#He is a Lore character in league and this is a prequel | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

balsamfir-fics · 2 years ago

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a hope at risk (part 3)

Genres: angst, 99% canon (eps 6-9), more angst, smut, established childhood crushes to strangers to lovers, post-pining, becoming machine herald (sort of)

Pairing: Viktor/Female Reader

Warnings: Sky’s character death in this chapter.

Summary: For nearly two decades after you waltzed out of Viktor's life as the childhood friend who broke his heart, he hoped to forget you. Now that you're back, firmly settled in his life and his arms, he wants nothing more than to live, to love, to dream. With a terminal diagnosis you've yet to learn about in a city waiting to erupt into war, however, Viktor realizes this is a fight for survival against all odds. But he can't lose you again. He won't. He hopes.

Chapters: Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2 [M] | Part 3 | Part 4 [FINAL]

Chapter Word Count: ~5.3k

Author Notes: Unedited. Sequel to a hope never forgotten. This work can be read independently of its predecessor – though reading that first will more thoroughly contextualize Viktor and YN’s relationship. Prequel summarized below for those who don’t have time to read it!

Prequel summary: If you are reading this without having seen the previous work, this is the debrief: YN is Heimerdinger’s adopted daughter; YN and Viktor are childhood friends who grew up together between the ages of 10-16 and separated at 16 immediately after an unspoken confession of love. The uncertainty and cowardice of youth prevent YN from keeping contact until twelve years pass. Over the next five years the two keep orbiting each other, gravity pulling them closer, until Viktor’s hospital stint as per Episode 5 forces YN to reckon with their lifetime of love. The end of A Hope Never Forgotten sees Viktor’s seventeen-year-long hope and longing fulfilled.

A Hope Never Forgotten follows Arcane canon up to Episode 5; this work will follow Arcane canon until the end of all currently available content (Episode 9). This piece borrows themes from prior League of Legends lore, but following the events of Episode 9 it will become an imagined ‘what comes next’ as we wait for the events of Season 2.

The prior work deals primarily with holding onto hope; this one deals with themes of loss and survival. Both are about decisions made and avoided.

