s been ripping people apart? That’s gonna be one hell of a fight, Vi.” Jinx said to her sister. Though she said it in a playful, joking way, there was genuine concern in her eyes.

“Jinx makes a good point. This might not be a problem we can take on by ourselves. If Zaun had a police force, as Piltover does, maybe we’d be able to stand a better chance.” Caitlyn added.

“But with the current… for lack of a better word, instability, of the newly independent city, and grasp that the crime lords have on the area, it would be hard to establish any sort of regulated law force, let alone in time to take action against the person responsible for these awful murders.” Heimerdinger said.

A smile crept across Ekko’s face, as he switched his board to his other arm

“We don’t have enforcers,” He said, as he looked to the people all around him inside the hideout. “But we do have Firelights.”

The group took a few moments to think about what Ekko was saying. He had the numbers, and the resources, but still, Vi immediately thought it was too dangerous.

“You’d be putting even more of a target on your back than before.” She warned him.

“It’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“Ekko, you didn’t see the kind of mess this killer left behind.” Jinx said. Ekko rapped his fingers against the top of his board and looked to the side. His face had contorted into a serious look before he closed his eyes and let out a puff of air.

“If there’s someone out there putting Zaun in danger, it’s our duty to stop that from happening.” He finally said. 

Vi grit her teeth. She didn’t want him doing this. He didn’t need to be putting himself in any more danger than he already was.

Jinx raised her hand in the air and jumped up and down in excitement.

“Count me in!”

“Jinx…” Vi began to say, then closed her mouth, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She knew that once her sister had put her mind to something, there was rarely ever a way to get her to stop her from getting what she wanted.

“You aren’t going out there by yourself,” Vi grumbled. “I’m going with you.”

“In that case, there has to be someone to keep you two from getting in over your heads.” Caitlyn responded. She stepped up next to her girlfriend and brushed shoulders with her. Vi felt Caitlyn’s long, slender fingers intertwine with hers. Vi let a small smile creep across her face, before steeling herself once more.

Vi knew it was risky, but the alternative was doing nothing, and she couldn’t stand to sit idly by. If she could do something to help, she had to do it. No matter what.

Though Sevika had been able to get a glimpse or two at the previous bodies and had thought that she knew what she was in for, the sight took her off guard. Her cigar drooped in the corner of her mouth and nearly slipped out from between her lips. For just a moment, her head swirled.

Then, she regained her composure. She glanced at the man who had led her here. The green tint on his face wasn’t just from the neon lights, she guessed.

This corpse was even more badly torn apart than the previous ones. While the others had been torn open, this body had been almost completely torn in half. What was left of his torso laid on one side of the alley, while his lower half sat crumpled next to a smashed trash bin.

Sevika hoped that he wasn’t still alive to feel whatever it was that happened to him.

“Keep watch,” She told the man accompanying her. “I’m going to look around. Don’t let a single person get near.”

She heard his boots click on the cobblestone alleyway as he left her alone. She took a deep breath in, ignoring the smell of blood and sewage in the air.

First, she needed to figure out exactly what she was looking for. It didn’t make much sense for her to just stare slack-jawed at a corpse until people took notice. She took a drag from her cigar and then began to think.

A normal person couldn’t have ripped that man in half. Someone with a mechanical limb perhaps, but it was very unlikely. So, the next option was shimmer. Far more likely.

Now she had a start, at least. From there, she had to look for evidence. Something this messy couldn’t have been done easily. There had to be something left behind, there had to be some sort of screw-up.

She wondered if he had fought back. Sevika looked at his mutilated torso, then to his arms, which were mostly intact. Carefully, she made her way over to that section of the body, careful to not focus on the gaping opening in his chest. She knew that she probably wasn’t going to sleep much, if at all, tonight, but she didn’t want to extend that streak over a series of several days by examining the guts spilling out from his stomach.

Her mechanical hand moved the arm away from the side of the corpse. Then, she carefully lifted up his hand. In the neon green lights, she could see blood coating his fingers. Whose blood it was, she didn’t know, but the light picked up something else. She wasn’t sure what the thin, tiny lines dotting his hands were at first until she turned his hand over, and a few of them fluttered down to the ground. She furrowed her brows and then snatched one from the ground.

As she examined it closer, Sevika realized that it wasn’t just dust, debris, or dirt.

It was fur.

Her mind raced with the possibilities of what that could possibly mean. Maybe the killer had an animal with them, she thought, but she knew that any animal that could do this to a person wouldn’t be too fond of taking orders.

She would have just chalked the tufts of fur up to the remnants of a fur coat if she didn’t look to the side and see a pattern shining on the cobblestone ground. Sevika stood up and followed the markings with her eyes.

There was no mistaking it. Bloody prints, making their way away from the corpse. But not human prints. Pawprints.

Sevika didn’t like that. Not at all. She could deal with people. She could deal with shimmer. She could deal with any mix of the two of them, but this was neither of those things. This was something different. Something new. A feeling of dread settled in her stomach.

Her eyes followed the prints down the alley. The blood began to wear thin just before the trail took a sharp right turn into the next alley over. From there, it stopped.

At least, to the average person, the trail would have stopped there. Sevika, however, knew that trails don’t just go cold. Even with all the hextech in the world, you can’t leave somewhere without leaving some sort of a trace.

Sevika pulled a lighter from her pocket. The flame ignited and then flickered in the light breeze. She retraced her steps, watching the yellow flame shine on the pools of blood. When she rounded the corner again, she saw a dim flicker once again, but not on the trail she was following.

This flicker came from the wall next to her. A red paw print was stamped into the wall with crimson. The blood dribbled to the ground below. Sevika held the lighter higher. Another print, a few feet above that one.

So, this creature was a climber, she thought, as she looked at the buildings above her. Sevika grit her teeth, as she knew that now she had to not only watch her back but watch out for whatever was above her too.

That worry didn’t spend much time in her mind, however. It was quickly stomped out by the sound of an ear-splitting scream from the entrance to the alleyway.

The Firelights split off into groups of four. Vi wouldn’t leave Jinx’s side, and Caitlyn wouldn’t leave Vi’s, which left Ekko to guide them through the alleyways, all the while keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. While the Firelights often did go on patrol, it was usually not looking for anything specific. They could keep their distance, remain in the shadows, and report back what they found.

However, this time was different. With an actual target and goal in mind, Ekko stayed closer to the ground than he usually did. He slowly weaved through the alleyways, half-listening to the conversation between Jinx, Vi, and Caitlyn.

“I have missed the food here.” Vi admitted, to Caitlyn’s horror.

“I haven’t. I don’t understand how you two can possibly eat that stuff.”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve had the street food, Caity.” Jinx told her.

“Oh, I’ve tried it before. I’m good.”

“Come on, you have to admit that Piltover food is missing a little…” Vi started to say with a smile, as she thought of a good word to use. “Kick.”

“Are you saying that Piltover food is bland?” Caitlyn asked.

“Yep, she definitely is.” Jinx interjected. Vi shook her head.

“No, it’s not bland, it’s just… a bit tamer, that’s all.”

“Tame?” Caitlyn scoffed. “I’m sorry, I tend to like predictability in the food I eat.”

“But biting in and not knowing what it’s gonna taste like is half the fun, Cupcake!” Vi teased, as Caitlyn rubbed her eyes.

Ekko suddenly stopped in front of them. His back straightened. He cocked his head to the side. The trio behind him continued to talk, not noticing his change in demeanor.

“Quiet!” Ekko suddenly hissed, snapping all three out of their jovial nature. He focused as hard as he could as he tried to tune out all the other sounds of the city around him.

Then, all three heard it too.

A scream. A horrible, frenzied scream that made every hair stand on end.

His prey was able to scream twice before he dug his fangs into his throat and tore it out. Warwick tossed it to the side, a possible snack for later. The man clawed at what remained of his neck. All he could do was gurgle as blood filled his lungs, as the beast tore into his belly.

In the years after the beast found himself in the depths of Zaun’s cave system, he’d gotten much better at what he did. He was much more able to tell the difference between the meat he could feed off of, and the meat that he couldn’t.

He had been practicing his words, too. While he didn’t have anyone to talk with, he continued to practice. Why exactly he did so, he didn’t know. It just felt right.

Quite often, Warwick did things because they felt right. He didn’t know why he was eventually called up and out of the caverns. Then, when he stepped into the darkness of the bustling, crowded city, and felt it assault all of his senses with smog and noises, he let something guide him to a place where he could collect his thoughts. Without thinking, he was darting through alleyways, dipping into shadows, and passing through the city undetected, despite having no recollection of the city’s layout.

When the hunger took him, it was almost too easy to find suitable prey. He used the shadows and the alcoves as his cover, as he waited. He would spend hours on the hunt until he found someone with the strongest scent of blood on them. Then he would strike.

The first kill was the hardest. Warwick was still a bit unfamiliar with his surroundings. It took him a lot longer to kill that man than any of his previous victims, but the payoff was far greater. For some reason, the meat tasted much better up here. The blood was thicker. That little kick was enough to get him hooked. In the span of a week, he killed more than he needed to just to feel that high again.

And what a high it was. The mixture of the serum pumping through his veins and satiation of his rapidly growing hunger combined to put him into a nearly unconscious state after each meal. After a kill, he’d lick the blood from his claws, find a nice spot to rest, and curl up there to sleep off his meal.

Every night he woke up starving. This night was no different, except the first kill hadn’t been enough for him. He tried to sleep it off, but couldn’t. He dragged himself back to the spot of the kill, hoping that there might be something left that he hadn’t devoured yet.

What he found was much better.

A fresh meal waiting there for him. Warwick smelled the air. The new man had enough blood on him that Warwick could justify taking him too. Plus, it made his mouth water more than anything had before.

Two meals may have been excessive, but he didn’t care. He was hungry.

His prey stopped fighting by the time that Warwick had gorged himself on most of his intestines. It took a bit of the fun out of the whole thing, but the meat tasted far too delicious tonight for Warwick to mourn the thrill of the chase.

It was so delicious, in fact, that he didn’t notice the woman until it was too late. He wasn’t even able to get a look at her before something sharp sliced across his side. He let out a howl and jumped to his feet, frantically twisting from side to side in order to find his assailant.

Another cut, this time, on his other side. Warwick let out a roar, then swiped violently from side to side in an attempt to hit her. She was faster than he had been anticipating and managed to stay out of his reach for a while until his claws finally made contact with something soft.

The woman was knocked to the side, sliding across the ground on her stomach. She clutched the side of her face with one hand, while in the other, she held her blade. She stood up, and before Warwick could get to her, a bright purple light caught his attention.

The purple vial in her hand sunk into a slot in her metal arm, before she let out a groan, and her eyes widened. Warwick recognized it immediately. He’d eaten enough shimmer-infested bodies to know exactly what the drug smelled, looked, and tasted like.

Before he could blink, she swiped twice at his chest, landing both hits. Warwick stumbled backward, clutching his chest with his claws. He let out a groan, before staring back at the woman, whose face was still obscured.

“This pain… is nothing.” Warwick growled. She seemed surprised that he could speak. Good, he thought. He liked it when they were scared of him.

She had cut deep enough into the fur to break the skin. As Warwick’s nose filled with the smell of blood, his own blood this time, the pump on his back began to whur. The serum filled his veins, causing his heart to pound in overdrive, and more slobber fill his mouth.

He’d have a third meal by the end of the night.

“The blood you spilled calls to me!”

Warwick roared as he leaped toward his prey, claws at the ready, body already aching for the taste of her blood.

Chapter Text

Sevika had never seen anything like it before. It would have been one thing if the monster was just that, a monster.

But then it spoke.

She watched it take hunks out of the poor patrol’s still squirming body, and then gulp them down like they were nothing. Like that beast was enjoying this.

Sevika wasn’t able to get there in time to save him, but she could kill the monster that had murdered him. But the swipes of her blade, which should have killed a normal person, did practically nothing to the large, hulking monster that stood at the entrance of the alleyway.

She lined up her blade one more time, ready to fight it again, but then it spoke.

The beast could speak. It made it all the more horrible, because if it could speak, then it might be able to understand exactly what it was doing.

And it did those things anyway.

Sevika knew what made this killer far more formidable than any of the people she had faced before, now. It was a powerful, destructive beast, with the cunning nature of a man.

That horrified her.

When it flung itself at her, she felt her strikes become more and more defensive. Her arm buffered most of the hits from his metal claw, but couldn’t stop all of it. He was too fast, and too strong, even with shimmer going through her veins.

Maybe if she could slow him down enough, she’d be able to get out of here. But he was too fast. Every step she took, he took one in tandem. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep up fighting the monster.

A wide, sweeping swipe by the beast sent her ragdolling down the alleyway, and this time, Sevika knew better than to return to the fight. She rolled with the hit, then jumped back up to her feet once more, and began to run. If she could put enough distance between her and the beast, she could get away from it. She just had to get out of arm’s reach.

“Run!” The beast snarled, hot on her heels. “Faster!”

As the group reached the sound of the screams, a new set of noises graced their ears. A series of loud, animalistic growls, and a howl. Caitlyn and Vi exchanged glances as they rounded the corner to find not one, but two mutilated corpses.

“Fuck.” Vi swore through gulps of air before her eyes caught something in the distance. Down the alleyway, silhouetted in neon green, stood a massive shape.

“What the hell is that?” Caitlyn asked with horror in her voice.

“I have no idea,” Ekko responded. “But I have the feeling that we just found our killer.”

All at once, the group readied their weapons. Vi slammed her fists together, waking up the hextech enhancements inside. Caitlyn loaded her rifle and steadied the creature within her scope. As Jinx hefted her mini-gun up and into position, Ekko stomped his foot down on his hoverboard and rocketed down the alleyway. His staff scraped against the stone alleyway as he quickly approached the mass of fur and claws. A smirk crept across his face, as he grit his teeth and raised his staff to strike.

“Hey, monster!” He taunted. “This is how we say ‘hello’ in Zaun!”

With a crack, his staff collided with the back of the beast’s head. It keeled over, granting Ekko enough time to swing around to the front side of the beast and take enough strike, this time, smacking the monster square across the jaw.

It was then that Ekko saw the blue-furred beast for the first time. Even as he recoiled from Ekko’s blow, the monster looked ferocious. It towered over him, with blood-coated teeth as long and as sharp as daggers.

As the beast turned to him and looked him right in the eyes, Ekko felt a twinge of terror cut through his mind. The beast let out a roar loud enough that Ekko even felt the rumble in his own chest.

A claw sent him flying backward off of his hoverboard. Still a bit disoriented from the fear he felt upon seeing the monster, he wasn’t able to get up before the monster pounced on top of him and let out a snarl.

Before Ekko could feel the monster’s fangs sink into him, a gunshot rang out from the entrance of the alleyway. The beast jolted forward as Caitlyn’s bullet struck it in the shoulder. It immediately snapped around and focused its eyes on the woman.

In a flash, the monster was already bounding toward Caitlyn. She fired twice before it could reach her, both bullets slamming into its chest. However, the creature barely slowed down.

“Back off, you overgrown mutt!”

With a crackle of energy, Vi slammed her hextech-powered fist into the monster’s head, sending the beast cartwheeling into the side of the alleyway. Vi took on a boxer's stance and readied her fists.

“Let’s get to the fun part!” She yelled, before charging the monster with both of her fists. Before the creature could get back up, Vi landed three punches on its gut. When the monster was finally able to claw at her, Vi dodged the attacks with ease. She darted back and forth, bobbing and weaving from each of the monster’s attacks, who she could see was getting quite frustrated.

Eventually, the frustration boiled over into a loud snarl, directed right at her.

“Who taught you how to punch!”

At the sudden realization that the beast could speak, Vi lost her footing just long enough for the creature to smack her with the back of his claw, sending her flying down toward the entrance of the alley.

“Shit!” Caitlyn yelped, as Vi landed in a heap at her feet. Vi winced. She knew that she would be bruised when she woke up the next morning, but she pushed the thought out of her mind.

“You’re not being a good boy, doggy!” Jinx shouted, as her minigun began to spin, and the bullets began to fly. “Bad dog!”

The bullets whizzed past Warwick as he turned his attention to the blue-haired girl firing at him. Her loud words pierced his ears, and he let out a ferocious yell, before dropping to all fours and charging at her. She was fast, but he was faster. A few stray bullets whizzed past his shoulders and chest, with one or two hitting, but her aim was too cocky, too confident.

He’d be happy to take her down a few notches.

Warwick yanked the gun out of her hands, before wrapping a claw around her torso and slamming her into the brick wall next to them. She let out a painful grunt, as Warwick snarled. He took a deep breath in, and his mouth watered.

For some reason, this girl put his senses into overdrive. There was so much blood on her. But more than that, she smelled faintly familiar, in a strange way. It didn’t matter. He had to hunt.

“You’ll choke on your screams!” Warwick roared, as he wrenched his body around, tossing the girl across the alleyway to the opposite wall. Another gunshot rang out, striking him in the chest, but with all the serum pumping through his veins, he couldn’t even feel it. Instead, he hoisted up the girl’s minigun, and lobbed it down toward the entrance of the alleyway, striking both of the women down.

He turned his attention back to the blue-haired girl, who laid in a crumpled heap on the ground, blood gushing from her nose. Her pink eyes were wide with fear, as she looked at the beast in front of her, then toward the women at the entrance of the alleyway. The giddy expression on her face that Warwick initially saw was now gone and had been replaced by pure, unfiltered fear.

“Not so funny now, little girl!” He roared, as he dragged his claws down the alley wall above her head. She curled into a ball, tears flowing from her eyes, as Warick heard her heart begin to pound harder and harder in her chest.

Good. Adrenaline made the meat taste better.

Warwick licked his chops, then descended on the girl.

Vi recovered from being struck by Jinx’s oversized gun just in time to see the hulking brute standing over her, slobber dripping from its mouth. Vi felt every nerve in her body scream out in terror, as the monster took a sudden move toward her sister.

“Powder! No!” Violet screamed.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to use her sister’s birth name. She had gotten used to calling her Jinx over the past few months, but at that moment, the name slipped out of her lips in desperation.

“Powder! No!”

Warwick’s fangs were just inches away from the girl’s throat when that name rang in his ears.

That name. He knew that name. Deep in the depths of his mind, where the nightmares and the painful flashes came from, something old and hidden burst back into existence. Warwick froze in place, unable to move, as a rush of emotions, feelings, and fragmented memories burned through his mind.

He knew this girl. How, he didn’t know, but suddenly, he felt an explosion of pain in his chest that told him that this was deeply, deeply wrong.

The girl underneath him slowly opened her tear-filled eyes, glaring up in horror at the wide-eyed beast that was suddenly unable to hurt her.

Warwick felt the agony in his chest grow stronger, and stronger, as he saw the wounds on her body. He had done that to her. He had hurt her.

For just a moment, Warwick had a flash of hunger and could feel just how strong the urge to tear into her was.

He wanted to rip her apart.

“No…” He whispered, in a voice barely audible to anyone except for him and the girl in front of him.

He was trying to kill her.

“No… no…”

He wanted to feel his jaws around her neck.

“No! No!” Warwick whimpered, still unable to move, still staring into the girl’s big, pink eyes. She looked right back at him too, as her mouth slowly opened, and her eyebrows raised. He blinked a few times, as the sense of familiarity grew.

“You… Powder…” Warwick growled, to the girl’s horror. “You were there.”

The girl’s eyes opened wider than they had ever had before. For just a moment, Warwick swore that the pink haze in her eyes disappeared. She peeked her head out from under the ball she had curled herself into, as she wiped a tear from her eyes.

Her bottom lip quivered, and her voice was quiet and unsteady, but it was enough for Warwick to hear.

“V- Vander?”

The pain he felt in that moment was like nothing he had ever felt before. Both his mind, body, and soul felt like they had suddenly been plunged into boiling acid at the mention of that name. Tears pooled up in his eyes and dribbled down his snout, as a sob formed in his chest. Unable to understand what he was feeling, Warwick repeatedly slammed his claws into his head, and then let out a freakish scream.

“No! No! No!” The beast howled, barely able to contain the agony he felt. “Let me forget… let me forget… let me forget!”

The girl in front of him began to scream along with him, as she also placed her hands to her head. Immediately, something deep inside of Warwick told him that he needed to help her. He didn’t know how, but the urge to protect her and keep her safe was far more powerful than the bloodlust he felt.

Warwick reached a trembling claw towards the girl.

“Get away from her you monster!”

Vi struck hard and fast, immediately placing herself between the brute and her sister. Vi had been unable to protect Powder once, and she made damn sure that she would never be unable to save her again.

“Violet!” Her sister cried, her sobs bordering on screams. “Violet!”

The beast was taken off guard by her strikes. It let out a series of cries and whimpers, but Vi kept hitting. She wouldn’t let up on that monster, no matter what happened. Especially after scaring her sister like that.

It didn’t fight back. In fact, it barely even rolled with the punches. It took hit, after hit, after hit, until the beast began to cough up red. Then, and only then, did the beast make a break for it. It let out a series of howls and frenzied screams as it disappeared into the night. Vi would have gone after it if it wasn’t for her sister’s panicked cries from behind her.

Vi immediately bent down and placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders.

“It’s gone! It’s gone. Look, you’re safe!”

“Violet!” Her sister cried once again, still violently shaking. After a few seconds, she latched onto Vi’s arms and held on as tight as she could, a waterfall of tears still flowing out of her eyes.

“I’m right here, I’m right here.” She said, in an effort to comfort her sister, but to no avail. Jinx shook her head, then glanced from side to side, looking for the beast. When she couldn’t find it, she let out a scream.

“Violet, he- he’s… he’s-”

“You’re safe. That thing isn’t going to scare you again, okay?”

“He- he knew me!” Jinx screamed. “It’s him, Vi, it’s him!”

“What? Who?”

Jinx’s wide eyes finally settled on her sister’s face, as another sob welled up in her throat, she pushed it down, and instead, let out a horribly painful shriek, her voice cracking under the weight of her words.

“Vander!”

Chapter Text

It is often easier to fall than it is to rise. While rising requires one to push themselves forward, often through great effort and sacrifice, falling requires none of that. All it requires is a relinquished will and a place below.

For Sevika, that meant running from a fight that she knew she wouldn’t be able to win. While in the moment, she tore herself up for it on the inside, she knew that it was the right thing to do in the long term. She couldn’t get revenge for what that monster had done as a dead woman. No, she needed to be fully alive and kicking to bring down that beast.

Normally, the presence of a Firelight on her turf was an unwelcome occurrence. They knew better than to get so close. However, she was grateful for the person on the hoverboard, who had arrived just in time to take the beast’s attention and let her get away. With the effects of shimmer still pumping through her veins, Sevika ran as fast as she could, not looking back until she found herself back at her base of operations.

Even then she didn’t feel quite safe. As she walked through the front doors, she felt eyes resting upon her. She wondered just how bad she looked. Nobody would give her a straight answer, she figured, which was smart. She might not have taken too kindly to a comment like that at this point.

Sevika dragged herself into the elevator. She figured that she could head back to her office, get her bearings, then plan out a way to take her revenge on the beast.

But all those thoughts faded immediately as soon as the elevator doors shut.

Sevika didn’t cry often. She much rather preferred to be angry, which she found to be much more effective at getting things done, compared to the paralyzing effect that sadness often had on her.

Despite not liking it in the tiniest bit, the tears began to well up in her eyes as she thought of the men she lost tonight.

It was a couple of minutes. That’s what bothered her the most. It was only a couple of minutes that she would have had to be in that alley, then the two of them could have packed up and left for the night. She didn’t know what else she possibly could have been looking for that she didn’t have already, she could have just left with him, and that would have been it.

Sevika grabbed the inside of the elevator for support as she clenched her jaw and fought back the scream that was building in her throat. Even when alone, she wouldn’t let herself fall apart. No matter how fast the tears began to stream down her face, or how hard it was to keep herself from crumpling to the ground at the thought of what happened to those men, her men, she wouldn’t do that.

That’s not who she was.

She jammed her finger into the lowest button on the elevator and wiped her eyes, fighting back violent sob after sob as she slowly felt the tension build in her shoulders.

The familiar comfort of anger overtook her before the elevator reached the bottom floor.

She didn’t get to this part very often. It always gave her a funny feeling in her stomach, like she wasn’t supposed to be there. As she spent more and more time in the place, however, she began to think that she wasn’t the only one who wasn’t supposed to be there.

Nobody was. It wasn’t a place for anyone who still wished to be called human by the end of the day, to spend time in.

The elevator chimed, and she marched through its doors, passing the threshold with ease. She could put her own comfort behind herself if it meant getting revenge for what happened to her men.

“Sevika,” A voice called out from the darkness, causing her to spin on her heels toward the sound. “What a pleasant surprise.”

He seemed to exist solely in shadow. Sevika could never figure out if he did it on purpose, or if he just wasn’t very aware of his unsettling presence. Regardless, Singed wasn’t a man that she liked to spend an extended amount of time with.

But he was resourceful.

“You look injured.” He noted. Sevika let out a snort.

“Two of my men are dead.”

Singed barely reacted to that statement. His piercing eyes didn’t even twitch, or move from her gaze.

“My deepest condolences.”

“One was killed while on patrol. When his partner and I went to examine the body, some… monster attacked us. It ripped the other patrol apart, and while I was able to-”

“A monster?” Singed interjected. “What do you mean by that?”

Sevika closed her eyes, found the nearest chair, and collapsed into it. She rubbed her forehead, and let out a tired sigh.

“That thing ripped a man in half. I don’t know what else to call it.”

“What did this monster look like?” He wondered.

“It was huge. Much taller than me. Almost eight feet, If I was to guess.” Sevika said as she tried to remember more about the beast. It was a little hard to recall the information, even though it just happened. Her heart was still racing. If she didn’t remember it tonight, she was sure that the monster would show up in her nightmares. She glanced up at Singed, who was still staring at her with intensity in his eyes.

“It had fangs and claws. Strange, fucked-up metal claws and some weird thing on its back. It looked like a vat of something, embedded into its skin.”

As Sevika finished her words, she heard the sound of papers hitting the floor. She turned to look at Singed, whose face was now stuck in a look of shock. He took a few shallow breaths before shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?” Sevika wondered, lowering her eyebrows as she spoke.

“Why did you come to me about this?” He wheezed, eyes focused on the wall in front of him, not looking at her.

“You’re the only person here who might know a thing or two about what we’re dealing with. I have no idea what the fuck that thing was, but if it’s some Piltover hextech bullshit-”

“No,” Singed snapped, taking Sevika off guard. He collected himself and wiped his eyes. “It’s not hextech. Nothing close to that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I’m afraid that I don’t know. But I’ve heard of sightings of this creature before.” Singed explained, to which Sevika crossed her arms.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“This was years ago. It hasn’t been seen since.”

“That’s still something I would have liked to know,” Sevika growled. “Now, I’ve got two bodies on my conscience. Where the hell did you hear about that thing from?”

Singed began to sort through a stack of papers on his desk. His aloof attitude often rubbed her the wrong way, and it especially did tonight. She clenched her fists as hard as she could.

“I have my sources, Sevika.”

She stood up and took a few steps toward him, before planting her mechanical fist on the table. Her eyes burned with fury, yet she kept herself contained just enough to utilize that fury, without losing control.

“As long as I fund your operation, your sources are my sources.”

Singed stopped flicking through the papers for just a moment. He set the stack down, adjusted the scarf covering the lower half of his face, and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Silco never asked so many questions.”

“Well, I’m not Silco, am I?” She sneered. “But yet, I run the streets he used to hold. And now, with Zaun as an independent state, we can’t afford to wait for Piltover enforcers—with their money, guns, and hextech—to show up and save the day. Nobody gave a shit about Zaunites then, and if I can’t keep them safe, no one will.”

She let the silence linger in the air for a few moments, before taking a breath and continuing.

“So, forgive me for asking a few questions.” Sevika snapped, sarcasm dripping from her voice. If he didn’t get the point by then, she wasn’t sure if he ever would.

Singed grabbed a loose piece of paper from the stack. He scribbled something down on it and then handed it to her.

“You’ll find my source in the Sump. He’s a tricky fellow, but I’m sure you can handle it.”

Sevika glared at Singed, hating the fact that she would have to delve into those depths, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to offload this task onto one of her men.

No, she would do it herself, and from the slightest bit of satisfaction on Singed’s face, he knew it too.

Sevika stuffed the paper into her pocket and left the laboratory without saying a word.

For Warwick, he didn’t have much of a will to relinquish in the first place, so his descent was rather quick. He fled the streets of Zaun, with its overbearing smells, noises, and sights, sprinting as fast as he could back to the comforting darkness of his den.

But the isolation couldn’t stop the storm that was brewing inside the beast’s mind.

Sounds and images he couldn’t possibly understand pounded in his skull. None of those experiences were his, yet he processed those fractured moments as they were. It didn’t make any sense to the beast, who had spent most of his time hunting and killing, for him to remember the things he did.

Between the sporadic bursts of information exploding in his mind, Warwick was overcome with that same urge he felt when he looked at the blue-haired girl earlier that night. He had wanted to kill her and got so close to doing so before that incredibly powerful feeling overtook him.

But he didn’t know what it was that he was feeling. The contrast between the immense hunger and then the overbearing urge to protect the girl he had just considered as prey was so vast, it hurt to even think about it.

Though he tried, Warwick didn’t have the option to not think about it, as the feeling never left him. In fact, it almost grew stronger, to the point that he threw himself to the ground in agony, moaning and screaming, begging for the emotion to leave him be.

“Powder!” Warwick cried as he dug his claws into the dirt underneath him. “Pow-der!”

He couldn’t comprehend what the urge was even wanting him to do. He was a predator. She, by all means, should have been his prey. He had seen how the animals in this place hunted, and it was without remorse, regret, or hesitation. Warwick was the same way, at least, he tried to be.

Warwick thought about what it meant to want to protect that girl. Protect her from what, and for what reason? He didn’t understand the point. He slowed his breathing and tried to think.

Maybe he was keeping her safe to mark his territory. Maybe he had found the best, most delicious meal, and wanted to claim it for himself before anyone else could. That had to be it, he thought.

The smell of blood on her was nearly offensive to his nostrils at that moment, but it did show him exactly how much he needed to take her down, drag her back to his den, and rip the flesh from her limbs.

But the thought of actually letting his claws or fangs touch her skin, let alone even hurt her, made his stomach churn and chest flare up in pain.

“No!” Warwick screamed at himself. “Not the girl! Not Powder!”

At the sound of her name, Warwick felt his vision blur as tears once again welled up in his eyes. He slammed his head into the ground and covered his ears with his claws. He didn’t want to hear the hunger calling to him any longer.

“Powder… good… heart…” He whimpered. His mouth moved without trying to, and the words began to stumble out against his will. “Let me forget… no! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t lose… I won’t lose her!”

Then, striking the beast like a knife through the heart, a memory as clear as day flashed in front of his vision.

It was the blue-haired girl, albeit much younger than the girl he saw earlier, but something told him that it was her. She was crying, much like how Warwick saw her crying in the alleyway, except this time she was in a room, sitting on a bed. She held something in her hands that Warwick couldn’t quite make out. What he could make out, however, was the sudden movement inside the memory, bringing him closer to the girl.

He reached his claws out toward her.

“No!” The monster screamed. “Don’t hurt Powder!”

But instead of claws touching her on the shoulder, Warwick realized that he saw hands. Human hands. Tan, gnarled, filled with callouses and scars, but still human. Powder looked up at him with her big, sad eyes, and muttered something that Warwick couldn’t hear through the blur of memory.

He crouched down to get even with the girl’s height, before wrapping his arms around her and pulling the girl close to his chest.

It was then that Warwick felt that suffocating feeling surge in his chest, to the point where he couldn’t think about anything else than her.

“Powder!” The beast cried.

Slowly, something began to dawn on him. A realization of sorts, though not through the workings of his bestial brain, hellbent on destruction and carnage. No, this was a thought pulled from deep in his mind, perhaps even from that very memory Warwick just saw.

The scale of the impact that the realization had on the monster was nearly unfathomable, and Warwick knew that he wouldn’t be able to completely process it himself, but with the limited understanding he was able to glean from that memory, it was enough.

As he looked at his blood-soaked claws and furred chest, he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t true. He looked nothing like the man in his memories. He couldn’t possibly be that man, the one that Powder called Vander.

Warwick could hear her now. The memory had cleared just enough for him to not only read the word on her lips but hear it now.

The same word she called him in that alleyway, all those years later.

It was too much for Warwick to handle. His mind could only process so much. He had his limits, and this had pushed him far past that.

He dropped to all fours, snarling, whining, and roaring at his surroundings, for that’s all he could do at the moment. He was not a man, he was a monster. He wasn’t meant to feel these sorts of things. His mind wasn’t meant to handle memories like those.

But they were there now, and they didn’t come back gently. His mind was battered by flashes of memories and experiences over and over again, sending him to the ground once again, where he curled up in a ball and begged it to stop.

“Let me forget! Let me forget! No! Can’t forget! Must… remember! Powder! My… heart…”

Tears plopped into the dirt underneath his snout. As he felt his consciousness begin to grow weary, Warwick let out one last frenzied, desperate roar.

“My…” He struggled to say, before slipping into the dark, inky void of his mind. “Daughter!”

Chapter Text

“Do you mind if I comb your hair?”

It was a small gesture, but it meant a lot coming from Caitlyn. Before, she had been reluctant to associate herself with Jinx. However, Vi wanted her sister in her life, and Caitlyn wanted Vi in hers, so she compromised.

But after the events of the day before, she couldn’t help but feel awful for the poor girl.

Vi had to carry her sister out of that alleyway while Caitlyn hobbled away with an injured Ekko under her arm. The entire way back to the Firelight’s hideout, Jinx wouldn’t stop screaming. Even after they found safety underneath the large tree, she was horribly shaken.

“She’s… fragile,” Vi told Caitlyn later, as they tended to each other’s wounds. “She’s always been like that.”

Caitlyn could see the darkness lining the edges of her girlfriend’s face. She didn’t want to push her too hard, but there was a question that lingered on her mind.

“Why…” Caitlyn hesitated, knowing that the question might hurt Vi. “Did she call that monster Vander?”

Vi blinked hard and fast. The bandages she held in her hands slipped out from between her fingers and tumbled to the floor. Caitlyn picked them up and handed them back to her girlfriend. Ekko, who stood off to the side, with his arm in a sling, winced with his entire body.

“I… I don’t know. I have no fucking idea, and it makes me feel awful that I can’t help her.” Vi said quickly, her voice cracking and breaking as the words tumbled out.

“It’s not him,” Ekko mumbled, just as sad as Vi was, albeit with more fear in his voice. “It can’t be him. I… I’m sorry, I just...”

With that, Ekko wiped his eyes and slowly trudged out of the room.

“Maybe she was just scared? Or seeing things? I know that she… for a lack of better terms, has those sorts of moments sometimes, could it have happened again?”

“I mean, maybe? It hasn’t been like that for a while, though.”

“But that was horrifying, it would make sense that an experience like that would push her over the edge.”

Vi rubbed her eyes. She looked tired, not just in a physical sense.

“I just want her to be happy. Just, for once, for her to have a safe, normal time in her life. But every day it just… it just keeps getting taken away from her.”

“I know, Vi.” Caitlyn mumbled as Vi sniffled. She began to roll the bandages back and forth on the floor, as words continued to tumble out of her mouth.

“She’s… convinced that the monster we fought was Vander. I tried to talk to her about it, tell her how that’s not true, but she won’t listen to me.” Vi whispered, barely able to form the words at that point.

Which is what brought Caitlyn to the blue-haired girl a day later, a brush in hand, and empathy in her heart. It was a strange feeling, to care about Jinx. For a while, she thought that she wouldn’t ever be able to truly care about her.

But now, as she looked at the quiet, broken girl sitting on a bed in the Firelight’s sanctuary, Caitlyn couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

Jinx was barely able to look up at her. Caitlyn didn’t like seeing her this way. She was always so jovial, so full of life, but now? It was like she was a shell of who she was.

“You want to comb my hair?” She asked wearily, with a bit of confusion in her voice. Caitlyn nodded and smiled reassuringly at her.

“My friends and I used to comb each other’s hair all the time. If you don’t want me to, that’s fine,” Caitlyn explained, as she walked over to where Jinx was sitting and sat down next to her. “But I think it might be nice.”

Jinx looked up at Caitlyn, and she was finally able to get a better look at her bruised face. Caitlyn wasn’t sure if she had even gotten her makeup off from the day before. It was smudged in nearly every direction.

“I don’t take out my ponytails.” Jinx whispered.

“That’s okay, we don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just want to make sure your hair doesn’t get full of knots.”

Jinx took one of her braids in her hand and looked it over. She slowly made her way down to the end of the braid and began to untie it. She slipped her pale fingers through the curls of her hair, slowly fluffing it as she did the same one on the other side. Caitlyn watched her blue hair flow down her shoulders, covering up her face and the back of her neck. Without saying a word, Caitlyn picked up the soft, well-made brush, and took it to Jinx’s scalp.

For a few moments, neither of them said a word to each other. Caitlyn brought the brush through her blue hair. It got snagged a few times, but Caitlyn didn’t force it. She set the brush aside and gently began to untangle the knots with her fingers.

Jinx grabbed a stuffed animal from the side of her bed and hugged it close to her chest.

“I know what you’re doing.” She muttered. Caitlyn paused, then continued on as nothing had happened.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Jinx.” Caitlyn said to her, in as pleasant of a tone as she could possibly muster. Jinx pulled her knees up to her chest.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” She said quietly. “I know that nobody believes me.”

Caitlyn bit her bottom lip. Jinx was right. The entire camp had been on high alert the entire day and walked on eggshells around her. She would have been blind to not notice the sideways glances, the frowns, and the pity in her sister’s eyes when she looked at her.

“Do you want to talk about him?”

Jinx brushed her blue hair behind one of her ears and looked at Caitlyn with a puzzled expression on her face.

“Vi’s told me a lot about Vander, but I guess that I haven’t been able to ask you. When you remember him, what do you think about?” Caitlyn asked as slowly, and as carefully as she could. Jinx didn’t immediately respond, which made Caitlyn fear that she had said the wrong thing.

However, those fears faded away when Jinx cleared her throat, and then began to speak.

“Right after Vander took us in, we were pretty shaken up. Vi tried to be strong, but she was too young to help as much as she wanted to. We stayed inside, tucked away in the back of the Last Drop, as the revolution fizzled out. Vander was gone a lot during those days.”

Caitlyn continued to brush her hair as she listened intently. Jinx spread her fingers through the stuffed animal’s fur as she spoke, still looking straight ahead at nothing in particular.

“We barely knew him at that point. In fact, Vi and I were getting ready to run away,” Jinx said before she shook her head. “But we didn’t, obviously, because that night he came back late and woke us up, saying that he had a surprise for us. He led us to the bar. We hopped up on the barstools, and he went behind the counter.”

Jinx let out a small giggle, as she began to wipe down an imaginary bar in front of her.

“What’ll it be, girls?” She said in a deep, gruff voice, in an effort to mimic what Vander’s voice sounded like. “It’s on the house!”

Jinx then snapped her head to the side and shrunk her shoulders. Caitlyn pulled back from her, still sitting next to her, and just began to watch.

“Um… could I… have an ice cream?” Jinx asked in a high-pitched, sweet-sounding voice. Caitlyn realized that she was doing an impression of a younger version of herself. Then, Jinx sat up as straight as she could, and crossed her arms.

“Powder, it’s past your bedtime. You shouldn’t be having ice cream.” She said, now doing an impression of Vi. Caitlyn let a small smile creep across her face. She wished that Vi was around here to see it.

“Oh, don’t be a downer, Violet. Powder, if you want ice cream, that’s what I’ll get you.”

Jinx scooped ice cream out of an imaginary container and placed it into a dish. Then, she looked back up and stared at the empty air in front of her.

“What about you, Violet?” Jinx said in Vander’s voice. “What can I get for you?”

Jinx crossed her arms again, and looked to the side, before eventually loosening up and relaxing.

“A root beer, please.”

“Of course. Whatever you girls want, I’ll get you. I’ll…”

Jinx’s deep voice cracked, as she drew her knees close to her chest once again, and placed her hands on her temples.

“I’ll be there for you. I’ll always be there for you.” Jinx whispered, her hands digging into her hair, scrunching it up as they tightened around the stands. Caitlyn placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Immediately, Jinx leaned backwards and rested her head in Caitlyn’s lap.

Caitlyn’s gaze softened. She placed a hand on Jinx’s forehead and gently began to stroke her hair as she saw the water build-up in her eyes.

“He sounded like a good man.” Caitlyn whispered. Jinx nodded enthusiastically and wiped her eyes.

“The best.” Jinx mumbled. Caitlyn closed her eyes. She thought about what she was going to say a few times before she actually said it, and when she did, she focused on making her words sound right.

“Jinx…” Caitlyn said as softly, and as gently as possible. “Would Vander ever hurt you?”

She didn’t respond. In fact, she didn’t even move, except for the smallest, almost unnoticeable shake of her head.

“That thing that we saw last night, it hurt all of us. It hurt you, Jinx. That monster hurt you. Vander would never do that. And I know that you know this too.”

“He knew my name,” Jinx muttered. “He knew who I was.”

“That was after Vi shouted it.”

“But… I- I know it was him. I just… I just felt it.” Jinx said to her, emotion flooding into her voice. Caitlyn continued to brush her hair with her fingers.

“It had to be him. If it wasn’t, then… then he’s gone again,” She whimpered. “And I don’t want him to be gone again.”

