23

Chapter Thirteen

Sighing, I sat at my desk in my Hexgate office, and faced my greatest foe.

Paperwork.

I'd been doing some, off and on, for DEATH, for years, but the favor I was asking for was not a small one, resurrection of the sort I sought an impossibility on this world, and an action that was, in many ways, against his very nature, but one he'd agreed to, with the stipulations that he would tell me when I had done enough, and that he would only do so for a person once.

But that wasn't the only thing I had been doing, so progress was slow, but I finally finished up my audit of Babylon 5- Ψ2DΠS8‡GH, showing that, yes, the Ferengi were stealing, but within planned parameters, and the issue wasn't their taps on the power matrix to make their holo-brothel function, it was the Ifrit Barbeque that was dumping extra energy into it that was causing errors to cascade through the tracking systems, which some others were using as a smokescreen for an impressive amount of embezzlement. My status as an unaligned party let me dodge the targeted inattention curses at play and my Mind Defense rendered me immune to the general purpose Memetic Bullshittery that stuck to the information like tar, having made notes on them for the original auditing team to backtrack to the Company Idiot who was fucking with them, and completing the filing process, it folded up into itself, vanishing in a puff of mist and shadows.

With that done, I took out my more local reports, and started to go through them.

Because I was looking into Piltover's neighboring nations, and the best of which for my purposes, was, surprisingly, Bilgewater.

Noxus, to our direct north, was in a state of constant conflict, and while I was no slouch in a fight I was well aware they had warriors that'd turn me into mincemeat, as well as their pet Mages, which I currently had no answer to. At the same time, the people in that unholy bastard child of German, Rome, and the Necromongers believed in 'strength over all' in a way that, even if they were honorable about it, wouldn't go well for me, but, being honest, a great deal of them weren't. That meant, as a foreigner, looking the other way while someone sucker-punched me instead of challenging me to a duel in order to rob me would be seen as acceptable, whereas if I was able to stymie their underhanded tactics, they'd merely pretend it was a 'test' and try and welcome me as one of them, only not really, and if I made a big deal about it they would, like a corrupted guard force, pull on the heartstrings of their uncorrupted countrymen to turn all against me. That meant that any foray that way required a sufficiently strong guard-force to watch my back, which was not conducive to my purposes.

Ionia was, while not at war with Noxus, yet, in many ways, worse. Not-Asia was quite xenophobic, and from the reports one seemingly couldn't go five minutes there without tripping over some Spirit bullshit, who might take offense merely over the fact that you weren't a local. While there was potential for trade there, that was only due to the fact that the ports were mostly normalized, and that didn't help my secondary search in the slightest.

Shurima, that desert kingdom to the southwest that straddled the line between Egyptian and African, only held real worth due to its status as the grave of an ancient, magically advanced empire, flush with mana, and was thus where my Hex-Crystals were sourced from, but anything more than that would be a complete dice roll, and only pay out in windfalls.

Ixtal, the country, I only knew existed because of my outsider status, as the 'Mayans-but-Magic' had gone Full Wakanda, and you never went Full Wakanda. Their nation was so isolationist that no one knew it existed outside of a handful of dismissed myths and legends. Ixtal, the region, was mostly known to be ocean-side villages that utilized the extreme fecundity and biodiversity of the jungle-adjacent region to farm everything from staple crops, to medicinal plants, to clay in order to make high-end ceramics, the last of which was literally called Mudtown, just like the location of the same name from Firefly, and about on the same socioeconomic level.

Demacia? Targon? Freljord? All half a world away, and while information on them was, in the last year, more plentiful than it had been before, as, with my Hexgate, one cross half the world in moments to ease the return trip for natives, we had only recently calibrated the coordinates of the first of those three locations a few months ago, because it took half a year to sail back to Piltover using water-based craft from either of the first two, and aircraft only shaved the hourney to half that which was still three months of constant travel from Damacia, while attempting to utilize air-travel near the 'Mountain of the Gods' just got one smote.

So travel times were an issue.

Because Runeterra was big.

Runeterra was stupidly big.

Like… at least ten times the size of Earth big.

Because the world as we knew it? We'd had to crunch the numbers to make the Hexgate work, and it seemed that all of the 'Runeterra' we'd mapped was essentially the Americas, leaving space for at least another continent cluster somewhere out there, in the 'here be dragons' edges of the map, and while there were rumors of people coming from beyond the known world, from a place called Camavore, across the Eternal Ocean to the east, however every attempt to 'Columbus it' had, well, if they'd managed to find something, they hadn't come back.

And, as far as I could tell, no one had even bothered going west.

But, to make sure we dropped someone off in that relatively narrow band of sky between sea and space, we'd had to do the math on the actual numbers involved, and god damn did I develop a hatred of our fucking astronomers.

Then again, given that the information about Runeterra's sun, in a way that wasn't related to the Ancient Shurimans' worship of it, was just 'yeah, it exists', there was a non-zero chance that it was magical and may or may not actually be a star, so with that as a base it was really a whole bunch of guesswork.

I was fairly certain it at least wasn't sentient, and the chances of a When Day Breaks scenario was effectively zero, but figuring out celestial mechanics to pull an Aristotle and determine how big the planet was through pure math wasn't going to happen. Well, not Aristotle, someone else around the same time, but, my point still stood. However, when the stars seemed to move in response to magical bullshit, there went our derivative calculations. By running experiments with the Hexgates, we started to get rough estimates, though the fact that our probes, given enough distance, our exploratory devices got buffeted about a bit by, for lack of a better term, Void Currents made any really tight math impossible, but we could get averages and work within safe parameters.

It was… a thing.

But, in the end, that left me with Bilgewater, which was about a month away by ship, and served as a neutral party for both Noxus and Ionia to trade with, because god forbid you stop doing business with the people that looked like they were going to try and kill you. Other ships passed through as well, Piltover's Sun Gates allowing ships from Targon and Demacia to pass through it to that pirate haven, and while the City of Progress had strict rules on the kinds of things you were allowed to sell within it, with taxes to match, thorough inspections were only done if they were unloading them at our docks, or sometimes Zaun, where inspections were still supposed to happen, though the security on the Undercity's docks was, understandably, looser.