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Bolstered by your simple wish for him to be physically restored and recovered, Viktor spins his wheels and heads right back to the lab. He scribbles more notes, questions his science, then scribbles some more. When he thinks he’s finally ready to take the plunge, he lifts his scalpel with shaking fingers. He’s not nervous; that’s not what it is. He’s hopeful—hopeful that this technology might save him, that he might be given a new lease on life. It’s with this trembling anticipation that he etches fresh runes all over his remaining skin, glancing every few minutes at the shining purple liquid in his syringe gun. It’d only be one more time, he reasons with himself. If my calculations are correct, I won’t ever need to take Shimmer again. It’s for her—no. It’s for us. For me. For our future. The Hexcore whirrs and shivers. It beckons to Viktor; he stares into its light. It takes effort to tear his gaze away and focus on the runes, but he manages to do so, one painstaking cut at a time. Footsteps echo in the hallway, but he doesn’t hear them above the buzzing of the Hexcore. Runes complete, Viktor stands with a grunt. His breathing is labored. Adrenaline pulses through every fiber of his being, every neuron willing this to work, every cell craving more of the heady hope and alluring pull the Hexcore gives. He takes a deep inhale to brace himself for the pain he knows will come, drags the scalpel through his palm, and slowly extends his arm towards gleaming light. It wants him, and he wants everything it can give him. A beat of silence passes through the room. Then everything explodes in a burst of light. It’s every bit as excruciating as the first time, if not more. Time both slows to a standstill and speeds up to oblivion around him; he’s vaguely aware of papers flying and wind howling. All he knows for sure is that something white-hot is blazing up his arm and through his body, ripping his cells apart and bringing them back together in something new, deadly, less-than (or more-than?)-human. His mouth is probably open. He doesn’t know. Maybe his teeth are gritted; there’s definitely a sharp pain in his jaw, but Viktor can’t exactly tell where his reactionary pain starts and the Hexcore torture begins. Something clatters behind him. Makes sense; this miniature tornado he’s more or less brought upon himself seems to be throwing things around the room amidst the screaming torrents. But then he feels a ring of warmth around his waist. He barely registers it at first, but it’s there. Whatever energy is pulsating from the Hexcore recoils against it, lashing out at him from within his body. He thinks he might be letting out an inhuman scream, but he’s not sure. For now, he tries to focus on the new sensation. He feels himself being pulled away, fingers now inches away from the Hexcore instead of directly atop it, but somewhere, a string snaps, and he’s dragged right back to where he was. Viktor strains against the pull of the Hexcore and fights the pressure to look down at his waist; his eyes widen in horror as he sees his assistant, Sky, clutching to him in an attempt to decouple him from the electromagnetic rune matrix. Sky looks up at him, fear evident in her irises. He blinks back, unable to tear his gaze away as she desperately screams his name. She looks unreal, like a photograph being torn apart one paper fiber at a time, and she disappears before his eyes. A loud pop sounds and he vaguely makes out the dark silhouette of a human-shaped form, but in the next second, Sky is gone, completely disintegrated. The shadowy silhouette is gone. Pain sears through his arm as the Hexcore screams louder. NO! Viktor heads himself yell back in his brain, the word rattling against his skull. The Hexcore seems not to like that, vibrating intensely beneath his grasp before everything goes white. ————— When consciousness returns to him this time, Viktor finds himself sprawled on the floor. Electricity flickers through his leg, then absorbs into his body. It takes him a few pained seconds to heave himself off of the floor. As his brain follows suit and kicks back into drive, his eyes catch the glint of flickering light against two panes of glass. No. “Sky?” He laboriously scrabbles towards the gold-rimmed spectacles. “No! That can’t…” Viktor swallows thickly and pushes himself back into a seated position, his body torn between wanting to run from the evidence of his wrongdoing and to run towards the destruction in disbelief. As Sky’s ashes run through his fingers, his brilliant brain puts everything together. He reads page after page of her notes, recognizing the affection and deep respect she had for him, and the pit of guilt in his chest builds into a chasm. She was dead, and it was his fault. A wretched cry of anger erupts from his chest and he scrambles to his feet. He lifts his workbench stool and lifts it over his head with strength he didn’t know he had. Glaring down at the living purple thing, he challenges it—it shakes and sends back an equally belligerent message. It had to be destroyed. He tries to bring down his arms to send the stool crashing into the accursed energy, but his arms disagree with him. He can’t do it. It won’t let him. He won’t let himself. Strength fading, he drops the stool and tries to walk away, but the thing snarls and hums behind him. Something pops and he loses one second of consciousness, crashing to the floor and clutching his leg in pain. Energy surges through his modified limbs, and the Hexcore seems to shiver in contentment. It beckons to him all the same, calling him, taunting him, knowing he wants the secrets it has. But Viktor glares up at it from the floor, gritting his teeth and doing his best to resist its allure. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor arrives at the apartment in the early morning looking haunted; you only recall this later on when trying to piece everything together. But at present, you’re too sleepy to be that cognizant of your surroundings—in fact, if Viktor hadn’t dropped his crutch while rummaging around for a fresh handkerchief, you never would have woken up. A glance at your clock told you it was right before dawn. You mumble some incoherent question at Viktor, who merely presses trembling lips to your forehead and whispers for you to ‘rest peacefully, Sparrow’ in a shaky voice. He leaves the house as quickly as he’d arrived. You settle easily back into dreamless sleep, unaware of the turmoil churning within him—just as he’d intended. A few minutes past sunrise, he says his final goodbyes to Sky. Regret rips through his nervous system, tensing and relaxing his muscles in a strange dance. Every fiber of his being screams at him; WRONG WRONG WRONG! MURDERER! If his body had the energy to produce more tears, it would have, but he is spent, terrified, and beyond remorse. “I don’t know what you’d have preferred,” he mumbles to the warming morning air. He stretches a feeble arm out to collect Sky’s glasses and notebook, then he painstakingly hoists himself back onto his feet. His lungs protest by triggering more coughs; he lifts his freshly retrieved handkerchief but no sputum comes out. Crumpling the fabric in his palm, he makes to leave, then pauses. He steps back towards his seat. Viktor peers over the ledge. A precipice indeed, he thinks wryly to himself; the metaphorical edge he’d been dancing with since you came back into his life had been turned to reality. He faces his end. Perhaps it would be kinder to Sky’s memory, to you, and to himself to… expedite the process. Let him fade into your memory as he preferred to be remembered, and let him pay the price Sky never should have. Both Hextech and the Hexcore had become weapons; his life’s effort had all been for everything he stood against in the end: fear and pain instead of servitude and good. Heimerdinger had been right. It was foolish for him and Jayce to have failed to understand the wisdom of their mentor. He, and Jayce, had failed. The rushing sound of the swirling water below beckons to him, and he almost heeds its call. “Am I interrupting?” Viktor starts, stepping back away from the ledge in surprise. The waterfall below fades away as he registers Jayce’ voice; he tucks away Sky’s notes under his arm and turns towards his longtime collaborator and friend. He notes the hammer leaning against the entryway as Jayce takes a seat. Beneath him, the mechanized leg is heavy (though supportive); Viktor leans heavily into his crutch not because of his musculoskeletal shortcomings but rather the malaise that seeps deep into his bones and drains him of life. It is not lost on Viktor that he’d posed a similar question, years ago, talking the younger man down from his own cliff. Jayce brings up something from long ago—a Distinguished Innovators’ Competition that Viktor recalls being so excited for. He chuckles at the memory; flashes of an outrageously overtaxed engine come to mind, with laborious screeching and an intense fear that machinery would go flying. The acrid taste of bile rises in Viktor’s throat; a different memory of the same day, in which he’d failed to keep his meal down due to nerves and stress. “At least you didn’t throw up,” Viktor lets out a whisper of a laugh. Something in Jayce’ chest cracks as he hears the frailty and exhaustion in Viktor’s voice. Jayce offers a platitude. “Everything made sense then.” The lamentation is clear. Everything is different now, tangled in the complexities of politicking and competing interests. Viktor inhales, exhales. “You have to destroy it.” Jayce’ response is immediate. He glances at his hammer, his own mind reminding him the sins that great power is capable of. “I know—“ “—the Hexcore.” The look Jayce gives Viktor is equal parts alarmed, incredulous, and chastened. “I… I can’t do it. You have to.” Viktor pauses, then pleads. “Please.” The councilman protests at once. Surely there must be a reason to keep it; Viktor was still ailing! Heimerdinger’s cautious advice be damned. Viktor’s disease was advancing faster than any Piltovan medicine could correct. A biologically responsive Hexcore could be the answer—how could Viktor suggest to destroy it? But Viktor merely lets another series of ragged coughs tear through his lungs, then urges Jayce to promise to follow through. Every instinct in his body tells Jayce not to agree, but who is he to fight against a dying man’s wishes? “We failed to do good,” Viktor murmurs as Jayce stands, placing one large hand on the ailing man’s shoulder. “We have to make it right.” Jayce is silent for a few beats. He squeezes Viktor’s shoulder, then releases. “Have you made it right by her?” Viktor swallows. His lack of response is answer enough. “I will tell her… soon.” Looking unconvinced, but broken, Jayce sighs. He wraps his fingers around the hammer and leaves Viktor to his ruminations. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor putters around the apartment looking worse for wear, which is saying a lot when he’s been so gaunt since he first returned home from the hospital several months ago. He spends a few days completely asleep, to the point that you nearly call his doctor for help — but he stops you short of marching off to the hospital yourself. The turnaround in his mood is jarring; not days ago he’d been almost bouncing around despite his malaise, excited at the prospect of discovery. He’d been at the lab for long, but reasonable workdays, and had been reasonably upbeat for someone with such a nasty, persistent cough. But the past few days at home had been upsetting. Viktor lived for the lab, and hated to oversleep unless something entertaining in the bedroom had expended his energy the night before; his behavior was thus uncharacteristic and frankly more worrying than his mood had been after his fainting spell. “I’m fine,” he tells you unconvincingly, but agrees to get up for quick meals of easy-to-digest soup. After each meal, he heads back to bed and broods until fitful sleep takes him. You’ve asked what might be the matter, but the pain in Viktor’s eyes leaves you feeling raw and uncomfortable. You wish for him to talk to you about it, to let you share in his pain, but you’ve learned better from prior arguments to wait until he comes to you first. " At least, that’s what you plan for. But nothing prepared you for the full truth. ————— Viktor tosses and turns in his sleep as you wander into the bedroom, hoping that he might be awake for a small lunch. His brows furrow deep into his forehead as sweat beads on his face. He looks deathly pale, and he clutches at demons in his slumber. You want to wake him, but it might be more jarring to interrupt a nightmare than to wait for its resolution, so you reach for his pillow to try and adjust his head into a more comfortable, less tense angle. As you ease his head back into a reasonable position, something clatters to the floor from beneath his pillow. You stoop to pick it up, recognizing it as a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Curious. One lens is cracked beyond repair; whoever lost these has a hefty re-lensing bill to pay in their future. You place the glasses on the nightstand near Viktor before heading back for the kitchen, wondering why he’d been keeping a pair of broken spectacles hidden. But you think nothing of it for now, more focused on keeping Viktor’s lunch warm for when he eventually emerges for the comfort of hot soup. ————— Days later, you walk in to replace the bedsheets while Viktor naps on the couch — it hits you then why the glasses seemed so familiar. Hadn’t Viktor’s head lab assistant, Sky, worn a pair like this? You were fairly confident that the most obvious answer to the question of why another person’s items were hidden beneath his pillow (infidelity) was, in fact, not the case (and especially so considering the glasses were broken), so you wondered what Viktor’s reasoning might be. Your mind lands on a much more logical hypothesis; an experiment must have gone awry at Viktor’s doing, and he’d meant to get her glasses repaired in apology. You smile to yourself, falling a little more for the kindness you had always loved in Viktor. As you strip the pillows and pull back the covers, you find something stranger; a baby blue notebook, dusted with some soot, tucked into Viktor’s pillowcase. A quick glance at the inner cover lets you know this is Sky’s; if it wasn’t her familiar handwriting that gave it away, then her name, signed into the cover beneath the sensible title of “Sky’s Hexcore Notes,” made this apparent. Nothing in the notebook’s pages seemed amorous in any way, and you chastised yourself for even looking for that kind of evidence. And yet this discovery made Viktor’s behavior even stranger; the glasses could have been overlooked and spilled out of a pocket as he took off his socks. The notebook was more deliberate, and certainly a strange item to keep in a bed. It wasn’t your place to return the notebook, but you did wonder if Sky might have been looking for it. You visit the lab, only for it to be locked. A small note pinned to the door only indicates that there are experiments in progress and that nobody would be allowed to enter; the note is etched in Viktor’s trademarked scrawl. A student passes by. You recognize them as one of the younger lab assistants that Sky managed for Viktor. They catch you staring, then smile and approach you. “The lab’s been closed since last week,” they explain. ��Viktor stormed out really late a few days ago, looking like something exploded.” They nod at the note. “Looks like the experiments were re-run. Not even Jayce is allowed in, though; Viktor gave us explicit orders to stay away out of safety when he left that day. Honestly, I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been pulling an all-nighter for an exam.” A week ago…? You vaguely recall that Viktor’s behavior had completely changed around then, and your mind flashes to a blurry memory of a distressed expression and the clatter of wood and metal. Your eyes narrow. You thank the student and rush home. ——— Viktor is exactly where you left him. He slumps into the couch cushions, staring listlessly at the empty fireplace. When you close the door behind you, he doesn’t look up, doesn’t register any signs of life. His eyes don’t follow you when you walk past him towards the bedroom, and he gives no indication that he hears you. It’s not until you return from the bedroom with Sky’s notebook and glasses that Viktor seems to understand that there is movement around him. Rather, it’s the clink of metal against coffee table when you delicately place Sky’s items down that draw his attention. You slowly ease yourself into an adjacent chair as you watch Viktor’s face carefully. Something inside him seems to shrivel. You furrow your brows in concern; that’s the last thing you’d expected. The simplest explanation for having another person’s highly personal items hidden from their partner was normally cheating; you’d been bracing yourself for an answer more like that, even if you were fairly unconvinced that Viktor was capable of committing infidelity in the first place. Whatever else could have been the reason? You’d expected him to recoil, to get defensive, to immediately stammer out some tepid excuses to the presence of the two objects. But instead he recedes into himself, jaw tightening and eyes shaking. “Viktor?” Y0u call out for him tentatively, noting that his breathing has gone shallow and erratic. You don’t dare startle him now, and instead slowly shift forward to be ready to steady him if need be. His gaze on Sky’s glasses hardens. Then his amber eyes drag up to meet yours, slowly, painstakingly… guiltily. “She’s gone,” he whispers, and almost collapses forward. Luckily you’d been inching towards him for this express purpose, finally leaping out of your seat to kneel in front of him and catch him. He cries silently into the crook of your neck; the only evidence you have of his tears are the wetness in your shirt fabric and the stilted rise of his shoulders as he struggles to take breaths. Viktor coughs roughly once, ever so carefully tucking away his handkerchief with muscle memory, but continues to shiver into your embrace. You stroke his back to give him a bit of gentling, but countless absurd possibilities fly through your head as you try to understand what he means by those two words. When you give up on guessing, you lean back and search his eyes. “Vitya,” you say softly (he sags a little at the endearment). “What happened?” This isn’t the way Viktor ever imagined explaining his Hexcore experiments to you. Hell, he had been doing his best to avoid telling you anything that wasn’t completely necessary; everything should have gone smoothly, with him returning to your apartment with a new and painless body a week ago. But the truth—all of it—comes spilling out into the quiet living room air. Well, almost all of it. He recounts every bit of detail in surprisingly clinical clarity; you can only detect emotion from the slight tremor at the ends of his sentences. Viktor surprises even himself with this sudden precision, though despite the fluidity of his explanation he manages to hold back the darkest truth of all. He freely admits to you that he turned to biological rune matrix experiments because he was ‘ailing quite badly’ and seeking a cure in the form of energy transfer; he does not disclose the extent to which his health was failing. Viktor doesn’t know why he doesn’t tell you. His mouth continues divulging every other shred of detail, so why can’t he bring himself to say that he’s fucking dying with only weeks left of life? This was you he was talking to. The love of his life, the person he’d been made to wait for, the one who gave him the hope to live for himself. Perhaps it’s the shame. It was his hubris and his greed, driven by a faint thread of hope, that led to Sky’s death. She died in his attempt to live; perhaps he should never have dared to find a way to survive. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He would have endured the pain of the Hexcore experiments a thousand times over if it meant that everyone around him would be safe and well. How could he have let his desperation for happiness lead to another’s demise? How could he tell you the full truth of his sins and laden you with the knowledge that he’d killed someone just for the chance to escape his own death? But in his own convoluted logic, Viktor finds himself blind to the fact that his provided explanation might be more abhorrent than truth. You try your hardest not to recoil where your skin meets his; you’re not disgusted by him, you could never be, but you are finding it incredibly difficult to reconcile your mild-mannered lover and best friend with a person who enabled manslaughter all for a faster remedy for physical health. It didn’t sound like him at all. Even more difficult to process is his secrecy; you’d known he was sick, but not desperately so. Why had he not told you? Did he not trust you? It was jarring to hear he had turned to a procedure so risky for a non-terminal disease. Exoskeleton or augmented body parts or not, he wasn’t the type to go to those kinds of extremes (much less use contraband to achieve them). Something doesn’t add up. But as Viktor shivers in front of you, you push aside the discomfort and uncertainty boiling in your stomach and put all your energy into trying to make things better. He seems traumatized, and he needs you. Resisting the fear in your heart, you swallow down what tastes like bile and wrap Viktor into your arms even tighter. “Everything went horribly wrong,” he laments into your shoulder. “Nobody was supposed to get hurt.” “I know you,” you murmur, hoping that you sound convincingly comforting. “I know you did your best, and I know you would have saved her if you could.” He allows himself to openly cry at last, his shoulders shaking with every loud sob. You cling to each other like each other’s life rafts, bobbing along in an abyssal sea. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You’re curled up next to Viktor in the dark, in the usual and familiar spot beside him in bed. He lies face-up, unblinking, unable to sleep. He dissects his conversation with Jayce over and over again, his plea to destroy the Hexcore on repeat. “Have you made it right by her?” “I will tell her… soon.” Viktor suppresses a cough within his chest, grimacing as he swallows phlegm. He glances at you, but you don’t stir; good. He must have been rather quiet, then. Looking back up at the ceiling, he sighs heavily, resigning himself to his original fate and wondering when he’d have the courage to say his final good-byes to you. Soon. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Sparrow, Today I might be given my independence as a citizen of Zaun. You will learn of this after the Council votes tonight, regardless of the way the votes go, and hopefully by then all of this—this fighting, this violence, this bloodshed between cities—will be over. If I receive my liberation as a man in the eyes of the law, it is a cause for celebration. I am tired, however, and this only brings me mild comfort. You may wonder why my response to the independence of my people is so tepid, especially knowing who I am—who we are—and where I came from. You and I… from those days running all over our childhood home, holding hands and not caring what people thought about our social divide… we’ve never cared about the glitter and glamour of Piltover. You’ve weaponized it, in fact, in a stroke of brilliance that truly does do good in this world. I am ever so proud of you and always so inspired. That’s what Jayce and I set out to do with Hextech. It was meant to improve lives, not take them or worsen them. But while we have failed in our ultimate task, tonight’s vote and Jayce’ proposal may represent a turning point in our little world. It might be the change that really does improve the lives of Zaunites forever. So. I should celebrate, right? But I can’t. I’m writing this to you because you and I… we’ve both been cowards to our feelings for so long, unable to express them in person and hiding behind penned letters to confide in the truth. I’ll be there when you read this, and I will be sitting before you nervously, but I hope that in writing I can best articulate something that is very difficult for me to say to you. My darling, I am not long for this world. I’ve known since I woke up in my hospital room after that first fainting spell. It didn’t really matter to me then; I could sense that my body was failing me and I didn’t have anything to live for beyond my work. Then you insisted on entering my world full-force, firmly entrenching yourself into my apartment and my full-time care, and we somehow, miraculously, reconciled seventeen years worth of lost opportunity. It was that night, holding your bare form in my arms, that I resolved to find a way to continue living. It seemed stupid to give up when my decades of wayward hopefulness had been rewarded. I turned to the Hexcore, and thus to Shimmer. I wanted to survive; I wanted at least seventeen more years with you, not merely seventeen weeks. The exoskeleton is not… an exoskeleton. On the night Sky passed, I was trying to replace my mortal trappings with stronger parts, hoping that perhaps my ailing lungs might be saved and thus my life. Beyond fusing musculature and bone to firmer materials, I had hoped that biosynthesis of Hexcore energy and human organs might be my salvation and science’ path forward all in one. The first experiment, with my leg, worked beautifully. I expect that the second would have been successful, but no salvation is worth the cost of a human life. As you know, the second experiment ultimately failed. The Hexcore calls to me. It wants me, and I want it, but I know it isn’t right. I’ve asked Jayce to destroy it, knowing that its accursed siren call may be the last hope I have to live. By the time you read this, it will be gone, never to be abused again. I don’t know how many days I have left, exactly. But if you’ll forgive a coward for his secrets, I’d like to step back from work and spend every last minute I have with you. I’m sorry I didn’t try to find you overseas when we were younger; perhaps if I’d been less bitter and more brave, perhaps if I’d prevented myself from using work as a coping mechanism, I’d have been smart enough to reach out sooner and let you know how much I loved you. Perhaps then we’d have had years together instead of the few months we will otherwise have. Don’t be too cross, my little Sparrow. I knew my lot when I asked you to repeat your confession to me on that fateful night. I thought it better to let you know how long I had loved you than to fade away without giving you my response. Let us instead look to the small future we have and build towards the longer destiny Zaun might be given. Together. With an eternity of love, Vitya —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor signs his name with a flourish, then lifts the sheets of parchment to inspect his prose. Jayce paces elsewhere in the lab, but the rhythm of his footsteps provided a melodic cadence for Viktor to write to. He sighs heavily, folding the paper into thirds and tucking it away into the inner pocket of his vest. Then he stands, stretches, and walks over to his partner. “Jayce.” “Mmh?” Jayce looks somewhat startled to see Viktor so nearby; it seemed it wasn’t just Viktor who was deeply lost in thought. “Done with your letter?” Viktor nods. “I’m guessing you wrote a confession, by the look on your face.” Viktor nods again. “I’ll never understand you two; loving each other so intensely but failing to say the words that need to be heard the most. Your relationship’s spanned a lifetime, you know that?” Viktor presses his lips into a tight line and wry smile as he thinks of a response. “When you’ve spent a lifetime waiting out of fear, you’re bound to act a little unintelligently.” Jayce looks wholly unconvinced. “You’re some of the smartest people I know,” he sighs exasperatedly. But he doesn’t press further; he’s simply glad that Viktor is trying to tell you the truth at long last. He’s made the thinner man promise to give you the letter after the Council meeting; it seemed like poignant time. Coupling two large announcements may soften the blow of either. “Are you prepared?” Viktor watches Jayce continue to pace, his path pendulum-like along the floor. “I’m about to go in and tell the Piltovan Council that I’ve given Zaun over to Silco,” Jayce groans, grappling at his head in frustration. “I know it’s the right thing to do, but they’ll be hard to convince.” Viktor scoffs, a half-smile tugging at a corner of his lips. “You’re Piltover’s Golden Boy,” he smirks tiredly. “One of the Fathers of Progress. They may be uncomfortable with your decision, but between you and Mel, very few would stand in your way.” The two men lock eyes for a beat, years of understanding conveyed through a split-second. This is what they strove for: for the future, for a world where technology equalized all. It wasn’t quite the path they expected to take there, but rather than continue to make the grave mistakes they had, they knew this was their only remaining choice. Their work had taken lives. It couldn’t continue in the way it once had. When Jayce resumes his pacing, Viktor knows that tonight will be a sort of goodbye. They’ll still be in each others’ lives, in and out, doing different kinds of science. But the past they’d had as Piltovan student and the mentor who’d succeeded against all odds was gone. The brimming confidence and hopefulness of their youth had been replaced with an exhausted resignation. Rather than work towards something new and anticipatory, they sought to minimize risk and suffering. And with Zaun liberated, Viktor and his people would no longer be seen as grateful charity cases but rather as threats to the old Piltovan ways. “We’ll always be partners, right, Viktor?” The hopefulness in Jayce’ voice is apparent. “It would be untoward to dishonor our legacy,” comes Viktor’s cryptic reply. Outside, a bell chimes. The two men share one more glance; it’s their cue to head to the council room for what is guaranteed to be an eventful session. Shoulder to shoulder, they leave the lab of their youthful optimism and step towards an uncertain future.