Caitlyn didn’t have words for her. In fact, with the amount of sadness in her voice, she began to feel tears well up in her own eyes.

That poor girl had been through too much, and there was nothing Caitlyn could do to help her besides listen to what she had to say.

Which is what she did. For that day, and the day after that, and the following week, as Jinx slowly returned to her old self.

Her old self.

Not to the happy-go-lucky Jinx that Caitlyn expected, or the vibrant sister that Vi knew she had, or to the brilliant tactician that Ekko had come to know.

No, she went further back than that.

Jinx had watched the beast flee from Violet down the alleyway. She tracked it with her eyes then, and in the past few days, she’d followed the trail of blood as it led deeper, and deeper into the depths of Zaun, before finally stopping at the end of the city’s system of caverns.

Powder had failed to save Vander all those years ago. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

When she had worked up the courage, she packed a bag and left a note for Vi and Caitlyn telling them exactly where she was, and what she was doing. She knew how long it would take them to find her, and so she needed just enough time to get there first.

Because despite Caitlyn’s attempts to convince her otherwise, she knew, deep in her heart, that the creature she saw in the alleyway wasn’t a monster.

It was Vander. The man who raised her. The man who protected her, and did everything in his power to keep her safe.

As she looked at the caverns below her, she tightened the straps of her backpack and blew a strand of hair out of her face.

“I’m coming Vander,” Jinx said to herself. “Nobody gets left behind. Never again.”

With that, Jinx descended into the depths below.

Chapter Text

When Silco said that his contact was tricky, it was a complete understatement. He was a sneaky, scheming, son of a bitch, more like it, Sevika thought to herself as she trudged through the junk and trash at the bottom of the pit.

“Look!” She barked. “I just want to talk!”

A shape scuttered out from a hunk of scrap metal. She got a half-second glimpse at the figure before it disappeared into another mound of trash. Sevika cursed.

“You listen here! I’m not here to play games, and I’m too damn tired, pissed off, and sick of this shit to entertain it any longer. Singed told me to come here for information, and I’m trying to do that, but if you don’t come outta there and talk to me, I will gut you like the sewer rat you are!”

The slowly rumbling mound of trash froze, and Sevika watched as a small, rodent-like humanoid crawled out of the pile of rubbish. Even from a few yards away, the smell burned the insides of her nostrils. She flicked her red cloak up over her face to mask the stench.

“Well, if you put it that way,” The creature muttered, ever so slightly twitching his body as he spoke. “What can I do for ‘ya?”

Sevika took a few moments to process the fact that this was the path her life was on now. She was the leader of an empire, which now practically led Zaun as Silco, and Vander before him once did.

Yet there she was, deep in the dumping ground for the city’s trash, trying to get information out of a rat.

A very smelly, very shifty rat. She reminded herself that as a leader, nothing would be beneath her. If she wasn’t willing to do something herself, she wouldn’t send anyone else to do it. That was her rule, and she wouldn’t break it.

However, at this moment, she hated the sense of duty that had been baked into her. Where she exactly got it from, she didn’t know. It definitely wasn’t from her parents, she knew that for sure.

That was a question for another time. Right now, she had business to take care of.

“Singed called you Twitch. Is that right?”

“Yep, that’s little ol’ me!” He squeaked, as he hopped back and forth on his hind legs. Sevika didn’t smile back at him.

“Last night, a monster killed two of my men. It was a big, wolf-like thing, with a green vat on its back. Do you know anything about a creature like that?”

Twitch flicked his head to the side and then raised what would have been his eyebrows, if he actually had any eyebrows, from what Sevika could see.

“You mean… The Howler?”

“What kinda name is that?”

“Well, it howls.”

“No shit,” Sevika grumbled, before wiping her face with her hand. “What else do you know about that monster?”

“Anything I tell you about the monster won’t matter. If you get into a situation where you’re close enough to that thing to actually use any of the information I tell you, you’re already dead. That thing’s a death sentence, I’ll tell you that.”

Sevika cleared her throat into the cloak she put over her mouth.

“And what if I already survived one encounter with it?”

Twitch shook his head and began to scratch at the ground with his claws.

“Then the beast has your scent. You’re a doomed woman, I’m afraid.”

Sevika took a step back from the rat, who let out a small, light chuckle. She clenched her fists and quickly glanced from side to side. That couldn’t be true. She was more than that. She had beaten bad odds before, she would do it again.

But something told her that this beast was different. Something deep in her gut told her that she was way over her head. Twitch stopped scratching and picked up a shiny piece of metal from the ground. He turned it over in his clawed fingers, before glancing up at Sevika with a detached curiosity in his eyes.

“It won’t stop hunting you until it spills your blood.”

The caverns underneath Zaun were dark, dingy, and grey and Jinx’s blue, colorful ensemble made her stick out like a sore thumb in the system of caves. The backpack she carried was heavy, but it had everything she needed. She checked it one more time just to be sure that everything was still in there.

“Food, water… oh, I didn’t forget!” Jinx gasped, as she pulled a few pieces of chocolate out of her bag, and then set them back inside. “We’ll keep that for later.”

As she placed the chocolate back inside, her fingers brushed against the edge of solid, sturdy leather. It was Vander’s jacket, the brown one he wore nearly every day. Jinx had carried it around for a while, not knowing what to do with it, yet unable to part with it either.

But now she knew what to do.

She had to give it back.

Warwick hadn’t eaten for days. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry. In reality, he wasn’t sure if his thirst for blood had ever been stronger than what he felt now, but he wouldn’t give in. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure if he could even hunt anymore. Every time he smelled blood, he smelled her, and it was enough to send him scampering back into his cave out of the fear of hurting her, despite the hunger pains.

But he knew he had to eat eventually. Maybe he could find a corpse and stave off his hunger by gorging himself on the old, rotten meat. Maybe, if he caught enough of them, the sewer rats could bide him over.

Until what? Until what, he asked himself, what was he waiting for? That girl was long gone. He had scared her off with his claws, fangs, and monstrous appearance. To add insult to injury, he had hurt her as well. What kind of man would hurt his own daughter?

A monster, Warwick thought, as he curled up in his den and shut his eyes to block out the hunger pains in his stomach, a monster would hurt his own girl.

“Powder. Remember… Powder.” Warwick whimpered, forming the word just in case he had forgotten it. He wouldn’t forget. It was the first thing he thought of when he woke up, and the last thing he thought about before he went to sleep. Often, she even showed up in his dreams. For the first time in a long time, Warwick wasn’t plagued by nightmares when he slept. Instead, warm memories floated through his mind regarding the blue-haired girl.

It was the waking moments, however, that became his nightmares, as the hunger and the bloodlust slowly etched away at whatever grasp he had over the flickers in his head.

Warwick took a deep breath in and swallowed it in an attempt to fill his stomach with air. Maybe that would fill him up. Of course, it didn’t but it did fill him with something else.

A scent.

Warwick’s eyes shot open.

A familiar scent.

Within moments, the starving creature was on all fours, prowling outside of his den.

Powder’s scent.

All of his hunting instincts kicked in at once as the monster’s mouth filled with saliva.

“No!” Warwick growled, fighting off the hunger in his belly, as he filled his mind with thoughts of the blue-haired girl. “Powder!

It had been hours since Jinx first entered the system of caves, with no luck so far. She knew that he had to be down here. It was the only place that a creature as big as he was could possibly hide in this city. Plus, the trail led to here.

But it was too expansive of a network of caves for her to search through the entire thing by herself. Nobody else would believe her, though. No matter how much she knew it to be true, that he was alive, and he was just scared or confused, nobody would believe her that Vander was in that beast.

So there she was, alone, in the deep cave. She guessed that it was nighttime by now, by the chill in the air. She dug out Vander’s jacket and slipped it on. It was too big on her, but it was warm, and it smelled like him still, and that’s what mattered.

“Vander!” Jinx yelled into the dim light, her voice echoing off the cavern walls. “Van-der! You down here?”

There was no response at first. She didn’t really expect one anyway. She kicked a few rocks that were on the ground, before calling his name once again.

“Vander!” Jinx yelled, in a sing-song voice that floated down the cavern walls, echoing deeper and deeper into the caves.

Then, just barely distinct enough from the echo of her own voice to hear, Jinx’s ears picked up on something. It was almost too faint for her to hear. She stopped in her tracks and listened. Jinx held her breath and tried to be as quiet as possible. Maybe it was nothing, she thought for just a moment.

Then she heard it again. The sound, bordering on the mixture of a cry and a howl, bounced off the cavern walls and traveled in her direction. 

Jinx’s hair stood on edge as she let out a quiet gasp. She quickly shut her mouth once again, though her heart was now pounding in her chest.

“Pow-der!”

She heard the echo call out to her, louder, and more clear this time. It called her name, the sound was unmistakable now. Jinx took a step forward, and then another, her shoes resting on the dusty ground underneath her. For a moment, Jinx wondered if this was real. She hoped with all of her heart that it was.

“Vander! Where are you?” Jinx screamed. She heard her name once again, even louder than before. It was rough and low, but it sounded like it did when the beast said her name all those nights ago.

Jinx ran as fast as her legs could take her, the shimmer flickering in her pink-tinted eyes as she pushed herself as hard as she could.

As she rounded a corner, she saw him. 

He looked exactly like he did that night in the alleyway. She saw him as a monster then, and a part of that still stuck with her. He looked terrifying. She hadn’t really thought about how scary-looking he actually would be.

He turned to look at her, and Jinx got a good look at him. Dark blue fur, with a patch of light grey on his chest. His large claws almost touched the ground as he stood there, somewhat hunched over, his eyes still piercing into her.

“Vander?” Jinx asked in disbelief. She took another step toward him, still cautious, with worry growing in her chest. “Is it really you?”

In a flash, the beast was in front of her. It wrapped its claws around her, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezing her tight enough that she couldn’t escape. Jinx felt fear rushing over her, as she wondered if she had made a mistake. Her feet dangled off the ground as the beast hoisted her into the air.

Then, he pulled her close to his furry chest and rested his snout on her shoulder, and let out a sob that shook his entire body. Jinx’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Powder,” The beast cried, as he held her for the first time in years. “My… heart.”

Jinx stared up at his fangs, fur, and wild eyes. All things that Vander never had, but he had now. It was him. She knew it before, but this was proof, and it felt good.

With that, the floodgates burst open. She latched herself around his torso and began to sob into his chest, as he began to do the same.

“It’s me,” Jinx assured him. “It’s me. I’m here, and you’re here, and it’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Chapter Text

That week was full of mostly sleepless nights for Sevika, who tossed and turned until the morning light eventually filtered through the window. She once was a side sleeper, but with that arm gone, it felt strange to lay the bare stump on the sheets. So, she adapted, like she always did, and began to sleep on her back.

Which was often annoying. The sunlight had woken her up just as she finally had drifted off into a solid bit of sleep.

She blinked a few times before sitting up, initially forgetting where she was. The couch cushions underneath her moved as she sat up. She had slept in her office again. Sevika rubbed her neck and let out a sigh.

It wasn’t a conscious decision. She tried to make it back to her bed at the end of the day on most days, but recently, she had gotten into the bad habit of sitting on the couch for a bit of rest and waking up in the morning still not refreshed.

The couch was comfortable, but it wasn’t solid enough to grant her a good night’s rest.

Maybe it was a conscious decision, she thought to herself. She had barely left the headquarters for the past week. She had a few changes of clothes stashed away in a spare closet, as well as a toothbrush, toothpaste, and the rest of her toiletries. The thought of making this place her home was unappealing, but the thought of making anyplace her home was unappealing.

Even the one she had—the small, dusty apartment soaked in the smell of street food and cigar smoke—wasn’t much of a comfort. It meant dragging herself up four flights of stairs and pretending to put her job aside as she took time for herself, which she didn’t know how to do, and had never known how to do. At least if she woke up here, she didn’t have to pretend that her life was anything more than this.

And in that, she took a bit of comfort. Even if she woke up with a sore neck from the couch cushions.

But Sevika knew that she was keeping herself here not just out of circumstance or ease. She had slept in her office every night after talking to Twitch down in Zaun’s Sumps. His words dug into her skin, and his warning about the monster latched onto her mind with a claw-like grip that she couldn’t shake.

It won’t stop hunting you until it spills your blood.

Sevika knew that she was keeping herself locked up in the office not because it was convenient, but because she was afraid. As much as she hated to admit it, she was afraid of what would happen to her on those dark, smokey streets on the walk back to her apartment.

Fear was not welcome in Sevika’s mind, and she fought it off on every occasion. She always had. By the time she was a teenager, she had more than enough scars from these streets to prove her worth and prove her strength. That’s how life was in Zaun, you either gave up and withered away like the drifters in the caverns, or you dusted yourself off, spat the blood out of your mouth, then continued to fight.

She learned quickly what really mattered in this world. It wasn’t charity, it wasn’t kindness, and it certainly wasn’t happiness. All those things were secondary to the one thing that actually mattered in life.

Power. And with it, freedom.

Zaun didn’t have a single ounce of freedom. The Piltover enforcers lurked the streets, willing to drag away anyone who even glanced the wrong way at them. That, partnered with a less than ideal home life, left Sevika to fight for herself.

Until she found something to believe in. Freedom for Zaun, the creation of an independent nation, separate from the Piltover elites who leeched off the life force of the city. It was a lofty idea, but with teenage ambition and determination in her heart, she pledged her life to the cause. She was young, but she didn’t care. If her actions kept just one person in Zaun safe, it was worth it.

The question that she posed to herself during her meeting with Twitch, where she wondered where she got her loyalty from, finally answered itself. She put every working hour of her life into the revolution, just like she was doing now, even though Zaun was free.

The work still wasn’t over. It was never over.

Sevika sat up and rubbed her eyes. 

Silco never had to deal with peace. There was always the conflict between Piltover and Zaun to occupy his time. Sure, there was always the issue of the Firelights, smuggling, chems, and everything else, but the struggle between the two cities drove all of it. At the end of the day, it was always meant to free Zaun.

But now Zaun was free, and Sevika was in charge. Everything else was still happening, of course, but Piltover had removed itself from Zaun. The nation was free, yet it wasn’t enough. She didn’t feel free. Sevika couldn’t pin it down at first, but it was too unfulfilling for her. It didn’t end in one huge, climactic battle. Piltover simply just chose to end it.

Then the monster showed up.

She knew that she was preoccupied with killing that beast for many reasons, but most of all, she wanted all this fighting to mean something. She wanted something physical, something solid, that she could do to keep her people safe. A council vote wasn’t it. But mounting that monster’s head on her wall? That was it. That was what she needed.

What was her plan, though? That thing had already killed two people and nearly killed her. As dangerous as she was, she wasn’t nearly strong enough to kill a creature like that on her own. Which meant that she either needed a ton of new equipment, or she needed to drag other people into this mess.

She could look for volunteers. But she had also kept this entire thing under wraps in order to not incite panic. Opening up a call like that would let everyone know that they were in danger every waking moment they lived in Zaun. There would be paranoia rampant in the streets, and bad actors would take advantage of the situation to cause even more chaos. She wouldn’t let that happen.

Which meant that she was alone. Sevika looked at the bottle of whiskey on her desk. She stood up with a groan, then unscrewed the bottle. She tipped it over the shot glass, then paused. Sevika shook her head and set the bottle back down on the desk.

“I need a clear head for this,” She muttered to herself. “I need to think. What would Silco do?”

She planted herself in the large, oversized office chair, and intertwined her fingers. That man was probably the most cunning person she had ever met, but his judgment was often clouded with the past, and his relationship with Jinx. Sevika was alone. It made a lot of things harder, but it also meant that the only variable in her plans would be herself. That made things a lot easier.

She closed her eyes and thought about what Silco would do.

He’d put everyone on high alert. He would tell just enough information to just enough people to put the city on edge, but not let it boil over into full-blown anarchy. Silco would then enlist as many people as he could to hunt down the beast, possibly even offering a grand sum to whoever could bring him the monster’s carcass.

It was effective, but it wouldn’t work anymore. Without Piltover, a uniting enemy for the people of Zaun to rally against, the people wouldn’t stick with his plan for long. The casualties would be simply too high to ignore. It was too messy, and she couldn’t be the one to pull the trigger to that sort of plan. She needed something else.

Sevika lit the cigar on her desk and placed it on her lips. She took a deep drag from it, letting the smoke fill her lungs. She held it in for a few moments, just before it started to burn, then let it out.

“What would Vander do?” Sevika asked herself. She slowly spun around in the chair and stared at the window overlooking the entirety of Zaun. It was quiet so far, which was good, but she knew that nice mornings never stayed that way.

Vander knew how to use restraint. He wouldn’t allow people to just be casualties of war, just a means to an end. He would keep his secrets, just as Silco would, but he’d keep them close to his heart, instead of his knife.

Sevika sat up straighter in the chair, as she began to crack her knuckles with her thumb.

If it came down to it, Vander would make a big, rousing speech that would inspire the underground. He always had a way with words, and he carried himself with enough quiet charisma to rouse nearly anybody. At least, Sevika thought so. He was one of the reasons why she held out hope for a revolution. If it wasn’t his charm, maybe it was his good nature or the storm that was always brewing behind his eyes. It was often hard to see, but Sevika could see it in him. She recognized it in herself.

He’d tell the people to look out for each other and make them feel like if there was an immediate threat, he would be able to take care of it, for they all knew what Vander was capable of.

Just like everyone knew what Sevika was capable of.

She stood up from the seat in front of the window.

Vander wouldn’t put anyone in danger. He would give himself up, rather than let a single one of his children take the fall. When she first learned of that, she saw him as stupid. Now, all these years later, and after finally being at the top, she knew exactly why he tried to do what he did. She would have done the same.

Sevika knew she couldn’t possibly kill that beast herself. But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t at least try.

Twitch had told her that the monster prowled in the caverns underneath Zaun.

Sevika grabbed her mechanical arm and carefully fashioned it to her shoulder, as she draped her red poncho over herself.

But unlike Vander, she wouldn’t wait around for the fight to come to her. If the beast wanted to fight on her turf, then she needed to be willing to fight on its turf as well.

Sevika extended her blade, checking its integrity. Once everything looked right, she slid it back into her arm and cracked her neck.

“It’s about time you played defense, Howler.”

Chapter Text

“That wasn’t him.”

Vi looked at Ekko, who fiddled with a few gears in his hands as he sat on the ground inside the sanctuary. He didn’t look up at her when he spoke, but she knew that his words were directed towards her.

“He’s dead. He’s on the mural, right over there,” Ekko said as he absentmindedly pointed towards the brightly painted wall. “But, so are you, and Powder.”

“I watched him die.” Vi muttered under her breath.

“Didn’t your sister also see him there?”

“No. She… she saw his body but he was gone. He was very, very gone.” Vi said. The memories of that night had crowded her thoughts in the past few days, as they kept her from getting anything close to a good night’s rest.

“Then why did she-”

“I don’t know, Ekko. I’ve spent the last few days spending nearly every waking moment trying to get her to explain it to me, but she won’t. Caitlyn wasn’t able to fare any better.”

It had been the same conversation every single day these past few days. Someone would bring up Jinx’s outburst in the alleyway, and then they’d split off from the rest of the ground, speaking in hushed voices with both eyes open and wide to see if anyone else was around. Vi was almost sick of it. It brought up powerful, painful memories every time the question was asked.

“Why would she talk to Caitlyn?”

“Because Caitlyn’s not like us, Ekko. At least, she wasn’t. We went through too much at too young of an age, and all of us grew up way too fast. Caitlyn didn’t. She still has that part of herself that wants to believe that there’s a bright side to every dark corner.”

Vi slumped down to the ground next to Ekko and rested her elbows on her knees.

“I can’t entertain my sister’s delusions. I tried, but I just can’t. I’m too direct with her because I love her too much. And I’m going to guess that it’s the same way for you,” Vi said, then caught Ekko nodding out of the corner of her eye. “Caitlyn doesn’t share our history. She knows how long to let Powder go on for, before pulling her back in. I can’t do that.”

Vi took a deep breath in before leaning her head back on the wall and closing her eyes.

“I can’t let her go. I’m terrified of what might happen if I let her go again.”

Ekko put the gears in his pocket. He looked over at Vi. Then, he slumped his head to the side and rested his cheek on her shoulder. For a little while, the two of them just sat there, watching the courtyard begin to brighten up as the morning sun rose.

“Nobody else is awake, eh?” Ekko said softly, and slowly. Vi nodded.

“It looks like we’re the early birds this morning.”

“Well, it’s your sister’s turn to make breakfast.” Ekko reminded her. Vi let out a sigh.

“Do I really have to go wake her up?”

“Last time I did it, she threw the alarm clock at me.”

“What makes you think she won’t do it again?” Vi asked. Ekko lifted his head off of her shoulder and yawned, before stretching his arms above his head.

“Nothing. Which is why you have to wake her up today.” He said with a smile. Vi gently punched him in the shoulder before standing up and stretching. She made her way to where she had been staying. She hoped that Jinx was better today. Over the past few days, she had been slowly returning to her old self.

But no matter what, Vi decided that she’d help her sister make breakfast today, even if she had to help with that yesterday. Vi knocked on the door. She waited a few moments, but there was no response. She knocked a bit louder the next time.

“Hey, sis! It’s your turn to make breakfast, and I’m starving! Don’t make me come in there and drag you outta bed!”

No response. Vi let out a sigh.

“Fine. I warned you!” She shouted, before bursting open her door and slowly walking inside.

There sat her bed. Perfectly made, with a stuffed animal sitting next to the headboard. Vi glanced at the piece of paper placed on the bed and felt her heart sink in her chest. As she unfurled it, her hands began to shake.

Neither of them let go. Neither of them wanted to. Jinx didn’t want to open her eyes, out of the fear that this was all in her head. She had gotten better, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle that pain.

“You’re real, right?” She asked as she buried her head deeper in the fur of his chest. “Please be real.”

He held her a little tighter in response, and Jinx felt her heart flutter in her chest. It was him. He had been gone, but he was back. She didn’t want to get too ahead of herself, but this meant that they could be a family again.

“I missed you so much.”

“I… missed you too.” He said. His words were choppy and slow. He didn’t sound much like he did before, but the energy was still there.

Eventually, he set Jinx down on the ground and took a few steps backward from her. His eyes looked her up and down before he settled back on her face once again.

“You’re taller.” He noticed. Jinx let out a snort and then grinned.

“I could say the same about you, Vander.”

At the mention of his name, he flinched. Jinx immediately put her hand over her mouth as the beast placed both of his claws over his ears.

“No… no…” He softly grumbled as he took a deep breath in, and then let it out. “Powder. Heart. Good heart.”

“I’m really sorry,” Jinx said slowly. “I- I won’t call you that. Maybe… maybe I can just call you-”

“Warwick.” He growled as he relaxed once again. Jinx made a mental note to call him that from now on. It was a funny name, in her opinion, but if it meant having him back she would do it.

“Warwick. Alright, Warwick. I’ll call you that from now on. How does that sound?”

“Good.” He huffed.

“I understand why you changed your name. You know, I kinda go by Jinx now.” She explained. Warwick raised his eyebrows. Then, he closed his eyes. His mouth hung open slightly, as he licked his chops and tried to say her name.

“G… gee… gee-n… ck-s?” He tried to say, then shook his head. By the look on his face, even he knew it didn’t sound right. Jinx cleared her throat and quickly cut him off before he tried to say anything more.

“You know what, that’s okay! You can call me Powder if that’s easier for you. Don’t worry about it.” Jinx told him, and he slowly nodded. Jinx hopped up on a nearby boulder and sat down on it. She began to dig through her backpack.

“Are you hungry? I brought some stuff you might like. There’s some-”

Before she could finish her sentence, she could feel the beast’s warm breath on her neck. She turned around and saw Warwick looming over her as she dug through the backpack. The night in the alley flashed back into her memory, and she shifted uncomfortably in her position. Warwick noticed, and took a step backward, his ears pressed flat against the back of his head.

“S… sorry.” He mumbled as Jinx pulled a candy bar out of her backpack.

“No worries. Hey, know any tricks?”

Warwick cocked his head to the side in confusion. Jinx bit her lip.

“I was making a dog joke.” She said in defeat. After a few moments, Warwick let out a huff, before breaking out into a series of low, rumbling barks. Jinx watched a fanged smile creep across his lips, and she realized that he was laughing. As garish as it sounded, she let herself laugh along with him.

“Good one.” Warwick said after recovering from the laughing fit. Jinx tossed him the candy bar. He snatched it out of the air with his fangs and gulped it down in one bite. Jinx raised her eyebrows.

“You must really be hungry. Here, you can just have the rest of them.” She told him, before taking all of the food she had brought and tossing it to the ground in front of her. Warwick descended on it like a wild dog. Jinx watched him scarf down scrap after scrap of food before he suddenly stopped mid-bite. He looked up at Jin, then down at the food in front of him. He took a pile in his claws, then offered them to her.

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“Eat.”

“Really, you need-”

“Eat.” Warwick said, with a bit more strength in his voice. It brought back memories of the tone that Vander used when she and the other kids were misbehaving. Jinx smiled at the memory, then picked up a few pieces of food out of his claws. She bit into a hunk of chocolate and ate alongside him. As she watched him scarf down as much food as he could, Jinx frowned.

Soon enough, he was finished. He sniffed the air, just to be sure that he hadn’t missed anything, before licking his chops again.

“I remember you,” He said slowly, as he lowered himself to sit on the dusty ground. “Powder. Silly little girl.”

“What else do you remember?”

“You…” Warwick scratched his head and closed his eyes. “Like ice cream.”

“Oh, it’s my favorite! Do you remember Vi’s favorite drink?”

Warwick opened his eyes and stared straight ahead. He blinked a few times, before gently shaking his head back and forth.

“Oh, it’s an easy one. Vi made you pay extra for that one brand she liked.” Jinx continued to push, as Warwick took another deep breath in.

“Vuh-eye? No…” Warwick mumbled. “I don’t… I don’t remember-”

“What about Mylo, or Claggor?” Jinx wondered. Warwick’s entire body suddenly stiffened. Jinx could see the water begin to form in his eyes, as his breathing became shallow and much quicker than before.

“No, no, no…” He whimpered.

Two boys. Warwick had seen flashes of their faces before, but he hadn’t ever connected the dots before. But yet, hearing those names come out of her mouth seared those fragments of his memory together.

Those were his boys. He raised them. He loved them. How could he forget them? He thought as hard as he could as he tried to remember as much as he could about them.

Rubble.

Claggor’s goggles, stained with blood. Both of his boys were underneath the rubble.

“No! My-lo!” Warwick began to bellow, his voice filling with fear and despair. “Cla-a-gar!”

He began to wrench his body back and forth as the image of both of his boys under a pile of rubble burned into his mind. He couldn’t forget it now.

Warwick felt two soft hands grab the sides of his head, and hold it steady. He opened his eyes and saw Powder in front of him.

“I- um… I- I can help! I’m here, and I’m not leaving you!” Powder told him, as he began to whine at the memories that flashed through his mind. Powder placed her hands on his snout and began to wipe the tears away from his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t try to hurt you. I…” Powder began to say before her voice cracked and she looked away. “I know who can help. I can get Vi to help.”

Vi. That name again. Powder kept saying that name like he knew who that was, but he didn’t. He racked the fragments of his memory, searching for someone with that name. Then, all at once, it erupted.

Warwick could only cry as it all came flooding back.

The deranged screaming of that monster echoed through the caverns underneath Zaun, as The Hound of the Underground lived up to the name that the locals had given him, as The Howler.

Vi, Caitlyn, and Ekko, who had sprung into action as soon as Vi finished reading the note from her sister, immediately began to run towards the voice as fast as they could. Ekko, still with his arm in a sling, bobbed and weaved around rocks and debris with his hoverboard.

“Powder!” Vi wheezed, with fear in her heart as she imagined what that monster had done to her sister. The hextech in her gauntlets glowed in the dark cavern, as she grit her teeth. She was going to kill that monster, and nothing would stop her.

Sevika stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the twisting caverns underneath Zaun. This was her chance. If she struck now, she could save this city. Her city.

Like a siren calling out to her, the beast’s howls traveled on the slight breeze coming out of the caves and trickled into her ears. It made her hair stand on end.

If she had been waiting for a signal, this had to be it.

Sevika wrapped the red cloth a bit tighter around her chest, kicked the dust off her boots, and began the long climb into the darkness below.

Chapter Text

The taste of his own blood wasn’t unfamiliar to him, but he hadn’t tasted it in a very long time. He had gotten comfortable in the life that he had created, and the city he began to lead. Time had softened him.

But that was far gone.

As the trio made their way down the catwalk, he stirred from his half-conscious state just in time to spit out the blood that had been pooling in his mouth. His eyes fluttered upward, as he waited for the next set of thugs to arrive and torture him.

Except they never came. The faces of the trio slowly came into focus.

Mylo, Claggor, and Vi. His kids. Here, to rescue him.

“Vi.” Vander wheezed. The girl flew towards him and wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling him into a tight hug.

“What are you doing here?” Vander asked her, with one eyebrow raised, a slight twinge of stress breaking through his normally calm voice.

“We’re breaking you out.” Vi explained as she tapped the top of her forehead against his. She pulled away, and he was able to stare in her beautiful, tear-filled blue eyes for just a moment.

Her eyes were the palest shade of blue that he had ever seen.

Then, as the importance of the task returned to her, Vi pulled back.

“Mylo.” Vi said as she glanced down at the shackles that held him in place.

“On it.” His son replied. He scurried up the mechanism that held his right leg in place and began to pull out his tools. Vander looked down at him. His head throbbed, and his vision was blurry, but even in that state, he could tell that something was wrong.

“H- how did you get in?” He asked in disbelief, as Mylo began to work on the lock. “There’s guards everywhere.”

“It was easy,” Vi said, her voice initially full of confidence. “We found an open window and…”

Her eyebrows raised, as her eyes widened in fear. The power and poise that she had held this entire time flooded out of her, as her shoulders drooped. Vander felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. He was right. Something was wrong here. It was too easy.

“Oh, god.” Vander exhaled. The implication was enough to send a chill up his spine.

This couldn’t be happening, he thought. He wouldn’t get them hurt. Not for him.

“You have to get out,” He commanded, with more dread in his voice than he tried to let on. “Now.”

But it was too late. He could already hear that bastard’s voice echoing through the factory, sending his stomach twisting into knots once again.

“Welcome!”

Vander tensed in his restraints. This was like a joke to him. A game. No. He wouldn’t let his kids be a part of this. He wouldn’t let them get hurt. He had to help them. As Vi turned to the sound of footsteps approaching, Vander saw something on her face that he hoped never to see.

Fear.

It swirled in her pale blue eyes like tar mixing with seawater. She tried to hide it by clenching her jaw, getting into a ready stance and facing toward the sound of footfalls, but Vander knew that she was terrified.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

“You have my congratulations, But I’m afraid that this will be a very short reunion.”

He knew that man’s voice well. They once were as close as brothers.

Now, Vander wanted to grab that fucker by the skull and pull until he tore his head off.

But there were too many of them. Too many of his goons and brutes, all lining up behind him like he needed protecting.

From what, a bunch of kids and a man he’d already tortured for hours? The audacity of that man made Vander sick to his stomach.

“Have you heard the rumor? Vander the coward fled town with his children,” Silco, whose voice made Vander recoil in disgust, said to the four in the room across the catwalk. “And they were never seen again.”

No, he wouldn’t rip his head off, Vander thought to himself. That was too easy of a death. Silco didn’t deserve that. Not after this.

The image of tearing him apart fluttered in his mind, and Vander, who usually spurned his more violent impulses, took a bit of ease in it.

At that moment, Claggor’s blade snapped in half. Vander hadn’t even noticed that the boy was trying to break him free. It was useless. He needed them to run. He needed them to escape, to get as far away from here as possible.

“Claggor, see if you can find another way out of here.” Vi said suddenly, taking his attention away from Silco for just long enough for him to see the gauntlets attached to her hands.

“Okay.” Claggor muttered as he began to pace around the inside of the room. Vander glanced at the gauntlets in her hands once again, and his entire body tensed at the sight.

“You don’t have to do this.”

His heart raced in his chest. He struggled and strained against the restraints that bound him to the chair, but he knew it was never enough. Just like he knew that she wouldn’t listen to him, no matter how hard he begged and pleaded for her to get out of here.

She hesitated just before the door.

“Yes,” His red-haired daughter said to him. “I do.”

Then, she turned to the catwalk and began to march down it in the gauntlets that were far too big for her, into a fight that she was never meant to be a part of. This wasn’t her battle. She didn’t need to take these punches for him.

His breathing grew faster, as his daughter walked away from him and towards Silco. This couldn’t be happening, he thought. Please, please, please, just turn around. Just turn around so I can protect you.

Don’t go to him. Please don’t fight for me.

“Vi!” Vander shouted, thrashing against his restraints once more, as he felt his heart pounding faster, and faster, and faster. The blood dribbling from his nose into his beard meant nothing to him at this point. He didn’t care if it pooled in the back of his throat, all he knew was that Violet, his little girl, was walking into almost certain death.

And he was powerless to stop it.

“Warwick! It’s okay, just listen to me, you’re going to be okay!”

Jinx crouched over the howling, whimpering beast, who buried his head into the dirt underneath him. His claws wrapped around his head, squeezing tighter and tighter, until Jinx began to see trickles of blood sliding down his fur.

She wrapped her arms around him as much as she could, trying to pry his claws off of his head, but he was too strong. But that didn’t stop her from trying.

“Please! I’m here! I can-”

“Vah-eye!” Warwick howled, his fast, shallow breaths sending shivers through his entire body as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Let me forget!”

Jinx squeezed him as tight as she could and buried her head in his shoulder, begging him to listen to her, begging him to return to the man she knew he was.

Vi readied herself in the middle of the catwalk. Despite her youth and stature, she wore the gauntlets well. In any other circumstance, he would be proud of her.

But this wasn’t the time. The brute in front of her was double her height, and quite nearly triple her size as well. This wasn’t a fair fight. Even Silco knew that.

Deep down, Vander hoped that the man he once called a brother would show mercy to his daughter. She’s just a kid. She’s just a kid, and you know that, and you’re not going to stoop so low as to-

Silco nodded at the ogre in front of his daughter. He turned his attention back to her.

Vander nearly choked on the blood that had pooled in his mouth.

He would rip that monster in half. He would tear him in half without hesitation. He was sending a full-grown man, with a knife, against his daughter. Not Violet.

Please, not Violet.

The first strike was far too slow, and Vander was grateful for that. There was no use in being strong if your enemies could anticipate every move you made, no matter how hard you could hit.

The blade scraped off the gauntlets and gave Vi enough time to send a punch his way.

When the hit connected, it was like Vander saw magic. For a person of his size, getting knocked into the air by a punch was quite a testament to the strength of the attacker, and what a testament it was.

Vi sent him flying.

He landed on his back. He didn’t move.

Vander wanted to cheer. Especially when he saw Silco’s eyes widen a bit in surprise.

How about that, you scheming fuck? You thought I wouldn’t raise kids that were just as tough, if not tougher, than me? You thought you could mess around with my family without having your arse handed to you on a platter, you devil?

You were never as smart as you thought you were, Silco.

But Vander didn’t have time to get caught up in gloating inside his mind. Vi still had a multitude of goons left, and one by one, they came after her.

Full-grown adults, against a teenager.

It hurt Vander even to just think about it.

Mylo continued to work on the lock that held his lower half to the chair. Vander looked down at his son just in time to see him drop the lockpick. He was working too fast. He needed to settle down, keep his head cool, and do what he did best. He knew how to do this. He had done it thousands of times before.

“Mylo,” Vander reminded him in as calm of a voice as he could muster at the moment. “Take a breath. You can do this.”

Mylo looked up at him with panic in his eyes that gently faded as he met Vander’s gaze. He nodded and got back to it. Mylo took a breath, and just like Vander had taught him, moved the lockpick as gently as possible through the mechanism.

One click was enough to let Vander know that Mylo had done his job, and done it well. With a grunt, he strained his foot against the metal keeping him in place until it busted open. He kicked his foot out.

“We’re gonna get you out.” Claggor said suddenly, as he rubbed his hands together. He pulled a large metal rod out from his backpack and lined it up with the wall.

Another click drew Vander’s attention back to Mylo, who popped open the second lock in half the time as the previous one. Vander stepped another boot out of the shackles that held him.

They were getting close. A bit of hope fluttered in his chest as Mylo went to work on what held his arms in place, as he looked up at Vi. Two of those goons were on her now, but she was holding her own. Vander watched as he recognized every punch she threw, every swipe she dodged, and every jab she got in as one he taught her. He taught her those moves.

He taught her how to punch.

“Come on!” Ekko shouted, leaning forward as far as he could on his hoverboard. “This way, I know we’re getting close!”

Vi and Caitlyn ran shortly behind him, pumping their legs as fast as they could go. Both of them were fueled by pure adrenaline at that point, as the cries of the monster grew louder, echoing off the cavern walls.

“Not Powder, please, not Powder!” Vi yelled, as her face scrunched up and tears began to form in her eyes as the thought of what that beast might have already done to her. “No!”

“Ekko! If I can get within firing distance, I can take that thing out with one shot!” Caitlyn reminded him. “Just get us in range, and buy us some time!”

Vander wasn’t sure what it was that he heard next. It sounded almost like the roar of a bear, but extremely wrong. Like a bear was forced to scream with a human throat. He made the mistake of glancing upward, and that's when he saw it.

That thing. There it was again. It had killed Grayson right in front of him, and now, it stood at the opposite end of the catwalk from Violet.

That monster was near his daughter, and Silco brought it there. Silco would use that monster to kill her.

He saw Vi land her last punch on the man in front of her before he toppled to the ground, then saw her slowly look up at the creature rapidly approaching. Purple sludge oozed from its mouth, and whatever was left of that man disappeared in a frenzied, primal screech.

Vander grit his teeth, the one eye he could see out of open wide in fear.

“Mylo, hurry!” He urged his son, as his eyes bounced back and forth between him and Violet. She readied herself for another fight, already raising up the gauntlets against a foe that was far too much for her. Vander knew she wouldn’t back down from a fight but this wasn’t her battle. This wasn’t something she would survive.

Please, Violet. Run. Just run.

Instead, she jumped.

Up on top of the rails of the catwalk, her feet used the rail as leverage before she crouched slightly, and then threw herself into the air with all her might. She raised the gauntlets over her head, prepared to strike with both fists.

It caught her by the throat. Vander threw himself forward, jostling the remaining restraints on his chair.

He could hear her gasping for air. His little girl, gasping for air.

“Silco, let her go!” Vander shouted, his voice rough and full of intensity, yet also filled with intense distress. “This is between you and me!”

“You had your chance.” Silco growled, as his monster threw Violet to the floor of the catwalk. One of the gauntlets fell off her hand as she laid in a crumpled heap on the floor. She slowly eased herself up, crawling back toward the small room where Claggor, Mylo, and Vander were.

But that creature was gaining on her.

Mylo twisted his lockpicking tools as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Vi!” Vander cried. The girl was just yards away from him at this point. She was so close. She was so close. Just get to me, Vander thought. Get to me and I’ll keep you safe. Don’t fight anymore. 

Please just get to me and then we can get out of here and we’ll go somewhere where you never have to fight again just please get here Violet, please.

Violet passed the threshold of the large, metal door, as Claggor bashed the metal rod against the wall.

“Vi! Please… no… get out!” Warwick cried and Jinx still continued to try to stop his claws from gouging into his head any further than they already had. She looked down at her hands and saw that they were covered in smears of blood.

His blood. Vander’s blood.

“How do I help? Please, I want to help, how do I help? How do I help you?” Jinx asked with a fearful intensity in her voice that she didn’t like hearing echo off the cavern walls. The beast gave no response. He just continued to ramble on, speaking incomplete sentences as the words tumbled out of his mouth.

“I want to help! Please!” Jinx cried, unable to stand seeing him like this. “Just let me help you!”

She looked away from him. She didn’t want to leave him, but she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t help him.

But maybe someone else could.

Vi helped her. Vi always helped. She just had to find her, and get her here, and she would help him. She could fix him.

“I’ll be right back, I promise you that. I’ll be right back, please, just stay there!” Jinx cried, as she stood up and took a step away from the monster who laid face down on the ground, curled into a writhing, agonized ball of pain.

“Pow-der?” Warwick croaked, slowly raising his head as he watched her move away from him. He raised a trembling claw towards her as his bottom jaw quivered under the weight of his sobs. “No… pl- please! Don’t… lea-ve! I can’t… I can’t be a- alo- alone ag- again!”

Instantly, tears were flowing down her cheeks. She rushed back to Warwick’s side and held his canine head in her arms, then squeezed it tight to her chest.

“I won’t. I won’t leave. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She muttered into his ear, as he closed his eyes and began trembling once again. She wiped his snout, now wet with tears, and then kissed the bridge of his nose.

“I love you,” Jinx said, in a voice tied between a whisper and a whimper. “And I’m not leaving you.”

“You did good.” Vander said to Vi, as he let out a sigh of relief. She was back inside the room, with the door firmly shut tight. She was missing a gauntlet, but she was okay. She would be okay.

The monster slammed against the door another time, and a spare scrap of metal popped off and landed on the floor. He looked at his daughter with fear in his eyes, before Claggor let out another grunt. Vander heard the sound of smashing bricks.

They were so close.

Vi scooted up the doorframe, bracing her body against the continuous blows of the monster. Blow, after blow, after blow, and yet, she still stood solid.