Which is why the Enforcers also checked shipments coming across the twin bridges, despite technically 'already being in the city'.

That cost and bureaucracy, however, made the pirate haven also a center of trade of a slightly less honest sort, which is what let it survive as a pirate haven, as those sorts of locations normally needed much more productive nations to parasitize, but while 'Bilgies' maintained the aesthetic, they kept their bandit-urges in their metaphorical pants, for the most part.

Thus, the Kirammans had invested in Bilgewater's more stable operations, and so which I, too, had invested in, but, now that I needed to not just copy what the incredibly wealthy people I trusted not to screw me over did, I'd been given a list of vetted vendors, ventures, and veterans of the seas, but warned that all their placement within the document's covers meant was that they wouldn't openly rip me off, as, to quote my Runeterran Patron, "Incompetence can defy all odds, and a reputation for failure must first be constructed through repeated loss."

Which meant that I needed to look into them, before funding the expansion of their operations, to see if they could handle it.

And the reports were… questionable, to say the least.

Some of which because the information contained between entries was sometimes contradictory, and some because it was fantastical, but, given places like Slaughter Bay existed, a town entirely dedicated to the butchering of literal sea monsters, like the Victorian whaling industry, not on crack, but on meth-laced salvia, maybe they were just being accurate.

Which just reinforced to me that Piltover was the least fantastical place in this world, and, as a starting location, I'd kind of lucked out, because… jeezus christ the rest of the planet was kinda fucked.

Keeping to cities helped, but, from some of the reports, of everything from fishman uprisings, to abyssal cults that worshipped the spirits of the deep, to repeated undead invasions, the last of which was so regular it had a name, even that wasn't enough. 'The Harrowing'… didn't sound fun and while there was a non-zero chance I'd be able to talk my way out of undead enmity, given who I worked for, that would just raise more questions from anyone that saw me do so.

And, even given that well established level of danger, Bilgewater was still safer than my other local options in terms of trade.

Regardless, the issue was that the things that were happening were so over the top, assuming they weren't exaggerating, that I just didn't have the proper frame of reference to understand them. Yes, there were giant monsters that occasionally attacked ships, and even an undead kaiju mariner that was supposed to sink your ship if you didn't toss him a silver as toll every time you left port, but, in a business sense, what did that actually mean?

I needed numbers, dammit, and someone to talk to who knew their shit.

Which led to my second, self-assigned task.

Finding my next Stamped contact.

I had a folder of personnel profiles, put together by Babette, detailing possible candidates, my gendered specifications narrowing the list down quite a bit. Madams were, of course, represented, possibly over-represented, though, looking through them, she had at least been honest in her assessments, noting the possibly problematic personality traits of those involved, as, while Babette was someone I could trust, and work with, for better or worse, she was exceptional.

The rest of the workups were an eclectic mix of ship captains, shopkeepers, bounty hunters, and so on, even including a female foreman that owned her own 'chop shop' in Slaughter Bay, but all of these were based on nothing but rumors and hearsay, necessitating a visit to, at least, feel them out, though I'd already met one of the captains, when she visited Piltover, only to find out she was little more than a mascot for a particularly unpleasant fellow who wanted to reap the rewards of being in charge but run none of the risks himself, as captains were often executed after losing a ship-to-ship battle while their crews were temporarily shanghaied into the conquering one's numbers.

And as for the rest, they were all just names on paper, with descriptions, and maybe the occasional sketch, since, you know, photography wasn't a thing here, and the magic wasn't sufficiently advanced to start getting confused with science.

My office faintly hummed, sending a larger cargo vessel off to Damacia, the power requirements still within the Hexgate's tolerances, but the added vibrations were just a tad more than the insulation could dampen fully.

Well, magic that I didn't make wasn't advanced enough to breach the line into being tech.

Cross referencing Babbette's dossiers with Mrs. Kiramman's, that helped a bit, but that only told me who was stable, not who held a spark of greatness, and while I'd settle for the first, the second offered a great deal more possibility in the future.

Not for the first, or fifth, or fifty-first time, I wished my Home's library hadn't been gutted, even if I understood why DEATH had done so, because a bit of hard intel would've been very very useful right now.

Sighing, and summoning my phone to double check that the latest bout of paperwork had gone through, I stopped, staring at the device, as I realized I did have a list… after a fashion.

Opening it up, I navigated to the 'Waifu' section of my contract, which, oddly enough, included both genders now. Specifying Runeterra, I found they'd tweaked the Tiers, most of the characters still Tier Five, but now some, like the demon literally made of fear, had been upgraded to Tier Eight, which both made a bit of sense, but also confirmed how I wanted nothing to do with him, though, from what I heard, Fiddlesticks was keeping himself to the Damacian hinterlands, at least for now.

Also of interest was the fact that the list now possessed some… interesting additions.

Specifically, Mylo and Claggor, the girls' dead brothers, who I'd spent hundreds of hours trying to purchase a resurrection for.

And now I could spend four points.

Out of the six I currently had.

But… but they'd be clones, even if they didn't know the difference, even if, down to a quantum level, they'd be indistinguishable.

Really, it was the principle of the thing.

And, while I would if I had to, I hadn't bought anyone yet, and I'd rather not, though, now, I at least had a plan B.

Also, seeing Cait, Violetta, and Piper on the list was… mildly disconcerting, now that I knew them for real.

Though, really, it wasn't them, but Caitlyn, Vi, and Jinx, which helped.

Right, I'm working for the bad guys, I reminded myself, though The Company was, by far, the lesser evil, compared to well, anything Void related.