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thehauntologicalsociety · 3 years ago

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A Field in England — A Film by Ben Wheatley

A Field In England is almost like an unofficial prequel to Kill List anyway. We started thinking of it in those terms. So the grass in the field and the straw masks of the cult in Kill List are linked together – and the unseen “master” character who’s controlling all the events behind the scenes in Field is a sort of mirror of The Client character in Kill List.

Q: Where did the idea for the film come from?

I’ve had the idea for a long time. I was shooting documentary footage in the early 90’s and I’d read that Paul Verhoeven started his directing career by making films for the Dutch military. He’d get to shoot these huge battle scenes during troop manoeuvres so I started shooting living history re-enactments and eventually came across The Sealed Knot. They’re a re-enactment group centred around the English Civil War. I think it’s a very interesting and admirable thing – and I guess a very English thing - but it’s unique and keeps the history alive. English people tend to be quite anti-history or at least not very adept at dealing with the past and these people have found a way to do that which isn’t musty and academic. It's fun! I’ve always been interested in that time period and the idea that it was an attempt by the people to kill the King – or effectively kill God. It’s radical thought and lots of people were radicalised at that moment in history. It was also a time when “magic” became “science”, where paganism and Christianity were confused, so it felt like a rich kind of magical world where any possibility could happen.

Q: So how did this interest translate into the film A Field In England?

I shot a lot of footage of the Sealed Knot and even started writing a script based in that time period but never finished it – but the idea never went away. Laurie Rose, our cinematographer, had done a shoot at a historical village. We went down and took a look and it brought the whole idea back to life. With my first film Down Terrace we built the whole film around the house location because that was something we knew we could get. The village was the catalyst to start the Civil War script but when Amy Jump and I started to write it we realised we’d done the woods in Kill List so decided to move the location. I do a lot of travelling and a lot of looking out of train windows at fields. We started thinking about how two groups would fight in a very small space – something like Alan Clarke’s Contact for example. Again – a pragmatic decision that would work with our budget. Once we had the scenario we started researching the folklore and mythologies of the time and Amy wrote the script from that point.

Q: What’s the reason for the tableaus in the film?

The tableaus came out of looking at woodcuts that reflect that time period, obviously flat and two dimensional. It was a way to reference those but also a way of using a film language that wasn’t traditional. There’s nothing in the film that specifically dates it and no explanation of the world we’re in – so the tableaus help frame that.

Q: The field is a magical place. Time and space don’t have conventional meanings do they?

That’s part of the mushroom circle folk lore. Within it time moves at a different speed. The lore is that if you go into a circle it takes four men and a rope to pull you out and although you feel that weeks may have past – it could be minutes in real time.

Q: What happens in the tent?

Something appalling! It’s like Orwell’s Room 101 – Tent 101! Reece Shearsmith surprised us all when he emerged from the tent doing what he did. We were all horrified - for real! Reece has a very deep understanding of horror cinema and that scene is a great example of how he’s able to change into these characters. I always found characters like Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen very very scary but there’s echo’s of Lon Chaney in Phantom of the Opera in there for example. When we first watched the slomo shot back we realised that we were going to have to use it in one shot because to cut away spoiled it.

Q: You and DP Laurie Rose built lenses for the film?

I’d been intrigued by these cheap plastic lenses that were for sale on the internet. Because they’re so badly made they create a lot of artefacts, flares and misting that gives a really interesting – almost antique feel that really worked for the film. We shot with the RED EPIC camera too so there’s a constant shifting of quality throughout the film which felt like it reflected the constant shifting of the characters perspective after they’ve taken the mushrooms. We made other lenses from cheap children’s toys – gluing them together to see what would happen. There’s something about the “handmade” nature of the lenses that reflects the time period when obviously everything was hand made.

Q: Why shoot in black & white?

We started wanting to make a black and white film and in the most basic sense it fits the time period. It also shifted the emphasis to textures rather than colours which make the field and the grass for example work in a completely different way.

Q: Can you tell us about how the film was cast?

I’d worked with everyone apart from Reece Shearsmith, but I was a huge fan of his. We’d wanted Michael Smiley for O’Neil from very early on and he’d worked with Reece on John Landis’ Burke & Hare. He took Reece to see Down Terrace so we got to meet. He said he was interested in doing something so Amy wrote the part for him. Ryan Pope I knew from Ideal – a UK TV series that I directed. It has amazing casting and we’ve used a lot of people from that show over the films. Ben Crompton & Emma Fryer from Kill List for example were on it. Peter Ferdinando we’d met at Sundance where his film Tony was screening. It was such an amazing performance that we didn’t even realise the person we were talking too was the guy on screen! Richard Glover was of course in Sightseers so Amy & I had spent a lot of time watching his performance during the editing and Julian Barratt – well we asked and he said yes, which was a really nice surprise.

Q: One of the common themes in your films is mysticism and folklore. Where does that come from?

I don’t really know where it comes from. It wasn’t in the script of Down Terrace but I guess the music reflected that to an extent and the idea of the family line. In Kill list it made sense because that film came from nightmares I’d had as a kid. Sightseers again had elements in it. A Field In England is almost like an unofficial prequel to Kill List anyway. We started thinking of it in those terms. So the grass in the field and the straw masks of the cult in Kill List are linked together – and the unseen “master” character who’s controlling all the events behind the scenes in Field is a sort of mirror of The Client character in Kill List. I like the idea of continuity across the films but I think this is the end of that now.

#A Field in England #2013 #Ben Wheatley #English Civil War #Film4 #production still #colour still #Reece Shearsmith

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frozen-odin · 2 years ago

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Arcane Review

Ok I know it’s been a while since the show came out but this has been on my mind recently so I wanted to get some thoughts out.

Premise:

Arcane is a tale of two cities, but more than that it’s a tale of two sisters. Violet and Powder (later called Vi and Jinx) were orphans in one of the many civil wars between Piltover, the shining city on the hill, and Zaun, its irradiated underbelly. Both sides of the city are technological marvels in their own right. We even see innovations in this technology when Violet and Powder steal from a young Piltover man, Jace, who seeks to combine technology with magic. The ensuing devastation leads both cities as well as both sisters into a new conflict with no clear heroes.

Overview:

Arcane is a beautifully animated series based on the League of Legends video game. Don’t worry if haven’t played the games, I haven’t either. And as expansive as the world of Runeterra is, Arcane made the smart decision to go deep instead of wide. Almost all the action takes place in the split city of Piltover/Zaun and the show serves as a prequel to their conflict that happens in the games. It only ever starts to mention one other location in the latter half of the show, which we gradually learn more about through a handful of secondary characters.

There were very few times I actually felt like I had to look up background knowledge from the games to understand the show. Even then it was mostly cameo appearances or hints certain characters may not be who they seem. The vast majority of the lore is exposited through the character of Heimerdinger, a two foot tall furry immortal who helped found the city of Piltover. As strange as he is, it’s clear that Heimerdinger and his history is meant to be as distant to us as the audience he is to the other characters, making it easy for them to dismiss his council to ill effects.

Characters:

The team behind Arcane instead decided to focus on a deep character-centric story and was able to balance fleshing out many familiar faces from the games as well as adding new ones that are central to the story. The focus characters are of course Vi and League of Legend’s flagship character, Jinx. Despite their popularity, their in-game lore was largely left open to interpretation. The fact that they’re sisters was only speculation before Arcane came out. Both also underwent overhauls to their designs and story.

Jinx has been the go-to mascot of League of Legends since her creation in 2013. In that time she had largely been a one-note manic pixie nightmare girl who takes Harley Quinn-esque glee from her explosions and the other pranks we see her play around Piltover. Her official bio hints at some dark tragedy in her past that drove her mad, it’s not until Arcane that we see her mental illness treated with respect and tgravity, especially as we learn what the tragedy was that caused it. Yes she still does grow up to be the manic explosives expert we see in the games, but there’s a lot more beneath that which she tries to hide. To see the difference in her character look no further than the 2013 Music video “Get Jinxed” and compare it to the promo-video put up just before the release of Arcane, “Enemy” which features Imagine Dragons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nlJuwO0GDs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9G1VOjN_84

Obviously not every character from the games can make it in the show, even those native to Piltover/ Zaun. However almost every character who does make it in are amazing in their own right and I can’t go into them all. Vi is one of the simplest as the archetypal big sister who retains her “punch first, ask questions later attitude” from the games, but now must balance that out as she’s put into a buddy-cop romance with the well-born enforcer, Caitlyn. The scientists that the sisters stole from, Jace and Victor, mirror much of Vi’s and Jinx’s relationship as the application of their technology and Jace’s new-found fame also push them apart. The show also features several new characters such as Vander, Silco, and Mel; all of whom give us more insight into the political turmoil that dual city is in, while protecting their own more personal interests.

A few minor characters do stand out as weaknesses in the writing though only by comparison to how well-developed the other characters get. Another fan-favorite from the games, Ekko, gets very little exploration despite one of the best fight scenes in the show. There is also one clear incident of fridgeing in this show, which is a low point in otherwise seamless writing. A good number of mysteries are left unanswered and which I hope to see better down in season two.

Art and Music

The French studio, Fortiche, did an amazing job with this series. The stylized 3D animation blends quite well with the the limited 2D animation used for the many explosions and other effects, helping to give the series that comic book/ video game look. Piltover and Zaun and very visually distinctive with the former being bathed in sunlight in almost all the shots and covered in gold and royal blue. Zaun by contrast gets almost no natural light, so it is instead bathed in the artificial green or bisexual lighting that helps display the irradiated nature as well as contribute to the feeling of a shunned society looking up to heaven.

Bisexual lighting is hugely important as it also matches the cotton-candy blue and pink hair colors of Vi and Jinx. Most notably, the main two novums of this world are also colored blue and pink. By the end of the series the pink-haired Vi relies on hex-tech power sources made in Piltover which are colored blue. Meanwhile the blue haired Jinx gets deeper and deeper invested in the Zaunite drug, Shimmer, which is colored pink.

I’ve already pointed out the fantastic music video prepared by Imagine Dragons, but sound track has plenty of other bops as well. “Playground” is great backdrop to our introduction to Zaun that makes us see the protagonists’ love for it despite all it’s flaws. “Snake” is a wicked action scene that furthers the since of paranoia and betrayal central to the series, and “Misfit Toys” is a departure that nonetheless reinforces the alternate views and the plurality of the series.

Final thoughts:

Watch this show. I don’t care what you think of League of Legend or arcano-punk settings. It’s a unique and visibly distinct world with very real characters leading it. The art is beautiful and the team did an amazing job balancing the huge cast into a comprehensive and satisfying character work even if it does leave a lot unanswered. Just be prepared for the darker tone and reinterpretation of traditionally more light hearted characters. There’s a lot of places season two can go, whether if it’s continuing the Piltover Zaun conflict or bringing in the Noxus setting we learned about near the end of last season. There’s so many more stories to tell.

#arcane #league of legends #Review #I know this is llate #just wanted to write it

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bedknees · 3 years ago

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Thank you so much for the clarification!!! I'm not familiar with LoL or any of the lore that goes along with it. Arcane was my first exposure to any of it. I've read a lot of fic that tends to blend LoL and Arcane together, especially in the Divorce-Era stuff. It was really hard for me to tell what is true to canon, fanon interpretation, and what is a blend. I'm not at all saying that it's an author's responsibility to make those things clear!! But I do greatly appreciate people more knowledgable than me taking time to explain it. I have found actual LoL lore to be quite overwhelming and haven't taken the proper time to explore it let alone see how it relates to Arcane. So thank you!!! 💜

absolutely! I know how confusing it is. I have been playing League for a long time, started shortly after Viktor was first released. So I got to witness the changes in real time. Even then, determining what's accurate canon and what isn't can still be a little crazy, especially since Legends of Runeterra (another Riot game) came out. That in itself is a 'soft' canon, but that's an aside.

For Arcane, I've mentioned this before but it is written as a League prequel... except the amount of broad strokes it takes and how much it has changed the backstory and characters is something to consider. The writers have stated that they are telling their own story, to the point that champions that exist in-game may not even be safe from death. That, and Viktor is not the same character as he is in League. That's not even a question. Same with many others. So tl;dr, Arcane is its own separate thing within the League multiverse. Whether or not Riot will update champions to match closer to their Arcane characterizations remains to be seen, but if they did it probably wouldn't be until after the show is finished.

#ask #all-thestories-aretrue

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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How F9 Brings Back Justice for Han and Asian Inclusion

https://ift.tt/3hakkfH

This article contains F9 spoilers.

One thing is for certain about the Fast and Furious film franchise—it has been a wild ride. Other aspects of the Fast Saga are less certain. Although the F9 title definitively labels the latest film as the ninth installment, it’s actually the 10th film. Or the 11th. You could even say the 12th if you include the short film. It depends how you want to count it. For a franchise laden with car chase clichés, the Fast Saga makes a lot of long, winding detours.

