#And this entire thing is mostly about Shockwave being insane about children

[welcometomybraincomics]

God, I love 001 so much.

He's just a little guy (he's not)

He can't walk, he can't talk, he can't understand speech, but he is determined to touch Shockwave's optic (it's red and shiny!)

He also refuses to let go of Shockwave's gun arm (It's a tube! it's a tube and a servo! It's a tube and a servo and it's his!)

I've written one page about this guy and I'm already like "man, it's a shame this guys going to die"

oijiorjgsirgser Like, sorry dude! We're never gonna see you grow up. You exist for the narrative!

[gil-notskajla]

"Xerath's past from childhood to imprisonment" headcannon (including some of the cool ideas form @fattyaly ) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) let's go:

• Xerath had many scars from corporal punishments and brutal indelicacy of previous owners.

• Xerath's human height was below avarge - undernourishment durring his service as a lesser slave disrupted his childhood development. When Azir took him in, his diet became more proper but the damage was already done.

• Xerath was quite lonely, durring his service to royal family. When he was a normal slave, he had his mother, father (when he was still alive) and other slaves. Everyone worked together and supported each other in the darkest hours. When Azir made him his personal slave, his living conditions improved greatly but his unusualy close bond with a royal elevated him in the eyes of fellow slaves who didnt know how to treat him anymore - as one of their own, or as someone above them, not to mention the jealousy, while for free citizens and nobility he was still a mere slave and nothing more.

• He had other slaves working under him as for example his bodyguards, who he cared for and did everything he could to improve their living conditions, since he experienced the same life when he was younger. They were also an additional motivation for his plans of slavery abolishment.

• Xerath and other slaves serving the royal court members created an information net and that's how he knew the gossips better than Azir.

• That's how he learned that Azirs father truthy despises his last alive son - Emperor didnt keep his tongue behind the teeth around slaves who served him. Mistake.

• Xerath knew that Azir was really close with his mother. That's why he tried his best to make her infertile, soo that killing her wouldnt be nessesary. He failed and knew that Azir's assasination from that point on was just a matter of time. He chose his and Azir's lives over rest of royal family.

• Xerath risked his relationship with Azir constantly to make him realise that slaves are people with feelings and needs too. Azir took quite long to finally acknowledge that but even smallest progress in that matter made Xerath proud of him.

• Xerath probably didn't appreciate Azir sleeping with slave girls. After all they couldn't say know, but he couldn't stop Azir from doing this...

• Azir provided him with a great autonomy, mostly for executing his will, which sometimes gave Xerath seemingly greater power than some noble houses what annoyed literally everyone.

• Xerath's parents were his teachers and only people who he would ever call his family besides Azir. They planted the concept of freedom in his mind which stayed with him forever. Mental image of his parents, their unconditional love has been inseparably tied to concept of freedom. That turned family and freedom into highest values for him.

• That's also why Xerath turned 180° soo rapidly when Azir "officially abadoned" the freedom project. Azir was the only family ever since Xerath lost contact with his mother. By remminding Xerath that he is indeed, just a slave and not in fact his brother, he violated not only one but two of Xeraths highest values - freedom and familial bond.

• At first Xerath was a bit jealous of Azir's wife but knowing he could never compete with her for Azir's attention and conflict would mean Azir getting annoyed with him, they ended up on good terms. By this i mean of course ideal benelovent, kind master/docile, friendly slave relationship. After Azir "betrayed" Xerath, Xerath acted the same way towards her to not arouse suspicion but since he no longer believed Azir to be his brother, he no longer thought of her as his potential future family. (Azir's oldest official son was around 18 (close to adulthood) when  the cataclysm happened soo he had to be married for at least 18 years, probably he got married before his final refusal to Xerath. Also, that would make them at least 36 years old at the time of Ascension.)

• Same for Azir's first son. At first he was happy for Azir, that his step-brother has a child, but after the fight, he didnt care anymore. Every next child just remminded him how priviledged they are, how horrible his childhood was and how many children are still being born to slavery while they lead idyllic and ignorant lives.

• Xerath wanted to steal the empire and impersonate Azir after Ascension in which he would make it look like he himself died.

• Xerath had access to Azir's Ascension ritual preperations. He gained as much information as he could about the mechanism of ascending and adjusted it to himself in order to gain as much power as possible in case his role-swap-by-assasination didnt work, he couldnt impersonate azir and had to actually force everyone to obey him despite his true identity (that would explain why his plan was "in motion" and why he "couldnt back down no matter how much part of him wanted to").

• After Azir fullfiled his promise Xerath knew that Baccai are a thing (it was probably common knowledge soo, duh) and was afraid that his personal adjustments would cripple Azir what would bring dishonor on him in the best case scenario and get him detronised/banished hopefully together with his family, court and Xerath, or kill him in the worst. If Azir died, his life would be over as well, since he made many enemies and Azir was the only person keeping him on the top - in position from which he could do anything. Without Azir, Xerath was nobody. And he couldn't tell Azir that he spiked his Ascension ritual and risk his rage. In this situation he could only utter "I'm sorry." and proceed with his plan wondering why Azir didnt tell him and carrying the confusion, guilt and anger for the rest of his life.

• By impulsively blasting Azir of daasis, Xerath made it very clear that he is sabotaging the ritual. That probably caused him to panic that Sun Priests will stop the ritual what would cause him to become either weak and crippled Baccai, die or just allow the soldiers to capture and execute him. With his magic he forced Priests to continue, desperately, for as long as he could. In fear of consequences and unaware of his surroundings he prolonged the ritual what drained the Disc, caused the shockwave, initiated the cataclysm, disintegrated his ascending body and turned him into unique, unstable, energetic being.

• Ascension ended with stasis in which he got lowered back to the ground, barely concious. Nasus and Renekton were already waiting for him with sarcophagus, ready to catch him. That explains why he didn't manage to react and got captured soo easily.

• In the tomb, Xerath and Renekton fought for days but when Renekton realised he is unable to kill Xerath and Xerath not really caring if Renekton dies or not, they found themselves their own corners where they sat alone with their demons, sometimes talking to each other when in desperate need of social interaction.

• Xerath is indeed the most powerfull Ascended in terms of raw power but his body is very unstable. He can literally kill himself by destabilisation from using too much of his magic.

• Soo many horrible things happened on the day of Ascension, that if he addmited that he was the one responsible for death of thousands, not only randoms and Azir but probably also many aquaintances of even friendsp, he would go complitely mad. He told himself the entire story over and over and over again, twisting it bit by bit every time to justify his actions and why all this bloodshed was nessesary in order to fool himself and subconciously protect his mind from insanity by blaming everything on Azir and his bloodline.

• He repressed the fact that he is a Baccai. He stays in denial soo that he wont have to acknowledge that despite all that hard work, he failed everyone, even himself and became fragile like glass. He stays in denial deluding himself that there is nothing wrong with him and hiding it from himself by prising his "flawless" ascended form, hoping that the problem will cease existing if he forgets about it.

• Xerath and Renekton probably learned how to fall into some form of stasis in order to loose conciousness and skip time because, as fucked up as they are, they are in really good shape as for people who have spent 36,000 times longer period of time than avarge recommended dose of isolation causing irreversible mental damage irl. (i think that riot kind of forgotten about them when making the timeline and now stasis is the only logical explanation for how well preserved their minds are.)