Spotting a 'Camille Ferros', I frowned, as I'd met the woman, at a minor social function, one I hadn't been able to beg off of, but the woman's hair had not been fully grey, nor had she been rocking those surprisingly high-tech prosthetics. Prosthetics that, from the glow, seemed to be hex-tech.

Alternate timeline? I wondered, aware that my current location was, itself, a sub-universal branch from the original, which then raised the question of, if I picked up the boys, would they even be the ones that Vi and Piper remembered?

All the more reason to do it the right way, though, looking at the entries for my charges, and how they were very clearly their post-timeskip selves, at least, the listing was for them as they would've been four-ish years from now, all of these entries were the champions as they would be in their prime.

That said, continuing to look over the list, there was a name that appeared on Babbette's report, but not Mrs. Kiramman's.

"Hmm," I mused, looking at the image, making a mental note to, when it was possible, set up a meeting.

"While you certainly have the look of one about you, what makes you a Champion, Sarah Fortune?"

​

"Alright," Jayce smiled, nodding to Piper, who powered down the array, as Ekko checked the sand that hung in the air for any inconsistencies. "That should be the last one." Turning to the boy, he questioned, "Any crystals?"

Having listened carefully, not hearing any impacts, the Undercity tinkerer used the rake he'd put together and ran it through the pile of dropped material, but nothing had fused. Looking over to the 'man' Ekko gave him a thumbs up. "Nope!"

The boy hadn't been sure what to expect, when JUSTICE had come for him, after Ekko had thought he'd gotten Vi, who was somehow alive, killed, by leading her to a quick-junk pit, dumping her into wherever all the trash that was dumped ended up, only for her to come back, and help him find a new home, Topside.

And not with a Pilty, but with another person from the Undercity who'd also gone up, a made a life for himself! Mr. Viktor was a pretty cool dude, and while it'd been a bit awkward at first, once they'd started talking inventions, that'd helped, the guy just… getting the stuff the tinkerer got in a way that his friends hadn't, in a way that even Benzo hadn't, though Ekko's adopted father would always be happy to listen to the boy talk.

And Ekko… missed Benzo, but, while he knew that Vi wanted to hunt down Silco for what he did to their parents, and he'd help if she found him, he'd learned to keep going, to make his life about helping people, which… which he was pretty sure what Benzo would've wanted.

So now he was inventing, and getting paid for it, which was, just… wow. He'd always invented stuff, but, for helping Victor and 'Jayce' make the Hexgates, he got a bit of the money they made and, while most of it was put away for when he turned eighteen, the amount he still got was… he wasn't sure what to do with it?

JUSTICE had finally suggested he ask Viktor, who didn't really know either, so the Spirit pretending to be a person had then talked to one of the leaders of Piltover, who'd sent someone to go talk to them about 'diversifying' and 'investments' and a whole bunch of stuff that the kid had never even heard of, all that stuff more Powder's jam, involving stuff that wasn't really real.

Like, yeah, it was a thing, but not something you could touch, though, talking to 'Jayce' about it he'd, he'd come back yesterday with these cool little blocks you could stick together, made of some kind of different colored Spirit material, that helped him understand how much money he had, and what he could do with it, taking the mass of blocks apart and dividing them up between ways to spend them in a way that just numbers on a paper didn't show.

The man had also noted it 'Hurt like hell' if you accidentally stepped on them.

So now the Undercity kid got to make stuff, and help people with the money he made, and somehow his money was also making more money, which seemed like some rich Pilty trick, but Jayce reassured him that no one was being hurt or stolen from to make it happen, and, well, he'd know.

"Okay, what next?" Ekko questioned.

"It's done," the Spirit stated. "We've done enough testing, more than enough, and figured out how to shape the field enough to make safe zero-g environments. We could work on inducing stable irregularities, though the math on that's gonna be a lot more complicated."

"Math, snath, ya just need ta wiggle the boundary runes a little!" Powder scoffed.

Lifting an eyebrow, "Yes, but how much?"

"A… little?" the blue-haired girl repeated, rolling her eyes under the supernatural guy's stare. "Uh, like, ten-degree rotation of runes one, four, and seven, neg, like, twenty-two for three and six, and…. Probably flip the stabilizing one?"

Ekko tried to run the numbers for that, but had only managed to start to figure out the base when the Spirit sighed. "Piper, that'd mulch everything caught inside."

"But it'd be a stable instability!" she countered.

Nodding JUSTICE agreed, "Yes, but I was thinking something a bit more stable, and smaller, and possible bidirectional, like a spacetime saw to cut with or something similar."

Leaning back, the girl considered that. "Oh, yeah, that'd be a lot more complicated!"

"Either way," the man said, turning to Ekko, "Congratulations on another completed project. Though, the question now is what we do with it."

"Have fun?" the boy offered, unsure. "Too bad we can't move it."

"Yeah, the crystals are too touchy to make the arrays mobile. Refining the crystals to be more stable is something we need to work on," Jayce agreed. "But I was thinking more in the interim. Perhaps a cargo elevator, between Zaun and Piltover? As long as we don't turn it into a personnel transport system, we won't step on the Bathysphere's toes. And, considering the energy draw isn't per tonnage, just area and duration, combined with the fact that overlapping the fields doesn't do anything, it wouldn't be that hard to implement a constant system if need be, for fairly low cost."

Right, the Ekko thought, of course he already had an idea, that was a test. It wasn't the first one the Spirit had offered, and while he was getting better at them, he knew he had a long way to go. "Oh, uh, yeah. And we could make a chemtech loading system!"

"Indeed," Viktor agreed. "It would not be too difficult, though, obviously, not something we would be able to do more than the planning for here."

"I still don't get why we can't work on it here," the boy grumbled. "Just 'cause it ain't clean like Hextech is don't mean it's bad."

"No, it's the fact that it's dangerous that's the issue," Jayce noted. "Especially as Piltover doesn't have the infrastructure to run it."

They'd had this discussion before, but, "It'd make things easier!"

"And it would also mean whatever we make can never leave Zaun," the Spirit noted.