Consider how these movies treat death. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) set the precedent by ‘dying’ back in Fast & Furious (aka Fast & Furious 4) only to return in Fast & Furious 6, working for the other side. Coincidentally, at the end of that film, there was a major reveal about Han (Sung Kang). The character was introduced in the third film in the series, The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, but dies about three quarters of the way through the film. Yet he then reappears in the next three Fast and Furious movies, which were set before Tokyo Drift. The circumstances of his death were clarified in Fast & Furious 6. Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw killed Han. Now those events have been clarified even more in F9, thanks to returning director Justin Lin. As it turns out, Han didn’t die at all.

F9 is the fifth Fast and Furious film directed by Lin, and by design, Han Jue’s story arc is the central thread for all five Lin installments. Tokyo Drift was Lin’s first Fast film, as well as the franchise’s sharpest turn. It was almost an entirely new cast in a new setting. Lin stayed on to direct the following three installments. To keep Han’s story going, he shifted gears and jumped back in time. Just like with Star Wars, Fast & Furious through Fast & Furious 6 comprised a prequel trilogy, so the order in which the Fast Saga films were released doesn’t match the story’s timeline. The second film, 2 Fast 2 Furious, is followed chronologically by the fourth, Fast & Furious. The next two are in order: Fast Five followed by Fast & Furious 6. Then comes the third release, Tokyo Drift where Han dies. Fast & Furious 6 and Tokyo Drift take place more or less at the same time. Even the beginning of Furious 7 overlaps with the final events of Tokyo Drift.

After stepping away from the franchise for its seventh and eight films, Lin is back in the driver’s seat in F9, which is why Han is also back. However, Han has always been riding with Lin, even predating his involvement in Fast and Furious lore…

High School Han

In 2002, Lin directed the critically-acclaimed Better Luck Tomorrow. That film also starred Sung Kang in the role of Han. It was a story about four overachieving Asian teenagers who start selling cheat sheets and subsequently fall into the gangster lifestyle of drugs and crime. It was loosely based on the murder of Stuart Tay. Tay was an Asian teenager who was killed by his fellow high schoolers when they thought he would betray a computer heist they were planning. The murderers were college-bound with Ivy League potential, and the story was branded as “the honor roll murder” by the Orange County register. In Lin’s interpretation, Han is one of the murderers.

Widely hailed as a benchmark film for Asian-American representation, Better Luck Tomorrow won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance where it was rigorously celebrated by Roger Ebert, which led to MTV acquiring it.

When Lin took on Tokyo Drift, he wanted to add a cool Asian character into the mix. He tapped Kang to reprise the role of Han, albeit an incarnation of Han that was tailored to the franchise. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is young and brash. Han is a teenager, although Kang was 30 he first played him. In Tokyo Drift, Han is older and wiser, a mentor to the film’s protagonist Sean (Lucas Black). Nevertheless, there are connections that make the character whole. The Better Luck Tomorrow Han is a chain smoker. In Fast Five, Han’s girlfriend Gisele (Gal Gadot in her first feature film). She attributes Han’s constant need to occupy his hand to being a former smoker. Tokyo Drift was only four years after Better Luck Tomorrow but the character of Han aged considerably.

Why Han Matters

The Fast Saga currently ranks as the seventh highest grossing film franchise in the world. And unlike the other top-earners, these movies were arguably the most diverse and inclusive from the onset. While the MCU has Black Panther and the upcoming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Star Wars introduced Finn (John Boyega) in its third trilogy, those casts remain predominantly white. In fact, the top 25 top grossing global franchises are all led by white casts. Fast and Furious is the exception. This makes Han the most prominent Asian character in a Hollywood franchise in the world.

What’s more, Han is cool. Until very recently, most Asian Hollywood roles were stereotypical or tokens. Han a richly developed character, even if Better Luck Tomorrow is disregarded. In Tokyo Drift, he’s a wealthy elite street racer with his own garage packed with awesome cars, attached to a club where he’s surrounded by gorgeous women. That was an unprecedented role for how Asian characters were presented in mainstream Hollywood entertainment in the 2000s.

Han’s relationship with Giselle is also extraordinary. While there is a long cinematic history of white men hooking up with Asian women, it was extremely rare for an Asian man to kiss white woman in Hollywood cinema. Han and Giselle become an item in 2009 with Fast & Furious. The following year, it was a huge deal for Jackie Chan’s interracial kiss with Amber Valletta in The Spy Next Door.

Jackie claimed it was his first onscreen kiss and he was already well past a hundred films to his credit at that time, although most of them were China-made. Han got to snog Wonder Woman onscreen before anyone else, including Chris Pine, and if that’s not cool, what is?

Lin carried another actor over from Better Luck Tomorrow. Jason Tobin played Virgil Hu, Han’s cousin and another one of the murderous teens. Virgil is the biggest punk of the gang. In Tokyo Drift, Tobin plays Earl Hu, one of Han’s friends and a master mechanic. Is the Hu surname a coincidence? Not likely for Lin. Tobin also appears as Young Jun in the Bruce Lee inspired TV series Warrior, where Lin is an executive producer alongside Lee’s daughter Shannon. Again Tobin plays a punk gangster. Tobin reprises Earl in F9.

Beyond Hollywood inclusion and representation where Han really matters is global box office. Hollywood was another COVID casualty. During the pandemic, the United States was dethroned as the biggest box office in the world. As of right now, China claims that title. Perhaps this is one reason F9 premiered there first, as well as in other Asian regions along with the Middle East.

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It’s been out for over a month and has already grossed $203 million in China alone, plus an additional $8.8 million in the other markets at the time of the U.S. premiere. Thanks to this, F9 is already the fourth highest earner in the world in 2021. It is right behind Godzilla v Kong, but both of them are trailing behind two Chinese blockbusters that most American are completely unaware of yet, Detective Chinatown 3 and Hi, Mom.

The Fast Saga’s rise has a lot to do with its international appeal, culminating with winning over Chinese audiences. It was under Lin’s steady hand that the franchise became a global player. Adding Han brought Asian representation to an already diverse cast. Tokyo Drift passed an international milestone where the film made more outside of the U.S. in the foreign markets—$33.9 million more. This disparity widened with each successive movie, so by the time Fast & Furious 6 rolled around, the international earnings accounts for nearly 70 percent of the total box office, and the door was open to that lucrative Chinese market.

Furious 7 was the first of the franchise to be shown in China and blew up there with a record-setting $390 million take, earning the title as the biggest non-Chinese film in the country at the time. That helped to elevate the worldwide box office past $1.5 billion, with over 76 percent of it coming from international earnings. The Fate of the Furious did even better, breaking its own record as China’s top-earning foreign film with $392 million, and the international box office accounted for 81 percent of the worldwide take.

Lin is smart to bring Han back. And if he really wants to appeal to that Chinese market, he’ll boost Virgil Hu’s role in F10. Han is Korean. Hu is Chinese. Tobin has appeared in Chinese films previously, including Jackie Chan’s Rob-B-Hood so the Chinese audience is familiar with him.

Justice for Han

At the end of the previous installment, The Fate of the Furious, Shaw is awkwardly accepted into Dom’s cookout. Fans of Han Jue and the franchise were outraged. How does Han’s murderer become part of the club? This triggered the Twitter movement #justiceforhan. Now that we know Shaw didn’t murder Han, it’s up to Lin to decide what happens in F10, which he is slated to direct next (it still doesn’t resolve Shaw’s acceptance at the barbecue because Dom’s gang still believed Han was dead then).

Perhaps it’s all some grand scheme by Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). With the Fast Saga, so much is uncertain, even Han’s name.

For F10, a confrontation between Han and Shaw seems inevitable, especially with F9’s post-credits cameo showing Shaw. Perhaps the next film will finally give enough closure for Shaw to earn his seat at the table, or for Han to banish him from it.

At the end of F9, when the car drives up to fill the empty seat at the barbecue table, it’s uncertain who the driver is. Maybe it’s Jakob (John Cena), Dom’s newly introduced brother in F9. Maybe it’s Shaw coming back for seconds, or maybe Brian O’Conner (although reviving the late Paul Walker digitally again would be tacky now). Maybe it’s even Giselle (sure, Giselle ‘died’ in Fast & Furious 6 but if Gadot came back, just think of how many tickets they’d sell). Fast and Furious is full to twisty turns, like any good car chase. But with Lin in the driver’s seat, Han is sure to get the justice he deserves.

F9: The Fast Saga opened only in theaters on Friday, June 25.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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rooneywritesbest · 5 years ago

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It’s Pennyworth Alfred Pennyworth

The new guilty pleasure of the summer goes to the honor of Pennyworth. Many will sit and wonder what is Pennyworth?. Pennyworth is the tale of Batman’s butler. Alfred Pennyworth in the early 1960s. A character whose backstory and history is shrouded in mystery and changes from incarnation and variation of the duo. Batman and his surrogate Father his Butler Alfred. In the Nolan films, all we know is that Alfred was ex MI6. In the GOTHAM universe on fox. The thing that made Gotham stand out was the ability to peel back the consistency and thread of the Batman lore. So on the show, he was part of the secret service and worked for British intelligence. So for years, fans wondered who was really Alfred. Of course many had the thought and narrative. He helps Bruce on his crusade and mission that intertwines both of their lives together.

The answer would soon come to light in the summer of 2019. When the interesting thing to coin and justify is that the summer was lacking the “IT” factor of movies. Well, you know what wasn’t lacking passion and vision of direction from scripts and actors. The platform of television and the path of streaming. Local theaters near me were dead and barren during this summer due to many staying at home and turning on firesticks and computers, and consoles. Nobody wanted to watch hits like “The Kitchen” or “Hobbs and Shaw”, or even “Dora”.

A smoke screen was about to occur and it did it dropped on July 28th. I had no idea what to expect from watching the trailer and laughing it off as a joke. The concept was actually spoofed and brought to light in last years Teen Titans Go To The Movies. In all honesty, I thought it was going to be Epix\s version of Krypton from Syfy. Krypton is the tale and serial novel of Superman’s Grandfather Seg-El. I was wrong Pennyworth blew all my expectations out of the water.

In addition to it being coined as a prequel and the feedback that term garners. Pennyworth trudges through the mud and takes center stage on the channel and broadcast service Epix. Epix is usually an American streaming service that lacks the inclusion of original series but makes up for lack of content by dropping older movie titles that appeal to a different older demographic. Epix however still stays afloat in the ocean of streaming service juggernauts with competition such as Netflix, or Amazon Prime, and now Disney and DC.

Epix had an ace up their sleeve when the producers and writers of Gotham. Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon came to the service with the unorthodox idea of Batman prequel. A completely new direction and an era of time never explored in various DC comic IPs. The big question everyone in that meeting should have been asking why or will people actually care? Interesting enough it was a gamble that paid off.

Due to the nature of the source material bringing forth the spotlight to various supporting characters who usually fall into the shadow of other platinum rank characters. For example, did you know Thomas Wayne had a sister or he had a sketchy dark past? Another hidden truth revealed from the pace of Pennyworth is that Alfred. Or Alfie was a SAS soldier in the British military for 10 years. The biggest reveal, in‌ ‌my‌ ‌opinion, the realistic element of Alfred being plagued from the internal disease of PTSD. In all honesty, what are you still reading this review go watch this show!. The writing is on par with the pinnacle of Superhero Television Daredevil. The set design and direction of the series is a period piece highlighting the underbelly of the 1960’s London. Jack Bannon plays Alfie like a James Bond film unfolding before your eyes. Sprinkle in a few secret societies in the presence of the Raven Society and The No-Name League. Both fighting for the same vision ultimate control of the leadership and prosperity acclimating to the future of London.

The casting is another highlight of the series. The direction of the character of Alfred is perfectly cast by the hard grit and soft temper of Bannon. Bannon just brings a sense of emotion and tenacity to the very breath of Alfie. However, you would think the way the trailer zoned in on the spy espionage element. The show keeps you guessing and cliffhanger endings keep you anxious waiting till Sunday for another chapter of the memoir of Alfred unfolding before your eyes. However, Alfred is not a spy. He is a seasoned vet who comes home inflicted with PTSD locked behind years of special training that make him into an ultimate badass. He goes into the private security business and then stumbles into Thomas Wayne Bruce Wayne’s father. Then Alfie gets roped into the darker web bleeding London dry and splitting the population to take arms and choose sides. I don’t want to dive into spoilers but I give this show a 9/10. After witnessing what unfolded in the first five episodes. The quality will just keep increasing and the pace will keep me guessing.

Due to the fact that it reflects and adds to the skill of a damn good show harnessing all main factors to keep the audience engaged and guessing. In the words of Chrisitan Bale from Batman Begins “That’s just Damn Good Television”. So Move over Bond yes that Bond, James Bond. A new British icon is rising to take the mantle his name is Pennyworth, Alfred Pennyworth.

#jack bannon #epix pennyworth #alfred pennyworth #pennyworth spoilers #pennyworth #DC comics #DC Universe #dc #dc heroes #epix #television #danny cannon #gotham city #paolma faith

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duhragonball · 5 years ago

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Talkin’ ‘Bout Star Wars

I just realized someone might see this title and think it’s a review of Episode IX, which I kind of forgot about. Actually, I was gonna talk about this Count Dooku audiobook I bought, but I guess I only got back into Star Wars books because of Episode IX, so maybe I should back up.

I liked Rise of Skywalker. I went in unsure of what to expect, because a lot of people hated Episode VIII, and I thought it was awesome, so when I saw scathing criticism of IX, I had no idea whether to take that seriously. “Man if you thought VIII was bad, IX’s even worse.” Stuff like that where I didn’t know how to interpret it.