Then, the blows went quiet. Vander turned to Mylo, who turned his lockpick one more time before a click sent his last restraint popping open. 

Tink.

Vander let out yet another sigh of relief, before glancing at his son with an amazed, and incredibly grateful expression on his face.

Tink.

Vander stood up from the chair. His body was still weak from the hours of torture, but Vi needed his help bracing the door. If she needed his help, he would provide it.

Always.

Tink.

Blue. 

All he could see was blue. 

Blue lights, burning brighter than anything he had ever seen before, suddenly ripped the door in front of him to shreds. He caught one glance of Violet twisting to the side to avoid the impact before a ball of energy whizzed past his face. He could feel the hairs on his arm singe and burn as he attempted to shield himself.

Then, from behind him, a loud crack, like a thunderburst.

And it all came tumbling down.

Chapter Text

Somehow, he was still conscious. Though an entire building had come crumbling down around him, and on top of him, he was still awake through it all. The load was unbearable on his back, but it wasn’t killing him yet. Maybe he could blame all those years of bar food and relative comfort which led to the eventual softening of his midsection, for cushioning the impact.

Then he looked up.

Claggor was under the rubble. Mylo was under the rubble too, though Vander couldn’t see much more than just his arm.

Claggor didn’t move.

Vander begged him to move. Vander begged them both to move. His eyes focused on Claggor’s face, the only part of him he could still see in the rubble.

Breathe, Vander thought.

Please, just breathe. Just once. Please, for me.

After a few moments, he averted his gaze. He didn’t need to look at that pile of rubble any longer. It would be burned into his eyes for the rest of his life, he knew that for sure. He would remember it as clear as day.

The broken, warped metal door took his attention. Specifically, the puff of pink hair, attached to the body of a girl pinned underneath the door.

Violet was underneath that door.

All three of his children, buried under the weight of his past.

They were so close to getting out of there. Vander couldn’t believe it. The wall had already been broken through. Mylo had broken him out of his restraints. Sure, the door was close to coming loose, and Vi couldn’t hold it forever, but she wouldn’t have to because they had a way out.

They had been so close.

He hung his head. His breath was heavy, yet felt shallow. It wasn’t just the weight of the wall on top of him that crushed him now. What crushed him was the realization that he would have to bury his own kids.

Though his ears rang from the blast, and the mixture of smoke, fire, and dust in the air made it hard to see much of anything, Vander could feel something pounding away at the catwalk. Loud, heavy footsteps.

Coming right towards him to finish the job.

For a split second, he wondered if he was willing to even fight back anymore. Everything was gone. Three of his kids were gone.

No. Not everything. Powder was still alive. If couldn’t do it for himself, he had to make it out of here for that little girl.

Then he heard Vi. Her cries were slow, and without much effort, but she was alive. She was trapped under that door, but she was alive. Vander felt his heart leap in his chest. His girls were still alive.

But he had to act fast. That monster was coming towards the both of them. Vander looked back at Vi.

It would reach her before it reached him.

He wouldn’t let that happen. As long as he was still alive, that monster wouldn’t lay a single finger on his daughter.

Vander put his rough, damaged hands on the ground underneath him. The concrete was dusty. It caked his hands and elbows. As he grit his teeth, he could feel the dried blood splitting and cracking under his busted lower lip.

He pushed. It took all his effort, and even some after that, but slowly the mound of concrete on top of him began to move. Involuntarily, he let out an agonized groan, bordering on a roar, as his strong arm muscles flexed.

For Vi. He had to do this for her.

Vi knew that she had to be close. The howling had only gotten louder as they traveled down this pathway.

But it had taken too much time. Vi didn’t want to think about it, but it took them way too long to get down here. Jinx was tough, and she was a fighter, but Vi had seen just how monstrous that creature was.

If Caitlyn didn’t put a bullet through the monster’s skull before Vi could get to it, she would punch its head clean off.

As Ekko rounded yet another corner, he quickly reared backward, his eyes wide in a mixture of fear and surprise. Vi darted past him.

The monster sat in the middle of the cavern, howling and screaming, as her sister cradled its head in her lap. Vi opened her mouth to say something, but Jinx looked up at her with an expression so devastating, Vi couldn’t finish her thought.

“Violet! Please, he’s so scared,” Jinx wept, slowly brushing the monster’s fur with her fingers. “And I don’t know what to do!”

Vi looked at her sister, with her eyes red and bloodshot, and then down at the monster in her arms. Its eyes were closed, but still, it slowly rocked back and forth, ever so often letting out a whimper.

“Jinx. Back away from that thing.” Vi told her in a stern, yet calm voice, despite the pounding of her heart in her chest. Her sister shook her head and held the beast tighter.

“What? Vi, no!”

“Jinx, please, just listen to her.” Caitlyn pleaded. Her hands rested on the barrel of her already loaded rifle. Ekko stood there, frozen in terror, slowly bobbing up and down in place on his hoverboard.

“But-”

“Jinx,” Vi shouted through clenched teeth. “That thing is going to kill you.”

“No! Vi, please, just listen to me! He’s Vander! He recognized me, and- and we talked! He remembered that I liked ice cream!”

Jinx laid her cheek on the beast’s head and began to gently rub its snout. Vi took a few steps toward her sister, her heart racing.

“Come on, please wake up. Show them,” Jinx pleaded, as she wiped her eyes. “Show them that you remember them. I know you can.”

With one final roar, the Hound of the Underground threw off his chains. He stumbled to his feet, his entire body still aching, but he didn’t care. He needed to protect his daughter by any means necessary, even if it meant tearing, ripping, or injuring himself for the foreseeable future.

He lifted his eyes just in time to see one of Silco’s thugs enter the remains of the room. Vander made eye contact with the man just before he attempted to swing a metal pipe at him. Instead, Vander clenched his fists and threw a left hook at him hard enough to send the goon stumbling backward out of the room.

Vander cracked his knuckles. It was good to know that he still had it in him.

But he would need more than just his knuckles to face off against that monster that was after both him and his daughter. The gauntlets were long gone at this point. The only other thing that Vander could see in his immediate vicinity were the shackles that once held him to the chair.

They would have to do.

He emerged from the room breathing heavily, the air catching in his mouth as it tried to travel out his nose, which was stuffed with blood, causing a growl to form in the back of his throat.

Vander marched forward, putting as much distance between himself and Vi. She just needed enough time. If he could buy her enough time, they both could escape.

Another one of Silco’s pawns came after him. He attempted to land a kick square in Vander’s chest, but his balance was clearly off. Vander deflected it easily and sent him slamming into the railing. Then, without looking, he grabbed him by the scruff of the pant leg and hoisted him over the edge of the catwalk.

His screams fell on deaf ears as Vander made his way to his main target, the biggest threat he was facing off against, the monster who stood between him and Silco.

It tried to land a punch, but it was too slow for the much older, and far more experienced fighter. Pining one of its arms underneath his upper arm, he suddenly wrenched it around, immobilizing his limb just long enough to line up a strike to the creature’s stomach.

Vander reared back. This time, the roar that left his lips was intentional.

For Claggor.

The hunk of metal he held in his fist sunk into the creature’s gut, as it began to scream. Vander struck him again.

For Mylo.

Vander hit him again.

For Violet.

Vander hit him again.

For Powder.

By the time he could rear up for another strike, the monster had gotten a moment of opportunity. It brought down one of its large, gnarled fists on Vander’s shoulder. He felt something pop. Maybe it was a clavicle or a rib. He didn’t know.

But it was enough for him to slip up for just a second, which gave the goon enough time to grab him by the sides of the head. It stared at him for a moment, then headbutted him in the forehead.

Vander felt the world spin around him with the weight of the impact. That hurt far more than a normal headbutt should have. Just before he could regain his balance, the creature picked him up and threw him to the ground.

He laid there.

Every part of his body told him not to move. It was too much. It was too great of a fight. He wouldn’t win this.

But as he turned over onto his stomach and pushed himself back up to his feet, he saw Violet. She was the reason why he was fighting. Even from all the way over here, he could see her crying to herself as the flames around her grew bigger.

He would save her.

Vander stared that monster that stood between him and his girl right in the eyes, and let out a frenzied, furious grunt.

Fight me, you bastard. Take on someone your own size. Just leave my daughter alone.

Leave her-

Pain. Deep inside his back.

Vander cried out in pain, as he felt a knife slip into the side of his back. He knew it was Silco. He could recognize that coward’s back-handed tactics anywhere. The twist of the knife was familiar, too.

But Silco had forgotten just how well Vander knew him, as he was still within grabbing distance. As Silco pulled the knife from his flesh, Vander stumbled forward, only to spin around and wrap a hand around his neck.

The pounding of Silco’s heartbeat underneath Vander’s palm felt far too familiar for it to be comforting to either of them. Vander squeezed as hard as he could.

For a moment, he could see the fear in Silco’s eyes. And just for a moment, Vander relished in it. That bastard took his kids from him. Fear was the least he could take from Silco.

He curled his fingers tighter, searching for the lifeforce in Silco’s throat. He didn’t know if that man still had warm blood that still ran through his veins, but Vander was willing to throttle him until his body went cold.

Vander wanted to see the light fade from his other, non-corrupted eye. He leaned closer to the man just to get a better look.

He barely even felt the second stab wound. Silco barely even twisted the knife. It just sat there inside his stomach.

Vander felt his grip on the hunk of metal loosen. He didn’t try to drop it, but it fell nevertheless.

He couldn’t feel his legs anymore. He knew they were still attached, as he was still standing, but he was leaning too far forward now. He couldn’t keep his balance.

Vander could still feel the racing heartbeat in Silco’s throat as he slumped forward, before letting go. Silco gasped for air, then quickly caught his breath again. Vander, on the other hand, suddenly found it harder and harder to breathe.

Yet that monster was still between him and Violet. But he couldn’t move anymore.

He could barely even think.

“I knew you still had it in you.” Silco whispered in his ear. He turned Vander’s body toward the side of the catwalk.

Silco cast him into the flaming depths below.

Jinx looked up at her sister, who was slowly coming closer to her. Warwick had suddenly gone still in her arms. His eyes were still closed, and he was still breathing, but he was quiet. Jinx stroked the fur behind his ears.

“Please. Just say my name. That’s all you have to do.” Jinx told him. Vi was quiet for a moment before she continued moving toward him. She clenched her fists.

“Jinx-” Vi began to say in a direct, flat tone that Jinx immediately recoiled from.

“No.”

“That thing-”

“Just give him a chance, Violet, please!”

“I’m not giving that monster a damned chance! You need to get away from that thing so you don’t get hurt!”

“He’s not a monster! He’s Vander!” Jinx shouted at her sister, as she shielded his face with her body. “Can’t you see that he’s right here! He-”

“That monster isn’t Vander, Jinx!” Violet yelled.

“He is!”

“No, he’s not, because Vander’s fucking dead!” Violet suddenly erupted, pain, anger, and fear straining her face. “I saw him die! I saw him take his last breaths! I watched him die in front of me, Jinx, so don’t tell me that-”

Vi’s voice broke as her bottom lip began to quicker, and fiery tears ran down her face.

“Don’t tell me he’s alive,” Vi muttered through clenched teeth. “Don’t do that to me.”

Jinx didn’t respond. Vi moved closer to her, and Jinx held Warwick tighter. Vi grabbed her shoulder. Jinx tried to shrug her off, but Vi grabbed her arm with both hands.

“Let go of me! No! I won’t leave him!”

“It’s not him, Jinx!” Vi screamed. With one more pull, she yanked her sister away from the beast.

He didn’t know how he was still conscious. Surely, he should have been dead by now. His entire body felt far too heavy.

But he could feel all of it, which was the strange thing. Just a few moments ago, right before Silco pushed him off the catwalk, he wasn’t able to feel a single thing.

“Find the girl.” Silco said from above, not knowing that Vander could still hear.

But now? He felt hundreds of sharp, stinging sensations begin to burn into his back, especially around the knife wound on his side.

Vials of purple glowed all around him. He must have crashed through an entire pile of them on his way down, and now he was coated in the stuff.

The longer he sat there, his back drenched in the slop leaking out of those vials, the stronger he felt.

A strange feeling rose in his chest. It was an urge that he always had, but over the course of the day, it only grew stronger.

As Vander eyed a vial close to his hand, he closed his eyes. He didn’t know what this would do to him, but he didn’t care.

He would protect Violet.

Vander’s fingers wrapped around the vial. He struggled to raise it to his lips. The entire time, he thought of his daughter. If he could focus, he could save her.

After popping the top of the vial off with his teeth, Vander sent the shimmering liquid down his throat, coughing and sputtering as he felt it burn at his insides.

Protect Violet.

Protect his daughter.

The process didn’t take long to complete. His mind was hazy enough already. He wouldn’t want to experience what the vials would do to a person in their right state of mind, as the ripping, tearing, and dislocating of limbs and flesh would be too much for a normal person to bear.

Without even thinking, Vander bounded to the top of the catwalk. Powerful, unrestrained energy burned in his chest, as he felt more powerful than he ever had before.

Within moments he was on top of the monster, who stared down at his daughter.

Vander wouldn’t let him hurt her.

He snatched the monster by the throat and hoisted him into the air with one arm. He squeezed, and squeezed, picturing Silco’s face instead of the goon he was currently choking the life out of.

In this state, ripping Silco’s damn head off would be far from a struggle.

The goon he held in his claws fought hard against him, but Vander didn’t have time to deal with that. With a growl, he slammed him against the wall hard enough to see his body go limp. Satisfied with his kill, he tossed him aside and continued his hunt into the small room.

It was familiar. Vander wondered why it was familiar to him.

Violet.

She stared up at him, cowering on the floor below. Vander saw fear in her eyes for the second time that night, and this time, it hurt far more than the last as he knew that he placed that fear in her heart.

Vander stumbled backward, clutching his head in his hands. His mind felt sluggish and uncooperative. He roared out in frustration.

Warwick knew the feeling well. In fact, he remembered the feeling.

Vander lifted his gaze and saw him. Silco. The man who killed his children. The man who had to pay for all of this.

The man who backed away in fear, like the coward he was.

“Silco!” Vander roared, lunging toward him for just a half step before stopping. The rumble of unstable materials came from behind him. Vander turned just in time to see Vi struggle to lift herself off the ground, as debris fell around her and the fire grew.

Protect Vi. Protect his daughter.

Vander snapped his head back to Silco, the man responsible for the death of his sons. He should kill him. In this state, it would be easy to rip him in half.

Warwick didn’t understand why he didn’t just kill him right then and there. He had Silco in his sights.

But Violet needed him. She needed him now, not later, now.

Warwick felt that urge that Vander felt rise in his chest, as he understood what made him save Vi.

Love. He loved her more than he hated Silco.

And at that moment, Warwick remembered that he loved her too.

Vander spun around. In his massive form, it was easy to dash toward his daughter. He scooped her up as gently as possible, then cradled her against his chest and-

Jumped. He jumped. Warwick knew this next part.

He told her to take care of her sister, Powder, before the haze took over and forced his eyes shut.

But not this time. He wouldn’t keep his eyes shut this time. He would fight harder than he did that time because now he knew what he really was.

At that moment, Warwick opened his eyes to see Jinx’s terrified face, and her arms reaching out toward him.

Warwick let out a cry, and jumped to his feet, before reaching out toward her too. It took just a split second for his claws to brush against her fingers before they intertwined.

He looked at Vi, who was frozen in shock at the development and then at Powder, whose grin began to creep across her entire face.

“Vi-o-let?” Warwick said slowly, as he gently reached his other claw toward her. “I… I-”

A sudden burst of pain, erupting from the center of the chest, interrupted his words. Warwick stumbled backward from the force of the gunshot, as he raised the claw that just held Powder’s hand to his chest. When he pulled it away, it was coated in blood.

His blood.

The vat on his back began to whir, and Warwick felt the hunger pains return, along with the haze.

But Powder’s screams cut through that easily. Warwick felt the blood continue to dribble down his chest, filling his nose with the sweet scent, which should have lit his brain on fire.

But it didn’t. He wouldn’t let it. Not this time. He wouldn’t lose himself like that ever again.

Warwick fell to his knees. He had spilled a lot of blood in his day and knew a lethal amount when he saw it.

That didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was his daughters. Powder screamed, and she wouldn’t stop screaming, but Vi was silent. Her beautiful, pale blue eyes were wide, and she didn’t say a word.

Instead, Warwick said them for her.

“I… I love… I love you,” He croaked, blood spitting from his mouth as he spoke. “I’m sorry. Vio-let… I’m… I’m…”

The haze began to creep back into Warwick’s mind, but this was different. This was a much darker haze.

A much heavier haze.

“... sorry.” He whimpered, keeping his eyes locked on her with the last bits of life that still remained in his chest. Violet raised both of her hands, as the gauntlets detached, and her hands began to shake.

“Vander?” Violet whispered. Warwick gently smiled at her as the darkness crept in around the edges of his vision before he lost his balance and slumped to the ground, a whooshing sound filling his ears before he couldn’t hear a thing anymore, aside from his daughter’s faint scream echoing in the dark recesses of his mind.

“Vander!”

Chapter Text

Caitlyn dropped her gun with a thud, her hands trembling with the horrible realization that crept across her mind.

Jinx immediately dashed toward his body, slumped face-down on the ground. She wouldn’t stop screaming. Her hands flew to his face, then to his chest, then his shoulder, and then back to the wound on his chest once again.

“No! No!” Jinx screamed at the top of her lungs, her entire body arching and convulsing as she did so. Violet ran her hands through her hair as she tried to calm down.

“Fuck. Oh fuck. Oh god, oh fuck.” She wheezed, unable to catch her breath as he stepped away from the monster and towards Caitlyn, who couldn’t move. Her mouth hung slightly open, and her eyes were as wide as saucer plates.

“I shot him,” She whispered under her breath. “I shot him. Vi, I-”

“Caitlyn, stop.”

“He was… he was reaching toward… he was going to…” Caitlyn said with breathless words, her chest heaving as she continued. 

“Vi, I thought he was going to…” She muttered as her voice cracked under the guilt she was feeling. “I shot your father… Oh god, I shot your father.”

Ekko grabbed her by the shoulders and gently shook her.

“We didn’t know. Alright, we didn’t know. We couldn’t have known.” Ekko tried to tell her but was cut off by a blood-curdling scream from Jinx, who slammed her hands repeatedly on the ground, throwing dirt back and forth as she tried to rub the monster’s blood off her hands.

“I knew! You didn’t listen to me! I tried to tell all of you, but none of you listened to me!” She screeched. Violet rushed to her side and took her sister’s face in her hands.

“I’m sorry. Jinx, you were right, and I’m so sorry-”

“We had him back! We had him back!” Jinx sobbed, before turning away from her sister and throwing herself on top of Warwick’s body. She dug her hands into his fur and buried her face in his neck. He was still warm, which Jinx tried to take comfort in.

“Nobody listened to me,” She whimpered as she wiped her eyes on his fur. “And I couldn’t help you.”

Not again. She had lost too much. She had lost too much, and she had tried to hope again, and it had hurt even more than before.

But this stung. This stung more than anything she had ever felt before. She pressed her ear against his blood-splattered chest and listened to the gentle rhythm of his breathing. She just wanted him back. She had worked so hard to find him, and when she did-

Breathing. She heard him breathing.

Jinx blinked a few times, then placed her other ear against his chest. Sure again, she heard the gentle flow of air in and out of his lungs. Just to triple check, she placed a hand on his snout.

Warm, humid air weakly left his lungs.

“He’s still breathing,” Jinx realized, first speaking with a whisper before her voice exploded into a scream. “He’s still breathing! Violet, we can save him! Please!”

Violet slowly crept up next to her sister and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked down at the gaping wound in his chest, still leaking blood onto the ground around him. It didn’t look good at all. Like Caitlyn had said earlier, she was a good shot.

Jinx suddenly grabbed Vi by the hand.

“Jinx, please-” Vi began to say as her voice trembled, but Jinx didn’t listen. She dragged her sister’s hand toward the beast’s snout.

“Feel the air. I’m telling you, he’s still breathing!” Jinx pleaded as she plopped Vi’s fingers in front of his nostrils. Vi closed her eyes and choked back a sob at the desperation in her sister’s voice. She didn’t feel a thing. He was dead. Violet squeezed her eyes shut tighter as she thought about the emotions flooding through her sister’s mind at that moment. She was young and sensitive. This all had to be too much for her. Vi was barely hanging in there herself.

Ever so faintly, air trickled past her fingertips.

Vi’s eyes snapped open. She held her fingers there for a bit longer.

Once again, a stream of air passed through her hand.

Jinx wasn’t just seeing or feeling things. He was still alive. Somehow, that shot hadn’t killed him.

“He’s… he’s breathing.” Vi muttered in disbelief. Caitlyn and Ekko rushed over to her and tried to help.

“What do we do?”

“Can we… take him somewhere?”

“Where? What kinda place would take him in?” Ekko asked, rubbing his temples as he tried to think.

“He’s Vander. They have to help him.” Jinx mumbled.

“Shimmer? If we get him some shimmer, we can-” Ekko suggested.

“The bullet’s still in his chest,” Caitlyn said. “We need to get it out before we can even think about healing him.”

Vi turned to her sister.

“Jinx, where did Silco get medical help from? I’m sure he didn’t go to any normal place around here.” Vi asked. Jinx opened her mouth to say something, then glanced back down at the beast she held in her arms and shook her head violently from side to side.

“No. Not there. Not that place.”

“If that place can save him-” Ekko started to say, but Jinx flinched and continued to shake her head.

“He won’t be fixed. He won’t come back.” She whimpered, then began to silently cry. Vi looked at her girlfriend and saw that she was looking down at the wound in the creature’s chest, deep in thought. Then, she cleared her throat and looked up.

“I know where we can take him. We need to get into Piltover, but once we get there, we can fix him,” Caitlyn told the group, as she jumped to her feet. “He would know what to do.”

The gunshot echoed down the cavern walls. Sevika froze for half of a second, before continuing toward the sound of the creature’s howls, which had abruptly stopped.

If someone had taken her kill from her, that would severely mess up her plans. At least the creature would be dead. Though unsatisfying, it would be an ending to her current problem. She would throw a memorial for the men she lost, and pay their families enough to keep them quiet about the whole fiasco.

Sevika turned a corner. This had to be it. The monster didn’t sound that far away as she entered this section of the caves. It had to be close.

Her attention was cut off by the sound of a scream. Not a monstrous, feral roar like she had heard before, but a human scream. A woman’s scream. Sevika threw her body against the wall of the cave, then shimmied behind a rock, hopefully out of sight of the source of the noise.

If that beast was still alive, and that was a scream of one of its victims, then her plans were back on schedule. She still would have a head to mount on her wall.

The scream started again. The woman wasn’t dead yet. Curiously, Sevika hadn’t heard any growls, roars, or any other sort of noise from the beast since the gunshot. She grit her teeth and readied her mechanical arm. If there was a fight, she would be ready.

She then heard a second voice. It was too quiet for her to hear what was being said, but soon after that, she heard another woman scream.

Yet this voice was familiar. It took her a moment to place it, and while doing so, Sevika almost missed what she screamed.

She had fought her enough times to remember what her screams sounded like. It was Vi. Sevika clenched her fists. That pink-haired bitch was back on her turf, and for the last time.

But Vi had screamed a name. A name that Sevika hadn’t heard spoken aloud in a long time, and even then, not at that volume. Never at that volume. Silco didn’t talk about him, and since he didn’t, neither did Jinx.

But Sevika heard it now.

“Vander!”

There was no stopping her curiosity now. Too many things were going on at once, too many paths converging for her not to look at the source of the sound. Carefully, and as quietly as possible, she turned over onto her side. She crept around the side of the rock, keeping as low to the ground as possible to not be spotted.

Sure enough, there she was. Vi stood there, staring at something below her, completely slack-jawed. As Sevika’s eyes adjusted, she noticed more. The tufts of fur and the large, glowing vat on the creature’s back led her to believe that the monster was underneath her. But more than that, there were two other figures there. She recognized one as a member of the Firelights by the glowing green hoverboard he clutched close to his chest, and the other as an enforcer from Piltover, based on her dark blue getup.

Why was a girl from Piltover here? What the hell was she doing with Vi and a Firelight?

“No,” Sevika heard a woman scream, though it was neither of the women she could see. “No!”

She climbed up just a few inches before the sight left her frozen in place.

It was Jinx. Jinx was here, and she was the one who screamed. The blue-haired girl had latched herself onto the creature that laid on the ground as sobs overtook her. Sevika blinked a few times, over a million questions forming in her mind.

But most of all, why did Vi call out to Vander? That man was long dead, just like the monster in front of her.

Sevika couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, though when the girl from Piltover started to speak, Sevika strained her neck and closed her eyes in an attempt to focus on her words.

“I shot your father-”

Sevika wrenched her head back around to the other side of the rock, her heart pounding in her chest, unable to stop herself from hearing the rest of the enforcer’s words.

“Oh god, I shot your father.”

She covered her mouth with her cloak, then bit down on her tongue in an effort not to scream. This was far too much. Far too much. Whatever the hell was going on, Jinx, Vi, the Firelights, and Piltover were all somehow involved in this.

Sevika was just one woman. This wasn’t something she could handle on her own, and by the way that her hands began to shake, she was in no state to do so herself.

She tried to swallow her fears, and bury them deep inside her mind, but the image of that beast tearing into her men remained burnt into her eyelids.

Why the fuck did Vi call that thing Vander?

Sevika might not have known him as well as she or Jinx probably did—he was their father, after all—but she aided in his revolution, and she thought of herself as more than just a bumbling, mindless brute that just took orders, and in all of her experience, he was nothing like the monster that attacked her that night.

But it wasn’t just Vi that referred to that thing as Vander. That Piltover girl referred to him in reference to the beast as well. She said that she shot Vi’s father. Not that she shot the monster, not that she put down the beast, but that she shot her father.

It wasn’t possible. It didn’t make any sense, first of all. That man was long dead. How could he be that creature? Was that sort of thing even possible? Sevika tried to remember if she had ever heard of anything like that happening before, but her thought process was cut off as the sound of Jinx’s broken voice split through the air once more.

“He’s still breathing! Violet, we can save him! Please!”

Sevika felt a jolt go through her chest. How the hell could that thing still be alive? From what little she could see, that monster had been shot in the chest. She knew from her own experience that the beast was hard to kill, or even wound, but a gunshot from one of those Piltover rifles would have done him in. It should have done him in.

But yet, it didn’t. And as Jinx continued to yell, and Vi joined her, Sevika listened in as horror continued to settle in her chest.

She was in way, way too deep. She would tail them out, but that was it. Sevika knew that she couldn’t risk taking on all four of those people, along with the monster they now had at their service.

Sevika didn’t want to think about what could have happened to Vander to turn him into the bloodthirsty monster she now knew, but deep in her core, she already knew it wasn’t a fate she’d wish upon anyone. Let the dead lie. Don’t fuck with the forces of life and death. She saw what had happened to Jinx when Singed brought her back to life. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to bring a man back who had been dead for so long.

She had been so lost in her thoughts, she almost failed to notice the group rapidly approaching her hiding spot. She shifted around to the other side of the rock, continuing to remain hidden. From her new vantage point, she could see them rushing as fast as they could out of the caves, with the monster laid on the Firelight’s hoverboard, claws scraping along the ground and leaving a trail of blood where they traveled.

Sevika followed from a safe distance as she tried to keep the panicked thoughts from flooding her mind.

She was not successful.

Chapter Text

“They called him Vander.”

Sevika stood in the middle of Singed’s laboratory. Her clothes were covered in dust from the caverns, and her face was gaunt. She desperately needed sleep, but this took priority.

Singed wasn’t looking much better. He had already begun to take notes on what Sevika had explained so far and froze when she mentioned that last part.

“They called the monster- are you completely sure?” Singed asked in disbelief.

“Multiple times. Vi called him Vander, while that Piltover Enforcer referred to him as her father.”

“There’s no way they could have been speaking in code?”

“Why the fuck would they be speaking in code, Singed!” Sevika groaned as she began to pace back and forth, rubbing her temples. “I’m just… this is the only thing I’ve been able to think about for days, and now there’s another wrinkle in this thing, and… dammit, I just want this city to be safe!”

Singed didn’t respond at first. Her words hung in the air of the empty laboratory. She rubbed her eyes. Maybe all those nights of sleeping on the office couch were taking a toll on her well-being after all.

“I only ask to be clear, Sevika.”

“I know.”

“I understand your frustration, and I am also deeply disturbed at the fact that Piltover would do something like this.”

“You think Piltover did this?”

“Why not? We finally gain our independence, then look what comes around and starts murdering citizens?” Singed began to explain, as she traced his fingers on the table in front of him. “A monster, hiding out the depths of our city for who knows how long, now ready to feast on the flesh of Zaun, just like those Piltover Elites hoped to bleed us dry.”

Sevika balled up her fists at the thought. It hadn’t occurred to her that Piltover could have done this, but the more she thought about it, the more it started to make sense. That monster was far too effective to just be some freak of nature. No, it had to have been created. It had to have been trained for this.

“I thought you said that Piltover couldn’t have created a monster like that?” Sevika asked Singed with cold, detached fury in her voice. He shook his head.

“I said that this wasn’t hextech, not that Piltover wasn’t involved. I had my theories, but nothing with definitive proof. At least, not then. But now…”

Singed looked up at Sevika, and for just a moment, she swore that she could see a twinge of trepidation in his eyes.

“Now, we have proof.”

Sevika placed her cigar to her lips then took a deep breath in. All the tobacco in the world couldn’t take the edge off, it seemed. Maybe a few shots of whiskey could do her in. But she had the feeling that this night, as well as many nights to come, would be sober ones.

“We cannot take on all of Piltover,” Singed said to her. “Especially if they’ve allied themselves with Jinx, Vi, and the Firelights. The destruction of one group would assure ours.”

“What if we took out the monster? If we kill that thing, it sends a message.”

“It sends a message that they need to send another. Something bigger, something stronger, something worse. If we kill this one, maybe the next time they send two. We can’t kill it.”

“The hell do you mean by that? That monster killed two of my men, and nearly took me out too!”

“Oh, I’m not against retribution. In fact, I want it just as much as you do, Sevika. I just think that destroying their weapon isn’t the best option in this scenario.”

Sevika rested both of her fists on the table and leaned in closer to the scientist, her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Elaborate.” She commanded.

“What if we turned their weapon against them? Set that creature loose in the streets of Piltover, see how they feel when their men, women, and children are in danger. But more importantly… we draw out the man from the beast.”

Sevika stood in silence.

“What do you mean?”

Singed walked away from the table and stared at the various rows of experiments lining his shelves. He pressed his fingers to the glass of one globe. Something inside it began to flutter around.

“Why do you think this monster was once Vander, Sevika? I fear that it was no accident. Those in Piltover chose him specifically, but why?”

“Vander knew these streets better than anyone.”

“Exactly. Who else could be the perfect predator? Just as a shepherd turns his hungry gaze to his own flock, Piltover’s done the same to Vander. Turned him against us, warped his mind, and sent him to feast.”

That made sense, Sevika thought, as fucked up as it was. She wished that she could have been surprised by learning that Piltover was up to something like this, but she remembered her childhood torment by the hands of enforcers. They were always monsters. It wouldn’t be out of bounds for them to eventually create their own.

 “But… he’s remembering. Or, at least, he’s starting to. Jinx sounded like he had recognized her, and he hadn’t even hurt her, despite all the screaming.” Sevika pointed out. Singed looked down at his hands and let out a sigh.

“Some bonds are wound tighter than any science, magic, or laws of nature,” Singed explained. “As a parent, there are some things you simply cannot forget. They may have been able to strip Vander of the man he once was, but not the father he still is. And as long as his children still breathe, there will always be a father deep inside the beast, fighting to break free. It appears, at least according to your account, that his paternal instincts may have beaten his primal ones for the time being.”

Sevika thought back to all the times she had seen Vander and his children at The Last Drop. Their sleepy eyes peeked through doorways as he led impassioned speeches to the people of Zaun, telling them to stick close to each other. The way he always saved a spot at the end of the bar for the blue-haired girl to sit, and the pint of ice cream he kept hidden deep in a freezer for her.

That man cared about those kids. Sevika didn’t have children of her own, and with her strained relationship with her own father, she didn’t know what that bond felt like. But if it was enough to cut through whatever those murderers in Piltover did to him, then it had to be just as strong as Singed said it was.

“Then why would they shoot him? Why would they shoot him as he regained his memory, wouldn’t they be happy to have their father back?” Sevika asked him. Singed took a few moments to ponder the question in his mind.

“Remind me, who shot him?”

“The girl from Piltover.”

“Not one of his daughters, yes?”

“No.”

“Well… they can’t have a Piltovan weapon suddenly become useless from some emotional interference,” He said to her, as he began to theorize out loud. “I’d reckon that they’re taking that poor beast back to Piltover as we speak for a… if you excuse my language, ‘tune up’.”

“That’s… oh, that’s-”

“Awful?” Singed said. “Yes, I know, and that’s why we need to bring him back here as soon as possible. If I can get my hands on him, I could-”

“Wait, what?” Sevika said. “You want to bring him back here?”

“Where else would he go? Look, Sevika, either I get my hands on him and see what I can do, in a laboratory where I can make sure he never hurts anyone again, or Piltover damages his mind further.”

“I’m not sending my men on a mission into Piltover.” Sevika said firmly.

“Of course. Don’t worry, I have my resources. But this is something we need to do as soon as we can, Sevika. That man was a visionary, who united the people of Zaun under one cause. And while many of us may have disagreed with him in the end,” He said, while glancing over at Sevika to look her in the eyes. “He deserves more than the hellish existence he’s trapped in.”

“What happens if you can’t fix him?”

“I’ll put him down. It’s the most amount of mercy we can afford to him. Piltover, on the other hand, won’t do such a thing. I tell you this now, Sevika, I can tell you with as much confidence as I can muster, Piltover will not grant him the release of death. They will simply continue to tear more and more of that man apart until there is nothing left but a shell of a man who experiences everything nonetheless.”

Singed placed his fingers down on the table in front of him and looked Sevika dead in the eyes.

“Morally, even I cannot let an atrocity like that occur with my knowledge,” He stated, then tilted his head to the side. “And I’m sure you share my sentiments, Sevika.”

It had been a long day, and as the sun set behind Piltover’s skyline, he realized that it may end up being a long night, as well. He had been working all day on a new application of hextech. He poured over the latest manuals of mechanical engineering, quantum mechanics, and electrostatic interactions, as well as old, well-worn volumes of journals documenting the mystic arts. It took him half the day to figure out a way to translate the arcane sigils used in the writing before he realized that finding any sort of direct translation would be a fruitless effort, and instead, he would be much better suited in figuring out not what the sigils meant, but what they did, which was far more important.

Plus, it meant that he could possibly grant himself some sleep that night. He was on his fifth cup of coffee—which had lost all its warmth hours ago—and was beginning to feel his vision gradually begin to blur before a sudden pounding on the door to his study shook him awake.

That was odd. He wasn’t expecting any visitors. It was far too late for Jayce, Mel, or anyone else to keep him company. Thinking that it was one of the custodians, he grabbed his crutch off of the table it leaned against and made his way over to the door.

As he opened it, he was met with a face he hadn’t seen in months.

“Caitlyn? What are you doing here?”

He opened the door even wider and began to take in the sight. He recognized Violet, Caitlyn’s girlfriend, of course. The two of them were nearly inseparable at this point.

Then, the boy with white hair and white face paint standing next to Violet and Caitlyn. He had no idea who he was, but judging by his getup, he was a member of the Firelights.

The blue-haired girl hung behind the rest of the group, and for good reason. She definitely was not allowed within the city limits, he could say that for sure. Her actions had caused quite the stir, and not many were willing to forgive.

But what caught his eye was the large, furred creature behind all of them. At first, he was astonished by the monster’s incredible size. He had never seen an animal like it before. He was about to ask about what kind of creature it was before he saw the dark red splotch on its chest.

It was wounded, possibly gravely injured.

“Viktor,” Caitlyn said in a rushed, very urgent tone. “We need your help.”

Chapter Text

Without hesitation, Vikor ushered the group into his laboratory.

“Draw the blinds.” He instructed Caitlyn, who did as he said. Jinx and Ekko guided the hoverboard into the room, careful not to jostle or move the creature. Vikor quickly closed the stack of books on a table nearby, then set them aside. Vi then helped him drag it into the middle of the room.

“Put him on the table. I’ll see what I can do.” Vikor told them, then turned around to gather his thoughts. 

With Ekko and Jinx’s help, Vi was able to carefully slide the monster’s body off the hoverboard and onto the table. 

Jinx immediately fell at his side. She clasped one of his claws between her hands.

“Come back,” Jinx whispered. “Please, come back.”

Vi bit her bottom lip and tried to stop the tears from coming as well as she could. She had seen Vander die before. It couldn’t happen again, even if he was different now. 

But unlike her sister, Vi couldn’t see Vander underneath that creature’s claws, fur, and fangs. Though the beast spoke her name, Vi still couldn’t connect the two of them in her mind. Honestly, she didn’t want to. If he really was that beast, then he was responsible for the gruesome streak of killings.

She didn’t want to think about it. That was something that she would have to deal with later, not right now. There were far more pressing issues to occupy her mind.

Like the vacant look on Caitlyn’s face that still remained. She didn’t say a single word as they rushed out of that cavern. Most of them didn’t say anything either. Jinx cried the entire way to Piltover, which broke Vi’s heart.

“Viktor, what can I do to help?” Vi said suddenly, unable to stand just standing around while the beast bled out in front of her.

“Well…” Viktor said. “You could start by telling me what led to our current circumstances, and what it is that we’re dealing with here.”

Vi glanced over at Jinx, then over to Caitlyn, who stared at the monster on the table with absolutely nothing behind her eyes. She shook her head.

“We’ve been hunting down a monster that’s been killing criminals in Zaun’s alleyways. We got into a fight with him a few days ago, and he was going to kill Jinx when… I don’t know. He didn’t. Jinx said that he stopped when he remembered who she was.”

Violet took a breath in as the words formed in her mind, but she wouldn’t say them out loud. She stuttered over her words for a few moments, long enough for Viktor to notice. He lowered his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but Vi cut him off but stepping closer to him and lowering her voice to a whisper.

“I don’t know what that thing is, but it knows our names.” She finally told him.

“Then… why bring him here? If this thing is responsible for what you say he is responsible for, then why try to save him?” Viktor asked.

“That thing has Jinx convinced that he’s… that he’s…” Violet’s mouth stumbled over the words yet again, before she shook her head and wiped her eyes, moving on without addressing it further.

“Jinx went after him later, and we had to go deep into the caverns under Zaun to find her. Caitlyn shot him as soon as we got there. He said our names again, and now we don’t know what he is.”

“And you want me to fix him in order for you to find out for sure?” Viktor asked her. She nodded back at him, and he closed his eyes.

“I’ll do it,” He said quietly. “But I don’t have any sort of anesthetic, and judging by the claws on the beast, it would tear through me like nothing. I need you to make sure that I can do my work uninterrupted. Can I ask that of you?”

Vi clenched her fists and felt the hextech gauntlets squeeze around her hands.

“I can do that.”

“Good. Clean out the area so I can see what I’m working with. Then grab the contents of the medicine bag underneath the counter next to the door, and lay them out for me.”

Viktor wasn’t a doctor by any means. He knew more than the average person about human anatomy, but he wasn’t a surgeon. He was a scientist. What that creature needed was an actual medical doctor, or perhaps a veterinarian. He wasn’t completely sure what that thing was at first glance.

Then, things began to click into place. Men were more or less just advanced, interconnected machines. The bipedal monster in front of him certainly looked less like a human than a beast, but he still fit the mold of “vaguely humanoid”, which meant that as long as Viktor could fix him, like any advanced machine, he would be fine.

Everything would be fine.

As Viktor wheeled the large metal apparatus over to the table, he glanced at Jinx, who held the beast’s claw in her hand.

“You may want to step back from this.” He warned her, as he began to adjust the hextech materials inside of the machine.

“I’m not leaving him,” She said as she squeezed his claw tighter, then brushed the fur away from his face. “We’re going to help you, Warwick. Don’t worry.”

“Warwick? Is that his name?” Viktor asked.

“Jinx,” Vi said sharply. “I thought you said he was-”

“He wants to be called Warwick. That old name hurts him.” Jinx explained. Viktor took a mental note to refer to the creature as Warwick from now on.

He looked at the creature’s chest. Vi had done a good job at cleaning the blood from the area, but in doing so, had revealed something strange. There was a definite mark where the bullet wound once was, but it wasn’t an open wound.

Viktor had worried that this was a possibility. He adjusted the settings on the machine, then oriented it over Warwick’s chest. He looked over to Vi.

“Hold him still. I need complete stability in order to remove the bullet.”

Once Vi placed her gauntlets on the creature’s shoulders, Viktor took a deep breath in. He lowered the machine closer towards Warwick’s chest. The hextech inside began to glow, as he readied the focus of the beam.

With an exhale, a tiny beam of energy fired out of the crystal at the tip of the machine. He was careful not to turn the beam on too high. It needed to be just enough to cut through flesh. After completing the cut, Viktor turned off the beam.

A small, claw-like apparatus descended from the machine. Viktor’s hands flew over the controls, operating the tiny appendage like it was an extension of his own body.

Jinx closed her eyes. She balled up Warwick’s claw into a fist, and then rested her hand against the back of it. Vi pulled Caitlyn in tight while taking Ekko’s hand as they all watched.