"Which is not that much of a problem, at least currently," Viktor counted, and Ekko waved towards his mentor, as if to go See!

Powder, who'd been setting up a smaller array, glanced over, "And it would be a lot easier."

"Well, unfortunately it's Piltover that has most of the money," Jayce argued, "So while making Zaun-specific stuff is doable, to pay for everything else, we need to make some stuff that works for them. And, once we get it running with hex-crystals, we can implement them elsewhere, especially as we get Piper's reclamation array to work better and better, while making Chemfluid is something currently beyond our capabilities."

"Making Chemfluid?" Ekko echoed. "You don't make Chemfluid. It comes out the tap."

Jayce and Viktor both paused, and turned towards him, while Powder giggled.

"Young man, how did you think it got in 'the tap'?" the Undercity Man questioned.

"It…" the boy trailed off, not having an answer for that. "Huh. Is. Is there just a big tank or something of it? But then why is it flowin', and it'd still spill, and… huh."

Turning to the Spirit, Viktor inquired, "And you have seen this process?"

"Yeah, in the Flowspace," JUSTICE revealed, the truth of that space, and his trip down into it, having come out, since Ekko hadn't known it was supposed to be a secret. "It's Mana intensive as fuck, but it's also a very dirty process, and, even if we could replicate it, I'm not sure we should, not without some comprehensive protections, and even then, it'd be best to do so outside the city and pump it in, a bit like Zaun has done, even accidentally."

Thinking about this, Ekko suggested, "Then, why don't we just put in some lines to pump it into the Topside?"

It was Viktor who answered, "Because it is something of the Undercity, and would not be accepted."

"Well that's dumb!" the white-haired tinkerer declared, crossing his arms, Powder nodding in agreement as she powered up a small array.

It hummed to life, and she grabbed a handful of sand into it, which promptly twisted and compacted, ripping apart in rivers of sandstone, then crystals, then crystal dust, then crystal again, as she powered it off, prompting a shower of rocks.

"Yep! Doesn't work right!" she announced, as JUSTICE sighed.

"It doesn't matter if it's dumb, it's what they believe, and thus something that needs to be worked around," the Spirit stated, waving to the partially assembled machine in the corner. "Like the Hex-cutter would be a lot easier to program with Chemtech, and I know you've been playing around with designs at the HALP center, but we need to go with gears for anything in Piltover. But by putting a… Hexspace Cargo Lift right at its border that uses Chemtech loaders should be fine."

Frowning, Ekko asked, "What 'bout the Hexgate?"

"What about the Hexgate?" the guy who invented them questioned.

Watching him with a narrow eyed look, as this test was just too easy, the boy stated, "Well, it's a skyport, so wouldn't puttin' a cargo lift into it make sense?"

Jayce stared at him for a long moment, and the Tinkerer wondered if he'd said something wrong, before the guy slapped a hand to his forehead. "Of course! Good one, Ekko!" He smiled, not making fun of the dark-skinned teen, but with honest praise. "Though, that also means we're going to have to test its stability in the presence of an active Hexgate. So you know what that means, right?"

Groaning, the boy slumped, "More testing?"

"It would not do to have someone's shipment of goods be turned inside out mid transfer, or drop crates of melons upon the populace from a thousand feet up," Viktor noted.

"Be funny though," Powder offered. "Long as no one got hit."

"I do not think those who lost several hundred gold in products would find it amusing, Ms. Vandottir," the older Undercity resident stated.

JUSTICE nodded, adding, "Though, interaction testing is pretty straightforward, if you and Piper want to start working on the base blueprints for the Chemtech Loaders?"

"I, you sure?" Ekko questioned, really not wanting to do the boring bits, but-

"He wouldn't've asked if he wasn't!" Powder replied, leaping over a table to grab one of their blackboards and rolling it over to one side. "So, if we just toss stuff into it, it should keep goin', right?"

Hesitating, looking at the Spirit, he waved the boy off, who was happy to go over to his friend, looking at what she was sketching out, taking a thinking pose, before arguing, "But, once it's in Hexspace, ya don't need to keep it going. And if there's stuff going on, it can just wait. Though, if ya wanted to move it, maybe some fans?"

"Wanna know what moves stuff even better?" the girl smiled. "Explosions!"

"No large explosions for direct industrial maneuvering," JUSTICE called out. "It's not economical."

Wilting momentarily, Powder perked back up. "But what about little explosions, that, like, move something, that moves something else that moves cargo!"

How is that better? Ekko thought, opening his mouth to disagree.

"That's fine, and easier to dial in," the Spirit agreed, going back to setting up a small Hexgate, cordoning off the far side of the lab, making it the exit point. "Though fans could also be useful, just be aware that air-streams spread out."

"Hmm…" Powder hummed, making a few sketches, drawing out a flow regulator, a turbine, an ignitor, and finally offering Ekko the chalk, proposing, "Explosion fan?"

Taking it, adding a focusing cowl, and an inversion switch, he nodded in agreement. "Explosion fan."

Chapter Fourteen

"Come on, we need to have a chat," I told Vi, having, after work, gone to the HALP Center, only to find her not there. That meant she'd gone to her usual haunt, on a rooftop overseeing the rebuilt 'The Last Drop', which served as her father's 'court', and her place of safety for most of her life. Thankfully, it was a viewpoint far, and high, enough that she would not be seen doing so in turn, the Zaunite native able to slip through the city with ease.

While I hadn't known how to do so myself, Martial Talent had eventually copied her mental notes once she'd started telling me what I was doing wrong, as moving without being noticed was combat-adjacent, and Wild Talent had, after my trip down into the Flowspace, eventually agreed that this cityscape was a certain kind of 'wilderness' enough to share a few pointers as well. I was still nowhere near her skill, but I could at least manage to avoid prying eyes myself as I'd made my way up to her perch.