The fundamental problem with IX is that they were going to do a Leia-centric movie and Carrie Fisher died before they could get started. I’m pretty sure this had a lot to do with why Darth Sidious is all over the movie, but maybe he would have been in it regardless. He definitely brings a lot of star power to the movie. He makes it feel more important than it would have been if it was just Kylo Ren horsing around as the main bad guy. And while I enjoyed Carrie Fisher as the hardboiled-but-sensitive General Leia, she never seemed quite as comfortable on-screen in the sequel movies as Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford. I mean, she was in VIII, but she spent most of it in a coma, and Laura Dern seemed to be her understudy. Maybe Carrie was just waiting for the spotlight of Episode IX, and maybe she would have risen to the occasion, but if not, they would have done well to have the Emperor in the same movie, just to carry some of the load.

I’ve seen complaints about how fast-paced Episode IX is, and how ridiculous some of the revelations are, but you know, Episode IV realllly drags for the first half-hour, so I’m happy they made a new one that caters to six-year-old me’s desire to get on with things. As for the whole Rey Palpatine thing, I don’t know, was that any less absurd than whatever fan-theories were floating around in 2016?

I liked Rey’s character arc in this movie, where she goes from having no family to being terrified of her pedigree, to declaring herself to be “Rey Skywalker”. Also, I dig her yellow lightsaber, even if she never got a chance to use it in the movie. In fact, let me get a picture of that up here....

Niiiice. Whenever I look this up, I see all these links to fan theories about what this means, or how it’s a callback to eight other characters from the comics who had yellow lightsabers, but I’m pretty sure she only ended up with this color because they wanted to give her something different and uniquely her own. If she had a blue or green blade, fans would think she took the crystal out of one of Luke’s old lightsabers, but this indicates that she built her own from scratch. Also, Rey even having a lightsaber is probably intended to demonstrate that she still has a mission in the galaxy, even after the First Order and Sidious are defeated.

Anyway, the main issue I have with the movie is that it does play fast and loose sometimes. It felt like they had a plan for Finn and a plan for Poe, but both plans sort of got lost in the shuffle, and we sort of have to take their big victory as newly minted generals to serve as a finish to their character arcs. Leia’s big moment is basically her lying down to take a nap, and I get it, that was probably the best they could do, but still. I read Nein Numb got killed in the movie, and that kind of pisses me off.

Mostly, it just doesn’t hold up as well as “The Last Jedi”. I think part of the reason “Revenge of the Sith” is the most popular prequel movie is because it pays off the thing everyone wanted to see: Anakin becoming Darth Vader. I remember the first time I saw “Attack of the Clones”, and I was kind of surprised to see Anakin kill all the Sand People, like they were turning him evil a little too early, so that had me wondering if he might turn to the dark side in that movie, which sort of distracted me from what was actually happening on the screen. With Episode III, you knew exactly what you were getting, because they couldn’t save any big moments for “Revenge of the Sith, Part 2.” In a similar vein, I think the big thing audiences wanted from the sequel trilogy was to find out whatever happened to Luke, and Episode VIII answered that question completely. It sort of undercut Episode IX, and I guess that was what J.J. Abrams was complaining about.

Darth Sidious’ whole comeback is kind of a problem. I love the character, and it makes sense that he could somehow survive and come back. In the movie, he just quotes his line about “unnatural” abilities and that’s the only explanation we get for how he survived Endor, built his new fleet, and made Snoke. People call it a cop out and they’re not wrong, but he’s the one character who can get away with it. That said, his return raises far more questions than answers, and somehow he’s even stronger than he was before, which raises even further questions. I mean, if he could just go to this secret planet and build a fleet of planet-destroying ships, why did he bother running for public office?

I’m sure there’ll be a novel that tries to tackle some of those issues, but the bigger problem here is that Episode IX made me realize that I missed the more vulnerable Darth Sidious from the prequels. What I love about Episode I is how you’ve got the Sith, looking very similar to the Emperor and Vader in Episode VI, except they don’t have the might of the Empire behind them. In Episode I, Sidious can’t just force choke his subordinates when they displease him, because he needs those guys. Darth Maul can’t send a legion of troops to capture Queen Amidala; he has to do it by himself. They have to be sneakier and trickier than they are in the original trilogy, because they’re still trying to get the Empire set up, and that’s really fascinating to me. Even in the original trilogy, Palpatine is supreme, but still vulnerable. He dissolves the Senate, but only once the Death Star is available as an alternative. He worries that Luke Skywalker “could destroy us.”

In Episode IX, he seems to have no worries at all, I guess because he’s counting on Rey to murder him for whatever essence transfer he was planning. I suppose this was why he finally died to his own Force Lightning, with Rey deflecting it with two lightsabers. Critics ask why he didn’t just stop shooting lightning, but that’s kind of his deal. He kept shooting at Mace Windu, even when it wrecked his face, and he kept shooting when Darth Vader turned on him. I mean, if he stopped shooting lighting at Rey, what then? His fleet would lose the battle, and Rey would refuse to kill him, and he’d just be stuck. The Sith crave power, and power only matters when you exercise it, so it makes sense that all the Sith characters get wrecked because they bit off more than they could chew. If you asked Sidious why he didn’t just turn off his lightning, he probably wouldn’t even understand the question.

I think it might have been cooler if Darth Sidious had been a ghost, or maybe an electronic backup of his brain, or something like that. He looked pretty cool hooked up to that life support system, and I liked the idea that he was reduced to a shell of his former self, but even that would still be a grave threat to the heroes, especially if he got Rey or Kylo Ren to take orders from him. Maybe he should have actually gotten to possess Rey, and then he would finally get all the gonzo powers he displayed in the movie, and Rey would have to kick him out of her body. I dunno, maybe that’s not so different from what we actually got.

I see fans talking about all these alternative versions of Episode IX, like that leaked script, or the concept art, etc. They lament “Why didn’t we get this movie?” and I think that misses the point. Maybe one version or another would be better, but in the end you really only get one movie, one shot at telling the story. At some point, someone has to make the decision as to what makes the cut and what doesn’t. The problem with writing a story is that the version in your head always looks better than it does in print, because in your head it’s this nebulous, ever-changing thing. When you sit down to write it, you have to commit to one version, and decide whether to do this or that. In this day and age, it’s a lot easier to find out about alternate versions and unused drafts. You can watch the “This” version of a movie, and then go on the internet and see details about the “That” version they didn’t use. And it’s easy to complain that they made the wrong call. “Justice League” fans are convinced that there’s a secret “Snyder Cut” of the movie that would somehow be better than the version that actually made it to theaters. That’s kind of sad, because they clearly must have enjoyed the theatrical cut to some extent, or they wouldn’t care about some other version of the same movie. But instead of appreciating what they got, they obsess over a supposedly better version that may not even exist.

I’m probably no better, because I sort of went into Episode IX figuring that it didn’t matter if it was good or bad, because there would be comics or novels that might expand on the stuff I wanted to see. I think what I really want is a story of how Sidious survived Endor, and how he got set up on Exegul or however you spell it. That, and Rey buckling some swashes with that yellow lightsaber. Everyone’s mad about Rose Tico getting a small part in Episode IX, but to me it almost doesn’t matter, because she can be in whatever Rey comic series they make after this. I mean, that doesn’t do Kelly Marie Tran any good, but I think she’s got a good career ahead of her, with or without Rose Tico.

I don’t know, maybe this is why I don’t watch movies very much. I’m mostly into franchises, where the movies themselves are just tentpoles for all the other media. They don’t really need to be good, so long as some good lore comes out of them that someone else can use. I was thinking the other day about how Episode II is widely considered one of the weakest Star Wars movies, but every Clone Wars story that came after it was directly inspired by that film. And there’s a lot of good Clone Wars stuff out there. It just makes me wonder if Episode II can really be as bad as they say it is. Then again, it probably doesn’t make sense to say that spinoffs can retroactively fix what should be a standalone work.

Anyway, I started this post because I wanted to talk about how YouTube keeps recommending me Star Wars meta videos, mainly about the Sith, because that’s what I’m into, and they’re usually covering stuff I already knew. There’s at least three channels devoted to recapping stories from comics and books, or just straight up repeating information that was directly stated in the movies. “Did you know Palpatine wanted to KILL Darth Vader?” Yes, I’ve known since 1983. He told Luke to kill him and he wouldn’t do it. Then he and Vader killed each other. It’s not complicated. The funny thing is that I watch all these different Star Wars videos, and I can tell they’re narrated by different people, but they all sound like the Burger King Foot Lettuce guy.

I got bored with these, so I started listening to the Dooku audiobook that came out last year. It’s been pretty decent, but I was hoping for more Sith lore, and this book seems mostly focused on Asajj Ventress learning about Dooku’s Jedi career. I’ve only got a half hour left in the book, and Dooku hasn’t even resigned from the order yet, so I don’t think I’ll see much of what he was up to between Episodes I and II.

#/#//#///#////#/////#star wars

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wazafam · 4 years ago

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After four long years of waiting, hoping, and campaigning, the Snyder Cut of Justice League has finally been released and fans across the world can enjoy the definitive live-action team-up of DC's greatest heroes. Beyond that, those fans may want to transfer their excitement to the best Justice League video game they can find.

RELATED: Zack Snyder's Justice League: 10 Videogames To Play While You Wait For The Snyder Cut

While there is no definitive game with Justice League in the title (as of yet), the best game with the whole League that carries on several of the themes of Zack Snyder's Justice League is Netherrealm's Injustice 2. Then again, Daybreak's DC Universe Online might be a more appropriate choice.

10 Injustice 2: It Was The Basis For The Knightmare Timeline

One of the biggest deals in Zack Snyder's Justice League is the return of the apocalyptic "Knightmare" timeline, as previously seen as Bruce Wayne's premonition in Batman V Superman. This features a corrupted Superman, traumatized by the death of Lois Lane, enforcing his brutal rule on Earth with the help of his own black-clad stormtroopers.

This is exactly the plot of the Injustice games, right down to Batman being Superman's main opponent, and it's not a complete coincidence - Zack Snyder actually consulted on it with the team at Netherrealm.

9 DC Universe Online: The Setup Is The Same As The Planned Justice League 2

The general plot of DC Universe Online is summed up by the fantastic opening sequence, which features Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom outsmarting and defeating the Justice League. They swiftly regret this when the cosmic evil Brainiac invades with no heroes to fight him, so Lex has to go back in time to warn the Justice League so they can defeat Brainiac together.

As revealed by the leaked storyboards for Justice League 2, just swap Brainiac for Darkseid and this is essentially the plot of the planned movie. Fans may never see Justice League 2, so DC Universe Online may be the only way to experience it.

8 Injustice 2: An Epic Cinematic Storyline

As its own Mortal Kombat series has proven, Netherrealm loves to create fighting games with exciting and deeply engaging storylines. The Injustice series is no different. Mostly written by beloved comics writer Tom Taylor, the plot of the second game is arguably even more exciting than the first.

RELATED: Gotham Knights: 10 Villains We Need To Face In The Game

Superman is imprisoned and his Regime is disbanded, with Batman ensuring a fragile peace - which is shattered when Brainiac invades, with the help of the new Secret Society lead by Gorilla Grodd. The story involves the introduction of Supergirl and a fantastic uneasy reunion of the Justice League, plus it has an alternate ending depending on what character the player chooses.

7 DC Universe Online: An Ongoing Storyline In A More Recognizable DC Universe

One of the biggest problems with Injustice 2 for fans looking for the ultimate Justice League video game is that the story is deliberately set in an almost-unrecognizable DC universe. The first game at least had a crossover with the regular DC timeline, but Injustice 2 solely features an Earth where Superman was a brutal dictator, Wonder Woman is cruel, and many characters (including Shazam and Nightwing) are dead.

DC Universe Online features far more recognizable versions of these beloved characters, and the storyline continues to be added to even ten years after its release.

6 Injustice 2: Play As All The Major DC Heroes And Villains

What needs to be the vital hallmark of the greatest Justice League video game is being able to play as all the fan-favorite characters, including all the members of the League seen in the movie, and they need to be fun to play. Injustice 2 definitely qualifies here, with a playable roster that includes Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman, and The Flash.

It's even possible to unlock their movie costumes too. Playable villains include Harley Quinn, Joker, Black Adam, and even Darkseid, who's now finally been added back into Zack Snyder's Justice League. It's truly the ultimate DC experience.

5 DC Universe Online: Play As A New DC Hero Or Villain

While it's certainly compelling to play as the beloved members of the Justice League, it's more involving for the player to create their own hero (or villain) in an RPG-like way, take on threats such as Brainiac and Bizarro, and finally be able to join either the Justice League or Legion of Doom themselves.

RELATED: Justice League Snyder Cut: 10 Biggest Differences From The Original

It's one thing to be able to inhabit a role, but it's arguably far better to actually bring a fresh creation into the DC universe. If that's not good enough, DC Universe Online also features many missions where players can play as the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman too. It's the whole Justice League package.

4 Injustice 2: Excellent Comics Expand The Lore

In general, tie-in comics for video games are merely okay at best. Batman: Arkham City was fortunate to get a series by writing legend Paul Dini (as he helped write the game), but most aren't so fortunate, which is why no-one was expecting the Injustice: Gods Among Us prequel comic to be any good.