She couldn’t watch. Warwick was the man that she remembered as a father, and seeing him injured like that made every part of her body ache terribly. Jinx gently rubbed his arm. She could feel the fur shift and sift between her fingers as she did so.

Jinx thought back to the good memories she held of him. They were clouded by the passage of time, but they still brought her a warm, gentle feeling that she needed at that moment. She thought about the late nights at The Last Drop, sitting on a barstool, her feet dangling above the floor underneath her.

“What’s wrong, Powder?” Vander asked as she slumped her head on the surface in front of her. She lazily glanced up at the bartender, who returned her gaze with a comforting smile. He threw the towel he was using to wipe down the bar over his shoulder. Vander bent down to her level, crossed his arms, then placed himself on the other side of the bar, opposite from her.

Powder let out a small sniffle.

“None of my inventions work.” She mumbled. Powder raised a set of gears, bolts, and other assorted scraps of metal up to the counter. Vander took a look at the bits and pieces, then looked back at Powder with interest in his eyes.

“What’s this one supposed to be?”

“A top, but it won’t spin,” Powder explained. “It just rolls to the side and falls apart.”

“Can I take a look at it?” Vander asked her. Powder nodded. He picked up the pieces in his hands and began to fiddle with them with his fingers. Powder looked at his face. He was deep in thought, his eyes focused on the task at hand, his brows furrowed. After a few moments, he let out a small chuckle.

“Powder,” He said softly, with a bit of a smile. “You’ve got everything here you need.”

“Really? Well… then why doesn’t it work?” Powder asked him as she lifted her head from the table. Vander slid the parts over to her.

“Show me how all the pieces go together,” He said. “I’m sure that the both of us can figure it out.”

Jinx’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of metal hitting the ground next to her. She looked down to see a small, crumpled hunk laying on the floor, covered in blood. Viktor let out a sigh of relief.

“The bullet has been extracted,” He said like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Could someone get started on the stitches please?”

“I’ll hold him. Caitlyn, you’ve got steady hands, could you…” Vi began to say before she saw the look on her girlfriend’s face. Caitlyn shook her head and wiped her eyes, her hands shaking slightly as she did so.

Vi turned to Ekko, who took a step back.

“My arm’s still hurt,” He said, before looking at Jinx. “Why doesn’t she do it? She’s a tinkerer, after all.”

Jinx looked at Vi, who hesitated at first, before eventually nodding towards the bag on the table next to her. Jinx pulled the supplies out of it, then found the needle and wire. She cleaned it off with the bottle of alcohol in the bag, then took a deep breath.

She could do this.

Jinx hopped up onto the table next to him, sitting cross-legged, then twisted around to get a look at him. She placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself, then wound the thread through the needle.

“This is gonna hurt a little, Warwick,” She explained slowly, before placing the needle next to his skin. “But you’re tough.”

After steading her fingers once again, she rolled up the sleeves of Vander’s jacket and began to stitch the wound back together. She was grateful to Viktor that the cut was a pretty clean one. She had stitched up some of her own wounds before, and a lot of times, they were much more jagged than this was. It was easy.

Jinx closed the wound, then tied off the end of the wire and snipped it. She wiped the stitches with a wet piece of cloth, then placed her supplies aside.

“Alright Mr. Warwick, you’re going to experience a bit of discomfort in the area for a few days, but you have to resist the urge to scratch,” She joked, as she lowered her voice and pretended to use a stethoscope on his chest. “Maybe we’ll have to put a cone on you. But you were a brave patient today, Mr. Warwick.”

Jinx hopped away from the table and went to go wash off her hands, while the entire group let out a sigh of relief.

“What do we do with him?” Ekko asked in a hushed voice as Jinx wandered off. “We don’t have a place to put him back in Zaun.”

“And what if he’s still dangerous? I know that Jinx trusts him, but… I don’t know.” Vi admitted. Viktor cleared his throat and glanced about his laboratory.

“I may have a place to hold him for observation purposes. Obviously, we need to wait a few days to ensure that he doesn’t develop an infection, but that would also allow me to do more research into what this creature may be, exactly.”

Vi and Ekko exchanged glances.

“Are you sure that it can contain him?” Vi asked. Viktor looked off to the side.

“Eh…” He said slowly, with his voice full of uncertainty. “But I’m sure that I can figure something out.”

“Are you sure that the council is gonna allow this?” Ekko asked him as he looked around, a bit uneasy. “I get the feeling that they might not be.”

“Maybe not. However, I’ve got two members of the council who owe me enough favors to let this slide,” Viktor said with a bit of a smile. “Plus, this breaks up my current work, which I appreciate immensely. Gives me time to think about other things.”

With that, Caitlyn stepped forward and cleared her throat.

“Make that three.”

Vi glanced at her girlfriend in a mixture of shock and amazement. Caitlyn glanced at her girlfriend, then brushed herself off.

“I can convince my mother to help in this process. She might initially not be a fan of the idea, but if I can frame it as a charity case for Vi-”

“Hey.” Vi said. Caitlyn raised an eyebrow at her.

“Do you want this to work or not? You know that my mother likes you more than she likes me.”

Vi smiled, and let out a bit of a snort.

“Yeah, she thinks I’m really cool.”

“Exactly. Plus, I… I owe it to you and your sister.” Caitlyn whispered, the confidence quickly flooding out of her voice. Vi leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

“It’s alright, Cupcake,” She said to her. “We’ll figure it out.”

Chapter Text

Councilor Medarda was used to waking up with a million and one things to do. One day, there’s a catastrophe in the financial sector, the next, rival trade ambassadors scheduled meetings with her right after each other. It was a never ending cacophony of things to do. But it kept her busy, which she appreciated.

So, when she received word that her dear friend Viktor needed her presence in his laboratory as soon as possible, it didn’t surprise her. It was a welcome diversion, after all.

Though, when she arrived at his laboratory early in the morning, she was taken off guard by the two people waiting outside the door. As she made her way towards the entrance, both figures turned to face her.

“Councilor Medarda, it seems like we’ve all been summoned here this morning.” Councilor Cassandra Kiramman stated, as she brushed off her sleeves.

“It seems like it,” Mel said, then turned to the other figure with a bit less warmth in her voice. “Good morning, Jayce.”

Jayce returned her somewhat icy glare with a nod, and a bit of a sigh. Mel turned her attention back to Councilor Kiramman.

“Do you know why we’ve been brought here today?” She asked. “I was told that Viktor had something he needed to show me.”

“I received the same message. As of now, I have no idea what this could possibly be about.”

“A new invention of his, maybe?” Jayce suggested. “Or a new application for hextech.”

Jayce’s question was answered by the sudden opening of the door they all stood in front of. Viktor, who looked like he hadn’t slept that night, peeked his head in through the doorway.

“I’m afraid that has nothing to do with hextech,” Viktor said as he ushered them inside. “In fact, I played no part in creating what I am about to show you. Along with that, I do have to warn you all before you step inside…”

Viktor took a deep breath in, then let it out.

“What you are about to see is not for the faint of heart.”

Intrigued by Viktor’s words, Mel continued into the laboratory. However, instead of leading them into the main room, Viktor led them to the side, and towards an offshoot of the main facility. Mel wasn’t sure if she had ever been to this part of the area before. Jayce, however, had been here, and looked at Viktor with raised eyebrows.

“What exactly are you planning on showing us, Viktor?” Jayce asked.

“I’m afraid that I’m not entirely sure myself.” He admitted.

“This better be worth my time, Viktor,” Councilor Kiramman muttered as she looked at her pocket watch. “I have a meeting with the secretary of shipping affairs in forty-five minutes.”

“You may have to clear your schedule, Mom.”

Cassandra glanced to the side to see her daughter, Caitlyn, waiting just outside a doorway. She let out a breath of air, then went and embraced her daughter.

“Caitlyn, you didn’t tell me that you were back in town. When did you get back?”

“Last night, actually.”

“And you didn’t think to come home?” Cassandra asked, while brushing her daughter’s hair out of her face. “Just because you’re a grown woman doesn’t mean you aren’t welcome to stay at home, dear. There will always be a place for you there.”

“I know, Mom.”

“And there is a place for Violet as well. Where is she, by the way? Is she doing well?”

Mel looked away to avoid laughing at the overly smothering display of maternal affection from Councilor Kiramman.

“Vi’s inside,” Caitlyn explained. “Just… take a few moments before you react to whatever it is that you see in there, okay?”

Councilor Kiramman placed her hand on her daughter’s cheek, then shook her head.

“I appreciate the concern, but I’m not as easily fazed as you think I am.”

Though it had been nearly 12 hours at this point, the beast had still not woken up. He had been placed in a large reinforced chamber—originally used for testing volatile hextech inventions—shortly after surgery. Vi stared at the creature through the observation window, alone. Ekko had to return to the Firelights to brief them about the current circumstances. He insisted that Jinx came with him, but she refused, unable to leave Warwick for even just a moment. Ekko finally left, promising to be back later that night.

However, with the council arriving today, Vi had to tell her to run off for a moment. She loved her sister, but her presence had the tendency to heighten the stress of situations that were already stressful as is. Though she didn’t like the plan, she understood why she had to hide out for a while.

Vi didn’t like the plan either. Jinx believed that the creature really was Vander more than she did, and could probably convince them to let Viktor help him better than Vi could.

She took it back. She knew that the monster—Warwick, as Jinx had begun to call him—once was Vander. Or, at least, he had some of Vander’s memories. He remembered their names at least.

But Vi could only see that creature as a monster. A sad, broken, deeply damaged monster, but one nonetheless. She would do everything in her power to help him, and to help Jinx help him, but until he was back to the man he once was, Vi couldn’t stop herself from seeing him as a beast, always moments away from snapping.

That wasn’t Vander. He wasn’t a monster.

Until she knew for sure that Warwick wasn’t the monster she thought he was, then he would never be Vander.

Which hurt. It hurt her, and it hurt every time she heard Jinx talk about him like he was Vander, or treat him like their father, because she didn’t want to see that creature as her father.

Vander was a good man, not a monster.

Her train of thought was interrupted as the door to the observation chamber opened, and in walked a few figures, Caitlyn and her mother included, who immediately greeted Vi with a warm smile.

“Oh, my dear, I haven’t seen you in ages! I take it that things have been going well?” She immediately asked, cutting off Viktor, as he made an attempt to explain what was going on. Vi appreciated the welcome from Cassandra, but knew that there were much more important things to discuss.

“I’m doing alright. You know, maybe let’s catch up later,” She said, glancing towards Mel and Jayce who stood next to Caitlyn with curious looks on their faces. “I think Viktor has something he wants to show you all.”

Cassandra took Vi by the hand and squeezed it gently, then patted her on the shoulder. She then pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began to wipe the dirt and soot off her face.

“You’re right. How about you and Caitlyn come back to our place tonight and stay there? You can get freshened up there and then have dinner with us, if you’d like.” She offered. Vi nodded, both because she needed to get the Councilor back on track, and because a hot shower was pretty appealing after the last few days.

“Well, where were we?” Mel said to the group as she clasped her hands together and looked at Viktor.

“Yes, as I was saying, I requested each of your presences here today because of a certain… development that I have been made aware of.”

“Viktor, I’d appreciate it if you could be a bit more direct.” Jayce told him, to which Viktor glanced at Vi, then Caitlyn. Without responding, he made his way over to the observation window and gently placed a hand on the glass.

“In that case…” Viktor told the group, as the members of the council approached the glass. “I’ll let you observe the development yourselves.”

It took each member of the group a different amount of time to realize exactly what they were looking at. Vi could understand why. At first glance, the creature in the chamber didn’t look like much more than a pile of fur and a strange, glowing vat of something.

Mel realized what it was first. Vi saw her eyes open wide, as she immediately straightened her posture and uncrossed her arms, then took half a step backwards. Jayce figured it out next. He immediately turned to Viktor for answers.

“What the hell is that, Viktor?” He demanded, his voice not full of anger, as Vi thought it would be, but full of fear and concern.

“Oh god,” Councilor Kiramman gasped as she placed a gloved hand over her mouth, then placed her other hand on the glass. “Is it alive?”

“He’s alive.” Caitlyn told her mother as she placed a hand on her arm.

“Someone please explain what’s going on, immediately.” Jayce said, as he looked between Caitlyn, Vi, and Viktor. Viktor stepped up to his friend, collected his thoughts, then proceeded to explain what happened. At first, Vi was worried that he would let it slip that Jinx was with them, but he didn’t. Caitlyn explained why she and Vi were in Zaun, and what led to their encounter with the creature. But instead of telling them that Jinx went after the monster, she lied, and said that one of the Firelights had told them that he had been spotted in the caverns underneath Zaun. Vi didn’t say a word. She kept her jaw firmly locked shut.

Mel couldn’t avert her gaze from the creature behind the glass.

“Poor thing,” She absentmindedly muttered under her breath. “He looks to be starving. You can count every one of his ribs.”

“Why… why is that thing still alive?” Jayce asked. “Why are we keeping it here, in the middle of the city, of all places? In fact, how did you even get it here? Do you know how much of a risk that creature poses to every person in this city?”

“Oh, I would have loved to see that outrage when it was prowling Zaun’s streets, but you couldn’t give two shits, could you, Jayce?” Vi snapped back at him, while cocking her head to the side. Jayce grit his teeth and licked his lips.

“Zaun is an independent nation. While we would like to establish a partnership and lend our assistance to the people of Zaun, all of our attempts at diplomacy have been worthless. There’s no formal government there. It’s complete anarchy and chaos, and you can’t possibly expect us to reason with nothing!”

“Councilor Talis, watch your tone,” Councilor Kiramman warned him, before softening her voice and turning to face Vi. “You and I both know that any sort of interference from Piltover would be taken as an act of aggression by the people of Zaun. I really wish we could help, I do.”

“Then lend your aid now,” Caitlyn said suddenly. “Allow Viktor the time and resources to study this creature.”

“And what would that do? Viktor is instrumental in the creation and maintenance of hextech, we can’t take him away from that vital work.” Jayce pointed out, to which Viktor shook his head.

“Hextech will be fine, and I am capable of so much more than just working with that source of energy. May I remind you of my mechanical prowess, which will definitely apply in dealing with this creature?” Viktor said to him, as he pointed at the metal apparatuses infused with the creature’s body.

“I understand the scientific worth of a pursuit like that,” Councilor Kiramman stated. “But this is inhumane. You can study the mechanical component at any time, but conducting studies on a living subject? That seems wrong.”

Vi listened to her words, a bit unsure of where she was going next.

“An existence like that has to be awful. I think it would be an act of mercy to put the creature down before continuing studies of any sort.” She suggested. Vi and Caitlyn immediately tensed up at the mention, and Vi felt her heart begin to race.

“No!” She shouted, taking the rest of the group off guard. “We can’t do that. He’s… we can’t-”

“Vi, the creature-”

“It’s not just a creature,” Caitlyn finally said. She looked at Vi for reassurance and permission to say what she was going to say next. Vi shut her eyes, but nodded her head. Caitlyn took a breath, then continued. “He’s Vander.”

A wave of silence overtook the whole group. Even Vi felt it settle within her bones as she fought back the idea in her mind. Viktor bit his tongue. Jinx had told him last night, but it was still a shock to him as well. He explained that he grew up in Zaun, and knew the impact that Vander had on the community, and the void his death left in his wake.

Immediately, Cassandra’s face fell, as Vi could see the guilt overtaking her.

“Your… father…” She mumbled, then quickly regained her composure. “I deeply apologize, Violet. Disregard what I said, please.”

“It’s fine.” Vi mumbled.

“What happened to him?” Jayce asked, his voice noticeably softer now. Vi appreciated the gesture, but hated it at the same time. She hated all of this.

“We don’t know. But we hope that Viktor can find out.” Caitlyn explained to him, and Jayce nodded. Viktor adjusted his stance and looked back at the creature.

Mel, who had been silent, began to tap her fingers on the glass while deep in thought. Vi noticed that her eyes had been resting on her face for a few moments, before she turned to her and cleared her throat.

“Violet, I am deeply sorry that this has happened. And believe me, I am incredibly disturbed by this revelation, as I’m sure everyone is. Vander—though a rebel and a direct adversary to Piltover in years past—was a monumental figure in both Zaun and Piltover. It was under his leadership that our two cities were able to live in relative peace for a period of several years.”

She stepped away from the glass and made her way over to Vi, who tried not to react much to her presence. Vi didn’t know Mel that well. The fancy gold she adorned herself was certainly a bit standoffish, but Vi could tell that she wasn’t just some Piltovian elite. She was different somehow, but Vi couldn’t place it.

When Mel placed her hand on Violet’s arm, however, Vi felt some of the tension ease.

“And, if I can make a judgement off of what I know of you, he was an incredible father too.”

Vi swallowed hard, and nodded. Mel smiled at her, then turned to look at Jayce, an idea twinkling in her eyes.

“Jayce, you mentioned that our attempts at diplomacy have failed, partially due to a lack of centralized power. I agree. But if you want to speak with Zaun’s leader, well, he’s right in there.” Mel told him, then pointed to the creature in the chamber.

“What are you getting at?” Jayce responded. Mel smirked, and clasped her hands together.

“While at first glance our issues may seem disconnected, in reality, they’re far more connected than we realize.”

As a smile crept across her face, she waited until everyone’s attention was on her, before composing herself once more.

“Viktor, if you’re able to rehabilitate this creature and figure out what mechanisms are affecting him, we would then be able to document and classify said mechanisms to ensure that something like this can never happen again. From there, if Vander retains his mental capabilities, I’m sure that the people of Zaun would be more than willing to rally around him once again, which would establish him as the leader of the region once again.”

She continued on, not stopping to let a single person have more than a few seconds with her words, as she unveiled the rest of her plan.

“The people of Zaun would be grateful to have their hero back. In fact, from a political standpoint, we can frame this as a gift of well-being from Piltover to the newly independent region. Vander has worked with us in the past, and I’m sure he would do the same now. Think of the implications on trade that having Zaun as an ally could have for us.”

As Mel’s words hung in the air, Vi had to think. She hated the political framing that Mel used to discuss what was going on, but if it would work, it would work.

It would have to work.

Chapter Text

With emergency approval from those three members of the council, Viktor was free to continue to keep the creature for further study. When Jinx heard the news, she let out a sigh of relief. While she hoped that she didn’t have to implement it, she had begun concocting a plan to break him out if things fell through. Though she had no idea where she could keep him, she knew that she would figure it out eventually.

But luckily, she wouldn’t have to.

Warwick was safe, and that’s all she could ask for.

Well, she could ask for him to wake up since he still hadn’t almost a full day later, but she could wait. She kept Viktor company in his lab in the meantime. He wasn’t the most appreciative of her presence there, though he slowly began to realize that the girl was a lot smarter than he initially had believed.

But her main focus was always on Warwick. So, after a long day of wandering the lab, she pulled her supplies to the observation chamber and laid her bedroll next to the glass window. It wasn’t a very comfortable spot, but she didn’t need it to be. Someone needed to keep an eye on him in case he woke up, and Jinx wanted to be there for him.

She took off his jacket and folded it up next to her pillow, then laid down. She could just barely see him from that spot, but that was enough for her. He had curled up into a ball in his sleep. Jinx could see his chest gently rise and fall, and she wondered if he was dreaming.

“Goodnight, Warwick. I’ll see you in the morning.” She said through the glass. Then, she closed her eyes.

He woke with a start and immediately thrashed around, fighting off memories in his head. New memories. He was plagued by flashes of green light, and pain. He hadn’t felt that much pain in any of his previous memories. But within a few moments, they disappeared, lost to the recesses of his mind.

But he was still trapped. As Warwick looked at his surroundings, he felt his heart begin to race. The room was closing in on him. There wasn’t a way out. It smelled too sterile, too absent of life, and it disoriented him. He didn’t know where he was.

But more importantly, he didn’t know where his daughters were. He tried to breathe slowly and remember what had happened.

He was with Powder. That was right, she had found him once again, and they got to talking again. Then… what happened next? Warwick tried to remember.

Violet. She was there too. Warwick could remember the feeling that surged in his chest when he saw her again for the first time in so, so long.

But that feeling was now replaced with fear, as the next thing that came to mind was a sound. A loud, powerful sound that overtook everything in his mind.

Gunshot.

Where were his daughters? Warwick began to pace back and forth sniffing the air and whimpering softly.

“Vi-o-let? Pow-der?” He said before his voice picked up in volume and intensity. “Vio-let! Powder!”

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and before his mind could process it, his body did. He immediately lurched toward the window and saw a flash of blue.

As he recognized the blur, Warwick felt his heart beat faster, and that old feeling surge in his chest once more. Except, he had a word for that feeling now. It was love.

Jinx didn’t mean to flinch as hard as she did. Strange noises interrupted her sleep, and as she opened her eyes, she saw him. He was awake, and upright, sniffing around the chamber like a confused animal. She lifted her head and rubbed her eyes.

In the blink of an eye, he was in front of her. Claws outstretched, mouth slightly open, showing off his terrifying teeth. Jinx slid backward away from the window in fear. When she looked back up, she saw his eyes soften, his ears fold backward, and his head bow.

“Pow-der, I- I’m… sorry,” He whimpered. He closed his eyes and placed both of his claws on his head, continuing to whimper. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m so-sorry.”

She hopped up to a crouching position and wiped her eyes, then smiled.

“No, it’s okay! You just startled me, that’s all.” She tried to explain, but Warwick shook his head. He stepped backward away from the glass, still grabbing his head with his claws.

“I scared you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Powder.” He cried as he began to grow more frantic inside the chamber, before throwing himself into the corner and dropping to the floor.

Jinx jumped up to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest. She was so happy that he was awake, and that he remembered her, but she hated seeing him upset.

“You didn’t scare me,” She assured him with her tired, sleep-filled voice. “You just woke me up, that’s all. I’m perfectly fine.”

That seemed to make him a bit less frantic, but it didn’t calm him down completely. She tried to change the subject to take his mind off things.

“How are you feeling?”

For a few moments, he didn’t respond. His claws still covered his face. Then, he wiped his snout with his arm and tried to calm down.

“Fine.” He told her, his voice muffled by the glass between them. She nodded.

“Does your chest hurt?”

“A little.”

“Oh no. Well, I’ll see if I can get Viktor to help with that.”

“Vik-tor?” Warwick asked.

“Oh, Viktor! He’s great. He helped you get better. With a little bit of my help, of course,” Jinx said with a slight giggle. “I stitched you up! I think I did a pretty good job if I do say so myself.”

Warwick looked down at his chest. He raised a cautious claw up to the stitches. Just before Jinx could tell him not to touch them, he put his claws aside. He then looked back up at Jinx, and his ears perked up.

“Good work, Powder.”

Slowly, Warwick began to adjust to his new surroundings. Along with that, there were certain things that began to come back to him. For example, during his second day in the chamber, Ekko came to visit him. Warwick didn’t recognize the boy at first until after a few minutes, his shock-white hair triggered a flash of a memory. Warwick relaxed, staring at the man who stood just outside the window.

“Little man,” Warwick said to him. As he said the words, Ekko’s shoulders drooped and the tension left his body. “Still getting into trouble.”

Ekko didn’t say anything for a few moments before he sniffled and cracked a smile.

“Under all that fur… it is you, isn’t it?”

Viktor told everyone that it might be good for him to interact with people in order to jog his memory, and so Warwick had a constant rotation of people to talk to. Caitlyn, who initially didn’t want to meet with him, was convinced to join Vi during her meeting time with him.

“So… Warwick…” Vi started to say, still finding it strange to talk to him like he was Vander. “This is Caitlyn.”

Warwick stared at her. There wasn’t malice or hunger in his eyes. Instead, he looked at her like she was a puzzle that needed to be solved, with wide, curious eyes and lowered eyebrows. Then, he cleared his throat.

“Cait-lyn.” He finally said. Vi nodded back to him, and his ears perked up excitedly. She and Caitlyn exchanged cautious glances. Vi took Caitlyn’s hand in hers.

“Ready?” Violet whispered to her. Caitlyn nodded. Both of them took a deep breath, then turned back to Warwick, who was looking at them with a bit of confusion in his eyes. But along with the confusion sat a small bit of amusement as well, as he picked up on how strange both women were acting.

Violet got ready to speak, however, at the same time, so did Caitlyn.

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry that I shot you.”

Immediately, the two turned to look at each other, wide-eyed, mouths open in shock at what the other had said.

“Wait, that’s what we were going to tell him?” Caitlyn exclaimed. “You said that we were going to tell him something extremely important!”

“Well, is it not?” Vi said in bewilderment, as Caitlyn shook her head.

“It is! But it’s not as important as apologizing for shooting him, Vi!”

Warwick blinked a few times. He looked like he was trying to process things as well as he could, though his brain wasn’t used to this level of activity. Warwick inhaled through his nose, and then scratched his head in confusion.

“Can… can we talk slower,” Warwick mumbled. “Please?”

Vi rubbed her eyes.

“Alright. Caitlyn, right here, she’s my girlfriend.” Vi explained. Warwick nodded slowly, as a twinkle began to form in his eyes, and the edges of his lips curled into a grin. Though Caitlyn was initially somewhat unsettled by the sight, she quickly noticed a flash of movement behind him, as his large, fluffy tail began to wag back and forth.

“That’s great!” He exclaimed, nearly bouncing up and down with excitement. Vi looked embarrassed, and Caitlyn just looked happy to still be alive. She managed to put on a smile before saying her piece.

“And… I’m sorry for shooting you,” Caitlyn said to him. He didn’t say anything in return, but his eyes narrowed. Caitlyn continued, growing a bit flustered. “I thought you were going to hurt Vi, and so I-”

She was suddenly cut off by a series of barks from Warwick, as he placed his claws over his stomach as his chest heaved up and down. Vi and Caitlyn exchanged worried glances, before noticing that his tail was wagging even faster than before.

“Is he… laughing?” Caitlyn whispered to Vi, who could only shrug in response. Warwick finally settled down, then shook his head.

“No worries. You protect Vi, and I’m happy,” He said to her. “I like you, Cait-lyn.”

Caitlyn let out a sigh of relief and smiled.

“Well, I like you too.”

Chapter Text

It was stupid for her to be so caught off guard by this.

Sevika told herself that over and over again as she sat in her big chair, behind her big desk, above the giant, hazy sky that made her feel small.

She didn’t like that.

None of this made any sense. He was dead. There was a damn statue in his honor. The people of Zaun spoke about him like he was some mythical being, taken too soon. When things were going well, they attributed it to him. When things were going bad, they blamed it on his death.

Sevika had disliked it before, but now? She hated it with every fiber of her being. It would have been more merciful for him to stay dead, she thought to herself, as she took another drag from her cigar.

Zaun loved that man. He was what they needed when they needed it. When they needed a revolutionary, he was there. When they needed a figurehead to lead the post-revolution Zaun, Vander answered the call. If the people wanted a drink at a place where they could relax and forget about the rest of the shitty world for a while, he played the role of bartender too.

He was their protector. The Hound of the Underground, as they called him. He cared for every person in this city in a way that Sevika knew she never would be able to, though she could damn well try.

That’s what every day had begun to feel like. Trying to be other people. She wanted to rule with the cunning grace that Silco had, but she knew from early on that she didn’t have his keen eye for that.

So, she tried to lean on her might. Which worked fine, for a while. But fear and intimidation could only go so far, she soon realized. That’s why Vander, despite his stature and reputation, rarely ever had to fall back upon those things to make people respect him. People respected Vander not because he terrified them, but because he cared about them. He made people feel like they had a chance in this world.

He made Sevika feel like that, too. From the day she joined that rebellion as a teenager, she felt like she had a purpose bigger than herself. She had to free her nation. She knew that it was the right thing to do, not just because she felt it in her gut, but because Vander championed the cause and he was a good man.

Vander was a good man.

Sevika saw the monster claw out the insides of one of her men. Its fangs ripped and tore into flesh like it was nothing. She saw it gorge itself on that still squirming, still alive man, just before the beast turned its hungry gaze onto her.

And that creature—that blood-thirsty, terrifying creature—was Vander.

Every time she thought about what they must have done to him, she felt sick to her stomach. He loved these people. He took in the outcasts, the wounded, the ones that others turned a blind eye to, and made them feel welcome.

Sevika knew that if it wasn’t for Vander’s leadership, and his hospitality, she would probably be some chem-addicted lost soul wandering in the caves. He made her feel like her life meant something. That everyone’s life meant something.

Now, he fed on the same streets he once nurtured, and it made her want to scream.

She could tell that her thoughts were circling around each other. No matter where her mind took her, or no matter how far away she tried to push her thoughts, Sevika always found herself coming back to what Singed had said.

Who else could be the perfect predator? Just as a shepherd turns his hungry gaze to his own flock, Piltover’s done the same to Vander. Turned him against us, warped his mind, and sent him to feast.

To feast.

The cigar in her hand suddenly split in half. It snapped her out of the downward spiral her mind had taken her on, and she rubbed her eyes. She let out a groan as she looked at the remains of the cigar that had fallen all over the desk. Sevika didn’t even realize that she had been squeezing it as tight as she would.

She was stalling. She knew she was, and she didn’t want to stall anymore, but the idea of actually going into Piltover made her wary. There were too many unknowns. Too many things that could go wrong. Singed had told her that he would take care of everything and that all she needed to do was be there to ensure that they actually got Vander out of that city, but that was easier said than done. His chem-drones would do the heavy lifting, and possible fighting, all she had to do was hit him with a tranquilizer that Singed had whipped up.

Which was, again, easier said than done.

The afternoon sunlight felt nice. Every time she felt the sun touch her skin, it reminded her of home. Though most of the time she preferred not to be reminded of that time, or that place, the sun was always the thing she was never able to fully escape.

So, Mel embraced the warmth.

She let her eyes close for just a moment and took in the sounds of the city around her. She was at her favorite bistro in Piltover. It was a small, cute place, where the owners recognized her but didn’t ask many questions. They understood that sometimes, a person just needs a little peace and quiet.

All she needed was a little time in the sun. Well, if she was feeling adventurous that day, or knew that she deserved it, a chocolate éclair to go with her tea was necessary too.

“Mel, are you even listening to me?”

But what she didn’t need, however, was this.

“Yes, Jayce,” Mel said with a sigh as she opened her eyes and turned her face away from the sun to look at the councilor in front of her, who had barely even touched his food. “I just closed my eyes for a single moment, forgive me.”

His piercing eyes sent the message of exactly how annoyed he was to her, and she glanced away while pinching the bridge of her nose. He was doing too much.

“Are you really considering all parts of this idea?”

“You act like I wouldn’t.” She said back to him, before taking another sip of her tea. He let out a breath of air, then rubbed his eyes.

“Installing that… thing as Zaun’s leader seems… well, it just doesn’t make sense, Mel.”

“Really? Because according to the rest of the council, it seems to make perfect sense,” She said as she stirred her drink with a spoon. “The only holdout on the vote is you, Jayce, and I invited you out in the hopes of convincing you otherwise, but you seem utterly unreceptive to any idea that doesn’t fit within your viewpoint.”

Jayce took a moment to consider her words. She knew what was coming. He would take what she said, twist those words in his highly intelligent mind, then accuse her of doing something that she obviously didn’t do.

As Jayce opened his mouth to respond, Mel took a bite from her éclair to stop herself from responding immediately with something rash.

“Are you saying that I’m narrow-minded?”

Oh, here we go, Mel thought as she chewed on the pastry. Maybe she would order herself a glass of wine to get through the rest of this, though she doubted that it would help with the living headache that this man would become after an extended conversation.

She slowed her thoughts down and reminded herself that she needed to give him a chance.

“I’m not saying that you’re narrow-minded. What I am saying, is that you seem to be more worried about whether or not I thought this idea through, rather than the actual contents of the proposal itself,” Mel told him, as she began to dab her lips with a napkin. “Which leads me to believe that you don’t have a problem with the idea, but that you have a problem with the person who proposed it.”

Mel maintained her steely gaze with his for a few moments. Neither of them wanted to break eye contact, but Mel was determined to outlast him. She had business she needed to attend to, and he was in her way.

Finally, Jayce gave in.

“I’m not letting our break-up affect my judgment.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Now, are you letting it affect yours?”

Wine wouldn’t cut it at this point. At this point, Mel would need an entire glass of absinthe.

“Jayce,” She said calmly. “I’m giving you a chance to voice your complaints about the proposal in private, where we can discuss them, address them, and move on. I invited you out because—as I said before—you are the sole holdout on this. We need a unanimous vote in order to act outside of Piltover’s borders. Now, if you could, please. Just tell me what you think I may be misguided about.”

“You’re betting on things that you cannot possibly guarantee. What if Viktor can’t bring back Vander, and we just placed a monster on the streets of Zaun? Are you going to be able to live with being responsible for that decision?”

“I fully believe that Viktor will be able to rehabilitate him. This is an eventuality, not an immediate action. We would fully evaluate his mental capacities before returning him to Zaun.”

“How can we be sure that this will stick? What if whatever turned him into that comes back around and does it again? Are we just supposed to wait until he kills more people, then fix him, rinse and repeat? Even if he doesn’t do that, do you think that the people of Zaun would accept him with open arms?”

“Why wouldn’t they? He’s their martyr. The people would rally behind him immediately.”

“Vander was their martyr,” Jayce corrected her. “This creature mauled several Zaunites in alleyways, is far bigger and stronger than any person around, and could rip a man in half. This thing is not Vander, nor does he even look like him.”

Mel looked at Jayce, then turned her gaze outward. The sun shone off the tops of the buildings around her, basking the city in the dazzling glow.

“People will believe in hope, no matter what form it comes in.”

Chapter Text

While Jinx had tried to convince him that Warwick was completely harmless, the claws and fangs convinced him otherwise. Viktor had watched him descend on the various types of livestock he had bought from a local butcher, and had no intentions of finding out what he could do to human flesh.

Feeding time—though somewhat disturbing, while still being incredibly fascinating—at least left the beast in a far more tame mood than usual. Warwick hadn’t had any aggressive incidents so far, though sometimes he moved a little too quickly for Viktor’s comfort. Again, Jinx told him that he was harmless, and Viktor just had to smile and nod to the girl. Perhaps he was harmless to her, Viktor thought, as she had spent almost every waking moment with Warwick since he had arrived at his laboratory.

So, when he finally had enough time set aside to examine the creature, Viktor erred on the side of caution as much as he possibly could.

“What are you wearing?” Jinx asked as he entered the observation room, his heavy metal footsteps giving his presence away.

“It’s an exosuit. I designed it to be used when one is physically manipulating hextech crystals, as it serves as a layer of protection against outward effects,” Viktor explained to her, as he fumbled around with the helmet in his hands. “If it can block arcane forces, I’m sure it can block claws as well.”

“Well, it looks like a suit of armor.” She said. Viktor took a look at his reflection in the glass, then smirked.

“You know, it kind of does. I wasn’t exactly going for aesthetics while designing it, in fact, it was the last thing on my mind. Function over form, and all. But I do appreciate the similarities, as the suit functions in the same way.”

Jinx stared at Viktor with a wide-eyed, blank look in her eyes that told him that he was boring her. He grabbed the helmet, then fastened it on his head. Immediately, the sounds of the outside world became somewhat muffled. His vision became shrouded in reddish-orange as he peered through the reinforced slots in the front of the helm.

“Jinx, do you remember which buttons you need to press to seal and unseal the door?”

“Of course.”

“Well… just in case, read the labels carefully, please.” Viktor told her, still a bit hesitant with this entire operation. He tried to shake it off. This was for science, but more than that, he was doing this to help people. He could manage a bit of uncomfort if it was for a good cause.

Viktor tapped on the glass and got the beast’s attention. Luckily, Warwick was already watching him and quickly met his gaze.

“Warwick, is it alright if I enter? I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to examine your wounds as well as take a look at your mechanical augmentations.”

He didn’t respond at first. Viktor saw him glance at Jinx, who gave him a thumbs up.

“Come in.” He said to Viktor, before stepping away from the door to give him room. Viktor appreciated that. Jinx initiated the unsealing procedure, and the reinforced door slid into the wall with a quiet scraping noise. Viktor took a deep breath and then entered.

He was careful to step around the bones on the floor. Warwick noticed him do that, then shook his head.

“Sorry. I… forgot.” He muttered to himself, then slowly walked around the perimeter of the room, collecting the scattered bones. Viktor could see that a few of them had fairly sizable tooth indentations in them. He wondered what the upper limits of his bite strength could be. It had to be impressively high, Viktor thought to himself. For a creature as big as he was, it had to rival the pressure of some hydraulics.

Yet, he wasn’t entirely just a creature to study, Viktor reminded himself, as he watched Warwick neatly place the pile in one of the corners, next to a deck of cards that Jinx had brought him earlier. She had been worried that he was getting bored. Viktor hadn’t even thought of that.

The door slid shut behind him, and Viktor readied himself.

“How are you feeling today, Warwick? Any physical changes, or differences in mood?”

Warwick sat down on the floor of the chamber and placed his paws on the top of his legs. Viktor slowly maneuvered around the creature, then glanced at the stitches on his chest. The wound looked completely closed as of now. They would have to remove the stitches soon. Viktor had wondered if Warwick possessed some sort of healing factor, and with how rapidly the cuts had closed since his surgery, Viktor was starting to believe that he did. Maybe he could find a way of testing that ability, though the ethical logistics of doing so evaded him at the time.

“I’m fine,” Warwick grumbled. “Nothing hurts.”

“What about your mental capacities? Are things becoming… clearer?”

“Sometimes… when I’m not hungry.”

“Have any new memories come back to you in the past few days?” Viktor asked him, somewhat listening to his response while focusing his eyes on the pumps embedded in his chest. Viktor took a look at the unrusted metal that fastened the tubes in place and came to the conclusion that it was either made of bronze or brass, though more testing would be needed.

“I remembered Ekko.” Warwick told him, and Viktor nodded.

“That’s good. What did you remember about him?”

“He… he was a tro-uble-mak-er.” Warwick said slowly, as he sounded out the word that came into his mind. Viktor could hear Jinx’s muffled laughter from behind the glass, and then he heard Warwick exhale softly in response.

“That’s good. That’s very good,” Viktor said to him, before taking a step back. “Do you mind if I take a look at your back?”

“Go ahead.” Warwick grunted. Viktor stepped behind him, as his eyes drifted to the mechanisms that had captured his attention from the moment that he saw them. The large vat, sitting square on the upper center of his back, and the second, sitting lower, near the base of what he assumed was his the bottom of his ribcage. Viktor knew that he wouldn’t be able to see the exact depth of the machinery from a cursory glance, but from what he saw before, he guessed that they had been implanted in his back by some outside means. This wasn’t something that Warwick could have done to himself. Viktor hadn’t thought that, but he wanted to check to be sure. Just to err on the side of caution.

Upon closer inspection, Viktor wondered if the devices had been implanted in his spine. It was an impressive feat of engineering, Viktor thought to himself, no matter how morally reprehensible it was.

Viktor found the apparatus familiar, for some reason. He narrowed his eyebrows and placed his fingers on the machinery.

“You… you have no knowledge of what circumstances led to the implementation of this machinery with your body, yes?” Viktor asked Warwick, while the familiar feeling still lingered on his mind. Why was it so familiar? It was almost like he had seen this before, which made no sense to him because he would know if he had seen something like this before. This was a horrible amalgamation of science, machinery, and chemistry that Viktor knew would have stuck with him for a long time.

“I don’t know.” Warwick grumbled, his words slow and full of thought. Viktor could see his shoulders begin to tense. That should have worried him, but his mind was elsewhere.

“What is the first thing you remember?” Viktor asked him. “Not as a man, but as what you are now?”

“I… I…” Warwick began to say as his head drooped lower. “Hard to… think.”

“Take your time.”

“I was… un-der-neath Zaun.”

“In the tunnels?”

“No. In the caverns.”

“How’d you end up there?” Viktor asked, and Warwick didn’t respond. His breathing grew heavier. Before every time he took a breath, it sounded mostly like human breathing, but then it switched. Each breath was suddenly much deeper, much more rhythmic, much more… bestial.

The tension that had crept into Warwick’s shoulders continued through the rest of his body, as Viktor watched his back hunch over, and his claws begin to raise.

But it wasn’t his physicality that took his immediate attention. It was the sudden sound of movement from the mechanisms on his back that caught Viktor’s attention. In a matter of moments, the vats attached to his back whurred to life, and the green mixture inside began to churn.

Then, it clicked.

The tubes. Viktor had seen tubes like those before, with a mixture like that pumping into some poor, unwilling creature. This type of science didn’t care if something was right, or wrong, or even possible.

It simply just occurred, with no regard to the subjects, in the pursuit of perfection. It was the type of science that tore that poor, poor creature named Rio apart, and haunted the nightmares of a much younger Viktor.

“The mutation must survive.”

In a voice that was inaudible to Jinx, or anyone else that could have been in the room, Viktor whispered a name that sent shivers up his spine and made his blood run cold.

“Singed.”

However, to the chimera in front of him, with highly sensitive ears and a mind so shattered from those moments before his creation, the name was as clear as day.

And it ripped through him much harder than any gunshot ever could.

Chapter Text

The claw struck Viktor in the chest. Luckily, Warwick hit him with the back of his claw, and none of his piercing, razor-sharp nails made contact with him. But the strike was still powerful enough to send him flying backward into the concrete wall.

Though his armor had taken most of the damage from the hit, Viktor still felt his entire body surge with the weight of the impact as the air was knocked out of his lungs. He slumped against the wall, gasping for air, as he watched the creature start to lose control in front of him. Warwick stumbled from side to side, clutching his head, and snarling into the open air.