The young woman in question nodded, not arguing, giving her old, rebuilt home one last glance before following me down across rooftops and sliding down tight alley walls, the three-dimensional movement skills she'd helped Caitlyn, Piper, and I train allowing me to do so with ease. Heading back to the HALP Center, smiling at the people there, passing by Piper, Ekko, and Viktor, who were all in our back-end workshop, crunching the numbers and prototyping the Chemtech-powered Hexspace Cargo Loaders, I led the white-haired girl to one of our meeting rooms, where Babette had set up snacks and drinks for us, after I'd said I was going to go talk to our resident brawler.

Closing the door behind her, I flipped the safety latch, less of a lock and more a way to make sure no one tried to open it just enough to listen in, the slight hum of a Chemtech noisemaker emanated from the security feature, enough to further discourage eavesdropping. Vi had, almost sullenly, dropped into her chair, and grabbed one of the cookies, nibbling on it in a way that would've been called cute, if she wouldn't punch anyone who even suggested such a thing.

Grabbing my own seat, I plopped down on the same end of the table as her, with the food between us, and to our side. "Alright, what's up?" I questioned, not wanting to use any of my political training against her, even accidentally.

"What'd'ya mean, Jayce? You're the one that said we needed to talk," the white-haired teen replied, though whether she was deflecting, or actually confused, I wasn't quite sure.

"You've been… off, ever since we went to the Justifiers' meeting last week," I stated. "Which, understandable, but you've been going to that spot almost daily."

"I'm not gonna get caught!" the Zaunite asserted angrily.

I nodded, "That's not what I'm concerned about. I trust your skills, Violetta. It's how you're doing that I'm concerned about."

My reassurance helped put her at ease, but the clarification put her off in turn. "I'm fine," the brawler quickly declared, grabbing a cookie, and taking a forceful bite from it.

"Then why have you kept going to Vander's old bar?" I questioned. "Stopping by eventually, fine, but it's getting obsessive. Silco isn't there, Babette checked."

Frowning, she crammed the rest of the pastry in her mouth to give herself time to think, grabbing the bottle of mead that was chilling and pouring herself a glass. While she'd been iffy about the drink, it was very much a Freljordian beverage, and she'd found she liked the sweeter versions of it, so I'd made sure the HALP center had some of the imported brew stocked, as having her drink it publicly helped sell her backstory. Glancing my way, I nodded to her, and she poured one for me as well.

Lifting her cup, I did the same, and we clinked glasses, taking a sip of it, the gesture again more of a stalling tactic than anything else, but I didn't mind, I had time.

"It's not Silco," she finally admitted. "Not just Silco, though seeing that snake, seeing everyone look at him, like they looked at- and having to do nothing- it's just…" she let out in a rush, at a loss for words, or an ending to her thought.

Which was, likely, part of the issue.

"Babette's looked into them, the Justifiers, not Silco," I revealed, swinging around topics to give the girl more time to put her mind in order. "Through her other business, getting them to talk after, well, her girls had serviced them."

Vi frowned slightly, the Zaunite aware of the open practice of prostitution, but she'd very much put it in a 'don't think about it' box. In another timeline, she'd drag a Caitlyn who she'd just met, and was an Enforcer, there, to talk to Babette herself, but also likely to mess with the Piltovan a little, testing her to see if she was like the other 'tourists' from topside, putting the blue-haired girl into the position, not as a client, but as a worker.

Thankfully, a large number of the men and women that worked for the Yordle were more Hosts than Whores, but there was no true line between the two in Zaun, so Caitlyn hadn't needed to do more than strike up a conversation with someone before one of Babette's girls had stepped in and defused the possible timebomb of social awkwardness before the Piltovan Noblewoman was pushed too far. After all, they knew who worked there, and who didn't, and would notice a Jane who, for whatever reason, was chatting up Johns.

Perhaps the Zaunite would've been more understanding of the practice after seven years in Stillwater, but as it was now, it was a fact of life for the people here, but not a career that she herself would ever pursue if given a choice. As it was, while Vi, ironically, wouldn't be as… bluntly abrasive about it as I was, ironically given our normal dispositions, she wasn't super comfortable with directly talking about such things either, and liked the fact that the HALP Center gave Babette's girls, and occasionally boys, something else to do.

"They couldn't do a full physical, obviously," I continued, "but from what they've got, while no one is superhuman, the average Justifier could clean the clock of your average thug, and, one to one, could take out an Enforcer four times out of five. So, you know, still less dangerous than you were back when we first met, but quantity has a quality of all of its own. Speed and strength have gotten a boost, but it's toughness and endurance which they've gotten from their Shimmer infusions the most. Which means that, unless you want to kill a lot of the people who live here, direct combat's out, as they wouldn't go down that easy."

"I could take 'em," the teen declared, almost reflexively.

"One? Without breaking stride. Five? Sure. Twenty-Five, still yes," I agreed, as Vi smirked. "A hundred? No," I stated, and her expression twisted, wanting to argue, but likely knowing I was right. "Not without going lethal, turning it into a running battle, and even then, probably not. To get that good, we're talking Champion level. And we're nowhere close to that One-Man Army, Dragon-Slayer, Mage-Bane level of ridiculousness, and likely won't be there for years. We're getting stronger, faster than they are, but they're likely going to continue getting stronger as well. Well, I don't know any doctors or biologists good enough to tell me more, but it'd be best to assume they're going to keep improving. That said, Silco isn't their leader, but merely one of three, and if we had to rank their triumvirate, he'd come fourth when it comes to the loyalty of most of them."

Pausing mid-sip, the white-haired teen shot me a questioning look. "I'm not the best at math, but…"

"JUSTICE is first, though we've talked about the issues there," I shrugged. "So, Silco's a lying asshole who manipulates people into thinking he's better than he actually is. I've also been told that water is, indeed, wet," I quipped with a smile. "But what does that have to do with The Last Drop?"

Vi's answering smirk at my insulting of her father's killer faded, and she looked away for a moment, not answering. "I… it's stupid," she finally declared.