Thanks to the skills of writer Tom Taylor, who penned the first few series and the more recent Injustice 2 and Year Zero comics, the tie-in became a must-read property that expanded the lore in exciting ways, as well as giving plenty of depth to Superman's fall from grace.

3 DC Universe Online: It's Still Going Strong And Will Receive Enhancements This Year

It's hard to believe but DC Universe Online launched on the PS3 in 2011, so it's an incredible ten years old this year. What's even more impressive is that it's still extremely popular. Head into a server on PC or console and every area will be full of players. Developer Daybreak even launched a Nintendo Switch version this year, which is doing equally well.

Even better, the game's clunky systems and outdated graphics will get a revamp in time for the next-gen launch later this year. If any Justice League fan wants to jump into DC Universe Online, 2021 is the perfect year to do it.

2 Injustice 2: One Of The Best Fighting Games Around

The almost unheralded secret of what makes Batman: Arkham Asylum (and the rest of the Arkham series) so good is that they're great games first and great comic book games second. Likewise, part of the reason Injustice 2 is one of the greatest DC Comics games around is that it's actually one of the best-designed fighting games ever made.

The Mortal Kombat series is already excellent and Injustice shares the same design but is a little easier to play so it also makes these hardcore fighting games fun for less-experienced players too.

1 DC Universe Online: A Full Open-World To Explore

Probably the fact that makes it the most difficult to completely recommend Injustice 2 as the best Justice League game is that it's a fighting game, and consequently all of its gameplay is tied to a small arena. Players want to explore the likes of Gotham and Metropolis and take on enemies in exciting stories, which is where DC Universe Online comes in.

It's a full open-world that players can traverse at will - even fly over, if their character has that power - with many missions and side-quests to uncover and take on. It's a proper Justice League RPG, which is just what many fans are after.

NEXT: 5 Reasons The Justice League Theatrical Cut Is A Worthy DC Movie (& 5 Why You Should Wait For The Snyder Cut)

5 Ways Injustice 2 Is The Best Justice League Video Game (& 5 Ways It's DC Universe Online) from https://ift.tt/3d6nAqm

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balsamfir-fics · 2 years ago

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a hope at risk (part 4) [FINAL]

Genres: angst, 99% canon (eps 6-9), more angst, eventual smut, established childhood crushes to strangers to lovers, post-pining, becoming machine herald (sort of)

Pairing: Viktor/Female Reader

Warnings: Near character death (episode 9 fishbones scenes), mentions of injury

Summary: For nearly two decades after you waltzed out of Viktor’s life as the childhood friend who broke his heart, he hoped to forget you. Now that you’re back, firmly settled in his life and his arms, he wants nothing more than to live, to love, to dream. With a terminal diagnosis you’ve yet to learn about in a city waiting to erupt into war, however, Viktor realizes this is a fight for survival against all odds. But he can’t lose you again. He won’t. He hopes.

Chapters: Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2 [M] | Part 3 | Part 4 [FINAL]

Chapter Word Count: ~8.8k

The prior work deals primarily with holding onto hope; this one deals with themes of loss and survival. Both are about decisions made and avoided.