It was that name. That damned name set him off, Viktor realized, at the same time that the rest of the weight of that realization settled on his shoulders.

“Warwick!” Viktor heard Jinx scream from behind the glass, as she pounded her fists against the chamber. While the beast was still distracted from the turmoil inside his mind, Viktor made his escape. Heart pounding in his chest, the rest of his body aching underneath his metal exterior, Viktor hobbled toward the door to the chamber.

“Jinx! Open!” He yelled, frantically looking back at the beast behind him. Warwick continued to howl and scream, as he had resorted to throwing himself against the walls of his confinement in desperation. Viktor didn’t know what the beast was trying to do, and he quickly came to the conclusion that he would never truly know.

Warwick was not just an animal, nor was he just a man. He suffered from the primal instincts and urges of a beast, while retaining some of the proclivities of a man, resulting in the chaotic cacophony of conflicting thoughts that Viktor guessed resided within his mind.

What he did know, however, was that he was in immediate, mortal danger from this creature. And Viktor, despite his willingness to do nearly anything in the pursuit of science, knew that he could not continue his research as a corpse.

Viktor banged on the door, then glanced over to the window, where Jinx stood in shock at what was happening to the man. Viktor couldn’t imagine what she was feeling. She was watching the memory of who her father once was become undone in real-time, right in front of her, and she was powerless to do anything.

Well, she could do one thing, Viktor thought as he banged his fists against the door once again.

“Jinx, please! Open the door!” Viktor begged with increasing intensity, hoping to snap her out of the daze she was caught in. Luckily, with enough noise, it worked. She worked almost impossibly fast. Her fingers flew to the button in a flash. Viktor felt the hydraulics of the door ease up, as it began to slide back into place. Viktor could feel Jinx’s hands reach through the door, grab ahold of him, and drag him through it as soon as there was enough space.

“What happened to him?” Jinx yelped, demanding answers from Viktor that he couldn’t possibly give her. He hobbled over to the control panel just underneath the window as fast as he could, then slammed his fist down on the close button.

“Viktor!” Jinx shouted. “What’s happening to him?”

“He’s lost control!”

“But we can’t just leave him like that,” She cried, looking through the window, then at the slowly closing metal door. “He needs our help!”

Viktor caught her eyes glance at the door once again. Before he could shout for her to stop, her eyes flashed with pink energy, as she suddenly surged in the door’s direction. She moved far too fast for a normal person to move, and it almost unsettled him, if his mind wasn’t more preoccupied with the sight of her slipping past the door just as it closed.

The hydraulics hissed as the metal door closed, and Viktor felt his heart surge in his chest as he watched Jinx dash toward the creature.

The monster that Viktor now knew to be one of Singed’s creations.

Over the past few days, Warwick had wondered if he was done with the painful flashes of memory that had haunted him for his entire existence. For a while, at least, their severity had lessened. He was safe and well-fed, which kept the hunger from overtaking him. But most importantly, he was with his daughters, and he knew that they were safe. That kept his mind mostly at ease.

But that name had ruined him. It shot through his skull, scattering the bits and pieces of who he thought he was into the far corners of his mind, completely out of reach. Warwick knew that something was deeply, deeply wrong, as every muscle in his body told him to run.

Get out. Get out. Save yourself, get out.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who he was. The monster knew that he once knew, just a few moments ago, as he watched the girl behind the glass watch him, but it was gone.

Gone were the memories of that blue-haired girl, or the other one. Now, all Warwick could see was green. Glowing green light, sickly in color. Then he felt pain. All over his body, creeping across his skin like fire, pumping through his veins like poison, there was something there.

It was something inside of him. Something begging to be free, clawing, scratching, and screaming to take over, which he knew wasn’t unique to what he was now.

No, that man he once was had it too. Whoever it was that did this to him, that was the name he heard.

It made him deeply afraid.

Then, it made him angry, but it was deeper than that. It was stronger than fury, more powerful than rage, and older than the blood that boiled in his veins.

It was primal.

Something else inside of him was afraid of what he was feeling and tried to stop it. It sent him into the walls of his prison, where he slammed his body against them in an effort to make it stop. Or, to break it open and free himself from what he was feeling. Maybe if he could outrun it, then it wouldn’t hurt him anymore.

But he was trapped, and the primal frenzy burning in his mind quickly killed the fear in his chest.

The creature heard his prey’s fast breathing before he could see it. He spun around and was met with a welcome sight. The blue-haired girl was coming right toward him. This meal was making it easy for him. Perhaps it knew that trying to run would be useless against a predator like him. He would have his fill within seconds.

Like any good prey, she was fast, maybe even faster than him. He almost lost sight of the girl in front of him before she suddenly leaped off the ground, and slammed into his chest. She was light, and he was much bigger, and stronger than her. He didn’t sway in the tiniest bit. If she thought that she could knock him down, she was greatly mistaken.

“Warwick!”

Name. That name. His name.

“You’re safe!”

He was safe.

“I’m right here! I’m right here for you!”

She was right there, with her arms wrapped around his chest, head buried in his left clavicle, and she made him feel safe.

He was Warwick. He used to be a man, but this is what he was now. From that, he looked down at the girl and knew he didn’t want to hurt her. She wasn’t prey. She never would be. He loved her. He loved her, and he loved her sister, and he would never hurt them.

But her name was gone. He couldn’t remember her name. He knew his name, but he didn’t know hers, or why he wouldn’t hurt her. Why wouldn’t he hurt her? What made her different? He had to have known.

The girl looked up into his eyes, and she must have seen the panic in them because then she squeezed him tighter.

“I’m right here, Warwick! It’s me, Powder, and-”

Powder. He knew that name. He knew that name, and he knew her sister, Vi, her name as well. Warwick could feel his mind begin to stitch itself back together, as the formerly fragmented memories sealed into something whole once again.

“Powder!” Warwick yelped, horrified that he could have ever thought of hurting her as he did, just moments ago. His large, furry arms hugged her back as he collapsed to the ground, his head pounding.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I… I don’t know what ha-hap-pened.” Warwick mumbled to her.

“It’s going to be okay! Look, everyone’s safe!” She told him, as she glanced around the room, and then pointed at Viktor, who stood behind the glass with a grave look on his face.

“I didn’t know who you were,” Warwick confessed, guilt and disgust with his own mind laced into his words. “Powder, I- I didn’t-”

She placed both of her hands on his snout, then turned his head to look her right in the eyes. She took a deep breath in, then let it out. Warwick copied what she did until the frenzy began to recede, and his heart began to slow.

“You know who I am now, right?”

“You’re…” Warwick began to say before his voice failed him, and he was seized with the fear that he had forgotten her. No, he couldn’t let that happen. He had to know her.

“You’re my daughter, Powder,” Warwick said quickly, almost as if he was afraid that if he took too long on the words, she would disappear. “You’re my heart.”

Powder smiled at him, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into another hug, one that Warwick reciprocated. His claws shook as he gently wrapped them around her, careful not to touch her with his nails.

Warwick squeezed her as tight as he could without hurting her and didn’t want to let go.

He never wanted to feel her leave him again.

Viktor let out a sigh of relief, though it was more like a sharp exhale of air that felt like he was throwing up the fear that had formed in his chest. He braced himself on the control panel and tried to swallow.

He should have realized this sooner. Who else would have done something like that to another person? Who else would even be capable of doing something like that to another person? It had to be him, and by the way that Warwick reacted to his name, Viktor knew it to be true.

As Viktor watched Jinx and Warwick embrace, he thought about the horrors that creature must have gone through to turn him into that thing. If he really used to be Vander, and Singed turned him into the monster Viktor now knew, he would be rightfully terrified of what Singed was capable of.

In fact, every single person should be terrified of what that madman could do.

This was bigger than just one creature. This had far-reaching implications, some Viktor hadn’t even granted himself to think of yet in the minute or so that this realization had haunted his mind.

If one thing was for certain, it was that Viktor was going to have to face off against his old mentor in one way or another. He hoped that it would be in a battle of minds, and he hoped that he would be able to counteract the damage that Singed’s machinery had done to Warwick.

But as Viktor looked down at the armored suit he wore, and then looked back up at the monster who could have easily killed him, he feared that this would not be a battle of wits.

In that case, he knew he had to prepare.

Chapter Text

“Finally,” Singed said, as Sevika entered his laboratory with a grim, detached look on her face. “I was wondering when you would come back to me.”

It had been a few days, which Sevika didn’t like. She didn’t want to delay her mission, but her mind was too clouded with fears, memories, and other useless things to keep her from being as focused as she needed to be. This wasn’t something she could do while distracted. The stakes here were far too high to run with anything less than a perfectly level head.

“How are we going to do this? We can’t just waltz into Piltover and demand that they hand him back. Hell, do we even know that Vander’s in Piltover? They could have shipped him off, for all we know.”

“No, he’ll be there. They want to have him close enough to his hunting ground that he doesn’t begin to search for a new one.” Singed explained, while Sevika tried to block out his usage of the words “hunting ground” to describe Zaun, though it was completely correct.

“Then where would he be?”

“Well… I have my suspicions. There’s the academy, of course. The center of scientific advancement for the region,” Singed started to say, before tracing his fingers along the edge of the table he stood at. “At least, that’s why they think. They fail to see the genius that grows in our city. The minds that fuel the lifeblood of this place, who-”

“I just need to know where he is.” Sevika cut him off before he continued on with a rambling tirade that she knew would get both of them nowhere, and waste even more valuable time. Singed took the hint.

“If they would be experimenting on him anywhere, they would be doing it there. Along with that, the only man in Piltover who could be capable of creating a creature like that works there. The last I heard, he has his own laboratory, and has dedicated his time to hextech.”

Singed flicked a scrap of dust off the edge of the table, and let out a sigh.

“Obviously, that’s not all he’s been doing.”

“What’s this man’s name?” Sevika asked.

“Viktor.”

“And how do you know that he’s the one doing this?”

“He’s originally from Zaun. He left our city when he discovered that his talents could be used elsewhere. I used to know the boy, and he showed real promise in his scientific knowledge,” Singed explained while looking away, into his experiments on the wall. “Now, he seems to have squandered it.”

Sevika turned away from Singed and balled up her fists in a mixture of frustration and fear. She didn’t want to admit that she was nervous, but going into Piltover was practically a death sentence. She knew that she would be completely out of place there, there was no way of hiding that.

“How are we going to get him back?” Sevika asked Singed, with hesitation in her words. Singed walked over to one of his experiments and stared into the glass for a few moments. Then, he cleared his throat and turned back to Sevika.

“Twitch, my source from Zaun’s Sump, has been doing a bit of scouting work for me. Piltover may pretend to be spotless, but underneath it all, they’re just as filthy as the rest of us. They just know how to hide it better.” Singed told her before drawing up a piece of paper, already marked with pencil lines and written instructions. Sevika looked at it and began to realize that they were blueprints.

“Piltover’s waste flows right into our waters. It poisons our children and kills our people. But… it also provides a perfect way to sneak into the city. You, and a large number of my chem-tanks, will enter the city through the pipes, where Twitch will meet you and guide you to where you need to go.”

Sevika crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“And I’m supposed to just… trust that rat?”

“I told him that if he failed to live up to his end of the bargain, I would send every last one of my chem-tanks after him,” Singed said with a sigh. “Judging by the expression on his face, he is more than happy to stick with the plan.”

“Then what? We fight our way through the academy, just to get ripped apart by that monster?” Sevika said, her nervous frustration finally breaking through to the surface of her voice. “Look, I want to get him back. But I also don’t want to try to do it with every enforcer in Piltover on my ass.”

Singed glanced up at her, first with a frustrated look of his own, before he rubbed his eyes and reached under the table. He pulled out a small, mechanical breathing mask, then set it in front of her.

“If you would let me finish, all of your questions will be answered,” He muttered. “When you arrive, Twitch will release a highly potent gas into the vents. It’s not lethal, but it’s incredibly strong. Nobody anywhere near Viktor’s lab will be able to remain conscious long enough to fight you or my chem-tanks off. Neither will Vander, though I have a feeling that it will take quite a while for him to lose consciousness. In that case…”

Singed reached underneath the table yet again, this time, pulling out a small gun.

“Tranquilizers. One dose of this is strong enough to knock out ten men. If one shot doesn’t work, there are four more in the chamber. I made them myself, so I can attest to their quality.”

Sevika picked up the gun from the table and began to examine it in her hands. It wasn’t really her style, she preferred using her fists, or her blade, but if she had to use it to save Vander, she would. The underground needed him back. It had been too long without his presence.

Plus, it would serve as an incredibly powerful “fuck you” to the Piltover elites, who would now be forced to watch their weapon turn against them, and protect the new nation of Zaun. It was a sight that Sevika wanted to see, and in that case, would set aside her comfort any day.

“After apprehending him, Twitch will lead you back through the pipes, where—if you’re able to get back into Zaun’s borders—you’ll simply just have to bring him back here, and I can get right to work. In fact, I’ve already begun to prepare my laboratory for his arrival.” Singed explained as his eyes drifted toward the back corner of the room. Sevika followed his eyes as she became aware of a set of heavy, thick metal chains anchored to the ground.

“You’re going to tie him up there?” Sevika asked, a bit of concern creeping into her voice.

“Would you rather have him roaming free before I can fix him? This is for his own safety, and ours as well,” He told her, though she didn’t look completely convinced. He glanced back at her, then softened his voice. “It’s only temporary, Sevika. Once I begin my work on him, he will pose much less of a threat to us all. But Piltover’s technology may be hard to crack. It could take quite a while for me to restore him to his true self.”

Sevika set the gun down on the table, then picked up the piece of paper in front of her. It was an incredibly detailed map of Piltover’s sewer system, with step-by-step instructions scribbled in Singed’s handwriting. Sevika noticed that in the directions, never did he once refer to Vander by name. Instead, he called him “Subject #1088”. Sevika chalked it up to his eccentricities, or an attempt to keep their plans secret if they were to be caught.

“Alright,” Sevika said slowly. “I’m tired of talking. Let’s get this over with.”

Singed nodded to her, then placed a finger on his temple, and looked back over his notes.

“There’s one thing I forgot to mention.”

“And what is that?”

“You won’t just be extracting the creature. I need Jinx too.”

Sevika immediately lowered her eyebrows and took a step back.

“That wasn’t part of the plan.” She growled, and Singed stood up straight.

“I know. But based on what you told me, from how attached she was to the creature, she wouldn’t have left his side. Along with that, I’m afraid that she would be the first person to attempt to find him, and would end up coming right here immediately. I can’t take that chance.”

Sevika crossed her arms, still a bit put off by his amendment to the plan, but she was listening.

“Take her as well. That way, we already have her in our custody, and she’s not a variable for us to solve later.”

“What about her sister? Or the enforcer girl? If Jinx goes missing, they will hunt her down, and if they know anything about her past, we would be prime suspects.” Sevika pointed out, to which he nodded, then glanced back at the chains.

“I’ll have every chem-tank on standby in case that happens. Along with that, if I am granted enough time, I will have freed Vander’s mind at that point. He would be loyal to our cause, and I can safely assume that they would take issue with killing the man that raised them.”

“You want to use Vander as a meat shield?”

“You’re oversimplifying too much,” Singed said with a tired voice. “The people of Zaun would rally around him. If he was killed again, the people of Piltover would have a war on their hands. I’m not sure if Vi could deal with having that on her conscience, but I know for sure that the Piltover girl wouldn’t take that risk.”

Sevika closed her eyes. Singed was a strange man, but he was highly intelligent. She had to believe that he knew what he was doing, and she had to trust him in that regard. As much as she hated putting her safety, and the safety of the entire nation of Zaun into his hands, she would have to do it. There was no other option.

“Whenever your chem-tanks are ready, I can go.”

Singed smiled behind the scarf that covered the bottom half of his face, leaving the corners of his eyes to crinkle.

“They’re ready whenever you are, Sevika.”

Chapter Text

Though Vi had been to their home many times, it never felt quite home as much as it did that day. For some reason, after everything she had been through over the past week, it felt nice to relax in a place that she knew well, and she knew she would be safe in.

Plus, she got to spend time with her girlfriend. Which was always a plus. As she woke up from her mid-afternoon nap, Vi took in her surroundings. The sun’s orange glow shimmered through the open windows, which let a gentle breeze into her girlfriend’s bedroom. Vi raised her arms above her head to stretch, and she felt that her hair still had a bit of dampness to it. And, she still smelled like the most expensive soap that money could buy, which—as much as Vi hated to admit it—she liked the scent of. Mostly because it reminded her of Caitlyn.

Vi turned over in the sheets, to find Caitlyn’s legs propped up on a set of pillows. She looked down toward the foot of the bed. Caitlyn laid there propped up on her elbows, nose-deep into a book.

“G’morning, Cupcake.” Vi mumbled as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.

“It’s nearly time for supper,” Caitlyn said, then glanced at her with a smile on her face. “But good morning to you too, Vi.”

“Whatcha reading?”

“Oh, just some old book.”

“How interesting.” Vi teased, before sitting up in bed and running her hands through Caitlyn’s soft, straight hair.

“Interesting indeed.” Caitlyn responded as she scratched her forehead. After a few moments, Vi peeked over her shoulder, then rested her head against hers.

“You can say that the book’s boring. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“This is a classic, Vi. It’s a cornerstone in the history of Piltovian literature.”

“And…” Vi said slowly, as she placed her finger on the page. “That’s the densest paragraph I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s highly analytical.”

Vi traced her fingers through the sentences, reading them line by line until she let out a soft grunt, and shook her head.

“Babe, this can’t possibly be good.”

“You only read one page!”

“Yeah, because that one sentence went on for seven lines, Cupcake! Ever heard of a run-on sentence before?”

Caitlyn shut the book, and let out a sigh, as the smile grew on Vi’s face. She looked up at her girlfriend with a stoic look, before that eventually cracked, and gave way to a grin. She tossed the book to the ground and hung her head.

“Alright, yeah,” She admitted, much to Vi’s enjoyment. “The book is really boring.”

Vi placed her hands on her girlfriend’s back and began to gently massage them back and forth, as she let out a small chuckle.

“Then why are you reading it?”

Caitlyn let out a sigh, then turned over onto her back. She placed both of her hands on the sides of her face. Vi noticed that she looked tired, but not in the physical sense. It was like the sparkle, that was usually always present in her eyes, had dimmed.

“I need a distraction.” She muttered. Vi felt the mood of the room immediately shift to a much quieter, much more cold tone. Vi knew exactly what she was talking about.

“You really don’t need to feel guilty about it, Cupcake. You were just trying to protect me.”

“I know.”

“I’m not mad about it, Jinx isn’t mad about it, and Warwick’s not even mad about it either.”

“I know that too, which makes it even more awful that I feel so guilty about it,” Caitlyn said under her breath, as she covered her eyes with a hand. “I just… when he reached toward you, I thought… I thought that was it.” 

With her other hand, she reached out toward her girlfriend, searching for her hand. When Vi took it, Caitlyn let out a shaky sigh.

“I thought that he was going to really hurt you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Caitlyn,” Vi said slowly. “Nobody blames you for trusting your instincts. We had no idea.”

“Jinx knew. Jinx knew, and none of us listened to her.”

Vi didn’t respond immediately to that statement, as she knew that she was at fault for that one. She should have believed her sister beforehand. Vi never wanted to make Jinx feel like she was “broken” in any way, and that meant treating her like a normal kid. But when she saw her in that alleyway, with the monster leering over her, all Vi could see was the scared little girl that her sister once was, and she treated her accordingly.

But it didn’t matter. The damage was done. She told herself that she should have listened to her, even with how out-there she might have sounded.

“If I had just waited a moment, I would have seen him hold you, or hug you, but all I could see were his claws-” Caitlyn began to say before her voice caught in her throat, and she rubbed her eyes. “But now, he’s fine. Or, mostly. Viktor can help him.”

“Viktor will help him,” Vi said to her reassuringly. “If I know anything about him, I think he’ll have everything completely under his control.”

“I’m sure he’s just fine. But… I’m worried about you, Vi.”

Violet took a few moments to watch the expression on her girlfriend’s face shift from concern, to a bit of a smile. She blushed and shook her head.

“What?” Vi asked, confused as to why she was laughing.

“You’re making a face.”

“I’m making a face?”

“Yes, as soon as I said that I was worried about you, you started making a face,” Caitlyn said to her, then poked her on the nose. “You know, it’s not a bad thing that you have people that care about you, Vi.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Then why do you not want me to worry about you?”

“Because…” Vi started to say, before she looked to the side, then shrugged her shoulders and let out a sign. “You’re too pretty to worry about me.”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes, before Vi slumped on top of her, and began to playfully wrestle her on the bed. Vi laughed and made sure to smile extra wide to ease Caitlyn’s worries.

Because truthfully, as much as she wanted to believe that everything would be okay, she wasn’t sure.

She could never be sure, and that’s what scared her.

Viktor’s hands shook the entire way he stomped his way toward the council room, brushing past the security guards with ease. He attributed it to the panicked, fearful look in his eyes. Or, maybe it had to do with the exosuit he wore, and the way that the metal clanked on the floor as he marched through the halls of the academy.

The beads of sweat on his forehead dribbled down past his nose, then down his chin. He wished that his reaction to his recent discovery wasn’t so strong, but judging by the way that Warwick reacted to it, he was in good company with the fear that rippled through his body.

The council needed to be informed immediately, Viktor had decided, as he dashed away from his laboratory as fast as he could, immediately after Jinx got Warwick to calm down. Leaving them unattended was not the best idea, he knew that, but his legs had already taken him halfway to the door of the council before he even had the thought of turning around. By now, it was too late, and this was far too important to be kept waiting.

Luckily, he ran into two members of the council just outside the doors. Jayce and Mel approached the council room from one of the side hallways. Immediately, the duo turned to the sound of stomping metal, and saw him. Jayce’s face fell, as he quickly dashed over towards him.

“Viktor!” Jayce said quickly, as he put an arm under his shoulder to brace him and steady his balance. “Are you alright? Where’s your crutch?”

“I can go run and get it,” Mel offered, as she reached out to help steady him. “Here, why don’t you just sit-”

“I’m fine,” Viktor snapped, then shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be… I don’t mean to be rude. I… I have… I’ve had a breakthrough in Warwick’s case.”

“That’s incredible, Viktor. But… is everything alright? You…” Jayce started to say, his voice full of concern, which stayed as he looked down at what Viktor was wearing. “What is this?”

“An exosuit. It’s for dealing with volatile hextech, as well as clawed creatures, apparently,” He explained, then took a step away from Jayce, revealing that he could stand on his own just fine. “And quite the support system, if I do say so myself, but that isn’t why I rushed up here.”

Mel and Jayce exchanged glances, then looked back at Viktor, whose wide eyes told them that they would need somewhere more private to talk. Jayce led Viktor into a nearby vacant room, while Mel kept up the back. She glanced up and down the hallway, then shut the door, leaving the three of them alone in the empty conference room.

Before either of them could say a word, Viktor jumped into a frenzied monologue.

“I began my examination of Warwick just an hour ago. I set out to find what kind of creature he was, as well as determine what the point of the mechanisms on his back was.”

“Did you have any success?” Mel wondered. Viktor shook his head up and down, then swallowed, as he tried to calm down.

“I did. But I’m not here to discuss that, I’m here to discuss something else,” He told both of them, before steadying his nerves, and taking a deep breath. “I know who may be responsible for Warwick’s creation.”

Both Mel and Jayce stood frozen in shock. Jayce blinked a few times, before wiping his face.

“You- you know who created him? How?”

“I am… familiar with this man’s work, and Warwick’s mechanisms bear all the same signatures as his other endeavors. I can’t believe that I was unable to notice the similarities sooner.”

“Are you telling me that there’s someone in Zaun capable of doing this to another person? Dear god, that’s…” Mel began to say before she shook her head. “We need to make this known to the rest of the council immediately.”

Jayce rubbed his temples, and then sharply inhaled.

“Agreed, but…” Jayce said, before turning to look at the scientist. “Viktor, are you completely sure that this man created Warwick?”

Viktor ran it over in his head once again. He had to be sure. This wasn’t just an offhand guess, this needed to be a definite answer to the question of Warwick’s origins. Viktor closed his eyes for a few seconds.

All he could see was Rio. The tubes protruding from her flesh, pumping her full of toxic chemicals, all in the misguided name of scientific exploration that Viktor couldn’t shake from his head.

When he opened his eyes, they were full of steel-like confidence. Viktor glanced between Jayce, the man he had learned to trust his life with, and Mel, the woman he knew would fight for him every time he needed it.

“I’m sure,” Viktor said, his voice unwavering and strong. “Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Chapter Text

As much as she hated dealing with that rat, Sevika had to admit, he had an incredible sense of direction. After meeting him at the entrance to the sewer system, he led her and the group of Chem-Tanks in tow through a weaving system of pipes and tunnels without a problem. Sevika didn’t even have a chance to look at the map that Singed made her. Not like it would have helped much, in the pitch-black hallways that seemed to twist on forever.

“I found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich down here once.” Twitch muttered. Sevika wasn’t sure if he was just talking to himself—which she wouldn’t put past him—or if he was trying to strike up a conversation with her. Either way, she brushed it aside. She was entirely too focused on the mission at hand to get distracted by small talk.

“It was a pretty good sandwich.” Twitch continued. Sevika let out a frustrated sigh.

“How much longer ‘till we get there?” Sevika asked, immediately taken aback by how uneasy her voice sounded. She was letting her nerves show, and she didn’t like it. Get focused, she told herself, this job is bigger than you. The entirety of Zaun is counting on you.

“Uh…”

Twitch scurried to the side of the tunnel and tapped on the wall a few times. Then, he sniffed the air and clicked his tongue.

“We’re close. Air’s getting a little fresher.”

“Is there any sort of concrete estimate that you can give me, Twitch?”

“Concrete? You want concrete, there’s concrete right there.” Twitch joked. Sevika shot him an icy glare, and the rat shriveled under her gaze.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know that.” She grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe? As I said, we’re close.” Twitch told her, before turning back to her with a weary look in his eyes, and a raised eyebrow. “Are you up for this? It’s kinda a daunting job if I do say so myself.”

Sevika rolled out her shoulder, then adjusted her metal arm. She made sure that the gun with the tranquilizer darts was still attached to her hip, then she cracked her knuckles.

“You do your job, I do mine. No need to ask so many questions.”

With that, Twitch shut his trap and turned back around. As soon as he did so, Sevika’s face fell, and she closed her eyes.

For a split second, she thought about turning back. But she knew she couldn’t. Everyone in Zaun owed something to Vander, and so did she. As long as he was out there, getting experimented on by those Piltovian monsters, she would fight to save him, just like he fought to save his people.

She wasn’t up for the task, but she was going to have to be.

There were things in this world worth risking her own safety for. If Zaun needed her, she would be there.

She would always be there.

“One ace.” Powder said as she placed a card down in front of Warwick. He glanced down at the deck of cards in his claws, then back up at her.

“I taught you how to p-play this game,” Warwick growled. “This is dis-res-pect-ful.”

She grinned from ear to ear, then giggled, rocking back and forth as she sat cross-legged in front of him.

“I know, and now, I’m going to beat you again!”

“Not fair.”

“Come on, keep playing, Warwick. It’s your turn.” She told him. He let out a tired sigh, then looked back down at his deck. Even though he held almost the entire deck in his hand, he didn’t seem to have a two of any suit.

What he did have, however, was years of experience on the girl, and years of practice. Though the memories were still a little foggy, he did remember going home a few nights with a full wallet after winning this game against friends.

Warwick picked a card from his deck, knowing full well that it wasn’t a two, and placed it on top of the pile. Easy, he thought. Initially, it was. Powder nodded, then went to pull a card from her deck, when she paused. She slowly looked up, glanced behind Warwick, then smiled.

“Bullshit,” She said, then turned over the card. Upon realizing that it wasn’t a two of any suit, she giggled and pumped her fists. “Pick ‘em up, Warwick! More cards for you!”

Warwick pouted as he picked up the rest of the cards, and added them to his deck.

“How’d you tell?” He asked, with a somewhat defeated tone to his voice. Powder cocked her head to the side, then shook it back and forth.

“I’m not telling. You’re just gonna have to keep losing until you figure it out.” She teased. Warwick hung his head in utter defeat before Powder burst out laughing.

“Alright, you sad sack,” She said. “I can tell when you’re bluffing because your tail starts to wag back and forth.”

Warwick’s ears fell flat against the back of his head, before he looked behind himself, a little embarrassed that it had been giving him away this entire time. He then crossed his arms and glared back at Powder, who found that hilarious.

“Not funny.” He growled. Powder glanced to his side again and started to laugh even harder. Warwick realized that his tail was wagging even faster this time. He grumbled, then tried to grab it with his claws to stop it from moving.

“Are you… chasing your tail?” Powder asked, before bursting into another fit of laughter. Warwick set his cards down in defeat. Powder fell backward and began to roll around on the floor, holding her stomach as she laughed. The sight made a chuckle rise in Warwick’s throat. The harder he tried to fight it off, the stronger it grew, before he descended into a chorus of barking giggles that filled the room. He let himself fall to the floor on his side next to her, then wrapped his claws around his stomach and laughed with her.

After a few moments, Powder wiped her eyes, then flicked him in the arm.

“You really suck at this game.” She said to him, her voice jumping with excitement as she spoke. Warwick pouted again, but couldn’t hold the expression on his face for more than a moment before he cracked up again, and felt a fanged smile creep over his face.

“I’m being bull-ied.” He said through his chuckles. Then, he grabbed Powder, and dragged her over towards him, and pulled her into a tight hug.

“Hey! We’ve gotta finish the game, you sore loser.” Powder told him, but he didn’t listen. He playfully shook her back and forth as she laughed, then he rested his chin on the top of her head.

“No game,” He muttered. “No escape.”

Powder relaxed in his grasp, then snuggled up in his arms.

“Alright, you big softie. What, do you need me to give you head pats too?” She joked. Warwick thought about it for a moment, before nodding. Powder shook her head.

“We’re here,” Twitch suddenly announced, as he stopped in front of a large grate. Sevika looked inside of it and saw a shaft leading upwards. “Piltover Academy. Just shimmy your way on up there, and you’ll be right where you need to go.”

Sevika looked at the grate once again, before unsheathing her sword. She thrust it into the metal, then cut a large square-shaped hole, large enough for Vander to fit through. Then, she ripped the grate off. It clattered to the floor next to her.

“You’ve already got the gas set up, right?” She asked him, and he nodded enthusiastically as he pulled out a switch.

“Primed and ready to go.” Twitch responded. Sevika took a deep breath, savoring the last bit of unfiltered air before she fastened the filter onto her face.

“We’ll be quick. In and out,” She explained. “If anything happens to us, or we don’t come back, go tell Singed. Otherwise, wait here.”

Twitch nodded, but he was paying more attention to the device in his hands. Sevika rolled her eyes, then rolled out her shoulders, as she stepped into the chute.

“Are you ready?” She asked him.

“Yes!”

With that, Sevika began to ascend the shaft as Twitch pressed the button.

“Military action. It’s the only way. We send a group of enforcers into the heart of Zaun, and get the people to rat him out.”

“Jayce, I appreciate how willing you are to go to bat against him, but he has connections. If a group of enforcers suddenly marched into Zaun, we’d have more than just him to deal with. We’d have an angry population, who probably would have already alerted him to our arrival,” Mel said back to him, as Jayce paced back and forth in the conference room. “I propose that we-”

Viktor started to cough, and Mel stopped. She glanced at him with a bit of worry on her face. He waved his hand.

“I’m fine. Continue.” He said. She nodded, then returned to her thoughts.

“As I was saying, I propose a diplomatic solution. Maybe we can request a trade of some sort?”

“What could we trade?” Jayce asked her, but his eyes rested on Viktor, who began to cough once again. “Hey, Viktor, are you alright?”

“I’m… I’m fine,” He wheezed. “Maybe… maybe I shouldn’t have run here. That was… that was…”

As he continued to speak, Viktor started to lean to one side. Mel darted to his side to keep him steady. She placed a hand on his cheek, as she saw his eyes flutter, and the coughing grow stronger.

“Viktor! Oh, Jayce! Get help!” Mel shouted at him. Jayce immediately rushed toward the door of the conference room and ran into the hallway.

“Help! We need some-” Mel heard Jayce shout, as his shoes thudded against the floor outside before his words were suddenly cut off by a violent coughing fit. Mel gingerly placed Viktor on the floor of the conference room. She stood up to rush out to see what happened to Jayce, but suddenly felt overcome with intense vertigo. Mel let out a groan as she placed a hand on her head, and collapsed to the ground. Then, she felt her lungs suddenly seize up, as she began to violently cough, as the spinning grew worse.

Mel’s eyes rolled back in her head, as she collapsed onto the floor next to Viktor, her consciousness rapidly slipping away from her.

Warwick opened his eyes suddenly, as his heart began to pound in his chest out of nowhere. For some reason, every instinct in his body told him to be on high alert, as there was danger present. He cautiously sniffed the air, and his ears perked up in an attempt to hear better.

Powder noticed, and shifted in his grasp.

“Warwick? Is everything-”

He placed a finger to his snout, as he closed his eyes and tried to listen as hard as he could. He blocked out the noise of her heartbeat, and tried to focus further, beyond the walls of his chamber.

Then, he heard it. A variety of noises, though all somewhat familiar. Thumps, crashes, bangs, and other types of thuds filled his ears. Something was off.

Powder began to feel it too. Warwick let go of her, as he began to pace back and forth in his chamber.

“Strange noises.” He muttered.

“Strange noises?” She asked, then licked her lips, and turned toward the door. “I’ll check it out. Stay here, I’ll-”

In a flash, Warwick was in front of the door, blocking her from leaving.

“No, you stay. With me. Safe.” He told her, with a bit of fear in his eyes. Powder smiled at him, then tried to push past.

“I appreciate it, Warwick, but I think I’ll be fine. I just want to see what’s going on.”

“Powder…” He said slowly, with worry in his voice. She let out a sigh, then put her hands on her hips.

“Alright. How about this? I’ll just step outside, find Viktor, and then come right back, okay?”

“But… I need to know that you’re safe.” He whimpered. Powder thought for a moment, then, like a lightbulb turning on in her head, her eyes lit up.

“I’ll whistle loud enough for you to hear. As long as I whistle, you can hear me, right? That way, you know that I’m safe.” She offered. Warwick thought about it for a few moments. Then, he stepped aside.

“Come back, please.” Warwick mumbled, and she nodded.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t you worry.”

Warwick watched her flip open a panel, and type in a long string of numbers onto a keypad with buttons far too small for Warwick’s claws. The door slid open, and Powder stepped out of it, while Warwick watched her leave, and her whistling started. He sniffed the air that flooded in as she stepped out, before the hydraulic door sealed shut once again.

He winced as the awful, chemical filled smell entered his nostrils. The rest of the lab always smelled a bit like chemicals, but like cleaning chemicals, not like this. That was odd. It was foul. He curled up his nose at the scent. After living in Zaun’s caverns for years, he was used to a certain amount of odor in the air, but this was different than that. It wasn’t pollution either, which filled Zaun’s air and made it harder for him to hunt. This was something else. Something that Warwick wasn’t immediately able to place, but when he did, every hair on his body stood on end.

The air smelled like poison. Immediately, Warwick lurched toward the door. His heavy body slammed against it, but it wouldn’t budge. He then turned to the window, and knocked his claws against it, trying to get Powder’s attention.

“Powder!” He shouted in a panic. “Come back! Powder!”

Warwick saw his daughter turn around quickly, with a strange expression on her face. She continued to whistle, as she tilted her head to the side. Suddenly, her whistling was cut off by a violent coughing fit. Powder wiped her mouth, then tried to continue whistling, only to devolve into another fit. Warwick let out a cry and slammed his claws against the window.

“Bad air! Come back! Come back!” He pleaded, as whines filled the spaces between his words. Powder raised her hands to her throat, her eyes bulging out of her head, as she strained to get air. She coughed and coughed, as she stumbled toward the control panel. She swayed back and forth, but managed to find enough balance to attempt to press the button to open the chamber.

Then, her eyes crossed, and her eyelids fluttered. Warwick watched his daughter collapse to the ground in front of the glass. His heart slammed in his chest.

“Powder!” Warwick howled, tears filling his eyes, as he bashed his claws in a frenzy against the glass. “Pow-der!”

Chapter Text

Warwick had never felt anything like this before. Most of the time, he fought off the feelings that the whirring of the vats on his back brought him, but at this moment, he would take any help he could get.

Though his frenzied strikes against the glass didn’t seem to do much, nor did his loud, panicked howls for help. They had put him in a nearly indestructible place for a reason, and he understood why, but he needed to get to his daughter. He needed to save her.

At least she was still breathing. Warwick could hear that, as well as her heartbeat too. She was alive. But he had no idea what had happened to her, and there was no way of finding out. The air in here was clean, however. If he got her in here, she would wake up.

He just had to get to her.

“Powder, I’m going t-to get you,” Warwick shouted, as he slammed his claws against the glass again, ignoring how much his claws began to ache. “I promise!”

He took a step back. He could see that he was leaving scratch marks on the glass, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe he needed more force.

Warwick backed up to the far wall, dropped to all fours, then dashed toward the glass as fast as he could. The force of the impact shook the walls of the room but left no marks on the glass.

His shoulder throbbed from hitting the glass, but he didn’t care. It had to break. He didn’t care how long it took him, or how injured he got, he would save his daughter.

Warwick readied himself once more, then darted toward the glass again.

A harsh knock on the door brought Vi and Caitlyn out of their sleepy, mid-afternoon cuddle session. Both women blinked a few times, then brushed themselves off. Without wasting any time, Cassandra barged into the room.

“Is it…” Vi started to say, before noticing the grim look on the woman’s face and promptly quieting down. She realized that asking if it was time for dinner yet might not have been the most appropriate question, given the energy that suddenly settled in the room.

“Jayce called an emergency meeting of the council. It didn’t elaborate much, but the telegram I just received mentioned that Viktor may have figured out who may be responsible for creating Warwick.” Cassandra explained as she fiddled with the earrings in her ears. Vi and Caitlyn immediately leaped out of bed and began to get ready.

“Are we invited to attend?” Caitlyn asked.

“Not officially, but I don’t think that a single person would object to your presence there. He’s your father, Vi, there’s a certain amount of importance that your voice should be granted in these matters.” Cassandra said to Vi, as the young woman put on her jacket and made her way toward the hallway, before waiting for Caitlyn at the door to her bedroom. When she was finally ready, Cassandra led them downstairs.

Vi got to thinking about what she would do if she found the person responsible for what happened to Vander. A lot of violent, unflattering ideas came into her mind. She would have to dwell on them later.

“How did Viktor figure that out?” Vi wondered.

“I have no idea, but he’s an incredibly intelligent young man, I’m sure he has his ways.” Cassandra said to her, as the trio made their way out the front door of the Kiramman estate.

“Viktor can figure out nearly anything,” Caitlyn assured her. “And, If I know him at all, he’s probably right about it too.”

Vi believed her when she said that. As the door opened, she squinted as the blinding orange sunlight took over her vision. When her eyes adjusted, she was met with a sight that immediately put her on edge.

Piltover enforcers, with weapons at the ready, marching towards them through the front lawn. Vi immediately raised her fists defensively, before Caitlyn stepped in front of her.

“Excuse me, what’s the meaning of this?” Caitlyn demanded. The enforcers turned to Cassandra instead.

“Councilor Kiramman, we’re here to ensure your safety, and to make sure that you stay put.” One of the enforcers said. Cassandra scoffed.

“My daughter asked you a question, but in case you did not hear it, I shall repeat it,” She said with a scowl. “What is the meaning of this?”

The enforcer looked at Caitlyn, then at Vi, and then back to the councilor. He took a breath, then holstered his weapon.

“Councilor, there’s been an attack on the academy.”

Immediately, Vi felt her heart lurch in her chest. She quickly took Caitlyn’s hand and looked into her eyes.

“They’re there.” Vi whispered to her girlfriend. Caitlyn’s eyes widened, and she turned toward her mother. Cassandra placed a hand on Vi’s shoulder, with an understanding look in her eye.

“Caitlyn, go out the back entrance. Don’t draw attention to yourselves. Save your family,” She said to Vi, before kissing her on the forehead, and then doing the same to her daughter. “Stay safe, please.”

“I will, mom.” Caitlyn called out to her, as Vi had already begun to pull her back into the manor, with increasing desperation in her actions.

Warwick wiped the blood from his claws onto the ground next to him as he took his place once again, and readied himself to launch at the glass once again. A crack had begun to form, but he was getting tired, and his body had begun to ache. But every time he looked at Powder, he felt energized once again and went right back to it.

His voice had gone hoarse from screaming at the top of his lungs, and so he had stopped. He dug his claws into the ground and was about to run at the glass once again when his ears picked up on the sound of something outside. Not just one thing, it was a group of things. It was the sound of metal stomping on the ground, quickly growing louder as they approached.

Warwick threw himself at the glass again. This time, it crunched underneath him, and the crack grew wider. A few more hits, he thought to himself, and he would be with his daughter. He shambled back to his starting place once more, the sound growing ever louder in his ears.

Another hit. More damage was done to the glass, but again, he couldn’t completely break through yet. But the sound was growing far too close, and Warwick began to pick up on something else too.

It was a mechanical noise, one that he thought he had heard before. It was then that his nose picked up on a familiar smell, one that brought back awful memories.