"It's effecting you, so it clearly isn't," I disagreed, kindly. "Have you been inside?"

"What? No!" she quickly answered. "Have you?"

"No, though if you'd like me to take a look around for you, take a few pictures, I can," I offered.

The look she shot me was complex, part pained, part grateful, part annoyed, as she struggled with herself, finally shaking her head no. "It's not- it's not The Last Drop, Jayce. It's the Lanes. They… They aren't what they used to be."

I nodded, though I had to ask, "Is that so bad?"

"Yes!" she declared.

I waited a moment, before asking, "…Why?"

"It just is!" Vi almost yelled, sounding hurt, and angry, but, well, I'd talked to her about how exclamations without explanations didn't fuckin' help, so I waited, concerned, and she grimaced, grabbing another cookie, and taking a bite. When she was done, the white-haired woman stated, quieter, "It… feels like he's gone. More and more. And he is, at least until you do your spirit-stuff, but…"

Seeing where she was going, I gently suggested, "But without him, things aren't universally worse."

Not saying anything, the brawler nodded.

"Vander was a good man, but, remember those philosophy lessons I did for you and your sister?" I prodded. "Especially the fallacies, like how Sunk Costs make people waste even more on a bad idea to try and justify their losses by getting something out of it?"

"Yeah," she nodded, the girl grimacing as she made the connection, as, while she wasn't Science-smart, she was by no means dumb. "You're saying he thought everyone was like him. But they aren't! Silco isn't!"

With a wave of my drink, I pointed out, "But, remember, he and Silco were once friends, united in fighting against the worst of the Piltovans. Except the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, they are merely my enemy's enemy. And Vander probably, until that last night, still believed Silco to merely be misguided, not Evil, because it's easier to overlook something that's not in your face, if it means you don't have to admit you were wrong, then come to the, quite honestly, horrifying understanding that there are people that aren't like you, and likely never will be."

With a sigh, I remembered my Basic Training from The Company. "Now sometimes Stupid, but mostly just Lazy people, when they realize that, will still try to slot 'their people' in the 'can't be evil' category, and instead will look for obvious signifiers to try and categorize the 'others' that aren't like them. Try and find some commonality their friends have, but the Evil person does not to go off of. Their sex. Their homeland. The color of their skin," I offered.

"What?" Vi questioned, confused. "How does that… what, do they do hair color too?"

"Sometimes," I nodded, to her disbelief, and, once again, I was reminded that, despite how dangerous this world was, it was also surprisingly egalitarian in that respect, when that was the first thing that usually went when things got rough, but survivable. "But my point is that, with Vander and Silco both fighting against the very screwed up things some Piltiovans were pulling, then, just as the other Piltovans came to the defense of the evil Topsiders, believing those assholes weren't evil because they were 'All Piltovans', at the same time, Vander assumed that Silco was also not evil because they were both Zaunites, or 'Undercity-ers' or whatever. And it wasn't just Silco, Vander always tried to see the best in everyone, didn't he?" I prodded.

"He did," Vi agreed, arguing, "And a lot of people, a lot of people that had trouble, had problems, because he did, got better!"

Nodding, I agreed, "And for some people, that's great. But not for others. Not for Silco. Also, I built the Hexgate, which also increased trade in a way that has nothing to do with whoever was calling the shots in The Lanes, but increased trade and prosperity down here too, so it's not a one-factor issue, and thus, while Vander's style of leadership has its ups and downs, compared to the Justifiers', he was also ruling over a city with a very different set of rules. Vander's style? It works wonders for military units, for organizations of choice, for heroes, but The Lanes are none of those things, and governments do not work by assuming the best out of their subjects, at least not without a way of also dealing with their worst."

"So, what, you think it's better that he's gone?" the brawler accused, and, pausing, going over my words, I realized, right, this is what happens when I try not to think politically.

It was a… childish belief of mine, trying not to manipulate others, when that was… not how people worked.

Because other people, ironically, weren't like me.

"No, his murder, and Silco's ascendency, was not a good thing," I stated with confidence. "It would've been far, far better for me to have emptied Stillwater and worked with him to help, even if subtly, pry Zaun a bit free of Piltover's hold over it, but unfortunately I couldn't act until it was too late."

Frowning, Vi threw back the rest of her drink, and poured herself another. I waited, until, looking down into her glass, the girl muttered, "If only I'd listened."

"When we first met?" I questioned, and, not looking up, she nodded.

Leaning over, I rested a comforting hand on her knee, stating quietly, "Vi, you couldn't've known what was coming. Hell, think about it, no one here, except for you, Piper, and Babette, have any idea what I really am, and that's with me outright showing you things beyond your wildest dreams. Would things have gone differently, if you knew then what you know now? Yes. But you can't judge things that way. I was a 'Pilty' you'd just robbed, and who you'd fucked up pretty bad, even if it was by accident, and you had no way of knowing that I really wouldn't care, when someone else in my position might've tried to have you executed for what you did."

Staying where I was, leaning over, staring into Vi's wary, hopeful, vulnerable blue eyes, I admitted, "And, Hell, if the Enforcers had found you, that's almost certainly what they would've done to you if I hadn't been willing to burn a great deal of social capitol to protect you, and it would've been unreasonable to believe I would, though now you know I absolutely would." I sighed, smiling, "I don't blame Piper for what she did trying to save you, Milo, and Clagor, just as I don't Echo for trying to protect himself from us when he thought you were dead, just as I don't blame you for trying to protect them from me when you didn't know who I was. We've got enough shit to worry about, like tracking down Silco when he's not surrounded by a small army to kill the fuck out of him, to worry about 'What could have been'."

"But-" she started to argue, cut off as I gently squeezed her knee.

"Are you doing your best?" I questioned, kindly, but with no give.

"I, yeah, mostly, but-"

"Do you trust Caitlyn, Piper, and I to help you?"