Shimmer.

Warwick froze for just a moment, and that's when he saw it. A monster, a mixture of chemicals and machines, stood in the doorway of the room. It let out a screech and began to move toward his daughter. Warwick felt like his chest was going to explode.

As it took a step toward her, Warwick reared back and struck the glass with all of his might. The glass cracked and splintered, but it wasn’t enough. He needed one more hit. With no time left to spare, he rushed back to the far wall, dropped to all fours, and sprinted toward the window. He leaped into the air with his claws spread to the sides. Warwick shattered the glass keeping him in the cage, and with a single bound, tackled the monster rushing toward his daughter. While the creature was fast, Warwick was faster, and he had everything on the line.

He plunged both of his claws into the machine’s glass exterior. When he felt the soft flesh inside, he latched onto it and ripped whatever was inside of it out as hard as he could. With a squeal, the creature that maybe once was human was torn out of the machine encasing it. Before it could scream any more, Warwick grabbed it by its spindly, decaying legs, and swung it into the nearby wall. When its head connected with the concrete, the screaming suddenly stopped, but Warwick wasn’t done. He sunk his claws into the creature’s chest, felt his fingers wrap around its ribcage, and then he pulled. Spurts of red and green oozed from the being’s chest, as Warwick felt his fur quickly become splattered with gore and hunks of flesh. His mouth began to water at the sight.

But then, he remembered why he was out here. Warwick turned his attention back towards his daughter, who laid on the floor, still unconscious.

“Powder?” He said to her. “I’m here. I’m here. I… I can… I can protect you.”

She didn’t respond. Warwick let out a whimper, then nuzzled her with his snout.

Another noise from the hallway caught his attention. He crouched over the unconscious body of his daughter, as he growled in the direction of the hallway. Right on cue, another one of those monsters appeared, accompanied by two more of those creatures. He barred his fangs, and let out a powerful growl.

“Stay away from her!” Warwick roared, his claws twitching in anticipation for the fight, as the creatures began to advance. “She’s mine!”

With one wide swipe, Warwick managed to catch two of them with the palm of his claw, sending them flying across the other. The third, however, darted toward him with an outstretched blade. While he was able to block it, the blade left cuts across his arms. Warwick let out a groan, before nabbing the creature that had just cut him by the arm. He yanked it in front of him, grabbed it by the other arm, then started to pull.

The chemicals in his veins pumped, and his eyes were wide with fury, as Warwick tore both of the creature’s arms off. Blood, sinew, and green ooze leaked onto the floor around him. It also sprayed the walls with red.

But his display of strength caught him at a disadvantage, as two of the creatures managed to take swipes at both of his sides. He let out a howl and staggered from the blows. Another hit landed, this time, across his chest. Warwick cried out in pain.

He couldn’t get overwhelmed. He had to fight. He had to protect her.

That thought carried him back to his feet, as he lunged on top of one of the creatures. This time, he didn’t even bother breaking the glass first. He snapped down on the dome, cracking it with his teeth, before latching onto the skull of the being inside. Warwick clenched his jaw as hard as he could, as the creature screamed in pain, before cutting out as a splatter of red coated Warwick’s mouth, neck, and chest. The meat in his mouth tasted delicious, but he couldn’t get distracted. There was still another one of those creatures in here. Warwick spat out the chunks in his mouth, then jumped back to his feet.

A blade slice struck him between the two vats on his back, causing Warwick to let out a yelp. He jumped around, a bit disoriented from the overwhelming smell of blood in the room around him before a flash of green came at him out of nowhere. This time, the blade sliced across his stomach. Warwick doubled over, then furiously bellowed. He was taking far too many hits, but as long as they weren’t hitting Powder, it was fine. It was frustrating, but fine.

Using the corpse of the creature he had just dispatched, Warwick grabbed it by the legs, then spun it around repeatedly, until he saw a flash of green. Then, he let go. The mechanical body slammed into the other creature, pinning it to the wall, giving Warwick ample time to dash over and rip the monster’s throat out.

Warwick stood there, somewhat out of breath. He coughed. Then, he quickly regained his composure and looked back at his daughter.

“Powder,” He said quietly, and as gently as he could in these current circumstances. “I’m gonna save you. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

He tenderly picked her up in his arms, careful not to scrape her skin with his claws. For a moment, he stared down at the defenseless girl in his arms and felt the hunger begin to creep back into his mind.

“No! Keep her safe!” He told himself, as he shook the feeling off. “Protect Powder. Protect her.”

Warwick clutched the girl close to his chest, then darted out of the room. He glanced back and forth and tried to use his nose to tell him which direction to go, but the scent of poison in the air was far too strong. Instead, he barreled through the laboratory’s hallways, still not sure of where he was.

He coughed again. The air was getting to him. He needed to get them out of there.

“Powder? Do… do you know how t-to g-get out?” He whimpered. She didn’t respond. Warwick whined, and squeezed her tight.

After a few more moments of running, Warwick found himself in a large, open laboratory, with large double doors. That had to be the exit, he thought to himself. With a sudden bit of hope springing in his chest, Warwick bounded toward the door.

He heard the sound of the gun loading far too late to react to it. Warwick suddenly felt a jolt rush through his body, as something struck him in the back. He immediately felt the strength leave his body, as he slumped to one side.

He turned his head back, to see someone holding a weapon, pointing it right at him.

“No, please,” He mumbled, as his eyes fluttered, and the coughing grew stronger. “I… I just- just want to h-help h-her.”

Another blip of pain, this time, on the other side of his body. His legs gave out from underneath him, but he managed to cradle Powder’s body from the fall. He turned over, pinning her underneath him in an attempt to shield her from whoever was attacking them.

Warwick’s vision grew hazy as the figure approached. He bared his teeth, and let out a ferocious growl, as his head began to droop.

“Powder… please, get… get up.” He whispered between growls, though he was quickly losing his ability to muster enough energy to even do that. Everything gave out, and he collapsed on top of his daughter, his head resting next to hers. With his last ounce of strength, he tried to hold her.

“I’m… sorry…” He whimpered into her ear.

Warwick felt his eyelids droop before they eventually closed and the darkness overtook him.

Sevika wiped her brow, as she took short, gasping breaths inside her breathing apparatus. Vander had managed to kill almost all the Chem-Tanks that Singed had supplied her with at that moment, which Sevika hadn’t expected to happen. Piltover had turned him into a killing machine.

But he was safe now.

Sevika rolled him off of the unconscious body of Jinx, then instructed the remaining Chem-Tanks to pick up Vander’s body. She hoisted Jinx’s body over her shoulder, and let out a grunt. Sevika wiped her eyes.

They had Vander back. He was safe. The thought filled her with joy.

She looked at him, the huge, terrifying creature covered in blood and chemicals, and clenched her jaw.

“We’re going to bring you back, Vander,” She whispered under her breath. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Chapter Text

Her head hurt. The first thing that came into her mind, as she woke up on the cold concrete floor, was that her head hurt. She must have had a nasty fall, Jinx thought to herself, as she rubbed her eyes.

At least, she tried to. As she reached her hand up toward her eyes, she found that her other wrist came with it. She blinked a few times, then looked down at her hands. Something was on her wrists. It took her a few moments to realize what they were, but when she did, she scrambled up to a sitting position.

They had turned her in. They had caught her, and turned her in, and how she was going to rot in Stillwater for the rest of her life. Jinx felt her heart begin to race, as that possibility rocketed through her mind.

“No,” Jinx mumbled to herself. “They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t do this to me.”

As her eyes adjusted, and the bleariness gently faded away, she came to realize that she wasn’t in Stillwater, which first came as a relief.

But as the green lights, purple vials, and large glass containers came into view, Jinx felt her heart begin to race once more, as she knew exactly where she was. The thought bounced around her head, as the lights in the room grew stronger and stronger, and every little noise began to overwhelm her ears. She tried to cover them with her hands, but the handcuffs were too tight, and she couldn’t. Soon, they began to dig into her skin as well.

She couldn’t get them off. Her heart was beating too fast, and she was trapped, and she couldn’t escape.

The tears began to run down her face, as her chest tightened, and she felt another one of her episodes coming on. Usually, she could figure out how to avoid an attack, but not here. Not in this place.

The memories of the injections flooding into her veins ripped through her head. She saw them even when she closed her eyes.

“No… no! Please, just let me be!” Jinx screamed as she kicked her feet together, and shook her head back and forth, trying to purge the horrendous mix of noises, feelings, and memories in her mind. “Stop it! Stop it!”

But she couldn’t stop it.

Nothing could stop it.

The sounds of his daughter’s screams ripped Warwick out of whatever drug-induced haze he was in. His eyes suddenly snapped awake, as his heart immediately began to pound, pumping whatever was left of the toxins in his system through his bloodstream. After a few more moments, his consciousness returned to him, and so did his awareness of his daughter’s screams.

Warwick looked around at his surroundings, hoping to find her. He was lying on the concrete floor of a cell, though he didn’t know where he was. The place felt familiar, though, which didn’t put him at ease. But he didn’t have time to worry about that, his daughter was hurting.

Warwick always knew that his bestial instincts came as a welcome advantage when he was hunting. They made him the best predator in all of Zaun. Better than a street thug, better than a crime lord, better than a chem-baron, Warwick was a better monster than all of them.

But ever since he learned that he was once something else, something human, his mind had begun to wonder about his instincts. Of course, he was a killing machine, but a part of him believed that there was something more to his existence than just bloodshed.

After spending the past couple of days around his daughters, Warwick began to realize that he was more than just a hunter. The feeling that he once felt for them as a human remained, even though he didn’t know it. And when he did know it, the beast began to feel those things too.

So when Warwick heard his daughter cry, it was not just the man inside of him that felt the urge to comfort her, it was the hunter too. After all, she was his daughter, and would always be, no matter what he became.

Warwick lunged toward the sound of her voice. However, with a sudden jolt, he was unable to move. He tried again and found the same result. Something was holding his wrists and ankles in place. He let out a growl and tried to pull, but the chains that held him to the wall were secured stronger than he could pull.

But his daughter needed him. He could see her. She was in the same cell as he was, just a few feet away from him. Warwick didn’t know if she had noticed him yet, as she was facing away from him, and she had her eyes closed. Her chest heaved with each muffled sob, as she curled up into a ball.

“Powder?” Warwick said, his voice quiet and low, as he tried not to startle her. “I’m here. Powder, listen, I’m here.”

Powder suddenly lifted her head, before she glanced up at him, still shaking. Her eyes were bloodshot, filled with tears, and barely able to meet his gaze, but he took comfort in the fact that he could see her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was a sob. She buried her face in her hands yet again. Warwick tried to reach toward her, but couldn’t get close enough to touch her.

“Pow-der, come… come here.” He whimpered, as he stretched as far as he could, occasionally thrashing at the chains, attempting to spring himself loose but to no avail. Powder wouldn’t move closer to him. He wasn’t sure if she could. A faint memory trickled into his head of times like this before. She often would get like this when she was worried, or tired, or scared, and he was always there to help her.

He needed to be there now, but he didn’t remember what to do. Warwick knew that there was something he always told her to do when she was having one of her episodes, and he used to do it with her, but he couldn't remember it.

Breathe. He would tell her to breathe.

“Powder, w- with me. Breathe, ok-ay?” Warwick told her. He took a deep breath in through his mouth, trying to be as loud as possible, as a way for her to hear him clearly.

“In,” He said as he inhaled, then kept the breath in his lungs for a few seconds, before releasing it slowly. “Out. With me.”

“In. Out.” Warwick said again. This time, Powder was able to wipe her eyes enough to pay attention to his breaths. She softly bobbed her head along with his breathing. Warwick continued for a few more times until he saw her chest begin to rise and fall in rhythm with his. Then, he reached out towards her once more, straining with all his might to try to reach her.

“Please, Powder, come here. Let me… hold you.”

His daughter slowly began to unfurl her arms and pull herself out of the ball she had twisted herself into. Warwick held his claws open wide for her.

“Th- that’s… it. Good.” He said while beckoning her closer, as he tried to encourage her by making his voice as soft sounding as possible, in order not to frighten her. Powder shakily began to move toward him with her left foot, before she suddenly stopped, and drew herself back into a ball once more. Warwick winced. He didn’t know why she was so afraid. He hoped that it wasn’t him that she was afraid of.

“It- it’s o- ok-ay… take your time,” Warwick said to her slowly. “I’ll be… here.”

He leaned forward as far as he could once again, to the point where the shackles digging into his skin began to hurt worse than before. He clenched his jaw and reached a claw out towards her.

“You… want to… take my… ha-”

Warwick stopped in the middle of his sentence and wondered why he almost said hand. He never had hands. Why would he say hand? Maybe the familiarity of this place was bringing back old memories, he thought to himself.

“Grab on. I’ll move you… towards… me.” Warwick told Powder, as he remained steady in his stance, despite how much it started to hurt his wrists. He blinked the pain away. Powder looked up at him with an uneasy look in her eye, before slowly reaching an arm out toward his claw. Warwick felt his tail begin to wag back and forth as her fingers wrapped around one of his. He gently wrapped his hand around her wrist, then grabbed her other arm, and carefully, while moving as slowly and as gingerly as possible, began to pull her closer to him.

As soon as he could, he wrapped his large, furry arms around his daughter, and pulled her into an embrace. Powder’s sobs grew louder, but she latched onto him tighter, and Warwick gently shushed her while patting her back with the underside of his palm.

“Shh… shh… you’re safe,” Warwick told her, as he began to gently rock her back and forth. “You’re safe.”

Warwick closed his eyes and tried to block out everything around him. She was his only focus. It didn’t matter where they were, or what they faced, he would be there to protect her. No matter what.

No matter what.

Vi couldn’t muster a scream that was loud enough to fully encapsulate what she was feeling. Anger, fear, frustration, and god knows what else, all billowing inside her mind, creating a storm that would never settle.

Enforcers had already swept the building in the hopes of locating Warwick, but Vi knew that it was a fruitless effort. He and Jinx were gone, and she knew it as soon as she walked into Viktor’s laboratory. It was like an awful, awful nightmare. The hallway leading to the observation chamber where they had kept Warwick seemed too long, too dark, and far too cramped. Blood, machinery, and strange green goo splattered against the walls. Upon entering the room itself, Vi immediately recognized a few things.

First, the machinery that she had seen in the hallway belonged to the group of creatures, or whatever those things were, that she and Jayce fought in the shimmer factory all those months ago. While they had been horribly smashed to bits, there was enough left of some of them for her to make the connection, then realize quickly afterwards that the only thing capable of doing that much damage to one of those creatures was Warwick. Her mind flashed back to the corpses she had seen in Zaun’s alleyways. His handiwork was nearly identical. Though, this scene was even more brutal than the murders were.

“Why? Why did he do this?” Vi muttered out loud, as Caitlyn held onto her arm. Her girlfriend’s eyes scanned across the room, and began to process it like a crime scene. Vi would have done the same but her mind was too cluttered to do so.

Caitlyn walked Vi around the room, careful not to step on any debris. She paused in front of the shattered observation window. Caitlyn turned her head to the side, and pointed at the glass behind them, in the center of the room.

“Most of the glass is in the observation room, not in the chamber itself,” Caitlyn explained, while not answering Vi’s initial question. “It looks like he broke himself out.”

“But why? He never wanted to break out before. He said it was… he said it was safer for him to be in there,” Vi said to Caitlyn, as she recalled the numerous conversations she had with Warwick in the days prior. Then, she pinched the bridge of her nose, and shook her head. “Where’s Viktor? He’s supposed to be in charge of this thing, maybe he knows what happened.”

“He’s still recovering.”

“Isn’t everyone else mostly fine by now?”

“Yes, but with Viktor’s health… it’s going to take him a bit longer to recover.” Caitlyn explained to her, while gently rubbing her arm.

“Well, is he awake? I want to talk to him.” Vi demanded, letting her anger show.

“He’s not,” A voice called out from the doorway. Vi and Caitlyn turned toward the sound, to see both Jayce and Mel standing there, escorted by two enforcers. Both of their eyes looked bloodshot, but they continued to hold steady. Jayce took a breath, then continued. “But we want to figure out what happened just as much as you do. Maybe we can help.”

“Viktor came to us in a hurry. He mentioned that he had a breakthrough with Warwick, and had discovered who was responsible for his creation. That there was a scientist in Zaun who he believed to have created Warwick.” Mel explained to them, her voice somewhat hoarse, but still full of strength. Before Vi could respond, Jayce turned to her with a pleading look in his eyes.

“Look… I don’t want to ask this of you, but would your sister know who this scientist might be? I know how dangerous she is, and how… unstable, she can be, and believe me, this is the last person I would want to get information from too. But if you-”

“No.” Vi cut him off, as she closed her eyes and clenched her jaw.

“Vi, she may be the only person who may know who created Warwick. Please, if you could just try to-” Mel began to say, before Vi shook her head, and took her girlfriend’s hand.

“I can’t get in contact with her,” Vi said, as her voice began to crack. “Because she’s gone too.”

Jayce and Mel lowered their eyebrows, as they both gave confused glances at Vi. Caitlyn looked down at her girlfriend with a concerned expression on her face. Caitlyn then opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. She looked down at Vi once again. Vi nodded up at her, and Caitlyn cleared her throat.

“Jinx helped us apprehend Warwick, and in the time that he has spent here, has accompanied him.” She told the two councilors, with caution and trepidation in her voice.

“And you omitted this information for what reason, Caitlyn?” Jayce asked, as anger began to creep into his voice. “You know, I would think that her involvement would be an important thing to mention.”

“You don’t understand, it’s more complex than that.” She snapped back at him.

“Let’s not do this, please.” Mel muttered under her breath, to Jayce’s annoyance.

“No, let’s do this. We can’t just have these… unsanctioned operations going on without council approval.”

“Aren’t you the one who nearly got kicked out of the academy for ‘unsanctioned operations’, Jayce?”

“Viktor and I discovered hextech,” Jayce said, fire burning in his eyes. “This is vastly different. We were doing research, not involving ourselves with international affairs, and harboring a—again, a terrorist—within the walls of the academy! Do you know what kind of risk that posed to every single person that entered this facility?”

“You have no right to talk about her that way!” Vi erupted, tears flooding out of her eyes, as she broke away from Caitlyn’s embrace. “She was ripped away from her family every time she had one, after one of your enforcers dragged me to Stillwater! She was used and manipulated by that bastard Silco for years! Then, when I finally fucking get out of that shithole prison, and I get a chance to help her, you stand in the way of that, too!”

Vi wiped her nose with the back of her fist. She sputtered through her tears, the rage burning inside of her erupting like a volcano, as she let it all out.

“She finds her father, and god forbid, finally has a productive goal in mind—one that will help both Piltover and Zaun, remind you—but you can’t see her as anything but some Zaunite gutter trash, can you?”

“She killed people, Vi!”

“So have you, Jayce!” Vi screamed. “You wanna talk about how many deaths you have on your hands, councilor?”

“Enough!”

Viktor’s voice cut through the argument like a lighthouse on a foggy cliffside, immediately turning everyone’s attention toward him. He let out a small cough, then leaned on his cane for support.

“Vi, if you want to duke it out with Jayce, there will certainly be time for it later on,” Viktor told her, as he shot a stern glare in her direction that actually managed to unsettle her. His bloodshot eyes were piercing, as they sat deep in his dark eye sockets. Viktor turned his glare towards Jayce, who also seemed to deflate. “And Jayce, a bit of advice. I’d recommend not starting an argument with a woman who has lost both her sister and her father at the same time.”

Before either of them could respond, Viktor continued speaking. He stepped into the destroyed observation room, ignoring the debris and machinery on the ground. Mel tried to support him with her arm, but he brushed her aside.

“Jinx’s presence here was essential to the integrity of the experiment. As long as she was here, Warwick was cooperative and docile. She also served as the only means to placate him if he did happen to lose control. I saw it happen with my own eyes,” Viktor explained to everyone, as he took a cursory glance at the scratch marks on the walls. “I wished to study it further, but we had more pressing matters to deal with at the time, such as the newfound discovery of who engineered the nightmare that Vander now finds his very existence to be.”

Viktor made his way over to the chamber controls, then stopped. He bent over and picked up a jacket from the ground. He glanced at Vi, and then held it out to her. Vi grabbed it, and without thinking, slipped it on and drew it around herself. It wasn’t as big on her as it was on Jinx, but it enveloped her just the same, and it reminded Vi of both her sister and Vander.

Two people who were now gone.

“The same man who created Warwick must have sent these mechanical creatures after them. I can explain the evidence I have and the reasons I have for making this conclusion at a later hour, but you all just have to put your faith in my deductions for the time being.”

“Who did this?” Vi asked Viktor, all of the energy now gone from her voice. He tapped his cane on the ground a few times, then cleared his throat.

“The man’s real name is of no use to us,” Viktor said. “Though, those who come to know of his work in one way or another refer to him as Singed.”

Warwick should have known that there was someone else in the room far sooner than he did. He was so focused on his daughter that he had blocked out all other stimuli until it was too late.

Until it was far too late.

“As hypothesized,” The man’s voice rang out from across the room, immediately grabbing Warwick’s attention and causing him to snap his head in that direction. “Subject #1088 failed to respond to the aerosol, but quickly was overcome by the effects of the sedative. Subject #1088 was unconscious for nearly three hours, only woken by the sound of Subject #1088-A’s screams.”

As Powder heard his voice, her body suddenly tensed, and she latched onto Warwick’s body tighter. He shielded her with his arms defensively, and peeled his chops back to reveal his teeth. Then, he let out a low, guttural growl, while glaring at the man.

He seemed unaffected by Warwick’s warning.

“Also as suspected, Subject #1088 failed to terminate the life of Subject #1088-A, despite having ample time and ability to do so. In fact, it seems to be attempting to comfort her.”

“Warwick…” Powder whispered, her voice shaking, and barely audible. Warwick stopped growling and turned his attention back to his daughter.

“Make him stop talking, please, make him stop talking.” Powder begged, as she tried to cover her ears once again. Warwick felt more rage build up inside of his chest, as he turned his attention back to the man across the room.

“What do you want!” Warwick shouted, his claws already twitching, ready for a fight.

“Subject #1088 seems to be somewhat coherent-”

“Answer me!” He bellowed, but still, the man failed to respond. Instead, he looked up from the paper that he was writing on, and approached the cage. Warwick’s growl turned into a snarl, as he pulled Powder into the back of the cage, as far away from the man as possible.

“Though its memory seems to be highly compromised, to the point where it doesn’t recognize me.”

“Stop!” Powder suddenly screamed. “Stop it! Stop it!”

“Interesting…” The man muttered under his breath, before reaching his fingers under the mask that he wore, and gently pulling it down his chin. Loose, rotting flesh flaked off his cheeks as he did so, causing Powder to let out another scream. Warwick’s eyes widened, as his grip on Powder loosened. His claws twitched faster, as his heart slammed in his chest.

The green lights in this room were familiar for a reason. They were the same lights that appeared in his memories, the ones that made him wake up screaming, but left him with nothing.

Now, Warwick stared at the reason for his nightmares, and found himself filled with an unrelenting, uncontrollable rage. 

“I…” Warwick began to say, before his voice shifted into a powerful roar. “I remember what you did!”

He let go of his daughter, brandished his claws, and lunged at the man. The chains tightened as he reached the end of them, but that didn’t stop him from attempting to swipe, claw, and bite at the man in front of him.

“At last,” Singed—Warwick remembered his name now, and every violent, awful memory that came with it—said to him, with a crooked, revolting smile. “The beast remembers the one who gave it life.”

Chapter Text

Sevika was frustrated, though she told herself that she shouldn’t be. 

Everything went according to plan. They rescued Vander, apprehended Jinx, and then brought them both back to Zaun, where they both belonged. Sevika was worried when the first dart didn’t immediately down the creature, but that fear subsided after the second tranquilizer took him out. She was glad that their encounter hadn’t gotten any worse than that.

The conflicted feeling in her gut began soon after she and the remaining chem-tanks dragged the bodies out of the academy, and into the system of tunnels. Something was off. This didn’t feel like a victory. She didn’t feel the rush of relief or retribution that she was expecting to feel. Maybe it would come later, she thought, after they restored Vander to who he truly was. Though, Sevika would play no part in that process, as per Singed’s orders. He required a distraction-free environment in order to do his work. As much as she didn’t like it, he was the scientist, after all. He knew what he was doing, and she didn’t.

Going into the fight, she wondered if she would be able to take on Vander. He had nearly killed her last time. But she had the element of surprise this round, which she hoped would even her chances.

But what played out made her feel like it wasn’t even a fight, let alone a fair one. She shot him twice, and he didn’t even have a chance to hit her once. In fact, he was far from aggressive towards her, which Sevika was not used to. Fights were better when blood was boiling on each side. There was no anger there, nothing to fuel her will to continue, to keep fighting.

Instead, she witnessed a distraught creature beg for mercy, while cowering over the body of the girl he raised.

That didn’t feel right.

Sevika knew what Piltover had done to him, and knew that what she was doing had to be right because it couldn’t possibly be wrong. She was saving Vander and saving Zaun too.

But still, seeing the way he protected that girl with his last breath, as he begged her to wake up didn’t make Sevika feel like what she was doing was right. In fact, it made her feel like she was in the wrong, which she hated. Sevika knew that she wasn’t a very moral person, and would do what she had to do to survive and ensure her own freedom no matter what it was.

She couldn’t get the look in his eyes out of her head. Despite how intimidating and dangerous he had tried to look, Sevika could only see the panic and fear in his eyes.

It was the same fear she had seen on that night all those years ago, when Silco captured the Hound of the Underground, and Vander watched Vi march her way down that catwalk, towards the men who easily should have outmatched her.

Sevika didn’t know what that look meant, all those years ago. Occasionally, she found herself thinking about his expression as he sat in that chair, unable to move, help, or do a single thing. She tried to chalk it up to cowardice at first, and then rage, but it was neither. So, she was left without an answer. That was, until she took over for Silco, and had her own group of people to look after, and could catch her own reflection in the mirror after hearing of the death of one of her men, and see the exact same look that Vander once wore, now on her face.

That look was one of love. It was the fear that came as a cost to caring about another person. Sevika had never seen it on her own father, so it was a foreign expression to her, but after all these years, she knew what it was.

And she had seen it again, merely hours ago, as Vander tried to protect one of his daughters once again. Sevika tried to convince herself that the expression wasn’t the same. The thing was a monster, it couldn’t show human emotions. It was simply designed to kill.

Though her mind and her devotion to her cause were convinced by that logic, her gut was not. She was nervous and jumpy about this entire situation, and it made her wonder if it had been a mistake, a thought that she immediately tried to suppress.

But then her heart chimed in.

“You’re just protecting your kids!”

“I’m protecting our people,” Vander said in response, after wincing from that remark. Sevika thought it was a bit of a low blow, but a valid point. His lack of action had been frustrating, to say the least. “I’d do the same for any one of you. We look out for each other, it’s the way it’s always been.” 

Sevika knew that his words were true. All throughout her entire life, she had known that man to be trustworthy. In fact, she trusted him enough to let him lead her into battle that day on the bridge.

But what was he doing now? This wasn’t what he was supposed to do in a time like this. He was a fighter, a rebel, a revolutionary, and not some Piltovian boot-licker.

“This will blow over. We just need to stand together.”

“The Vander I knew—the one who built the underground—wouldn’t be afraid to fight.” Sevika responded, as she rolled out her shoulders and took a step towards him. Her voice wasn’t angry yet, she was still dumbfounded enough by his lack of action to still be in shock. But her heart was pumping, and she could feel the rage building up in her veins.

She saw him tense at her words. Not quite a wince, not quite a flinch, but his entire face scrunched up like he had just smelled something awful. Maybe it was awful for him to hear someone directly question his authority like that. Good, Sevika thought, he was getting off track. He needed to be put back on the right one. He was the hero of the people, after all. Well, the people were calling for his help, and he refused to listen.

Vander took a step toward her. He placed his pipe to his lips, then took a drag. She found her eyes raising to meet his gaze. When he sat on the barstool, they were nearly equal in height. But as he stood up, Sevika had to stare through the top of her eyebrows at the man, who still remained somewhat hunched over.

Hunched over like a coward. He had the might to take them on again. It had been years, but Sevika knew that the man still had a fire burning in his chest. He could easily don his gauntlets once more and go toe-to-toe with any enforcer. Vander wasn’t doing what he was supposed to. He was a hero. He wasn’t a coward. He just had to remember that.

“Do I look afraid?” Vander asked, glaring right into her eyes. As he spoke, wisps of smoke curled on each word, filling the air between them with the scent of charred heat. His voice bordered on a growl.

“No,” Sevika said back, lightly raising her eyebrows as she closed the distance between the two of them. “You look weak.”

She kept her eyes locked with his. Neither of them dared to move. She had enough respect for him to call him out on this, but that respect was quickly fading. She wouldn’t waste her time on him any longer. Vander was just some washed-up relic of the past, some man who had gone soft with time.

Sevika wouldn’t let him. She would find a way to convince him to change his mind. If he didn’t then she would move on, but she didn’t want to. That man and his charming personality had guided her through life so far, giving her hope for Zaun’s future.

For her future. 

She had hoped to be standing right alongside him as they—and everyone else—ushered Zaun into a new age. She wanted to be his second in command, his partner, the one who could help their homeland regain its glory. The glory that she knew it could have, and the glory she saw in Vander every single day, as he spent every second tending to the needs of the people.

The glory she had begun to see in herself.

But not this day. Today, he was a weak old man, who had betrayed her, and every other person in Zaun.

She didn’t wait around to see how long he would be silent for, because any extended amount of time would hurt her more than she already was. Sevika wanted to scream at him, tell him to use his charming words to lead his people out of the danger they were in, yell hard enough to convince him to take up the fight once more, a fight for Zaun, a fight he once championed harder than anyone else.

But that fighting spirit was gone. When she finally accepted it, the burning flame she had held in her heart for that man extinguished as well. It was a long-held fire, and it was a hard one to put out, but his cowardice and inability to act had stomped out that burn once and for all.

Deep inside her chest, in an area she had closed off, fought off, and tried to forget about, Sevika felt something shift. She didn’t like it, and it made her feel weak and vulnerable, but she couldn’t ignore it. She had been ignoring the embers of that flame for nearly a decade now, but she couldn’t ignore it anymore.

She couldn’t ignore the match that had been flicked into her heart, reigniting the long-cold coals that went out that night all those years ago.

And she couldn’t ignore the message that her long-silent heart was telling her, that what she was doing wasn’t right. That none of this was right.

Sevika stood up from her chair, took a drag from her cigar, and clenched her jaw. With her heart thumping in her chest, finally beating again for the first time in years, Sevika took a stand with only one thing on her mind.

Vander.

Viktor’s head was pounding, but he pushed through it. He had no other choice, after all. It wasn’t like he could take a break during a time like this. Even if every part of his body was crying out for rest, he knew he couldn’t. He had an obligation to these people, and to the world as a whole to keep people safe. The reason for the existence of science, after all, was to better the lives of as many people as possible. If he couldn’t do that, then he wasn’t a true scientist. Inaction was often worse than action in precarious circumstances. He wouldn’t stand idly by and watch something like this happen.

“Singed?” Caitlyn asked. “Why have we never heard of this man before?”

“He was bankrolled by Silco,” Viktor said, then watched Vi wince at the name. “From what I know, he was instrumental in the creation of not only shimmer but various other chemical formulas as well.”

“Wait… the man who created Warwick was under Silco’s orders? He knew about Warwick?” Vi wondered out loud, a visible look of disgust creeping across her face. Viktor shook his head.

“I don’t know the answer to that question, I’m afraid.”

“If Silco knew about this, then did Jinx know as well?” Mel said as she turned to look at Vi and Caitlyn for answers. Vi shook her head back and forth.

“No. There’s no way.”

“She was Silco’s apprentice for-”

“I know, and I’m telling you that Jinx wouldn’t know,” Vi growled, as she clenched her fists in frustration. “She wouldn’t have let him do that to Vander.”

Jayce glanced at Vi, hesitated, then let out a slow breath of air. He looked like he wanted to say something, but was also already defensive about it. Vi caught onto his expression and raised an eyebrow.

“When was the last time Jinx was in contact with Silco’s operations? Is she still?” Jayce finally said, in a tone that showed that he was trying not to incite more arguments. Vi, however, wasn’t having any of it. Luckily, Caitlyn stepped in before Vi could say anything to him.

“No. She left all that behind after his death.”

“Are we sure?” Jayce asked. Vi turned away from him, unable to even look in his direction.  “Look, it’s incredibly suspicious that she’s been hanging around Singed’s super-weapon for the past few days, and now all of a sudden, they both go missing.”

“Singed’s ‘super-weapon’ is her father, Jayce. I kindly recommend that you remember that going further.” Mel warned him with a side-eyed glare in his direction, which quickly turned back to the rest of the group. Jayce closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, then licked his lips. Viktor hated seeing his friends get frustrated, especially with each other. It had been too long of a day. He understood that it had been hard, but it didn’t make it any easier to bear.

“Regardless, we need to figure out what to do next. Mel and Viktor, I know you weren’t on board with this idea earlier, but now there has been a direct attack on Piltovian soil. We have enough justification to send enforcers there and take him out, once and for all.” Jayce continued while looking around the rest of the room for support.

“Smart idea. Send a group of enforcers across that bridge, see what happens.” Vi muttered sarcastically loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Then what do you propose? Because I’m not hearing a single other suggestion here.”

“I go in there, find Singed, and then I kill him for what he’s done.” Vi said quickly, already cracking her knuckles, ready for a fight.

“You’ll be outmatched. If he has any more of those machines at his disposal, he will use them against you.” Viktor tried to warn her, but it didn’t seem to break through her tough exterior.

“I’ve fought those things before,” Vi said back to him. “I can handle them now.”

“You’re forgetting about the rest of Silco’s-”

“Sevika.” Caitlyn corrected.

“Sevika? Oh, the new leader of his operation. I forgot. My apologies,” Viktor said quickly. “Vi, you would be also facing off against the rest of the resources available to those people. You would be quickly outnumbered.”

“I don’t care. I have to save them.”

“Vi, I’m not letting you go in there by yourself. You won’t be able to do a single thing for them if you’re dead,” Caitlyn told her, then placed a hand on her shoulder. “I will go with you, and fight whatever I have to, but I won’t throw myself into a fight we have no possibility of winning. I won’t let you do that either.”

For a moment, the room was silent, as Caitlyn’s words gently faded into the air around them. Viktor looked down at the remains of the machines on the ground. Warwick had been incredibly effective against them, he thought to himself. He wished that his research hadn't been interrupted. That way, he could have been able to analyze the nature of his claws, and possibly determine what they were made out of.

“What about a negotiation?” Mel suggested, leaving the entire room stunned for a few seconds. Viktor, however, quickly recovered from that, as a slight smile began to creep across his face. She always had a tendency of doing that. Throwing out a completely absurd, outlandish suggestion, then drawing it together into a satisfying conclusion that would make total sense, upon viewed retroactively. Viktor stayed silent and waited for Mel to work her magic.

“A negotiation? Are you kidding me?” Vi snapped. Mel placed a finger to her chin and began to think.

“We have a hostage crisis of sorts, correct? Perhaps we can avoid conflict altogether.”

“I doubt that, and we don’t have time to put together a team of speakers to deal with that. If we don’t act soon, who knows what could happen to those two.” Jayce said. Mel tapped her chin a few times, then clasped her hands together.

“We have a team right here. If we can arrange an audience with Sevika, maybe we can convince her to return him to us.”

Viktor, despite the massive amount of confidence he held in his friend’s abilities, began to wonder if maybe she was gravely underestimating the gravity of the situation.

“First off, she would never meet with the majority of us,” Vi pointed out. “She hates my guts, she would hate Caitlyn because she’s my girlfriend and because she’s from Piltover. Then, she would hate Jayce because he’s from Piltover, and because of our attempt to destroy that factory all those months ago.”

“That leaves two of us.” Viktor muttered, then looked over at Mel, whose confident look told him that she had been planning to come to this conclusion all along.

“Exactly. Viktor, you have a history with this chemist, correct?”

“I do. A… not too cooperative history, but one nonetheless.”

“Along with that, you were born in Zaun. You have two connections that fail to immediately detract from our attempt at diplomacy.” Mel explained, which made Viktor’s chest tighten a bit. He wasn’t sure if he was the diplomatic type, especially against a person like Sevika, or Singed. He was a scientist, not a politician.

“As for me, I was not born in Piltover, despite my allegiance to the Medarda Clan. I was born in Noxus,” Mel mentioned offhandedly, though Viktor noticed her posture tighten as she said so. “Though I do reside in Piltover, and I am a member of the Council of Clans, perhaps I would be able to secure an audience with this… Sevika, character.”

“How would we do that? I’m not sure if she’s the type of person who takes appointments,” Caitlyn asked. “Along with that, how can we assure your security while in Zaun without enforcers?”

“We could ask the Firelights to accompany you. Ekko loves Vander as much as we do, he would do this for us.” Vi added as she began to seriously consider the idea. Jayce grit his teeth, obviously unhappy with the idea.

“Mel… this is-”

“A short-sighted, and possibly flawed plan?” She said before he could finish. “Yes, I know. But it’s a plan where we put the least amount of people at risk.”

“What if Singed has already turned Warwick against us? If he’s capable of doing this to all of these machines, then what could he do to us?” Jayce reminded them, then turned to Vi. “I know that it hurts, but we need to take that possibility into account. He’s not in his right mind, and I can’t have any one of us ending up hurt or killed by a possibility that we haven’t considered.”

Vi didn’t respond. Instead, her tough exterior cracked for just a moment, as the possibility settled in her mind. Viktor cleared his throat.

“If we need to subdue Warwick, I know of something that may be able to help,” He said while adjusting his collar. “It’s not a finished project, in fact, it’s far from even being a prototype.”

“I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’ll accept any help that we can get.” Caitlyn responded. Jayce and Mel nodded to that.

“I don’t want to kill him with some weapon you’ve created, Viktor.” Vi said quietly. Viktor immediately softened his expression.

“Not a weapon. More of a… helper,” Viktor told them, before turning on his heels and leading them back into his laboratory. He was a bit nervous about all of this, but he wouldn’t let it show. It was a desperate time, and it called for desperate measures. He had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and had to quickly, as time was not plentiful. Viktor led them to a large storage closet and then paused in front of it. “As I told you when I initially convinced you to allow me to examine Warwick, Jayce…”

Viktor pressed a few buttons on a panel next to the storage closet. The door rolled upwards into the ceiling, and the lights of the laboratory began to reflect off of a huge, rounded machine made of reinforced metal.

“Is that a… Sump-Bot?” Vi asked Viktor in confusion. He quickly shook his head.

“No. Well… maybe once upon a time, but not anymore. I commandeered the machine to serve a greater purpose. With as powerful as those golems are, I felt like their abilities had been squandered in the depths of the Sumps.”

“You didn’t tell me about this.” Jayce said to Viktor, a bit of confusion in his voice as well. Viktor gave him a half-hearted smile.

“I didn’t want to bother you. I know how much you have on your plate, and I didn’t want to add to it.”

“Viktor, you’re my friend,” Jayce said gently. “You don’t add to my plate.”

Viktor took a few moments to bask in that statement, before returning his gaze to the hulking machine that stood in the storage closet.

“The golem is fully autonomous, nearly indestructible, and created with only one goal in mind. Protect people. Now, I need to do quite more testing, as I haven’t ironed out all of the technical issues yet, but this is as good of a time to test as ever, yes?”

“I appreciate the assistance, Viktor, but that still doesn’t answer my previous question,” Caitlyn reminded him, as she bit her lower lip and crossed her arms. “How are we going to get an audience with Sevika?”

With a smirk, Vi tapped her girlfriend on the shoulder, a slight twinkle in her eye.

“I think I have an idea.”

Sevika wasn’t the type of person who got startled easily. She was the type of person who prepared for nearly every circumstance, and if she found herself in a situation where she didn’t have direct control over the outcome, she often removed herself. She knew what she wanted, what she needed, and what had to be done.

However, when the large glass window overlooking the nation of Zaun, situated right over her desk, suddenly shattered, Sevika found herself suddenly woefully unprepared for what was about to come next. Instinctively, she leaped over her desk, then rolled under it for cover. The first thing that came to her mind was an assassination attempt. If that was the case, she felt sorry for the son-of-a-bitch who was attempting to take her out, because if they thought she was going down without a fight, they were mistaken.

Two streaks of light buzzed past her and headed straight toward the door to her office. Sevika threw her mechanical arm to the side, extending her blade, ready for the oncoming attacks.

Before she could, however, another streak of light flew past her. This time, it landed in the middle of her office. Two figures stood on the hoverboard.

One of the masked figures she recognized as one of the Firelights. She was a bit surprised that they would take the initiative to come assassinate her, but with everything that had happened in the last few weeks, it didn’t take her off guard.

However, the second figure, who Sevika didn't immediately recognize, completely took her off balance. Sevika stood up quickly and held her blade out as a warning to the woman.

She didn’t waver. She brushed a loose lock of hair away from her face, then composed herself. Sevika raised her eyebrows at the woman’s presence before she began to speak.

“Sevika, I presume?”

“Who the hell are you, and what makes you think you can just barge in here like this?” Sevika growled. “My men will be here in seconds, and I’ll have your head a few moments after that.”

The woman remained stoic once again. Sevika didn’t try to show her surprise that her threats failed to work on the woman, but a portion of it must have slipped through and shown on her face. The woman adjusted her shiny, golden collar, and then reached out a hand.

“My name is Councilor Mel Medarda. A few hours ago, an attack occurred at the academy in Piltover. We have reasons to believe that the chemist you have on retainer, Singed, is responsible for the attack. Now…”

The councilor raised her hand higher in the air, in an effort to have Sevika shake it.

“If you know what’s good for you, and the rest of the nation of Zaun, I think it would be a good idea for you to sit down and talk this out. Specifically, in regards to the creature once known as Vander, and what plans you and your organization has for him.”

Sevika stared at her, completely in shock, her mouth left open with not a single word on her tongue. The councilor smiled.

“I’ll take your silence as agreement,” She said, before sitting down in one of the chairs in front of Sevika’s desk. “Now, let’s get to talking. I’m sure that you’re a busy woman, and so am I, and I’d like to be mindful of both of our schedules.”

Chapter Text

“You gave me nothing!” Warwick bellowed. Spittle flew from his mouth as his chest heaved with the power of his words. His muscles flexed as he continued to pull at the chains restraining him. All he wanted to do was kill Singed.

Maybe, Warwick could have found a bit of the man he once was deep in his chest and could have restrained himself. Maybe he could have turned him over to the Piltover, and let him rot in Stillwater for the rest of his life. Though it wouldn’t be satisfying, maybe it was the right thing to do.

But he hurt Powder.

At that point, even Vander would have wanted to tear him limb from limb.

Singed tilted his head to the side. He opened his mouth to speak, flecks of skin moving and swishing back and forth as he did so.

“I gave you everything. I gave you life. I gave you claws,” Silco said to him, before flicking his fingers back and forth to mimic Warwick’s metal appendages. “You should be thankful.”

“Zaun gave me claws long before you did!” Warwick snarled. “I’ll tear you apart!”

Singed took a step back from the cage and straightened his stance. He ignored Warwick’s threat and then picked up a piece of paper. Singed began to furiously take notes.

“Control test completed. Now, onto stage two.” Singed muttered under his breath. Warwick relaxed in his chains, then backed up until he was standing over Powder. He felt her arms wrap around his leg. He looked down at his daughter, who could barely even look up at him. She was terrified. Warwick would kill him for making her afraid. If he thought that he could get away with doing this, he was dead wrong. Warwick was a beast even before he became a monster.

Nobody would ever hurt his family ever again.

He crouched down next to her and wiped the tears from her eyes with his knuckle.

“Powder…” Warwick softly whispered, dropping the aggressive persona that he had shown Singed just moments earlier. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Before Powder could respond, Singed cleared his throat, then clasped his hands together. Warwick stood in front of Powder and blocked her from his view.

“Originally, I wished to run this experiment over the course of several days, but I fear that I do not have the luxury of time on my side. But it shouldn’t take long.” Singed told him. Warwick tracked him with his eyes, not daring to move away from his daughter.

Just then, Warwick felt Powder’s hand reach up, and take one of his claws with her finger. He carefully let her do so, while still paying attention to the chemist.

“I originally thought of you as a failed experiment, though now I know that you’ve exceeded every one of my expectations. Though the activating force—death, of course—was something I once actively fought against, now… I realize just how important it is.”

Warwick felt a gentle tug on one of his metal claws. Then, something began to scrape against the claw. Back and forth, like a sawing motion.

“Don’t turn around,” Powder whispered in the quietest voice that she could muster, though Warwick’s highly sensitive ears could hear her well. “Just keep listening.”

He didn’t react to her words. Singed didn’t hear her.

“I thought I killed every part of Vander that was left in you. He was resilient, I will give him that. He lasted longer than anyone else I attempted the procedure on. But, after all those hours, I thought for sure that his mind was gone. I was wrong. A bit of him remained, and continues to remain inside your head, Warwick.”

Singed put down the piece of paper he was holding, then stared right into Warwick’s eyes.

“What does it feel like, living as an echo of your former self? Is he still in there, fully conscious, but forever trapped inside the beast? Or, are you a monster with memories you can’t possibly comprehend, with feelings and impulses you can’t possibly understand?”

Warwick kept his glare on Singed, though the words were making him uncomfortable. Powder continued to saw back and forth. Warwick could hear the slightest jingle of her handcuffs clanking together, and he suddenly knew what she was doing. She was cutting out of her restraints. He wanted to break out into a laugh from how smart his girl was, but he wouldn’t. He needed to buy her time.

“For instance, Powder,” Singed said. Warwick tensed up at her name and tried to remain calm. “You think you love her, don’t you?”

Warwick growled in response, but Singed continued.

“You’re not a man anymore. You aren’t capable of love. Perhaps you are… possessive of her. Territorial, even. But it’s not love, as only good men can love, and you are a beast.”

“I love her,” Warwick snarled back at him, unable to stop himself from responding by now. “I… I am not a- a good man… but I h- have a good… heart.”

Singed took a step closer to the cage. There was a hint of frustration in his eyes, but not enough for him to be unsettled.

“Well, then I am sorry that the ghost of the man you once were has deceived you,” He said slowly. “But you won’t have to worry about that any longer.”

As Singed took a step away from the cage once more, Warwick heard a quiet, metallic tink behind him. Powder exhaled.

“I’m free. I’ll figure out how to get us out.” She whispered again. Before Warwick could respond, Singed picked up the piece of paper once again and began to read from it.

“Stage two entails the total removal of the man known as Vander from Subject #1088’s psyche. In order to fully optimize the capabilities of said subject, all memories, instincts, and remnants must be cleared.”

Warwick felt his heart begin to race at his words. He didn’t know if he understood them completely, but he was terrified by them anyway. He knew that he wasn’t Vander anymore, but he liked those memories. They had once filled him with hope, and now, they let him remember who he once was.

Those memories let him remember his daughters.

“As seen in my previous research, the chemical solution that flows through Subject #1088’s veins severely impair its cognitive abilities. However, the effect is only temporary, once the adrenaline has left its system,” Singed began to say, as he made his way over to the side of the cage, where a panel sat. Warwick bared his fangs, and let out a growl. “To make the effect permanent, Subject #1088’s adrenal glands must be stimulated at all times.”

Suddenly, Warwick felt a searing pain course through his body from each of the shackles. He let out a painful yelp, as every muscle in his body seized up. Slobber formed in his mouth, and he felt the vats on his back begin to whir. It felt like fire, creeping over every inch of his skin, tunneling into him deeper and deeper every moment.

“The easiest way to achieve this is through pain.”

“Stop it!” Powder suddenly screamed, after crawling out from underneath Warwick. “Let him go, don’t do this to him!”

“Ah, right on cue, Subject #1088-A,” Singed said to her, as Warwick continued to trash and scream under the electric shock. “The role you play in this experiment should come soon.”

“I’m not helping you, you monster!”

“The choice isn’t yours. In order to optimize Subject #1088’s performance, all unnecessary distractions and ties must be removed. As long as you are alive, you remain a distraction, and you invoke his parental instincts. He will stop at nothing to ensure your safety, which is detrimental to our mission.”

“He’s my father, not some- some weapon!” Powder cried as she turned her gaze back to Warwick. The huge beast curled in on himself, whimpering and crying out in agony.

Singed took one glance at him, then looked back at her.

“It is not your father. Its paternal instincts are a flaw, and flaws must be removed. But, due to how deeply embedded in his mind that flaw is, any action I took against you would remain burned into Subject #1088’s consciousness forever. If I was to kill you, or if anyone else was to kill you, it would never stop hunting your killer.”

Singed turned the dial on the control panel higher, and Warwick screamed, thrashing harder than before. Powder shrieked in terror.

“But, if the beast was to kill you, then there would be no one to fight. There would be no more paternal instincts either, as you would be gone, and it would be Subject #1088’s doing.”

Powder let out another horrified scream, as the tears welled up in her eyes once again.

“P- pl- plea- se… I… I w- won’t…” Warwick struggled to say under the immense amount of pain he felt. The vats churned harder, pumping his body with more and more chemicals, sending his body into overdrive. The harder that his heart began to beat, the stronger he felt, and the less pain he felt as well.

But the hunger was back, and it had returned in a far more powerful form. Warwick fought it off with every last ounce of his being. He pictured every good memory, every single thing that tied him back to the man he once was, but they were fading quickly.

Only to be replaced by vast, unending hunger.

“Pow-der!” Warwick cried out in vain, as he looked at the girl, cowering in the corner of the cage they were trapped in. His vision was hazy, and he didn’t know if it was from tears or bloodlust.

Warwick tried to remind himself of who she was. She was Powder, his daughter, the girl he loved more than anything in the world. She was his heart, his hope, his reason for continuing to fight.

Then, the pain increased, and so did the chemicals. He was choking on his own slobber now, with no control over his body. He tried to turn his attention to Singed, and focus his anger in that direction.

As the thought came to him, he lunged toward him, frothing and snarling like a feral beast.

“Hurting… you…” Warwick bellowed, reaching his claws out toward the bars of his cage. Singed was prey, he tried to convince himself. It would be difficult to get to him, but he was the prey here, not… not…

Her name. 

Warwick didn’t know her name. His daughter, the girl he loved more than anything in the world.

Her name was gone.

Warwick glanced at her for just a moment, in an effort to try to make the memories come back, but nothing happened. Everything hurt too much, and he was far too hungry. Something inside of him wanted to fight it off, but he didn’t know why.

Bloodlust made him stronger. He was a hunter, after all. Why wouldn’t he want to be the strongest predator?

Why was he focusing on the man outside the cage, when he could go after the prey already inside of it? She was much closer.

“No!” Warwick howled, as he wrenched his head away from the terrified girl in a sudden flash of clarity. He couldn’t hurt her. No, she was his… she was his…

He didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t prey. Something told him that he wasn’t prey. She was off-limits, despite how infuriating it was.

“Warwick, please!” The girl suddenly screamed. A strange, familiar agony, separate from the pain that coursed through his veins, burned in his chest. He had felt this pain before, back in the Sumps of Zaun.

Why was it there? Why had it returned?

Why wouldn’t it let him hunt?

“Plans?” Sevika asked the councilor, still trying to regain the confidence and cool-headedness that she always held. “What the hell do you mean, plans? We’re going to fix what you people did to him.”

Mel raised an eyebrow at that. Sevika clenched her fists.

“What our people did? What do you possibly mean by that?”

“If you think you can just come in here, break into my territory, and then try to play coy with me, you’re dead wrong.”

“I’m not playing coy,” Mel clarified, still keeping her tone intact. “I’m genuinely asking. What did we do to Vander?”

Sevika slammed her fist down on the table. A few of the Firelights flinched, but Councilor Medarda. She remained stone-faced the entire time.

“You people destroyed him. You took his body to one of your ‘centers of knowledge’ or whatever, corrupted him beyond recognition, then sent him back here to kill us,” Sevika growled, before looking Mel in the eyes. “Do you know how monstrous that is? Do you know how disgustingly vile that is? Vander was our leader, our living legend, and you…”

Sevika took a deep breath. She was getting worked up. She could deal with anger, but this was bleeding over from anger into something else, which she wasn’t a fan of.

“You sent him against us.”

For a moment, the councilor had no response. She sat there, without saying a word, as she examined the look on Sevika’s face. Then, her eyes widened, and she put a hand over her mouth.

“Oh my…” She muttered under her breath, before she straightened up, and looked Sevika right in the eyes. “You don’t know. You really don’t know, do you?”

Sevika crossed her arms. This woman was getting on her nerves. She couldn’t nail down exactly what her strategy was, which was infuriating. Sevika would just have to adapt on the fly.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sevika, Piltover had no involvement in the creation of that creature,” Mel said, her voice suddenly full of concern, and almost pity, for Sevika. “I swear with every ounce of my being, we had nothing to do with this.”

The sudden change in attitude threw Sevika off balance once again.

“Why should I take your word for it?” She asked defensively, though a seed of doubt had begun to grow in her mind. It had already been there, but the councilor’s reaction had watered it, and let it grow. Now, it was on the verge of blossoming.

“Don’t take my word for it, take his. Ask him what happened. If we were to blame, he would have no reason to lie at this point. You already have him back in Zaun, right? In order to keep him safe?”

“This is his home,” Sevika told her. “He’s safe here.”

“Exactly. So, why don’t you go ask?” Mel challenged, the confident spark returning to her eyes. “If you don’t fear the truth, I see no issue with asking for it.”

Sevika closed her eyes. Singed had told her that Piltover had done this to him. That Piltover had turned Vander into a monster, and let him loose among the people of Zaun. Sevika had worked with that man for years, and she found it highly unlikely that he was lying.

Highly unlikely, yet not impossible. She didn’t want to believe it, but there was always the possibility that he wasn’t being truthful.

But she didn’t know. She didn’t want to waste her time answering the inquiries of some Piltovian, but if it meant that she could get her off her back, then so be it.

“Fine,” Sevika said, as she dusted herself off. “I’ll ask him. But you’re coming with me.”

“That’s what I assumed.” The councilor said as she stood up from her chair. One of the Firelights cleared their throat, and took a step toward Mel, then stopped after meeting Sevika’s glare. Mel noticed this and nodded.

“I assume that you won’t let any of the Firelights accompany me.”

“Correct. Just you and I.”

“What about one?” Mel suggested. “You have your men posted everywhere. I only think it’s fair to allow one of the Firelights to come with me, for my own protection.”

Sevika let out a snort, amused by her suggestion.

“If you think that one of your Fightlights would give you even the slightest bit of an advantage, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.”

“Perhaps.”

Sevika stared at the two of them for a few moments, then finally exhaled. She waved her hand in the air, then beckoned them to follow her. The trio loaded themselves into the elevator, with Sevika in the back. She pressed a button, and the elevator began to descend.

“Any sign of funny business from either of you and I take both of you out.” Sevika warned.

“There will be no ‘funny business’, I can assure you of that.” Mel responded, with a note of tiredness in her voice. The Firelight next to her shifted.

“What’s your name, kid?” Sevika asked. He didn’t say anything at first until Mel gently touched his shoulder.

“Ekko.” He responded. Sevika closed her eyes for half a second, as she tried to place that name in her memory. It sounded familiar.

“Wait… weren’t you Benzo’s boy?”

At the mention of his name, Ekko let out a sigh and rolled out his neck.

“Once was,” He muttered. “'Till Silco killed him.”

Before Sevika could say a word, the door to the elevator opened. The three of them stepped off, and into the short, dark hallway that led to Singed’s laboratory. It was normally empty, but tonight, it was lined with Chem-Tanks, all facing toward them. Immediately, Ekko threw himself in front of the councilor.

None of them moved.

Sevika glanced at the machines and lowered her eyebrows. That was strange, she thought. The Chem-Tanks were never out of his laboratory, just standing in the hallway like this.

Sevika brushed past Ekko and Mel, and made her way toward the door. As she did so, each of the Chem-Tanks began to move, and block her path. She scowled and cocked her head to the side.

“Move.” She told one of them. The creature inside did not respond. That shouldn’t happen. She was in charge here, they had to listen to her. Sevika clenched her fists and stepped closer.

“I said move. That’s an order.” Sevika told it, as she stepped closer, and attempted to push past the Chem-Tank. It didn’t budge. She pressed harder, but still, the large machine failed to move. Suddenly, she was struck in the stomach by a large, heavy blow that knocked her backward. She let out a groan, then snapped her head back up in time to hear a scream erupt from Singed’s laboratory, alongside a horrible, painful howl.

Sevika felt the pit of doubt erupt in her head.

Why would Singed be blocking her path? Why would he insist on keeping his process a secret, with no visitors? Why did he need Vander back so badly?

Most of all, why did she feel so uneasy about this entire process?

Sevika knew why. It was because Singed had been lying to her from the very beginning.

That was a mistake. A big mistake. The very thought of it filled her with unrelenting rage. Singed had been experimenting, tormenting, and torturing Vander this entire time, and she hadn’t even seen it. It had been right under her nose the entire time. 

She had been played like a fool, though she was no fool, and would not stand for being treated like one.

Sevika readied her blade, and grit her teeth.

“I’m going to assume that you have backup?” She yelled behind her to Ekko and Mel, who nodded. Mel took a step backward into the elevator.

“Get them,” Sevika said, then readied herself to fight alongside Ekko, who hopped on his board and readied his staff. “And get them quickly.” 

Jinx peeled her gaze away from the thrashing, violent beast that attempted to throw himself at her. She looked at his wild, frenzied eyes for any hint of the man that once was there, but failed to find anything.

Maybe she could stop the pain. If she could stop Singed from hurting him, she could return him to normal. Jinx glanced at the control panel where Singed stood. It was close. Maybe she could reach it through the bars of the cell.

But she had to move fast. Warwick was tough, but she had no idea how much longer he could last.

Jinx, in the flash of a second, darted across the side of the cell towards Singed. Her pink eyes glowed in the dim green light as she reached a hand through the bars and struck Singed in the arm, knocking his hand away from the controls. He slipped backward and cradled his arm with his hand.

“You idiotic child!” Singed shouted at her, unable to control his contempt. “Don’t you see! This experiment must be continued!”

Jinx didn’t say a word in response. Instead, she turned down the dial. Suddenly, Warwick stopped thrashing. Jinx turned back around, expecting him to be fine, and instead saw the still ferocious beast reaching toward her. He needed more time, she thought to herself.

Just then, something slashed across her arm, and she cried out in pain. Singed pried her fingers off the control panel with his left hand and held the bloody knife in his right. Jinx drew her hand back into the cell and placed her hand over the cut.

Warwick froze, then sniffed the air. His eyes went wider than before, as he let out a roar.

“Blood!” He screamed, then began to reach toward her with his claws. Jinx felt her heart racing as she scooted away from Warwick, and placed her back against the cell. Singed let out a laugh.

“Now you’ve done it. The monster has the scent of your blood,” Singed began to say, as Warwick’s chains creaked under the pressure they were under. “It can’t possibly fight off its bloodlust anymore.”

Jinx stood back up and looked back at the control panel. She placed the bleeding wound into her mouth, and let the blood slowly fill it. It was gross, metallic, and made her feel like throwing up, but she had a plan.

She stared Singed right in the eyes and then spat at him. Red splattered across his face and chest. He backed away in disgust and tried to wipe it off.

That’s when she struck. Jinx eyed a button on the far side of the control panel. Her arm swept through the bars of the cage. She balled up her fist and slammed it down on the button.

With a hiss, the chains that held Warwick released.

Jinx, sensing that the beast was now free, and rapidly approaching her, had to react quickly. She ducked to the side, just in time for Warwick’s claws to scrape through the metal where she just stood. She saw him take a moment to look for her before his nostrils flared, and he turned his attention toward Singed, now covered in her blood.

Jinx held her breath and covered her mouth with her hand. She couldn’t get his attention. In order for this to work, he needed to focus on Singed. It was easy to stay still, however, as she began to feel a bit dizzy. She looked down at her arm and winced. There was too much blood coming out of her wound. She was no doctor, but it looked bad. If she couldn’t get out of here soon, she didn’t know what would happen. But she couldn’t break through these bars.

Luckily, the beast could.

Warwick’s claws sliced through the bars of the cage like butter, as his chem-induced frenzy drew him toward the scent of blood. He wrapped his claws around the bars, and then pulled them apart. The metal twisted and snapped under the pressure of his immense strength.

Singed didn’t even have time to run.

Warwick caught up with him instantly. With a roar, he plunged his metal claws into the chemist’s back. Singed screamed in agony. Jinx saw the metal protrude through his chest, and she winced. Warwick held him in the air, saliva dripping from his mouth, as he grabbed his legs with his other claw, and began to pull.

Singed screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Jinx kept her mouth covered, and continued to try to hold her breath, but it was useless. She gasped in horror as she began to hear a ripping noise.

Warwick, with one final jerking motion, tore the chemist in half.

Ekko and Sevika made the first few strikes. Sevika slashed at the closest one of the Chem-Tanks quickly, knowing just how fast those machines could move. After her first attack, she raised the blade defensively and parried the new couple rounds of claw attacks that were thrown her way.

Ekko, on the other hand, took a far more acrobatic approach. He stomped down on his hoverboard and was suddenly spiraling through the air with ease. His staff cracked against the dome of one of the Chem-Tanks, and a brightly glowing green gas erupted from it, suddenly plunging him into a cloud of green smoke. Ekko coughed and sputtered, giving another Chem-Tank enough time to grab his board and send him spiraling to the ground. He hit the concrete floor hard but regained his balance quickly. He swung his staff from side to side, easily slamming it into the chest of the nearest Chem-Tank to him. He dodged another swipe from one of the machines, and then another.

But then, one of the Chem-Tanks charged forward, slamming into him, and knocking him to the floor. Before he could reach out for his staff, the machine pinned him to the ground and raised a sharp, mechanical weapon above his chest.

Then, with a loud crunch, it stopped.

A large, faintly blue glowing hammer sat in place of the Chem-Tank’s head, as the machine went still above him. As it toppled over, Ekko saw the face of Jayce Talis, a man he hadn’t ever met, but had heard more than enough about. One day, he would properly introduce himself, Ekko thought, but today was not that day.

Warwick pulled on the man’s body, finding an inner strength that he hadn’t been able to muster before, hard enough to rip him in half. It was a build-up of everything.

His humanity, gone.

Every hope, dream, and wish he once had, gone.

Every moment he could have had with his sons, gone.

Every moment he could have had with his daughters, gone.

Everything, gone.

Singed had taken everything from him, and so what Warwick felt in that moment wasn’t just anger, or fear, or retribution. 

It was satisfaction to the highest degree. There was so much blood, and it sparked his senses like a wildfire. Warwick dug into the man’s torso with his fangs, ripping and tearing out everything that he could. He tossed his lower half to the side, splattering bits of muscle, flesh, bone across the inside of the cage. Blood sprayed from the corpse, coating the entire room with crimson.

Warwick wanted it all.

The man continued to twitch slightly as Warwick hollowed out his insides, feeding the deepest hunger he had ever felt in his entire life. It felt incredible to finally be sated.

But he wanted more.

He always wanted more.

Then, a quick, sharp gasp from the other side of the room caused Warwick’s ears to perk up. His head snapped in the direction of the noise. There she was. The meal he hadn’t gotten to earlier, coated in blood, waiting for his arrival.

With his mouth still full of the chemist’s flesh, Warwick darted into the cage. He’d have two meals by the end of the night. She was an easy target, too. Cornered, horrified, and defenseless. Warwick didn’t know why he didn’t go after her in the first place.

The hunger was too strong for him to stop himself. 

Her screams failed to cut through his bloodlust.

“Dammit, get back!” Vi shouted as she rushed toward the door to Singed’s laboratory with Caitlyn in tow. Sevika stared at her in disbelief but stepped aside to let her pass without saying a word. Vi ignored the woman for the moment. She had bigger issues to deal with, and the screaming from inside that room was causing her heart to pound harder than she had ever felt in her entire life.

It was Jinx’s cries. Vi recognized them, and never wanted to hear her cry out like that ever again.

She powered up her hextech gauntlets, and then reared back, raising her fists high above her head. She brought them down upon the heavy metal doors, and they quickly crumpled underneath the force of her strikes. With one final kick, the doors flew open, and Vi dashed inside, quickly scanning the room for her sister.

Instead, the first thing she saw was a corpse of a man, sitting in two parts on the concrete floor, bathed in green light and blood. He was facedown on the floor, but Vi could see a huge, gaping opening in his chest that looked far too similar to the murders she had investigated just over a week ago. The entire room looked like a nightmarish menagerie of flesh, blood, and claw marks.

Then, she saw Warwick, standing in a cage in the back of the room. His mouth, claws, and upper body were all coated in crimson, and as he lifted his head to investigate who had just entered the room, Vi saw her.

An unmoving flash of blue buried under a mess of red.

Vi felt her heart stop, as every sound in the world disappeared. There was nothing. There was nothing else. She tried to pull her eyes away from the sight, but she couldn’t. Instead, she was forced to grab her head with her hands, and manually turn her face away from the horrific sight.

This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening.

“Vander!” Vi screamed at the monster, her entire body shaking in disgust, fear, and agony. “What have you done?”

Chapter Text

He loved her with his entire heart. From the moment that he saw those two girls on the bridge, Vander knew that he would protect those two with everything he had. He would protect them with his life if it came down to it. And when it did, he fulfilled that prophecy.

Even after death, Vander—now the monster, Warwick—tried to protect them. Though, it was harder than before. His mind was scrambled. He wasn’t human anymore. He was a beast, with claws, fangs, and an unquenchable hunger for blood.

But Powder saw through that. She always had. She saw Warwick for what he truly was, or, at least what he wanted to be, from the first moment that she saw him. She looked the beast in his eyes, recognized him, and called out to him by name.

She thought he could be good, and for a while, Warwick believed that he could be. He tried. He tried really hard to be who Powder thought he could be, to be the man that Powder, Vi, and Ekko once knew. He was getting better, and maybe, just maybe, beginning to be good.

Now he could taste her blood in his mouth, and her body sat underneath him. As Warwick tried to get a grip on himself, as he fought off the bloodlust, he began to process the sight.

There was his daughter, Powder, laying on the cold concrete floor underneath him. He knew it was her, though the guts, blood, and entrails that covered her body made it hard to see.

Warwick could taste her blood in his mouth.

His daughter.

Warwick felt his heart begin to race again, as he could hear his heartbeat begin once more in his chest, drowning out all other sounds around him.

“P… Pow- Pow… der?” Warwick whimpered, as his entire body began to shake at the sight of her body. “Pow-der?”

He dropped to the ground next to her, and took her head between his claws, and gently shook it back and forth. It was far too loose, far too relaxed. Warwick let out a scream.

“Powder! No! Please… I… Powder!”

He couldn’t hear her breathing. He couldn’t hear her heart beating.

Another scream rose in his chest as he looked down at his claws, and saw that they were coated with her blood. His daughter’s blood.

He killed her. He killed his own daughter.

Tears pooled up in his eyes as he let out another scream. He kept screaming and screaming until the air left his lungs and his throat was raw.

“Vander!”

A voice cut through the air of the room like a knife, as he turned to the sound, only to see his other daughter, Violet. Her face has scrunched up into a fearful look that Warwick had seen before, and it hurt him now even more than it did then.

“What have you done!”

“I… I…” Warwick sobbed, his entire body shaking, and his lower lip quivering under the weight of his anguish. “I didn’t… I didn’t try to…”

There were others in the room now, quickly following in after his daughter. He saw their eyes on him and could see their fear. Every single one of them looked at him like he was a monster.

Which, after all this time of trying to fight it, Warwick knew he truly was.

He was nothing but a monster. He would never be any more than that.

Warwick had killed the only one who believed he wasn’t just a beast, and now he knew that he would never, ever, be anything more than what they all believed him to be.

With tears in his eyes and his claws shaking uncontrollably, Warwick threw his head back and howled.

“Just… stay calm, Warwick, stay- stay calm.” Vi told him, though it felt like she was telling it to herself. She didn’t know what to do, how could she? This wasn’t a thing that people were meant to deal with. None of them were supposed to deal with this sort of thing.

The cards they had been dealt were awful, and yet, life had forced them to play.

Now, she had played every card in her deck, and none of them could possibly trump this.

If he had been anyone else, Vi would have killed him immediately. She didn’t care who it was, he had killed her sister. He had to pay. Justice had to be served.

But it was Vander. It was Vander who stood above her body, coated in her blood, crying over her corpse. Clearly, he hadn’t done it in a lucid state of mind. Vi knew Warwick well enough to say that. But he had done it nonetheless. He had killed her.

Warwick dug his claws into his face, crying out, screaming in agony at what he had just done. Not a single person in the room knew what to do, or was able to move a muscle to act.

“I- I didn’t mean to!” Warwick howled, now frantically moving back and forth staring at Vi with an unknown, wild look in his eyes. “I didn’t want to! I… I didn’t…”

His voice broke again, as he was overcome with sobs. His breathing was frantic and sporadic.

Vi could hear the pumps on his back begin to whir once again.

“Warwick, listen to me, you have to calm down.” Vi tried to tell him, though her voice cracked, and fell flat when she needed it to be reassuring. Warwick began to pull out tufts of his fur, all while still crying.

“Pow-der!” He wailed, as he suddenly lurched forward and stumbled out of the hole in the cage. Everyone took a step away from him. He moved toward Vi, but as he approached, the tears in her eyes grew, and so did the fear on her face. Warwick let out another scream.

“Monster! Monster!”

Warwick threw himself at a nearby wall, then slammed himself into it headfirst. He dug his claws into the wall, then proceeded to do it again, all while continuing to scream, cry, and wail. Jayce and Sevika ran toward him at the same time and tried to grab him by the arms and pull him back. It worked, but then the beast began to thrash and sent the two of them flying in opposite directions. Warwick took one last look at Vi, before tearing up, and bolting toward the open doorway.

“No!” Vi screamed, immediately taking off after him. “No, come back! Please, come back!”

“Violet!” Caitlyn screamed in terror, as her girlfriend took off after the beast. Without hesitation, she followed after her.

“He’s going to get out!” Sevika shouted, as she also followed Caitlyn. Jayce and Mel exchanged glances before he looked at Viktor, who stood over the body of Singed.

Viktor couldn’t even classify what he was feeling. He was disturbed by the sights inside the laboratory, of course. Seeing the body of that young girl was troubling, and something he knew he wouldn’t be able to forget anytime soon.

But upon seeing the body of his old mentor, Viktor felt nothing. Not nothing as in the absence of feeling or emotion, but nothing as in the vast, unending expanse of infinity. The cold, detached objectivity of law, order, and everything else that was governed by the systems of time, place, and reality.

It wasn’t a feeling he wanted to comprehend. It wasn’t something good, and it wasn’t something bad, but it was there.

Viktor kept his gaze settled on the man’s torso. The gore didn’t bother him as much as the expression on his face did. He wasn’t sure if a face could hold the emotion it held at the time of a person’s death, but Singed had a look in his eyes that was somewhat familiar.

It was terror, caused by finally having the extent to one’s own creation revealed. Viktor couldn’t pity him.

“You never knew when to adhere to nature’s laws, eh?” He said, looking into his still wide, still open eyes. Viktor wondered if he felt it when he died. Did he feel the creature claw into him, tear him open from the inside, and feast? What could that have felt like?

Viktor didn’t know, and he knew that he never wanted to find out. Singed did, however. Which made his death a scientific feat, in a way. It was a sick, twisted bastardization of science, but Viktor knew that Singed wouldn’t have it any other way. He died as he lived, Viktor thought to himself, as he placed his fingers on the man’s eyelids and gently closed them.

It was the end of an era.

“Aetās alchimiae finita est <the era of alchemy is over>,”  Viktor whispered. “ferrĕa aetās nascitur <the steel age is born>.”

Warwick had to get back to the caverns. His den was back there. He knew that it would never be the same, but if he was able to lose himself down there, maybe he would forget himself again.

He didn’t deserve to exist. Not after what he had done.

But as he hit the open air, Warwick took in every scent of the city and felt overwhelmed. He hadn’t been back on these streets for weeks, and it took him off guard and messed with his head. He didn’t know where he was, or where to go.

He stumbled out into the street, slamming into a food vendor as he did so. The man started to say something, then locked eyes with the beast, and let out a yell. Warwick covered his ears. He was too loud.

It all was too loud.

And it was making him angry. He knew that he shouldn’t be angry, and he needed to get out of here, but he couldn’t stop it. The mixture of the chemicals, his own emotions, and everything around him made it very hard for the monster to take control of his own body.

Besides, he was covered in blood.

But so was the man in front of him. Animal blood, but what difference did it make? Blood meant that there was meat, which meant that there was food. Warwick needed food. He needed meat. He needed blood.

Warwick raised his claws, ready to strike the man and take him for himself when something heavy hit him in the side. It struck with enough force to send him tumbling into the middle of the street. With a menacing growl, he jumped back to his feet and tried to find out what had attacked him.

Finding his attacker turned out to be quite easy, he soon realized. It was hard to hide a huge, lumbering machine in a crowd of people. Especially one that was as loud as this one was. Warwick had seen a machine like this before, down in the Sumps. He had paid them no mind. They were made of metal, and he craved flesh. They had no use for him.

But this one was different. This one sized him up, gears spinning inside its chassis, and a faint, pulsating blue glow thumping in it’s chest. Steam suddenly shot out of all of it’s joints, as the machine took off in his direction. Warwick sliced back and forth across the machine, though his claws failed to even scratch through it’s metal hull. Soon, the machine raised both of it’s huge metal fists, and slammed them down upon Warwick’s chest.

The concrete street underneath them buckled under the weight of the blow. Warwick could taste dirt and rubble in his teeth. He scurried out from underneath the golem before it could land another hit. As it’s fists hit the road once again, Warwick leapt onto it’s back. He began to swipe and claw once more, before he caught a hold of the seam between the automaton’s head and torso. Warwick dug his claws into the crevice, hoping to tear it apart.

The machine spun around quickly, nearly throwing Warwick off it’s back. He managed to stay on, though by only one claw. Still, he had enough of a grip to dig that claw deeper. Before the golem could swing it’s arms around and strike him one again, Warwick was able to plunge his other claw into the seam. The machine let out a metallic hiss as Warwick began to claw at it from the inside.

It continued to try to throw him off, but the monster had latched onto the machine’s delicate insides. As it twisted, so did Warwick. The light in the golem’s chest flickered brightly, as both of it’s arms suddenly went limp. Warwick continued to dig, and claw, cutting through wires, gears, and other machinery.

Oil began to drip out from the machine’s chest, pooling into a puddle on the street. As Warwick grabbed ahold of something solid, then began to pull with all of his might, the oil began to pout out of the bottom half of the machine. It’s head twitched twice, before the gears inside stopped moving.

With a loud creak, the golem fell to the ground. Rain had begun to fall, and droplets splattered across the machine's chassis as Warwick stood over it, victorious.

But he hadn’t escaped the fight unscathed. As he moved, he let out a painful gunt, as several parts of his chest stung with pain. Every time he drew a breath in, another spike of pain, from multiple places on his ribcage.

And he knew that there were more after him. He could hear their footsteps coming.

If he could just get back to his den and rest, he would be fine. He didn’t know why he came up to these streets in the first place.

There was nothing up here for him. Maybe there never was.

“Over there!” Caitlyn shouted immediately after she, Vi, and Sevika burst through out onto the street, and scoured the scene for Warwick. She pointed at the large, limping monster fleeing the scene. The trio darted after him. Vi took a cursory glance to the side, to see Viktor’s invention lying in a heap on the ground, oil and steam rising from it’s torso.

“Is anyone hurt?” Sevika yelled to the crowd that had gathered. When she didn’t receive a response, she let out a sigh of relief, and continued in the beast's direction, while continuing to call out directions to the crowd.

“Everyone, get off the street! Clear the street, now! It’s not safe!”

Vi and Caitlyn took up the lead, brushing past dazed citizens as they ran after the beast.

“We need to stop him before he hurts anyone else!” Vi said. “Caitlyn, you-”

“I can’t shoot him again! He’s your father, Vi!” Caitlyn shouted back at her with her voice full of desperation and anguish. Vi shook her head and let out a scream, as she smashed through a cart full of produce, barely skipping a stride.

Warwick was moving fast, but not much faster than any of them. He clutched his chest with one of his claws, and ever so often dropped to all fours to move faster, but he couldn’t keep it up for long. Vi stared at him for a few moments without saying a word. Her eyes drifted toward the chambers full of green liquid on his back. Suddenly, she remembered that right before Warwick lost control, the vats on his back had begun to whur.

“The vats on his back!” Vi suddenly shouted in Caitlyn’s direction. “Take out the vats, and he’ll calm down!”

“How do you know?”

“Just… trust me on this!”

“Alright,” Caitlyn grunted, as she began to pull her rifle from it’s sling. “But I need a clear shot, and right now, I don’t have one!”

Just then, in a flash of red, Sevika was right next to the two of them. The veins along her arm and shoulder glowed purple, and her jaw was tense. She was moving faster than either of them, and approaching Warwick.

“You need an opening, I’ll give you one!”

Sevika drew her blade, as her feet slammed against the ground, moving closer and closer to the injured, blood-soaked monster. As she closed the gap between the two of them, Warwick turned at the last moment, and swiped in her direction. Sevika dropped to the wet ground, landing on her knees, and slid past him just underneath the arc of his attack. Her blade slided across both of his legs. He let out a whine, as she leapt to her feet, and looked him right in the eyes.

“This isn’t you!” She shouted with every ounce of force in her body. Strands of her hair—now plastered against her head from the rain—swung in front of her eyes. “These streets, these people? You love them!

“I… love… nothing!” The monster screamed. Sevika took just a second to look at the space around her. There were still people in these streets. She needed to get him further out of the way.

Sevika began to back up, and luckily, he gave chase. Careful to keep Caitlyn and Vi within her sights, Sevika began to sprint through the street, ever so often slicing with her blade to keep him at bay. As the rain began to fall harder, Sevika saw fewer and fewer people on the streets. She continued in that direction, still keeping the beast engaged, yet keeping her strikes as non-lethal as possible.

However, the monster afforded her no such kindness. A misstep caused the tip of Sevika’s boot to catch on top of a loose bit of concrete. While she attempted to regain her balance, the creature had just enough time to hit her with the back of his claw, sending her arcing into the air and tumbling into a nearby alleyway.

As the beast turned his attention to her, he was hit with a flash of blue light.

“Stop it!” Vi shouted, as her hextech gauntlets pounded into the beast, knocking him further and further down the street. He let out a squeal in agony and clutched his chest with both of his claws. Vi fought to choke back a sob.

“This isn’t you! This isn’t you!” She cried, as she slowed her pace, but kept herself ready for a fight. The beast crawled up off the ground, and stumbled to the side. Blood dripped from his chin, and Vi was unable to tell if it belonged to him or not. She didn’t want to know.

She just needed this to be done.

Despite how injured he was, the vats continued to pump, and he let out a powerful growl, before stumbling in Vi’s direction. She raised her fists again and shook the rain and tears out of her eyes, before hitting him square in the jaw. Warwick stumbled backward, barely maintaining his balance. He looked down just in time to see Vi land yet another punch, this time, striking him in the middle of his chest. The force of the punch threw him backward once again, and as he slid across the slick cobblestone, he let out an anguished, panicked scream.

He was in the middle of an empty intersection now. Vi took a glance around, and saw not a single soul nearby.

“Don’t get up!” She shouted to him, as he clawed at the ground, struggling to lift himself off the ground. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

Vi rushed over to his side, her gauntlets still at the ready. He was very hurt by the looks of things, and she couldn’t help but feel horrible about all of this.

But he needed to stay down. For everyone’s safety, he needed to stay down.

Warwick coughed. He spat blood and slobber onto the ground, before glancing toward Vi. Still on the ground, he swiped in her direction, desperately and feverishly trying to claw into her as well. Vi jumped out of the way. Warwick braced himself on the ground underneath him, as he tried to raise himself up once again.

“Stop, please! Just stop fighting!” Vi pleaded, but was met with a snarl in response.

“Never!”

From his position on the ground, Warwick lurched toward her, claws at the ready, not a single ounce of recognition in his eyes. She fell backwards at his first attempt, doding his claws with ease, but one of his nails caught the side of her pant leg. He dragged her towards him, with a horrifyingly hungry look in his eyes.

That look disappeared as a blade suddenly sliced across both of his arms. As he raised them, howling in agony, Sevika emerged from the shadows. She grabbed both of his arms with her hands, and held him at bay just long enough for Vi to escape his clutches.

“Stop it, Vander! I won’t let you hurt her too!” Sevika roared into the monster’s face, locking eyes with him as she did so. She pushed against him with all of her might, but the beast was far stronger. She leaned further and further backward. Sevika adjusted her footing to keep her balance, and let out a painful grunt.

“You’re… her… father!” Sevika groaned. “Don’t… do… this!”

Warwick stopped just long enough for Sevika to see the tears in his eyes, before he suddenly snapped his head forward. Sevika ducked her head out of the way, but the beast caught a hold of her metal arm. With a crunch, his fangs snapped right through it. Sevika lost her footing and slammed into the ground, with the monster right on top of her. His jaws snapped over and over again, getting closer and closer to her face every time. Still, she tried to push him off, though she could do next to nothing against the beast.

Sevika would not face death with her eyes closed. She would go down fighting.

With every ounce of energy she had left, Sevika pushed against the beast with her one remaining arm, knowing that his fangs would find her throat soon.

Something exploded above her. She almost mistook the sound for the crackle of thunder, if it wasn’t for the second noise that erupted immediately afterwards. 

Gunshots.

Glass shattered all around her, as green, sludge-like liquid began to pour from the monster’s back. He let out a panicked, choking noise, as he suddenly thrashed back and forth. Then, he reared back and grabbed at his back.

Like a third crack of thunder, Vi’s gauntlet connected with the underside of Warwick’s head. He hurled through the air for half a second, his body limp and bleeding, before slamming back to the ground. After landing on his back, the last of the liquid inside the chambers flooded out into the ground around him.

Warwick’s body slid for a few more moments, before his head nestled into the base of a concrete structure. Vi chased after him, hoping that he was down and unconscious. Her hopes were shattered as Warwick reached a shaking, weak claw up onto the base of the structure, and tried to hoist himself up. He let out another groan, as he raised his head.

Warwick stopped. His entire body froze in place, as every muscle locked up, suddenly overcome with what he was seeing.

In the flashes, he knew the name of the man he once was. He knew who he loved, he knew who he might have been, and Warwick even knew what kind of things he liked.