"I mean, Cupcake would be-" she started to quip, but it died as I stared at her, with unblinking seriousness. "I, uh, yeah."

"Then let's keep going, and do what we can," I ordered, wanting to give the girl a hug, but, no, that'd be too much. Instead I let go, leaned back, finished my drink, and poured myself another, giving her a moment to process that, finally stating, "It's what I demand of myself, even if I don't always succeed. Can you do so too?"

Letting out a long breath, the brawler nodded. "Yeah, you can, Jayce." A thought occurred to her, as she proposed, "So, with the time I'm not spending… elsewhere, how 'bout we spar? You're getting better, but if you're 'doing your best', we should be going harder."

Snorting, I stood, setting my drink on the table, summoning my phone, and opening the Gate, offering a hand, which Vi took. "Well, I'm literally asking for it," I smiled, getting a laugh from the woman, as we headed Home.

​

Silco sat in his office, one of almost three dozen, and sipped on Noxian Brandy fit for a Councilor. Being on the move like this, there were advantages to it. Before, when Vander had ruled the Lanes, the businessman had held up within a dockside warehouse, able to do a little, stymied from projecting his power more than the barest amount lest he catch his old comrade's ire before he was ready. Now he was ever-present across the Undercity, across Zaun, not at the forefront of things, not standing proud, yet it was his name on the lips of any who mattered, he was the one who managed the hidden veins of trade in this city.

Not the jugular, that would be the Sun Gates, though, as the world changed, there was another, and now both sources were paired, Sun Gates and Hexgate, just as those on the neck were. No, he controlled the femoral, below the civilizational belt, not to be shown off, but just as needed, and, if they were to be cut, just as deadly.

Moving as he did, constantly shifting workspaces, it had been difficult at first, harrowing as he scuttled from safe location to safe location, but, after several years, even though it had been months since there had even been a reporting of the Spirit, he did not stop, could not stop, as, even now, JUSTICE's words echoed in the ruler's ears.

"It's simple, Child of Zaun. I'm your Enemy."

Trying to claim The Last Drop as his own, to install himself in Vander's place, had seen Silco coming face to face with the Spirit once more, and he had wondered why it had merely flown off, on a device which shrieked like a tortured spirit, trailing Shadow Isles Green light, instead of finishing the job, but, then again, slaying Silco's guard as he had done so, perhaps that had been the message.

And he had listened, loud and clear, as much as it galled him, but until he had an answer to such a foe, discretion was always the better part of valor. Furthermore, his movements had let him avoid the efforts of… recalcitrant businessmen, and women, who'd sought to… remove the competition.

Some of them learned their lesson, some became the lesson, but, now, his position was secure.

Mostly.

His plan to take over the Justifiers had run into a… few snags.

It was the same problem he'd had with Vander, actually, well, one of them, because while Silco knew how to inspire fear, inspiring loyalty was something he struggled with, at times. Fools who did not understand the world would do as he asked, but they oft preferred a kind face, a comforting lie, than deal with the truth of the world.

And thus… Rivina, and, to a lesser extent, Cragit, though the latter was a fool, easily manipulated, though not easily removed. The man was a great deal more reasonable than Vander, and, having learned he would not cause problems, Silco did not coordinate with the bald fellow like he had his brother in all but blood, but managed him instead, giving the Stillwater Escapee just enough information to continue his job, tending to the flock, but while he was a good shepherd, Silco was the lord of this domain, though he could not force the issue.

Yet.

Rivina, meanwhile… she was not a peer, but she was another player in the Great Game, one who's ruthlessness and commitment almost equaled Silco's own, but her goals were not in direct conflict with his, which is what allowed their partnership to function. The woman's aspirations were distinctly feminine, not that such a thing was innately lesser, but while Silco was the patriarch of Zaun, guiding its people to be stronger, better, fighting for the future of the people, for their souls, she sought their heart.

They both wished for power, but for separate ends. While he commanded, she advised, while he arranged, she enticed, while he, slowly, prepared the Lanes for war, she, with less caution and care, prepared them for the peace that would come after.

And, while they often disagreed, they had an… understanding, of sorts. As long as she could hold her court, as long as she felt wanted, needed, loved, as silly as such a thing was, she was happy, and content.

In the end, however, it was that restfulness, that lack of true commitment, of drive, of the willingness to do anything to achieve her goals, that meant, should she turn against him, and it was a should, not a when, he would come out the victor, and it was for that reason that he tolerated the woman's existence, her stubbornness, as, if she did forget her place, if she tried to stop him, as Vander had, her excesses would make an excellent funeral pyre upon which to heap his own sins in the eyes of others, burning them away, allowing him to rise once more, as he had when his brother had attempted to drown him, Vander unable to do what needed to be done.

Hearing the knock at the door, the sound distinctive, he did not mind that the door was opened without his say so, as his second in command, Sevika, entered.

"Got the report," the woman stated, walking up to him, folder in her flesh and blood limb, dropping it on his desk. "I don't like her. Way she was looking at me? Girl's trouble."

"She believed we were responsible for the attack upon her," the crime lord noted.

The look the woman gave him was dryer than Shurima. "We were."

"Details, details," Silco smirked, opening the delivery, scanning the pages, and… "Hmmm, and he wasn't lying. If you look at the situation, from a certain point of view, we were likely 'responsible', in the Freljordian sense, for whatever hopped up junkie that surely assaulted her in the first place, starting her hunt for us months ago."

Dark brows knitted in confusion, "What?"

"Suffering from our own fame, I believe," he mused. "As we are known as the source of Shimmer, by her tribal, barbarian standards, we would be responsible for what anyone we sell it to the does with it. Then again, for a bunch of savages living in frozen log huts, that may even work, but Mr. Talis will surely sort her out. And…" turning the page, and seeing a sketch of a 'Grellfeen', well, he had been called a 'snake' a time or twelve, and the eyes… he could see the resemblance, "one must have a certain degree of forbearance, when dealing with foreigners. As amusing as it was, we wouldn't want a repeat of that Noxian group you nearly beheaded a few months back. Speaking of which, how's the arm?"