But never had he seen his face. He shouldn’t have been able to recognize the sight, but yet, he did.

Warwick stared up at the statue looming over him, and saw himself—pipe in hand, posed stoically, with the poise of a true leader, a true father—staring back down at him.

It was Vander. A statue of him, looking over the street underneath him, and glaring at the monster that stood at the base of the piece.

The anger had left by then, and so had the hunger. What Warwick was left with, after all those rage-filled years, was nothing but who he was now, and the haunting memory of who he could have been.

“Please…” Warwick heard his daughter say, as he crept toward him. “Please don’t fight. I don’t want to fight you.”

Warwick turned to look at her. He blinked the water out of his eyes, clearing his vision for just long enough to see Violet. She held so much fear in her eyes, and it made him begin to tear up, knowing that he caused all of her pain.

He choked back a sob. But as soon as he noticed the jacket that she was wearing—his jacket, by the look and smell of it—Warwick couldn’t stop himself from crying any longer. He lifted his legs to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them, though it brought no comfort.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are. I… I know you… I know that you didn’t mean to-”

Violet drifted off. Nothing she said could comfort him at that point. Warwick’s chest heaved up and down, as he struggled to form words.

“I k- kill- killed her,” Warwick whimpered. “My daughter. Pow-der.”

Vi winced, and looked away for a moment. Warwick could see the pain on her face. She moved closer to him, and he curled up tighter.

“Listen to me, we’re going to figure this out… we… we can-”

“No. No, no we can’t. I’m… a… monster.”

“You aren’t a monster,” Vi pleaded, as she placed a hand on his wet shoulder, her voice trembling. “You’re my father. You’re Vander.”

“I’m not him.” He cried.

“Yes, you are.”

“No,” Warwick screamed. “I am no- not Van- Vander! And I- I’m not your… your fa- father!”

Vi placed her hands on his snout, and tried to lift his head so she could look into his eyes. Warwick kept his head bowed, unable to look at her.

“Look at me. Look at me, please, just look at me.”

Warwick gently lifted his head, and saw her blurry face through his tear-filled eyes.

“You are my father, and you are Vander, no matter what happened to you. I don’t care if you have claws, fangs, or fur, you’re still Vander, and you’re still the man who raised me,” Vi told him, her voice cracking as she spoke through her sobs. “You’re the man who taught me how to punch.”

Warwick shook his head, still unable to meet his daughter’s gaze. She held out hope for him, and as he had learned all those years ago, hope was useless. Hope was a lie, told by a sick, fragmented mind desperate for some sort of escape.

There was no escape from this. He had killed Powder. He was nothing. He would never be more than a failed experiment.

“I am… not… a man. I… I am a monster.”

“Stop saying that! You are not a monster, you’re my father, Vander, and you did all those things! You raised me, Powder, Mylo, and Claggor!” Vi shouted, suddenly setting him on edge. Warwick rubbed his eyes, and shook his head violently.

“No! Vander is dead!” Warwick roared. Vi still held him by the head, but he tried to push her away. “He died saving you! What came back wasn’t him!”

Vi let go of his face, as Warwick scooted backwards, now leaning against the base of the statue for support. There was an angry, furious look in his eyes, but it wasn’t chemically induced. This was anger towards himself, towards every awful thing he had done, toward the nightmare he currently found himself in.

“A monster came back! Not Vander, not a good man, not your father, not anyone! Nothing! Nothing!”

Warwick looked down at his bloodstained claws, and then back at the statue of the man above him. He had hands. Hands that could hold others, hands that could help people, hands that he used to hug his children, tuck them into bed, and keep them safe.

Warwick had claws. He could do none of those things. All he could do was destroy.

“I’ll never be anything more than that,” Warwick whimpered. “I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again.”

“We… we can keep you safe. We can put you somewhere where you will never be able to hurt anyone.” Vi told him, but Warwick shook his head. He knew that no prison could hold him forever. He was a monster made for killing. There was only one thing that they could do to ensure that he would never hurt a single person again.

Warwick looked up into Vi’s eyes, as she came to the same realization that he did.

“No. I won’t. I- I can’t lose you again.” Vi cried, her bottom lip sputtering as she shook her head.

“You… you already lost me,” Warwick told her. “I’m… no- nothing more than a g- ghost.”

Vi let out another sob, as she wiped her nose with her elbow. She continued to shake her head. The rain poured harder.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that we couldn’t help you. If… if we just had more time… if we could have just…” Vi started to say, as the thought fell out of her mouth faster and faster. “If I had been there, I could have stopped it! I could have stopped Singed from getting to you, and- and I could-”

“You did… everything… you could,” He told her, his voice tired now, and soft. He knew what she needed to do, and didn’t want to make it any harder on her than it had to be. “I… am… glad to have been here… for you.”

Vi clenched her jaw, then let out a long, painful exhale. She lifted up her fists, then glanced to the side. It took her a few more tries, before she steadied them in the air. She looked back at Warwick, her chest lurching up and down with the weight of her sobs.

“I’m proud of you,” Warwick told her, as he tried to force a smile. “Let… let my memory… let my memory rest.”

“I- I don’t want to… I don’t want to hurt you.” His daughter told him, as she blinked the tears from her eyes, and readied the gauntlets above his head.

“You won’t. I won’t feel a thing.”

“I love you. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Vi.”

Warwick closed his eyes, and let the memories of his daughters settle in his mind.

Chapter Text

Councilor Medarda hadn’t seen a bloodbath like this before. She had seen war, and battle, and combat in her youth, but never anything like this. It was a senseless, tragic display of violence that reaffirmed her belief in pacifism.

“We’ll… we’ll have to order a full investigation.” Mel said, though who she was speaking to was unclear. Maybe to herself, she thought, as her eyes traveled across the room once again, before landing on the blue-haired girl once again.

She felt Jayce’s fingers on her chin, as he gently turned her head away from the scene. She looked into his eyes and found the same horror and sadness in his eyes that she held in hers.

“We… we have to call a meeting. We can’t… we can’t leave it like…”

“Mel,” Jayce said to her in a soft, comforting voice. “We shouldn’t even be here. We don’t have jurisdiction, and if people hear that we were involved with what happened here, everything could be in jeopardy. The peace between the two nations would crumble.”

“I agree. I fear that our presence, and Blitzcrank’s as well, has drawn too many eyes.” Viktor said to both of them, as he drew his gaze away from the corpse of the chemist.

“I know, but… can we… can we cover the bodies, at least? I… I don’t… I don’t want Vi to see her sister like that again.” Mel said quickly with little energy left in her voice. Jayce looked around the room and then nodded. She wasn’t sure if he actually agreed with her, or if it was out of pity, but at this point, she didn’t care.

None of them would sleep tonight.

“Do we cover both of them?” Mel asked, with little air in her voice.

“Leave him as a testament to his cruelty,” Viktor mumbled. “But cover the girl.”

Jayce dug through the hundreds of cabinets in the chemist’s laboratory, as Mel’s eyes drifted back towards the body of the girl. She couldn’t look away. The girl was too young. All this time, she had thought of Jinx like an adult, like her sister, but as she saw just how small her body was, curled up on the floor like her corpse was now, Mel could barely see her as anything other than a child. A lost, broken, scared child, who just wanted her father.

Only he had killed her. Mel knew betrayal, and she knew how much family could hurt each other, but this? She couldn’t imagine what her last few moments were like. Warwick must have been out of his mind because as for what Mel had heard about Vander, he loved his girls more than anything in this world.

Something drew her closer to the body. She didn’t know what it was. Morbid curiosity, regular curiosity, whatever it was, it had a grip on her and it wouldn’t let go. Mel decided that, as Viktor had just done to Singed, she would close her eyes. Though that involved getting close to the corpse, and the scattered remains around it, she would do it.

Jinx was just a girl. She deserved some sort of comfort, even after death.

Mel was careful not to step in anything, though it became increasingly harder to do so as she got closer to the body. There were bits of flesh, intestines, and other things strewn about everywhere. She tried not to dwell on them for too long.

Her face was intact, though covered in blood. Mel looked a little closer and saw that her eyes were already closed. For some reason, that stuck out to her. It made tears begin to well up in her eyes, as she imagined that Jinx wouldn’t want to see her father that way, even as he killed her.

Mel scrunched up her face, as the tears began to flow down her face. This was awful. This was disgusting, despicable, and something she was completely powerless in intervening with.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. Mel looked up to see Ekko, who had removed his mask and let it dangle at his side. He sniffled.

“We… we grew up together.” Ekko mumbled under his breath. Mel stood up. He couldn’t be much older than Jinx was, which horrified her. These were children, involved in things they shouldn’t be involved in, making choices that they should never have to make. They were babies, born into chaos, violence, and bloodshed.

Mel took him by the shoulders and drew him in for a hug. He didn’t move at first, but when he did, his arms squeezed her tight, as he let out a sob.

“I’m sorry, Ekko. I’m so, so sorry.” Mel whispered.

“We…” Ekko started to say, before he sniffled, cutting himself off. “We used to play together. She was… she was so much fun. She didn’t deserve this.”

“No one deserves a fate like this,” Jayce suddenly said, as he appeared behind them with a tarp in his hands. “I… I’ll pay for the funeral. I know that there’s nothing in this world that can make up for what happened, but… none of you should worry about that.”

Ekko didn’t respond. He just kept his eyes on Jinx’s body and didn’t move them. Jayce unfurled the tarp and then shook it out. Then, he flipped it in the air and laid it over her body. As he did so, Ekko suddenly tensed in Mel’s grasp. He pushed himself away from her and quickly peeled back the tarp.

“Ekko-” Mel started to say before he raised a hand to quiet her. He placed a hand on the girl's cheek. Then, he moved his fingers down, to the underside of her neck. He rested them there for a few moments, before quickly turning around with wide eyes.

“She has a pulse! She still has a pulse!” Ekko shouted. Immediately, Mel, Jayce, and Viktor surrounded the girl. Mel placed her fingers on the other side of her neck, and sure enough, she could feel her heartbeat. Though it was faint, she could feel it.

“That’s… that’s not possible,” Viktor said quickly.” You saw her torso, it was covered in… it was covered…”

Something flashed behind Viktor’s eyes, as he suddenly stiffened his posture. Quickly, he pulled the tarp back, exposing the loose intestines and pieces of flesh strewn about. Viktor grabbed the tarp with his hand and brushed them aside.

There was not a single scratch on her.

“It’s not her. They’re bits and pieces of Singed, not her! Warwick didn’t kill her!” Mel screamed. Ekko began to shake Jinx back and forth. For a few moments, she didn’t move.

Then, with a flash of pink, her eyes snapped open. With a gasp, she shot up, out of breath, with a fearful look in her eyes.

“Where’s Warwick? Is he okay?” Jinx immediately asked as she scanned the room for any sight of him.

“You… we thought you were dead!” Jayce exclaimed. Jinx shook her head.

“No, why would you think that?”

“You… you’re covered in…” Vikor said as Jinx looked down at herself. She turned up her nose as she brushed herself off, and tried to stand. She was off-balance and leaned on Ekko for support.

“We- we thought Warwick killed you!” Mel said. Jinx shook her head.

“No! He loves me! He would never! Where… where is he?” Jinx asked as a horrifying realization dawned on all of them at once.

“Jinx…” Ekko muttered quickly. “Vi thought that Warwick killed you. Warwick thought he killed you!”

Jinx’s eyes widened, as her face was suddenly filled with terror. She ran her hands through her hair, before she rushed forward, stumbling and falling as she did so.

“Where! Where did they go!”

“They just left!” Viktor shouted. Jinx limped out the doors of the laboratory, the glow in her pink eyes flashing as she darted into the hallway. Ekko took off after her in his hoverboard, with the rest of them following close behind.

“Vi! Vi, please! No!” Jinx screamed, as she burst her way into the street. She twisted her head around, searching for any sign of them. Her eyes settled on the husk of a golem, with a crowd of people around it.

“Where did they go?” She demanded, screaming at the crowd with enough force, she thought her voice would tear through her own throat. A few pointed down the street, and that was enough confirmation for her.

The idea that Warwick thought he killed her was an awful one, and it was the only thing on her mind. She couldn’t let him believe that. She wouldn’t let Vi believe that, either. She finally had her family back, she wouldn’t lose them again.

Never again. This time, everyone comes home. Nobody would be left behind, nobody would run off due to miscommunication, none of that would happen. She just had her family back, and she would not lose either of them again. She lost them both all those years ago, and Jinx vowed never to ever let it happen again. She wasn’t able to save them back then, but she would do it now.

This time, she would make sure of it.

Despite the shimmer that always flowed through her veins, she wasn’t fast enough. The street was long, and the rain was heavy. She knew that she wouldn’t lose her grip—her reflexes were far too good for that to happen—but she couldn’t see them yet, and she didn’t want to miss them.

“Jinx!” A voice from behind her yelled. “Grab on!”

She spun around, only to see Ekko rocketing towards her on his hoverboard, with his arms outstretched. She jumped into the air, and he caught her. Suddenly, they were moving twice as fast, darting down the street faster than she ever could by foot alone. The wind and rain rushed past her face.

Then she saw it. A flicker of blue raised high in the air. 

Hextech. Her sister’s gauntlets.

“Vi!” She screamed, hoping to get her attention through the roar of the thunderstorm outside. “Vi, I’m okay!”

As they got closer, something else came into view. It was the statue of Vander, standing proud and tall in the middle of the street, drenched in rain. Underneath his statue, Jinx saw Warwick, crumpled in a heap and covered in blood. Both of the green, glowing tanks on his back had been destroyed, and the liquid inside had drained out into the street. Jinx looked back to her sister to see her say a few words, then ready her gauntlets.

Vi thought that he had killed her. Warwick thought that he had ripped his own daughter apart. As Jinx’s mind raced, the thoughts continued, and her heart pounded in her chest.

Vi was going to kill him. Jinx could see it from the pained look on her sister’s face, and it sent fear straight into the center of her heart. She was going to kill him, and he was going to let her. Jinx knew how fearsome Warwick was, and if he was just sitting there, head bowed, he was letting it happen.

Knowing him, he was going to give himself up for Jinx because he thought that he killed her. But she was alive, and he didn’t even scratch her. Warwick had jumped on top of her, and Jinx had felt her consciousness fade from a combination of blood loss and fear, but he didn’t kill her.

She was alive, and she was too far from them. Jinx could only scream as Ekko picked up speed on his hoverboard, nearly losing his balance as he did so.

“No! Violet, stop!”

In a last-ditch effort, Jinx threw herself from Ekko’s hoverboard. She rolled and skidded across the ground, then ran with all her might toward her sister. Her head was spinning, and she was still a bit woozy, but it didn’t matter.

Vi had stopped her from making a horrible mistake before, and Jinx would stop her sister now.

“Violet, please!”

Her sister froze. She kept the expression on her face, but now, every muscle in her body had locked up upon hearing the sound. With the gauntlets still raised high above her, Vi couldn’t move, as her sister’s voice rang in her ears. Vi winced, and let out a sob while shaking her head. Her hesitation gave Jinx just enough time to tackle Vi to the ground. The two girls twisted on the street, as Jinx wrapped her arms around her sister, and pinned Vi’s arms to her sides with a tight hug.

“Don’t hurt him!” Jinx begged as she squeezed her sister tight, still afraid that Vi wouldn’t listen to her.  “Please, Vi, don’t hurt him!”

Vi at her sister in horror, then confusion.

“You… you-”

“I’m alive! See! I’m alive!” Jinx screamed. She grabbed her sister by the wrist, and pulled her hand from the gauntlet, and pressed it to her chest to feel her heartbeat. Vi let out a series of shaky, shallow breaths before she could speak.

“Jinx?”

“It’s me!” Jinx yelled frantically, as she lightly shook her sister, hoping to return her to her senses. Vi’s eyes welled up with tears, as she returned the hug, sobbing into her shoulder. Jinx held tight, wiping away her own tears, before pulling away and turning toward Warwick.

The monster looked defeated. His fur was completely soaked with rain, and he looked disheveled. From the ragged, pained movement of his chest, Jinx could see that he was hurting in more ways than one. He sat there with his eyes closed, and claws covering his ears, shaking in the rain. Jinx rushed over to him. When she took his claws in her hands, she expected him to recoil, but he didn’t. He was too weak for that. Warwick had been defeated, and it broke her heart to see him like that.

“Warwick,” Jinx started to tell him, as she gently squeezed his claws. “I’m-”

“No,” He whimpered quietly between sobs. “I… I don’t want to see-”

“It’s Powder. It’s me.” Jinx told him, and he shook his head, before letting out a whimper, and swinging his claws back to his head.

“I killed her!” Warwick wailed, his claws digging into his head, tears dripping down his fur and mixing with the rain on the ground. “I… I… I killed you. I tore my heart apart.”

Jinx placed both of her hands on his snout, then rested her forehead against his nose.

Warwick was a big creature. Jinx knew that Vander had been a big man, but Warwick was nearly double her size. He was a huge, ferocious monster, but not at this time. Now, he was a cold, scared, utterly broken man, who believed every single lie, deception, and awful thing that Singed had said about him.

Jinx knew that nothing Singed said was true, but she also knew that in his current state, he wouldn’t listen to a thing she said. He needed to calm down. Jinx thought back to just a few hours ago, while in Singed’s laboratory, and how he had remembered how to calm her down. She took a deep breath in, and then exhaled, just like he did for her.

“Come on, breathe. Breathe with me,” Jinx instructed. “Inhale… exhale…”

At first, it was even hard for Jinx to control her breathing. The events of the past hour had shaken her to her very core, but she had to put that aside now. She was going to save him. This was her chance.

As Jinx took deep breaths in and out, she glanced at Vi. Her sister’s eyes were bloodshot, and she carried a look of tremendous guilt on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words could come out. Jinx nodded at her sister, then continued guiding him through slow, gentle breaths. Vi placed a hand on her sister’s shoulder and began to breathe in sync with her. Part of it was to calm herself down, but another part was to help Warwick.

Soon, even the beast had begun to breathe along with them. Once he had gotten into a steady rhythm and had stopped shaking, Jinx spoke once more.

“You’re okay. You didn’t hurt me, Warwick. You never would. I know you never would.”

He still didn’t open his eyes, though he had dropped his claws to the side and relaxed at least somewhat. 

“I… I don’t…” Warwick whimpered, his voice full of fear, but more noticeably, overwhelmingly tired. “I don’t want to open my eyes. I… I don’t want you to… not be there.”

Jinx crept closer to him. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t tense up, he didn’t even make an effort to stop her. She lifted up his arm, laid herself against the side of his chest, and then wrapped his arm around her. 

“You don’t have to open your eyes. You can feel me, can’t you?” Jinx told him, in a soft, comforting voice. “You can feel Vi, too.”

As she said that, Vi shimmied up next to him on the other side. Warwick let out a sharp exhale, as his claws relaxed. He curled his arms, and gently held the two of them close to his chest, still unable to open his eyes. Jinx noticed that he still shook his head slightly, still hesitant, still afraid.

“P… promise that you’re real?” Warwick whispered to her.

“Yes, I’m real. I promise that I’m real, Warwick.”

With that final confirmation, he knew he had to risk it. Warwick didn’t think that he would be able to continue if he opened his eyes and she wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t be able to continue living otherwise. What he had done to her was the culmination of every nightmare he had ever had. He really, really wanted to believe that she was real.

But there was only one way to find out.

Warwick cautiously opened his eyes. He could see three people in front of him, standing a bit apart from each other, but all staring at him nonetheless. Caitlyn, Vi’s girlfriend, looked like he was on the verge of collapse. She was hunched over, hair in her eyes, as the rifle dangled from her hands. Though Warwick couldn’t see the exact look in her eyes, he knew that she was exhausted. She shared the same look with the woman next to her, who held her broken, mangled metal arm with her other hand. She had a fair bit of rage behind her eyes, but all Warwick could see were the sobs that caused her chest to heave up and down. She was familiar to him, though he couldn’t place her at the moment. The last person, Ekko, leaned heavily against his staff. His hoverboard floated next to him, as he wiped his eyes. The white face paint was smudged from the mixture of rain and tears that flowed down his face.

Warwick slowly looked down, and for half a second, he was in a nightmare. 

There sat Powder, in his arms, but covered in blood. Blood that he had spilled, blood that sent him into a frenzy, blood that led to her death. The same blood that spilled when he ripped her apart, when he killed her, just as Singed knew he would.

But after a few more moments, he knew that he wasn’t in a nightmare. As the rain fell on her face, Warwick could see the red wash away. The blood was gone. She was unharmed. His daughter sat there, not dead, but fully alive. He could hear her heartbeat. He could see her breathing.

“I’m right here,” Powder said to him. “We’re both right here.”

Warwick felt the tears well up in his eyes again, this time, not from agony, or suffering, or anything else. It was from pure joy and relief. It was the culmination of everything good in this world, and everything that could be good. Warwick knew now that maybe, just maybe, this world wasn’t cruel. Maybe hope was truly more than just a lie. If she was alive, and Vi was right there with her too, then they could be a family again. Everything could be alright.

Warwick let out a painful, tired sigh, as he realized that maybe, just for once, everything could go right.

“My…” Warwick began to say, as he choked on his words, tears spilling down his face. “Hearts.”

With that, he suddenly scooped up both of his girls in his arms and held them as tight as he could, crying into their shoulders. He wanted to never let them go. 

Vi hugged him too and whispered that she was sorry into his ear. 

He shook his head, knowing that her heart was in the right place. All of their hearts were in the right places.

“I… I should’ve trusted you.” Vi whispered, squeezing him tighter, and letting the guilt overcome her. Warwick rubbed the side of his head against hers.

“You were only trying to help.” He reassured her, as she sniffled and rubbed her eyes. Warwick let his body relax, finally knowing that not only was he safe, but his girls were safe too.

They were safe with him. Warwick let the thought echo in his mind over, and over again, as he let this moment sear into his memory.

The rain continued to pour down on the three of them, washing the blood, oil, and agony from their bodies. There was almost a chill in the air, but Vi, Warwick, and Powder couldn’t feel it. The three of them were snuggled too tight for a single ounce of cold to come between them.

Warwick felt nothing other than the emotion that had been burning in his chest for his entire life, the feeling that had kept him from fully losing himself down in Zaun’s Sumps.

It had been burning inside him every day and had only grown stronger.

At that moment, as he held both of his daughters for the first time in a very, very long time, all Vander felt was love.

Chapter Text

It was a bright day, and she was ready for her first lesson. It was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment choice, but she was glad she made it. Though her nerves had broken through a few moments before she walked into the studio, she quickly regained her composure and got over them.

The councilor had pulled her curly hair into a tight bun that sat high atop her head. She left her usual ornate, golden outfit back in her quarters. Now, she sported a simple tan outfit. A dueling outfit, at least, one for training. She had no plans of actually engaging in combat, but it was a nice change of pace from her usual day-to-day activities. It had been years since she had held a blade in her hand, and she knew the basics, but she always thought that it was a good idea to pursue skills outside of her repertoire.

Plus, it was good to feel a bit more secure. It had been a little over a week since her trip into Zaun, but the memory of those Chem-Tanks rushing after her was still as vivid as ever. She saw Ekko and Sevika attack them with ease, but she had to run. Of course, she knew that her contribution to the operation was in her oratory and diplomatic skills, and by running off to fetch the others, she had saved their lives, but it didn’t put her anymore at ease no matter how hard she tried to justify it.

She wanted to have the ability to defend herself, even if she didn’t use it. She hoped to never run into a situation where she would need to use physicality to resolve things, but if it were to occur, she wanted to be ready.

Which is why she sought out these lessons. Just a bit of security, that’s all.

A knock on the door to the large, open studio caught her attention.

“Come in!” She announced, expecting the swordsman she had been practicing with to enter. Instead, a brown-haired, tanned skin man entered, looking somewhat stiff and awkward. For some reason, seeing Jayce like that amused her.

“Jayce, that’s hardly a sparring outfit.” She told him, as she pointed towards his tailored suit with a grin. Jayce didn’t react for a few moments, and Mel worried that he didn’t catch her joke. Then, he chuckled lightly and shook his head.

“I’m not here to spar,” Jayce responded. “In any sense of the word.”

Mel raised an eyebrow in his direction. Jayce saw and waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. She kept her eyes locked with his, a bit of a smile on her lips until he eventually broke.

“I’m here to say thank you.”

“Thank you?” Mel asked in disbelief but still amused. “For what?”

“For keeping my head on straight. For…” Jayce started to say, before stumbling for the words, and eventually regaining his train of thought. “For keeping things in perspective.”

Mel let out a sigh. Then, she shrugged.

“You’re a stubborn man, Jayce.”

“I know. I’m working on it.”

“It’s not quite a bad thing,” She assured him quickly. “Sometimes, being a bit headstrong can be good. You have your values and your morals, and you stick with them no matter what.”

“That… that is true.”

“But… sometimes you’re just wrong, Jayce.”

“Oh?” Jayce said back to her, before shaking his head. “Alright. Fine, I deserve it.”

“Being wrong isn’t a bad thing. It takes courage to be wrong. If we were right all the time, we would never make progress, would we? Think of all the innovation that has been born from someone looking at something from the wrong angle.”

“You sound like Viktor.”

“Well, he’s a smart man, and often makes quite a few points.”

“Viktor’s the smartest man I know,” Jayce told her, as he looked out the studio’s windows, which bathed the room in golden light. “But we both know that. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate your presence in my life, Mel.”

Mel took a moment to stare at the man. While he could be frustrating, hard-headed, and often a stick in the mud, he had good intentions. Jayce was a good person, though his way of thinking often got in the way of his attempts to do good.

“I appreciate yours as well. Sometimes, you can’t solve everything with a few choice words and a smile, though I will still attempt to try regardless.”

“We balance each other out, don’t we?” Jayce pointed out, and Mel snickered.

“We do seem to do that.”

“Are we… on good terms?”

Mel thought about the question for a moment, before she rested her hands on her hips and stretched her back.

“We are, Jayce Talis,” Mel told him, before checking her watch. “Though, you may not be if you continue to cut into my lesson time.”

Jayce chuckled to himself, before turning on his heels and leaving the studio. Mel adjusted her bun one last time, before turning toward the windows, ready to deal with whatever came next.

“What a week, huh?”

Vi looked at her girlfriend as she asked her that question, and focused on the stray strand of hair that fluttered onto her face in the cool night air. They were walking down an empty street in Piltover and taking a few moments for themselves before they both retired for the night.

“Oh, don’t remind me that it’s only been that long.” Caitlyn groaned. She nudged Vi in the side, and Vi chuckled.

“A lot happened.”

“You can say that again.”

“At least I got to spend more time with you, Cupcake.” Vi told her. Caitlyn raised both of her eyebrows.

“Should I be concerned that you think any of what we did can qualify as quality time?”

“What do you mean?” Vi teased. “You don’t think any of that was fun date material?”

Caitlyn raised her hands to her face and rubbed her eyes while Vi let out a chuckle.

Hauling the prototype back from Zaun took quite a bit of effort. None of them were physically able to lift the thing and carry it back. Warwick might have been able to, but he was in no state to do anything of the sort.

Viktor figured it out eventually, though it took a few days of planning, logistical efforts, and locating all the scrap metal he could find that had been torn from the machine. Warwick had done quite the number on Blitzcrank. Viktor knew that the damage would take quite a while to repair, but that occupied his mind the least.

Viktor was far more occupied by the revelation that his machine had worked. Not a single person in Zaun was injured as Warwick went on his ramage, in part due to Viktor’s invention, which was a point of pride for him. Though the machine’s delicate insides had been scrambled, the prototype had protected people just as Viktor had designed.

The large golem sat in a heap in the middle of his laboratory, with every scrap of metal laid out, labeled, and set alongside it. Viktor took very detailed notes about every broken part. He also wrote down and cataloged every bit of damage that the automaton had received. That would show him where the weak points in his design were, and for that, Viktor was grateful.

Among his notes—though carefully hidden away—were several other volumes of paper. The handwriting was barely legible, but Viktor could read it. One one of his trips to Zaun, as he tried to pick up every last piece of Blitzcrank, he found himself back in Singed’s laboratory. The place had been left untouched since that day, and though his body had been removed, Viktor could tell that there were signs of the chemist everywhere.

He grabbed as many things as he could find. Viktor found diagrams, experiment logs, and decades of research that he wouldn’t dare replicate. Though it was all highly unethical, and Viktor vowed never to use any of it to harm anyone, he had to admit that his research had value. Especially his research into Warwick, which turned out to be quite helpful in coming up with a rehabilitation plan for the creature.

The chambers on his back had turned out to be essential to Warwick’s survival, and without them, his body had been depleted from a vital source of energy, one which he had relied on for years. Singed also didn’t think much about the long-term conditions of his subjects, and Viktor quickly found that Warwick’s current mechanical implants severely impacted his quality of life.

But, after looking through Singed’s research, Viktor was able to reverse engineer a solution to some of Warwick’s afflictions.

For starters, the metal claw, while a useful weapon, was not practical in everyday life. Viktor saw that Singed had mentioned that Warwick had regenerative abilities, but didn’t trust his research enough to amputate immediately. Eventually, Warwick told him to amputate the claw anyways. Viktor did as he asked. In the days that passed, the stump began to regrow into another, blue-furred claw.

Most of the metal apparatuses in his body were surgically removed, though the vats that had been embedded with his nervous system could not be completely taken out. Viktor hadn’t come up with a solution yet, but he knew he would soon.

Viktor looked at the hextech core, still gently glowing in Blitzcrank’s chest, and took a moment to stare at his creation. If he could use hextech to power a golem and grant it life, Viktor knew he could use hextech to replace the chemicals in Warwick’s bloodstream.

Though, he hadn’t truly given the golem life. Something else had done that. Someone else, in fact.

“You protected them,” Viktor whispered to the core, as it flickered and shimmered in the golem’s chassis. “I can’t tell you how proud I am.”

The core seemed to flicker in response, and Viktor smiled, though it was bittersweet. Though she was gone now, and it hurt every day, Viktor knew that her memory lived on.

He had seen the power of the hextech rip through her, and for a while, Viktor had regarded her as completely dead, reduced to nothing but ash.

But as he powered up Blitzcrank for the first time, and saw the core begin to bounce and pulse in the machine’s chest, Viktor knew that she wasn’t gone. She was still here, still present.

Still wanting to help.

“You did it, Sky,” Viktor told the golem, as he looked at it with tears in his eyes. “You helped more than I ever could.”

Sevika was used to meeting with other crime lords. She was used to their slimy, scheming tactics, and she frequently employed them herself. On that front, she was prepared to deal with those sorts of threats, no matter what they may be.

But in all of Sevika’s life, she never expected to be sitting across from a member of the Council of Clans, brokering terms of an unofficial peace treaty between Piltover and Zaun. With the two nations independent from one another, it was time to establish some sort of diplomatic relationship between the two. All the talk of trade routes, embassies, and other things flew over her head, but the one thing that caught her attention was the inclusion of Vander in the treaty.

“We want him to return to his role as leader of Zaun.” Mel told her, as she sat with her hands folded together, Councilor Kiramman next to her, holding the terms of their peace. Sevika nodded slowly.

“The people of Zaun trust Vander,” Councilor Kiramman said to her. “And so do the members of the council. Whether or not his role is an official one, that’s up to you, but we want to know that you will allow him to take on that position.”

Sevika took a drag from her cigar. On the inside, she was a big fan of the idea. The two nations were at peace, and Zaun was independent. It was Vander’s dream come true. She wanted him to see it. After everything that had happened, she thought he deserved it.

But on the outside, she kept her cold glare up, as she considered it.

“Does Vander want that?”

“We assumed so.”

“But did anyone ask?” Sevika challenged and was met with silence. She took a breath in through her nose and leaned back in her chair. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Of course, she thought to herself, they didn’t even think to ask him. Typical Piltovians.

Though she signed the papers and agreed to their terms, she didn’t immediately return to Zaun. If they didn’t ask him if he wanted that role, she would ask him herself.

She walked through the halls of the academy, accompanied by a few enforcers as her escorts, as she made her way to Viktor’s laboratory, where she had heard that he had been set up. Viktor wasn’t around, but one of his assistants led her into the back, where she found him lying behind the glass of an observation chamber. 

The sight of the beast made her pause. All other times she had seen him, he had been ferocious, out of control, and ready to kill her. But now, he sat on top of a large mat, curled up into a ball. At first, she thought that he was asleep, but as she entered the observation room he flicked an eye open and stared in her direction.

Sevika entered the chamber accompanied by the two enforcers. Sevika didn’t know what to say at first. She came to tell him about the offer from the council, but as she made her way to him, dozens of other thoughts stumbled into her mind, causing her to lose focus on her goal, and arrive without a single thing prepared.

Sevika opened her mouth and found herself unable to say anything aside from two words.

“I’m sorry.”

Two short, simple words, words that Sevika hadn’t even thought she would say. But as she thought about it, it made sense. Everything that Singed had done had been either under Silco’s watch or under her’s. She was responsible for what had become of him, even if she didn’t know it was going on.

She was supposed to be a leader, yet she didn’t even know the specifics of what was going on in her organization. That was a sign of weakness, and it was something that she wouldn’t tolerate. It was something she would have to fix, starting with him.

Vander didn’t react in the way that he hoped she would. It would have been easier if he was cold to her, or angry with her, or had even attacked her right then and there. She knew that she deserved it, after everything that had been done to him.

But instead, he lifted his head up from the floor, and then carefully stood up. Now, he towered over her, and Sevika could barely hold his gaze. But she recognized the wisdom in his eyes and knew that despite it all, he was still Vander.

“You did what you thought was right.” He told her. His words were deep, rough, and slow, and meant more to her than she thought they would. For a while, she found herself unable to speak. Vander took a step toward her and placed one clawed finger right underneath her throat.

He tapped that spot a few times and gave her a weak smile.

“That’s all anyone can do. You tried your best, and you gave it your all.”

“Zaun… Zaun needed you. With you and Silco gone, I did all that I could.” Sevika told him, though she didn’t know why. She didn’t need to explain her reasoning to him, but it felt right, for some reason.

Vander shook his head.

“No, Sevika,” He told her. “Zaun needed you. Not me, not Silco, but you.”

“The council wants you to come back,” Sevika said suddenly, as she tried to change the subject before she got flustered. “I’m in favor of it, but I want to know if that’s something you want to do.”

Sevika watched the beast scratch his chin, and glance toward the observation room through the glass. He took a few moments to mull it over, and for half a second, Sevika feared that he’d turn the offer down.

“I… I’ll have to think.” Vander finally said. She nodded, then took a deep breath in.

“Let the council know what you think. I’ll see you around.” She said to him, as she took a step towards the door and started to exit.

“Sevika.”

She froze at the mention of her name. She slowly turned around, to see Vander staring right into her eyes once more. She tried to keep herself composed and stoic.

“You’re a good leader.” He told her.

“I learned from the best.” She responded.

When she eventually made it back to her apartment, took off her boots, and laid down in her bed, Sevika held it together for a moment, before she finally allowed herself to feel everything again.

Vi peered through the window of the observation chamber. Warwick glanced up at her, smiled, then waved. She waved back, happy to visit him at a time when he wasn’t completely out of energy, which was often after the chemicals stopped being pumped into his bloodstream.

Who was out of energy, however, was her sister. She laid on the floor next to him, sprawled out like a ragdoll, taking up most of the space on the mat. Warwick had scooted to the side to allow her to have room.

“You know, you don’t have to let her take up all that space.” Vi said to him. Warwick shrugged.

“I didn’t want to wake her up.” He whispered, before becoming Vi to come closer so he could give her a hug. She did, and let out a relieved sigh.

It had been weeks since they had rescued Warwick and Jinx. In the meantime, he had begun to regain more and more of Vander’s personality, memories, and more. He had begun to ask for a pipe to smoke too, but Viktor was adamant that he would not allow Warwick to smoke.

However, Vi was a bit less strict than he was. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a cigar. Warwick’s eyes widened, as he carefully examined it.

“For me?”

“Yeah, it’s for you. I know that you’ve been missing your pipe, and I thought that I could get you something in the meantime.” She said as she sat on the floor next to him. He smiled at her and ruffled her hair.

“Thank you, kiddo.”

“Don’t mention it.” Vi told him. He attempted to place the cigar between his fangs. It was a little strange, as he tried to figure out where exactly to place it, but he eventually got the hang of it. He reached behind him, then shook his head.

“Vi, do you have a light?” Warwick asked. Vi’s eyes suddenly went wide, as she realized that she didn’t. Warwick could tell from the expression on her face that she didn’t have one, and he shrugged.

“Another time, then,” He said as he placed the cigar on the ground. Then, he turned back toward Vi and tilted his head to the side. “How are things with you and Caitlyn?”

“Uh…” Vi started, before a voice from beside the two of them piped up.

“Ooh, I wanna hear this too! Tell us all about Cup-Caity,” Jinx teased, as she peeked out from behind Warwick. “Did the two of you kiss yet?”

“Powder, don’t tease your sister.” Warwick reminded her, then grabbed her from behind him, and placed her between himself and Vi. Jinx pouted. Vi placed a hand to her forehead and rubbed her eyes.

“What?” Jinx said, feigning innocence. “I just wanna know!”

Warwick lowered his eyebrows. Vi cocked her head to the side and raised hers.

“Yeah? How are things going with Ekko, you two kiss yet?” Vi teased back. Jinx gasped in shock, suddenly growing red in the face.

“Hey, Vi,” Warwick grumbled to his eldest daughter. “Don’t antagonize.”

“She started it.” Vi quickly said back, keeping a bit of playfulness in her voice. Jinx pretended to gag as she shook her head back and forth.

“Ugh, gross! Why’d you ask that, you weirdo!” 

Warwick suddenly crossed his arms, and let out a low, guttural growl that silenced both of them. Both girls stared at Warwick with somewhat shocked expressions on their faces. For a moment, he glared at the two of them. Then, Warwick’s ears immediately drooped, as he cowered slightly.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to growl. It just… happens.” He admitted, to which Vi and Jinx both smiled back at him.

“Don’t worry about it.” Vi said. Jinx nodded, then placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, you big goober.” She said. Warwick smiled but didn’t change his posture. Vi picked up that something else was bothering him, and before she could ask, Warwick spoke up.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you both something, but I’ve been… nervous.” He told them, his voice suddenly a lot more vulnerable, and a lot less energetic. Vi and Jinx both sat up and stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. Warwick let out a sigh, then rolled out his neck.

“You two have been… more than kind to me. You gave me a second chance. I will forever be grateful for that,” Warwick told the two of them. He fidgeted with his claws as he spoke, clearly a bit worried about what he was about to say. “But… Viktor doesn’t think that I can go back to… being a human. I’m stuck like this, stuck as a monster.”

“You’re not a monster.” Vi told him. Warwick shook his head from side to side.

“I- I know, and thank you, you know what I mean. I’m a… a…”

“Huge, loveable furball?” Jinx chimed in. Warwick couldn’t help but smile, though he continued to shake his head.

“I don’t look like the man who raised either of you. I have his memories, his emotions, and I care about you two just like he did… but I’m not him. I don’t think I will ever be him again. Which… which is why I want to ask one thing from both of you.”

Vi and Jinx exchanged worried glances, before staring back at Warwick. He took another breath in and readied himself to speak.

“No matter what either of you say, you won’t hurt my feelings. Please, don’t worry about what I think,” Warwick prefaced, with a reassuring look on his face. “I just want to know if either of you want me in your lives, now that I’m… this.”

For a moment, both girls didn’t say a single thing in response. Warwick froze in place, awaiting their responses, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of them with a small bit of worry in his eyes.

“I… I get it,” He whimpered. “You two have your lives, and-”

“No! Warwick, no!” Vi said quickly.

“We just got you back, why would we want you gone!” Jinx also added, with a worried look on her face. Warwick shrugged his shoulders.

“But… I’m not human. You two won’t want me around. I don’t fit in.”

“Hey,” Vi told him, as she gestured at her and Jinx. “Have you seen the two of us? I don’t think that either of us fit in anywhere either.”

“Also, I’m pretty sure that between me, Vi, and a giant wolf, I think that the giant wolf is the least of people’s worries.” Jinx joked as she nudged her sister in the side. Slowly, Warwick began to straighten out his back as his ears perked up once again.

“Really?” He asked.

“Of course, you’re a part of our family, Warwick.” Vi said to him. Warwick smiled and sniffled. Jinx cocked her head to the side, with a bit of a worried look on her face still.

“Do… do you want to be a part of our lives, Warwick?” Jinx asked, suddenly causing silence to fall over the room as the two girls waited for a response. Warwick opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again. Finally, he cleared his throat and tried again.

“I want to… I want to be your dad again,” Warwick finally was able to say, as his voice cracked, showing the emotion behind his words. “If- if that’s what you two want, of course.”

Jinx and Vi grabbed both of his arms and snuggled up next to him in sync. Warwick got choked up and fought back tears.

“You always were,” Jinx told him. “No matter what, you always were.”

“We both want you here, Warwick. We love you, and nothing’s going to change that.” Vi said to him. Warwick was unable to fight back his tears at that point. He grabbed both of his daughters and pulled them into a big, furry hug.

“Thank you.” Warwick whispered. His tail began to wag back and forth and slammed into the wall, but he didn’t move. He just squeezed his daughters tighter.

“Alright, you big softie. Squeeze me any tighter and I’m gonna pop.” Jinx wheezed. Warwick quickly loosened his grip, as the three of them fell into a fit of laughter.

Everything was going to be alright, Vi thought to herself.

Maybe, just this once, everything was going to be alright.