From under the woman's shawl, the prosthetic limb lifted, twitching a bit, as she flexed its skeletal metal fingers experimentally. "Better than the last one. Still itches."

"I'll inform the good doctor," Silco stated sarcastically, though he actually would, as the woman was his Second, and he took care of his own, if only to make sure they knew who was looking out for them, and what they'd lose if they jumped ship. Vander had taken her talents for granted, which is how he'd been able to snap her up in the first place, and Sevika's loyalty was his to lose, not another's to gain.

At least, that's what he thought, and it would be best not to test that if he didn't have to.

"So you like the pretty-boy?" the woman prompted. "Didn't think you would."

"Please, being Topsider Nobility merely makes him more useful," the Zaunite smiled. "That said, if you think all that man represents is a pretty face and a fat purse, you'd be quite mistaken. To begin with, he represents that which the Topsiders prattle on about: 'Progress'. But Progress is just optimistic change, and we've both profited greatly from change, now haven't we?"

Mulling that over, Sevika questioned, "So he'll be like the Sheriff?"

"Ah, no, dear Marcus is a special case, though Mr. Talis is one in his own way," Silco mused. "Tell me, what would you offer someone like him?"

Folding her arms, his own personal Enforcer pondered that dilemma, not saying anything for a long moment.

"And thus, the problem," the crime lord agreed. "Money? The man has dosh to spare. Power? He has the ear of one Councilor, works for a second, and has been seen meeting with a third. Women? It is clear that Ms. Babette is wrapped around his finger, though she likely has wrapped other things of his as well. Respect? Topsiders love him for the wealth he's brought, while us here in the Undercity respect him both for his 'HALP Center' and his ability to hold his own in a scuffle."

"What about those girls of his?" Sevika prompted, nodding towards the files, that Silco continued to page through.

Perusing the copied records, "Parents dead, mother was someone with enemies, and they have younger siblings," he mused, seeing an opening. "Two brothers, seven years younger than the eldest… Oh, in Damacia, and no names were given. Pity. "

"Two girls, two boys…" the woman slowly stated, as if on to something, though he wasn't sure what. "Vi… oletta. Vander-tir… You don't think?" she questioned, showing why he was in charge.

"Well, for one, Vander's eldest is dead, so likely not," Silco smirked. Marcus was his, through and through, the girl's murder, and subsequent dumping into the bay, only cementing the new Sheriff's status under the crime lord's thumb, not that the murder of his predecessor in a way the man was complicit in wasn't enough. "Second of all, as I said, the boys are five years too young, so unless they've learned the secrets of eternal youth, no. Third, these four were on record, long before our old friend's timely demise," he stated, tapping the sketch of the seal his spy had dutifully copied down. "And while records can be faked, this was approved by one of those difficult types who believes they can't be bought. Besides, those Topside keep records of their records of their records, and, what, they placed them here, waiting to be found? Please. However, above all else, you knew that girl better than I, Sevika. If she were still alive, do you really think it would've taken her two years to come calling, only to back away once she finally saw us?"

Grimacing, Sevika slowly shook her head, pointing out, "But this 'Violetta' was looking for us."

"Yes, over a year later, and if that's not her natural color, that's the best dye-job I've ever seen. And if that's not enough, from what our men said, she uses a firearm, and can you see his daughter using an Enforcer's weapon?" he questioned, stressing the point. "However, above all else, remember whose charge this Violetta is."

"There's already a connection there," the woman argued, unwilling to drop the point. "How does that make them not the same girl? They'd be the same age, and-"

"Because Vander's brats almost ruined Mr. Talis' life. The boys are dead, we both saw their corpses, the youngest taken by a Spirit, and the eldest had her throat slit and dumped in the bay. If I didn't know better, I might say that he was behind it, but our young inventor doesn't seem the type," the crime lord remarked. "Dangerous, yes, hard in a way that most Topsiders aren't, if the reports are to be believed, but while most of those above hide behind their Enforcers, never truly leaving their ivory towers, Young Jayce is also a great deal more travelled than the dim-witted fools that normally venture down where they don't belong. However, for all that he's helping, one must remember that he is a Topsider, and one of his ilk would never overlook such a thing without recompense that such children cannot provide. Or, at least not without certain… signs," the man added, as evidence of such a thing would make quite the hold over the young inventor, but the man kept his tastes quiet enough that not even a whisper of such things had reached Silco's ears, and he had many, many ears.

As his Second looked away, not outright admitting herself wrong, that was fine with him, as she shifted topics, mostly, questioning, "So what are we doing about them?"

"That's simple. Nothing," the older man smiled, opening his hands, enjoying her disbelieving look. "Mr. Talis is, however indirectly, supporting our cause, giving us legitimacy in the eyes of those fools who believe that Topside is somehow superior. We wouldn't call those who join with us for such reasons to fight, of course, but someone is always needed to carry messages, to scrub toilets, to do any of the hundreds of things that need to be done, and that, let's be honest, neither of us want to."

Leaning back in his chair, the future ruler of Zaun smirked. "And, when the time comes, and we finally take our due? Well, the young man seems the type to take advantage of the opportunities he's presented with, and, with his commitment to assisting those in need, while flaunting the Topsider sensibilities that restrict him, given his forays into Chemtech? I'm sure he'll do the smart thing."

Looking to his Second, he questioned, "And any word of when our… guest shall arrive?"

Shifting her weight, for the first time truly uncomfortable with the topic, Sevika, who had made her feeling clear about their newest acquisition, stated, "She'll be here before the end of the month. But we don't need her, we can-"

Silco held up a hand, cutting off his Second's now tired warning. Truly, he understood the woman's reticence, but, once more, this was why he was in charge, because he would not hesitate to use any means to achieve his ends, however distasteful.

And, all too often, to fight fire, one needed fire of one's own.