——————————————————-

There’s a sharp ringing in Jayce’ head. Everything else is muffled. He thinks he hears screaming, but it sounds like he’s underwater. Still, the noise reverberates off his skull and he winces at the pain that sears through his head. He staggers off of the table—huh? Off of the table? Why was he— Flashes of memory burst through his aching mind. “Jayce has brokered… a peace… with Silco, in exchange for the Undercity’s independence.” Jayce hears a woman—Mrs. Kiramman, he thinks—exclaim in protest. The room bursts into sound, Councilmembers shouting over each other, papers being thrown, and fists banging on the table. He glances at Mel, who wears a mix of expressions across her delicate features. He and Viktor are immovable; they allow the room to clamor and clash. They’d made their decision to be steadfast. His eyes scan the room as angry life flares around him, but his heart is solely attuned to Mel. She is surprisingly quiet, eyes downcast as she fiddles with the ring she always wears; a memento from her youth in Noxus. In a rare lull of heavily-breathed quiet, she interjects. She raises one regal hand, then votes with him. Her seat is lit, and she levels her Councilmates with an even, steady gaze. One by one, the votes are cast. The others know their hands are tied; Piltover is out of other options besides all-out-war. This is what’s best. The room lights up with every passing vote, and as a unanimity is reached, Jayce allows himself another glance at his lover. She smiles encouragingly at him, and he returns it with a hopeful gaze of his own. Behind him, Viktor leans on his crutch as he struggles to straighten in celebration. Mel’s spine straightens. She turns her head to the side. And then everything disappears. There’s crying. Screeching. Lamenting. Images start to finally make sense to his brain—must be concussed, he thinks. When pixels sort themselves in his mind, he sees the light first, then registers the heat from the flames. It’s chaos—chaos everywhere, a thousandfold times worse than the fateful explosion in his apartment a decade before. Mel, his brain gasps, and he staggers to his right where she should have been. His eyes move faster than the camera-feed they provide to his brain, and the image lags. She finally comes into focus, slumped over the table with her arms reached out. “MEL!” Jayce roars, clumsily lunging towards her. She doesn’t stir, doesn’t react. He shakes her, harder than he probably should, but she doesn’t respond. He raises trembling fingers to check for a pulse; it’s there, it’s faint, but she’s alive. Only later does he remember that she looks wholly unharmed, and only later do they realize that she’s the reason they’re not all dead. Some people carrying stretchers rush past him; Jayce wonders how long he’s been unconscious. He watches in a dissociative state as they load Mel onto one and take her away. A medic tries to talk to him but all he hears is gibberish; he waves them off and stumbles towards his left, where he thinks Viktor was. A limp, mangled mess of thin limbs twitches on the floor. Broken shards of glass are scattered all around it, as are shredded pieces of wooden chair. A puddle of molten plastic and aluminum wilts nearby, partly draped over the figure’s arm. No. A medic grabs at his arm, but Jayce rips himself free and drops to his knees. Glass pierces through his clothing and digs into his skin, but he can’t feel it. He tries his best to scrape off the molten materials, but the figure twitches again. This time, it moans, a wretched sound of pain. “Viktor?” “Jayce?” Viktor’s familiar rasp is barely audible above the din of disaster. “OVER HERE!” Jayce bellows, ordering the medics closer to Viktor. The rest of it is a blur; the form that is supposedly his best friend gets hauled onto a stretcher and taken away. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You sit by Viktor’s side, listening to the beep of his monitoring devices as you reread his letter again and again into the dark of the night. The beeps remind you that he is still alive; you will the machine to give him just one more beep, then another, then just one more. How many more beeps will he have? How many beeps have you already used up, living in the dark about his condition when it seemed like so many others knew? (Heimerdinger came with you to the hospital and was surprised to see the look of horror on your face when Viktor’s doctor gave you his full prognosis). “I’m surprised he’s even alive,” the exhausted doctor had sighed. “He’s a very lucky man. Councilwoman Medarda’s defenses certainly shielded him from the brunt of the impact, but as you know, Viktor was already on his way out. If injuries don’t get him, then the smoke from the resulting fires might. We’re doing our best to keep him oxygenated, but we were already surprised that he woke up the last time. We’ll do what we can for palliative care, but we suggest you execute any of his wishes soon.” Heimerdinger made a sad noise of agreement, and you’d whirled on your father. How was he not surprised? Had he known Viktor was already near death? The guilt across your father’s features had said enough. The sheets of parchment crumple in your fist; some pages are already fraying at the edges, softened by the moisture of your tears. You fade in and out of restless sleep, your body aching from the irregular positions. But each time you wake, you listen intently for another beep. Each time you wake, your mind is pulled to Viktor’s words; the second experiment would have worked. It could save him. A tiny fragment of your brain whispers to you that Viktor wanted the Hexcore destroyed, that the guilt had consumed him. But the rest of your thoughts are louder, consumed with the possibility that this may not be the end for him. It didn’t have to be the end. A nurse comes into the room to change his IV; she returns shortly after to give you a small cup of chamomile tea. You drink it without registering any flavors before drifting back into cyclically poor sleep, your fingers laced into Viktor’s. —--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a councilman, victim, lover, and friend, Jayce finds himself wrapped up in a whirlwind of disaster recovery tasks. Pulled in a million directions, he wants nothing more than to scream into the void, stop his work, and retreat—never did he imagine he would be asked this many questions, witness this much pain and suffering (of his closest friends and colleagues, no less), be tasked with saving and rebuilding a hurting government, all the while trying desperately to maintain a shred of hope that peace might still be reached between Piltover and the Undercity. It had been so close to being brokered, with the Council agreeing with his proposal to give Zaun its independence without violence — until all hell broke loose. Naturally, the upper-city folk and his people condemn the act of terrorism and chomp at the bit to be up at arms. As he listens in on loud, heated council meetings, he clenches his fists in his lap. He can feel a ghost of the bite of cold metal in his palms from the ‘Mercury Hammer’ (as Mel jokingly called it once), and every time he closes his fingers and squeezes he can feel the hammer taking that child’s life. Again, and again, and again. Open, close. Open, close. His breath shallows and his sight narrows as the arguments in this council session become rowdy. Around him, wind whips against the makeshift tarpauline ‘windows’ strung to the charred metal frame of the council room wall; most of the jagged glass has been cleared away, but other evidence of destruction still remains. Jayce sees it most in the bandages covering starting-to-heal wounds from his fellow council folk, but he feels it best from the sting of his own scars as he flexes the muscles in his fists. Thin, jagged cuts pepper his hands and his face (the few parts of skin that had been exposed to the blast); part of his eyebrow is missing, and a piece of gauze above his left eyelid makes it still-uncomfortable to blink. He hadn’t wanted this. All he and Viktor aimed to do was use Hextech for the betterment of society, to invent, to create, and to live. He wasn’t a politician by nature the way Mel was, and Jayce is all the more aware of it as he sits among the broken remains of the Council without her. She’d offered to come to session, of course, being in considerably better shape than someone sitting in direct line of the rocket should have. But having borne the brunt of the explosion, she wasn’t in perfect condition, and Jayce fought her until she agreed to rest. (He promised to have a council scribe bring a transcript of the session immediately after). Jayce’ thoughts are everywhere but the actual Council discussion, but he forces himself to shut everything out and make it through. Once another inconclusive and incendiary session ends, he remains in his seat even after most of the lights are turned off and everyone else leaves. Eventually, he becomes uncomfortable staying in such an unlucky room, and leaves for the familiar halls of the laboratory. There, the quiet tinkering noises of equipment are the same as they’ve always been. Looking for answers, he slumps into Viktor’s stool; the older man had always been the smarter one, more reserved and less headstrong. Perhaps sitting in his place would bring some ideas to the Councilman. The Hexcore hisses, shivering a little as Jayce gives it a sidelong glance. The purple light it casts catches on a few sheets of paper, fluttering in a stale breeze. Jayce follows the movement, noticing loose paper tucked into a worn leather-bound notebook. He tilts his head, angling for a better look. Then he reaches for it. The Hexcore glows a deeper shade of purple in response. It seems... pleased. In front of him lies Viktor’s notebook. It challenges him, goads him, taunts him to open its pages and witness what lies within. This has never once occurred in their long years inventing together; Viktor shares some of his other notes, certainly, but never this notebook. Never the leather-bound tome of scrap paper he scribbles in furiously and protects with private passion. In recent weeks, as Jayce came to the lab less and less, he’d noticed Viktor mostly working in this notebook—the chalkboard and lab desks hadn’t been piled upon with other sheets of his scribblings. Whatever was within this book doubled as the reason Viktor adamantly wanted the Hexcore destroyed. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jayce shuts the door to Viktor’s hospital room behind him as quietly as he can, but your head shoots up at the slightest sound of his shoes against the linoleum. Hot tears streaming down your cheeks and blurring your vision, you run towards Jayce with a strangled sob. When you reach him, you beat your fists against his chest; above you, he looks miserable and doesn’t make any attempt to stop you – you’re too fraught and not strong enough to hurt him, and truth be told he wishes you might be able to do some damage. Perhaps it would then count as penance for him allowing his mentor, his friend, his partner to die far too early. “You have to save him, Jayce,” you sob, clutching now at the lapels of his jacket. “Please. It’s the only way. I can’t lose him again – I can’t – I–” You shove the pages of Viktor’s letter against him, and he takes them from you to quickly scan. His eyes widen as Viktor’s confession unlocks the mysteries behind Viktor’s notes; he know knows exactly how to interpret the scribblings in Viktor’s notebooks and Sky’s supplemented suggestions. Jayce wraps his arms around you, squeezing you tight as his heart seizes in his chest. His stomach sinks impossibly low, churning in his torso with the strong discomfort of unwise decisions. There have only been a few times he’s felt this poorly; the first was when his mother was near-death; another was seconds after he said to Viktor’s face that the Zaunites were dangerous threats to his Piltovan world. The next was when he saw the light leave the little Zaunite boy’s eyes in Silco’s facility. He hadn’t anticipated experiencing it for a fourth time, but here he was, forced to make yet another decision he was underprepared for. Above your head, Jayce curses aloud. His voice comes out mangled, and it’s only then that he realizes he, too, is crying. Through the glossy sheen of his tears, his gaze lifts to the vibrating purple light of the Hexcore. His eyes narrow; it’s different. The runes are gone and in their place are gaping holes that light radiates through. The core is alive, very much so, and it doesn’t take any effort to understand that there is something wicked about it. This feels like bargaining with evil, and Jayce thought brokering a deal with his Undercity rival Silco had been the true form of it. Now he knows that Silco, like him, is a man born and bred of circumstance; someone forced to make decisions that others couldn’t or wouldn’t – someone simply trying to survive. None of this was supposed to happen. The deal should have gone through, despite Council objections – the Zaunites would be free, and the Piltovans left to re-negotiating access to the resources in the fissures, new trade deals to be created. “Jayce,” your voice is muffled against his chest. “Please. Save him. Only you can.” He pulls away at that, his hands firmly grasping your shoulders. Jayce’ eyes bear into yours, searching for confirmation that this is the right thing, that this should be done. What he finds, however, is a dangerous blend of uncertainty and worry – but above all, desperation. It’s the same he feels in his own heart and soul. Jayce swallows, hard, his own gaze extremely unsure. But he takes your hands in his and makes a promise to you that breaks the one he made to Viktor. He’ll understand, Jayce tries to convince himself. Viktor wanted to build out his life, in love. He’ll forgive me for this. Then he leans down to kiss gently at your hairline – the consolation of a brother. With slow, deliberate steps, he strides to Viktor’s workbench and faces the Hexcore. He doesn’t turn towards you when he speaks, but merely tilts his face towards his shoulder. You can’t tell if he’s hiding his face in shame, or guilt, or the weight of his decisions. “You should go home,” Jayce says quietly. “If you could just check on Mel before you leave, I’ll take care of everything else.” You nod, not that he can see – and you quickly scurry out of the lab, wiping your eyes with your sleeve and trying your best to choke down your sobs. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You sit on the grand staircase at the Heimderdinger Estate, letting the cold of the cavernous room seep into your bones. Your gaze falls absently on the tiled patterns in the floor; a flicker of lamplight catches the corners of the glaze and dances back and forth. A warmth suddenly surrounds your shoulders and you start, glancing around you for the source of the change. One step above you, your father looks at you with a sad, affectionate smile. “All will be alright in due time, my love,” he says, voice small and rueful. He doesn’t know the half of it. He’s aware you’re distressed over the attack on the Academy, and even more so worried about Viktor’s comatose state in the hospital. But you and Jayce carefully agreed to keep mum about Viktor’s notes and the clandestine effort to leverage the Hexcore against the strings of fate. You know full well how furious your father would be if he found out what you had chosen to do, and to his protege of an almost-adopted son, no less. It’s not like you can’t understand the sentiment; you also wanted nothing to do with the arcane, but when given the choice between your morality and your last hope to save the love of your life who you’d nearly lost twice, it was a simple decision to make. No; Heimerdinger thinks you are simply waiting for news that Viktor moved on to the next life, mourning your love in advance. He sits down on the step above, you, pulling at your shoulder to tuck you into his very small embrace. “We must have hope,” his voice falters, his words failing to be convincing. He’s a Yordle of science; one look at Viktor’s charts would be more than enough to write him off as a dead man walking. You hum sadly into his harms, electing not to say a word of agreement—you know that you have one last thread of real, not platitudinal, hope. But even with the potential of Viktor’s impeccable notes working out, and even with Jayce successfully restoring his lab-mate from the brink of death, you can’t help but feel the cold fingers of fear grip at your heart. Heimerdinger’s feeble attempts at comforting you through his own preemptive and misplaced mourning do, somehow, help. A small hand rubs tender circles into your back, reminding you of the warmth from the shawl he draped over you not minutes ago. Hope. What a useless currency, and yet sometimes it could be more valuable than gold. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Caitlyn Kiramman comes calling a few days later, her lips pressed into a tight line of disapproval. It’s odd for her; you’d gotten closer to her as you’d gotten closer to both Viktor and Jayce, and you’d certainly seen her and her parents at the many galas you either ran or attended. It’s even odder knowing that her mother is in a similar state to Viktor; while her health had been impeccably managed, she was no longer the spring chicken she used to be and recovery from the blast had been painful from what you’d heard. Thus you were surprised to see Caitlin at the front door of the Heimerdinger Estate; this was the last place you expected to see her that wasn’t her mother’s private hospital bedside. “I don’t know what you and Jayce were planning—” Caitlin raises a perfectly poised hand to stop you as you begin to open your mouth to explain. “— And I don’t want to know, either. But whatever it is you needed Zaunite contraband for, Jayce wanted me to tell you that it worked. Whatever it is.” You blink at her, mouth agape. Thoughts fly through your head before you finally put them in order and deduce what you need to. You’d read Viktor’s notes in excruciating detail before passing his journal to Jayce, and as you squinted at his scrawl you made out a few references (in discreet code) to the Undercity’s Shimmer. Perhaps you didn’t exactly want to know those particulars of Viktor’s survival, but you quickly understand that Jayce sacrificed his own moral code to save his friend. It must have taken deep humility and shame to ask Caitlyn, of all people, to help him procure some of the illicit drug, knowing that Caitlyn would be his best chance at getting any in the midst of the two-city turmoil. “…Thank you,” you can only say. Your hand reaches for Caitlyn’s before she can turn on her heel and make a speedy exit; her gentle but keen gaze catches yours and she softens as she notices the undertones in your gratitude. She recognizes at once that you realized she supplied the Shimmer, and the tight muscles around her lips relax somewhat. “Whatever it was, it must have been worth it,” she murmurs, pulling you close to her for a quick, tight hug. “Otherwise Jayce would never have asked me, begging him to keep this a secret from Mel.” “It was,” you reply, eyes misty. “I know it was.” “However, don’t make him ever do that again,” Caitlyn sighs, her tone sharp nonetheless. Your spine straightens and you nod—you don’t want to have to go through this ordeal once more, either, and the last thing you want to do is jeopardize Jayce’ reputation among his closest friends. This was a one-time thing, and you know it. Caitlyn’s eyes burn into yours, fiery with the fierce devotion of best friendship. You recognize that look; it’s the same fervor that lives within your own eyes whenever anyone thinks about crossing Viktor. With a curt nod in recognition of your silent agreement, Caitlyn briskly makes her exit. As she retreats, your legs fail you and you slump against the grand doorway, trying to catch your breath as your brain screams ‘VIKTOR IS ALIVE!’ —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jayce grinds in his teeth, slumped over in the uncomfortably small chair with his head hung in his hands. Whatever coffee he drank hours ago has long worn off, and it’s only the gentle bubbling of the various medical devices attached to Viktor that keep him awake. The bubbling is a vast improvement from the alarmed screeching that rang from Viktor’s hospital room for days as Jayce, still mildly concussed from the blast, puttered around the room with the door locked and Viktor’s notes strewn over the hospital bed. He’d figured out the last of Viktor’s notes the evening prior—the Hexcore needed more than just bio-organic material to bond with — he realized, only after taking a frustrated coffee break in the hospital hallway and overhearing nurses talking about illegal painkillers, that the undercity’s drug of choice may be Viktor’s only chance at surviving an such an ordeal. Only then, so belatedly, did Jayce understand what quandary Viktor had been consulting about that fateful day on the bridge. A horrible cough rises from the center of the room, honing all of Jayce’ senses onto it. His head snaps up and he takes the two strides to Viktor’s side. He’s only felt this much adrenaline coursing through him a small handful of times in his life; the first when discovering the crystals, the second when they proved Hextech worked, and the third when Mel Medarda leveled a sharp gaze of approval at him. “Viktor?” Jayce asks, voice tentative. He leans over the hospital bed, straining to inspect Viktor’s face for any signs of cognition. Another cough wracks Viktor’s lungs, jerking his torso off of the cushions, before he pulls his eyelids open with bleary effort. His eyes canvas his surroundings, noting the drab ceiling of the hospital room and the tanned expanse of Jayce’ face above his own. Viktor blinks again, feeling something in his stomach turn to heavy lead. The last thing he remembered was a bright flash of light, and then pain, and then— He feels fine now. Whatever pain was there in his last known memory was gone. But more concerningly, so was the rest of his pain—the dull ache that had been with him since childhood, the frailty that had just another fact of his life. Viktor tries to sit up unsuccessfully; the motion sends him into another fit of painful, wet coughs before Jayce pushes him back down into the cushions in concern. No, no, he strains against Jayce’ grasp, surprised at his own strength as he counters the force, but even with his strange new vigor he is no match for even an injured Jayce. “What day is it?” Viktor snaps, a sharp amber glare slicing into Jayce’ own concerned irises. Startled by the roughness in Viktor’s voice coupled with the intensity behind it, Jayce answers at once: two weeks. Viktor swings himself out of the hospital bed and collapses to the floor. Jayce darts around the bed to help lift him up, but Viktor swats him away and uses the hospital bed to prop himself up. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. For most people, getting up out of a hospital bed after two weeks of unconsciousness would normally result in the newborn-giraffe display of shaking limbs he just exhibited — but not Viktor. Plagued with chronic fatigue and his aching leg, even the attempt to climb out of bed after a virus-induced fever would have been near-impossible, and when he first fainted and woke up presumably in this very same room, he needed several days to even remotely feel like he could sit upright. He doesn’t feel great, but this is what his normal feels like. And coming out of a comatose state should be nothing but normal — he should be lying in that bed, barely able to converse, and not staggering around his room within minutes of waking. “What did you do?” Viktor whispers, hand gripping the footboard so hard his knuckles are moon-white. “What did you do to me?” He repeats the question, and Jayce goes pale. When Jayce doesn’t respond, Viktor lifts his gaze. The fear in Jayce’s eyes must mirror his own. In them, he finds clues to answer his question; as he flicks his eyes towards the sheets of parchment lying haphazardly on hospital furniture, it all begins to click. “You didn’t,” Viktor says, his voice low and aghast. His mind screams at him. You didn’t use the accursed Hexcore I asked you to destroy, to save me! You can’t have! But another, foreign portion of his brain roars for his conscience to be silent; his head pounds with the loudness of his internal battle. Jayce swallows thickly. “I did. We… we couldn’t lose you.” Viktor’s ears catch one pivotal word. “We?” Jayce wonders where things went so wrong; he’s torn between being elated that Viktor seems in good health and severely spooked by the haunted disappointment in Viktor’s voice. He nods, knowing that this is the worst possible time to lie. “She brought me your notes,” Jayce explains lamely as he gestures at some of the papers. Viktor goes incredibly still. Both men stay locked in the other’s intense gaze, carrying out a multitude of conversation in perfect silence. Then Viktor’s brows furrow, his expression hardens. “Get out.” “What? I’m here to help you, you need food and water and I have to contact her—“ “GET OUT!” Viktor roars. From the way Jayce nearly jumps out of his skin, Viktor can tell that his mentee and friend is as surprised by the strength in Viktor’s voice as he is. But to his credit, Jayce — this time — complies with the command and sees himself out. In the quiet that settles in Jayce’ wake, Viktor slowly walks towards the small side table where his worn leather notebook lies open to his last scribblings. The pages don’t tell the story of Sky’s death. The scrawl doesn’t document the pain he endured as she tore him from the Hexcore’s insidious grasp. He turns a page with one finger, flipping it over to expose the blank sheets that remain. He had resigned himself to his death, willing to take upon himself the guilt of having a friend’s blood stain his hands in the name of his research. He had been prepared to give his near-final goodbyes to you and to hope his scientific legacy was otherwise kept pure. But now he can hear the whisperings of corruption in his ear, feel the allure of strength and vitality that he’d never been privileged to have. The voice is greedy; it stirs memories of jealousy and wistfulness in him that he has taken decades to suppress and overcome. Viktor had wanted none of this, preferring to leave this world steadfast to his convictions, values, and his commitment to do good for the least of these. Now, his convictions are called into question. But he knows what this all means. He knows, in the least, his life has been extended, his final deadline pushed back for now—for good and for bad, from pure or impure motivations. Back turned to the dim overhead light, Viktor stands alone in his hospital gown. He stares down at his hand, experimentally stretching his palm open before squeezing his fist shut. A shiver of his previous muscoskeletal weakness ripples through his nervous system; it’s a familiar sensation that almost feels like an old, tired friend. It serves as a reminder that he is still himself despite this cursed strength now living inside him. Bolstered by this recognition, he silently vows to himself any improbable deity who may be listening that he will not draw upon the Hexcore’s power for anything but necessary sustenance of his life. He flips pulls out a loose sheet from the notebook, recognizing Sky’s handwriting. Viktor crushes the paper into his palm, promising a dead friend that he wouldn’t succumb to the very thing that destroyed her. He would not let the Hexcore control him. Everything is changed. Viktor knows he must do the same in order to adapt to the new lease on life he’s been given. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor refuses to allow you back into his hospital room. He doesn’t scream at you, he doesn’t throw anything at you — no, he is ever the picture of politeness and gentleness with you as he always has been. Instead, he very quietly instructs you to leave him be in a voice so low and tested that you know not to push your concerns further. When he’s given the all-clear to return home by a very surprised and somewhat fearful doctor, Viktor elects to sleep on the couch (against your protests). Considering the span of your relationship, you’re physically the closest you’ve been for the majority of your lives, and yet Viktor feels more distant than he has ever been before. He is still kind and ever-so-polite, but a line between you has been firmly drawn and Viktor shows no intentions of crossing it. You ask him a timid question once in the first few days of his silence: whether he still loves you. He visibly flinches at your request, but calmly reassures you that his feelings have not changed. It is, in fact, the truth. But he refrains from answering your other questions with real answers, and you soon leave him be. You communicate in other ways; in sandwiches left out and dishes cleaned afterward—in coffee brewed before you wake, in laundry neatly folded. Sometimes Viktor wakes up from a midday nap with a blanket tucked around him; other times you come back home to an empty apartment and a still-warm dinner on the stove. You carry on in this loving, yet quiet detente until one day you return to see Viktor leaning against the kitchen counter, packed bags at his feet. “What is going on?” You ask, slowing your pace and eyeing his suitcases suspiciously. “I’m moving out,” he says matter-of-factly, tugging on the glove he uses to hide his metal hand. “It’s not fair for you to live like this, tip-toeing around me.” “I’m not tip-toeing,” you interject quickly, alarm bells going off in your head. “I’m just being patient; I’ve been waiting for you to open up and talk to me whenever you were ready!” He pushes off the counter, straightens his back, and dusts the front of his jacket. “Well, I’m not ready. I need time and space to think.” “I could just move back to Father’s—” “Do that,” he hisses, voice tight. “It’s where you belong. I… I don’t belong here. Not anymore.” “Viktor!” Your voice pitches higher, scolding with the use of his full name. “You belong with me, where else would you go?” He looks dismayed, but resolute. “Somewhere. Anywhere. A place that isn’t here; a place that isn’t Piltover. Sparrow, I’m not meant to be alive right now, much less augmented to high heavens with a magical metallic energy I haven’t begun to understand.” He gestures at his body, pulls off his glove, and raps his metal knuckles on the granite counter. A loud clang fills the space between you, and you wince at the sharp sound. Viktor watches as you react to his display of aberration, and it only cements his plans in his mind. Against his better judgment, he steps forward, as compelled by you as he always has been. He reaches up to your face quickly as he notices tears start to fall; you hadn’t even noticed them yourself in the midst of your rising internal panic. Viktor cups your cheeks; one side is distinctly colder and harder than the other, and the sensation is jarring. “Sparrow,” Viktor exhales, pressing his forehead against yours as his eyes flutter shut. “I can’t be with you until I can figure out who I am with all of this. I won’t risk endangering you when I’m not confident I can control what feels like corruption inside me, much less so when it’s this corruption that keeps me alive. And I can’t be with you if I haven’t yet settled how I feel about the fact that you and Jayce both went behind my back and my ethical code to give me another chance at life.” His words settle in your intermingled breaths. Not sure how to respond, you lift your head just a few millimeters, indicating your attempts to understand him while giving him the space to determine what to do next. You want to ask him to stay. No—you want to beg him to stay, because you can’t go on like this, waiting to lose him again and again and again. But this time, letting him go is a distinct choice. This time, it’s not you leaving him without a backward glance; it’s not two teenagers scared of their feelings and their futures, and it’s not a dying man waiting out his last days. Viktor’s breath is warm on your lips, while half of his torso is cool to your touch. His nose bumps into yours as he sways where he stands. You instinctually reach out to steady him, but Viktor, in his renewed body, rights himself. Then he pulls you the last few millimeters into him, his lips soft on yours as he tries to communicate a multitude of emotions in a single gesture. Something feral in his brain purrs; he tries to stifle the immediate attraction that he’s always had to you, especially considering that arousal would be highly inappropriate at the moment. With much mental effort, the stimulated presence in his brain recedes and shrinks back, dormant but ever-present. Whatever energy the Hexcore gave him, it was a dangerous, wild one. Yes, this is the right decision for the time being. His physical salvation had changed everything, and if he wanted to live the rest of his borrowed time with you, then he needed to be damn sure that he was capable of doing so safely. He’d already hurt you before with his secrecy and he’d already taken a life, and Viktor could not in good conscience continue living the same way he had before. “I will return to you, Sparrow,” he says gently, stroking his flesh-and-blood thumb over the curve of your cheek. “I simply do not know when.” His eyes gaze fondly, softly into yours with a questioning expression; you squeeze your eyes shut and breathe deeply before nodding once to indicate your acceptance. You keep your eyes closed as he presses his lips to your forehead, takes his bags, and leaves. You only open them once you hear his footsteps receded down the hallway, before you slide to the floor and allow yourself to cry into your arms without fear of anyone witnessing your misery. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor jogs up the front steps of the Heimerdinger Estate, knowing that you are still back at the apartment trying to pack up your affairs. It’s a small window for opportunity for him; he needs to speak to your father, privately. Staff open the door before Viktor so much as reaches the top step; he gives them a sheepish, guarded smile as he passes over the threshold. He’s taken back to Heimerdinger’s home office, a stylishly quaint room that’s seen many of the pair’s lengthy discussions from years prior. “Viktor, my boy,” Heimerdingers sighs, peering down his glasses at his protégé. Viktor settles into the same chair he always rents when visiting the office; the desk itself, and Heimerdinger’s modified seating, looms over him even with his own human height. “You have always been like a son to me.” The professor’s double meaning of Viktor as surrogate son and Viktor as virtual son-in-law is not lost on the younger scientist. He knows what this means; if the Yordle opens any meeting with sentimentality, the meeting is likely to end with difficult news. “I am… sorry, my boy, that the events in our world have transpired in this fashion.” “I should have heeded your warning,” Viktor chuckles dryly. “But I only did so too late.” Heimerdinger is silent for a spell, thinking about how Viktor indeed tried to correct his path and how it was your decision to push your lover past the point of no return in exchange for his life. It was easy to understand why you did it despite the questionable ethics, but it was difficult for Heimerdinger as a father to watch his children stand on the precipice of tearing themselves apart. “All water under the bridge now, I’m afraid. There are more pressing matters to attend to.” Viktor nods. Heimderdinger continues. “I’ve taken your proposal back to Jayce and Councilwoman Medarda privately, considering so few know about the … peculiar circumstances behind your remarkable recovery. They have agreed with our position that your affiliation with the Academy laboratory is now a liability; warmongering factions in our neighbors’ borders would not be pleased to hear that the City of Progress conducted deadly biological experiments with Hextechnology, and whisperings of international war are proving to be just as probable, if not as likely, as continued conflict between Zaun and Piltover. Even now we are struggling to patch together agreements between our cities; many people are scared and hurt by the attack on the Council, and public sentiment in both areas is low.” Viktor wonders where Heimerdinger gets his Zaunite intel from, but thinks against asking. If he needs to know, he will be told in due time. “I understand. I am very sorry to leave your daughter, sir, but I fully intend to ensure that my life, in whatever sinful contract I have entered into to retain it, does not interfere with hers. I’ve already decided to leave Hextech behind and focus on finding another occupation somewhere in Zaun.” Heimerdinger merely raises a small hand and glances down at the papers on his desk. “I wasn’t finished.” He squints, reads over a line or two while muttering under his breath, then glances back up at Viktor. “It would be a travesty to waste your brilliance with your new lease on life, and Zaun will have need for a motivated man of science more than ever before. We have decided to split the laboratory, sending half the resources and annual budget to a small workshop in Zaun, where you may continue your work in partnership with the Piltovan Academy.” Heimerdinger sighs again, burdened by years of knowledge. “I should have fought for independence long ago,” he says regretfully. “So much pain, so many lives lost.” Then he returns to himself. “Even as both cities continue to fight, I believe that such a partnership in scholarship may act as a beacon of hope, especially for the young and visionary folk among our two cities. You may be uniquely positioned to be a herald of peace, as a Zaunite who can relate to the experiences of your peers. A visiting professor may journey back and forth between the labs easily, and Zaunite children need someone to look up to.” Viktor shuts his mouth after belatedly realizing it had fallen agape. “But—” This was more than he ever bargained for; hell, his life was more than he’d expected to have. Though his science now scared him, he knows that there are few other purposes in life that sustain and motivate him; this, he realizes, is a second chance to do better than the mistakes of the past few years. “I--” His mentor fixes him with a piercing sky-blue stare. “Innovation and collaboration between the future generation of our people is the only way to shared success,” Heimerdinger warns. “Shying away from the world and wasting your talents out of fear and regret does everyone, and especially yourself, a disservice. We all still need you, Viktor, even with your augments and even as you change.” Then the Yordle hops off of his chair and steps around his desk, taking flurried steps towards the boy he helped raise into a man. “My boy,” he places Viktor’s hand—his metallic hand—between two smaller ones. “My daughter and I still need you, too.” He squeezes Viktor’s hands gently, then vacates his office. Viktor sits by himself in the room, turning over his surrogate father’s words, until a member of the Estate staff arrives to say that Heimerdinger has arranged for a vehicle that will take Viktor to the location of the Zaunite laboratory. Nearly an hour later, he is deposited (with his luggage) in front of a quiet, foggy side-street. He glances down the road at the street corner sign; Emberflit Alley, it reads. He chuckles to himself, recognizing the care that went into the selection of this location: somewhere quiet, somewhere mildly secluded, and yet somewhere where similarly curious minds could explore the the world of science in solitude, away from the typical stressors of Zaunite life. He takes his luggage up to the roomy-for-Zaun laboratory apartment a few floors up with relative ease; his newfound slightly-more-ablebodied-ness still startles him, but he is grateful to have parted with the intensity of pain he would normally have had while exerting half of the effort. The apartment is simply furnished, but it will suffice. He tucks away most of his things, for now, but takes care to unpack a small box full of letters, paper, and ink. Viktor sits at the small workbench in the living room, noting that Jayce sent over his own worn stool from the Academy lab. He allows himself an indulgent read of three letters, then pulls a fresh sheet from the stack of paper and begins to write. —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It takes a few weeks before Viktor sends you a letter; you otherwise receive updates through Caitlin and Vi’s network of whisperers. Most updates are fairly normal; you hear about Viktor’s lab equipment deliveries and of the educational proposals he’s already submitted to a freshly sworn-in joint board of Piltovan and Zaunite schooling directors (for now, the board skews heavily towards Piltovans, but you expect this to change over time as Zaun builds its economic prosperity). You’ve written your own but have yet to send them. You’re afraid to overwhelm him as he works through his new life with Hexcore energy surging through his neurons and infiltrating his brain. It’s been long since you vacated Viktor’s old apartment; there were too many bittersweet memories there for you to remain a second longer than necessary. Thus, back in your Heimerdinger Estate you were, refusing to visit your childhood bedroom and trying your best to not be haunted by echoing of your past all over the estate. If Runeterra had been peaceful, you’d have likely lost your mind with little work to do, but the stirrings of war overseas and constant skirmishes between the Piltovan and Zaunite kept you busy because conflict kept the least privileged in suffering. Travel kept you out of the house as much as possible, even taking you to some parts of Zaun, but you maintained a respectful distance from Viktor no matter how much you longed to run to him. You had to trust his words and trust his process, as difficult as it was. (That being said, you gave yourself a cutoff of three months; one fiscal quarter seemed a good enough time to go without so much as a single check-in). Thus you were surprised to see a letter on your desk after returning from a rather harrowing aide trip to Noxus, written on in Viktor’s familiar and warm scrawl. You tear the envelope open immediately and quickly drop into your seat (you’re not sure if your legs might handle whatever the letter’s contents might say). Dearest, You are missed. Sorely. I hope you know that. I am apologetic that this first communication comes after weeks of silence. I, of course, wanted to reach out to you sooner, but felt it was… premature. I’ve made what I consider to be good progress with the Zaun School, though I regret to admit that I’ve been making more headway with formal work projects than with my own metaphysical learnings. But I’ve not been idle on that front, either; the more I experiment with myself and with both Hextech and the Hexcore, the more I begin to understand it and build firm boundaries between myself as part machine and part magic, and myself as the Viktor you’ve always known. What I believe is that I am reaching the limits of what I can uncover and remediate on my own. I yearn for you much in the same fashion as I have for decades now, but I would like to be careful not only with my own feelings, but with your safety. If possible, I would love to see you soon; to hear your voice and see you smile, and to perhaps start over from the beginning (for I feel as though I am a new person). Our decisions in this fraught time have changed us all, but the Viktor I am today would like to meet the Sparrow you are now. If you’ll have me, I’d like to love and learn together once more, though perhaps at a slower pace than our first reunion was like. I will warn you, however, that this road will be difficult. I will understand if you’d prefer not to attempt to rekindle what we might have otherwise lost; while I may have a stronger grasp of what the Hexcore is doing to my brain and body in isolation, I will be learning just as you are how this energy inside me reacts to powerful emotions and sensations—around you, all my senses are acute. Your safety, emotionally and physically, has always been my priority, and I will not hesitate to separate myself from you if ever I feel I’m endangering you. But I’ve been told by your father that I should be more forthcoming with my own desires rather than bottling them up to be known by myself alone, especially when they come to you. He said… that you might need me. And I have long needed you. I will make every accommodation necessary to make it easier for us to be together, if you’re willing to try again. I’ve packed other unsent letters from the past few weeks with this one if it helps provide insight into my…learnings. I hope they don’t scare you off. In your love, Vitya You pen your response immediately. My love, Patience has never been my strong suit, but I wouldn’t have waited so quietly if I was looking to go down an easy path. We’ve gone through hell and back several times now, Vik, and it would be more surprising if either of us didn’t have anything to process. None of us made it out unscathed. I’m scared. You should know that. You’re probably scared, too. You briefly mentioned that the Hexcore is a greedy thing, that you could feel it trying to consume you. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to fuse with a primordial energy, let alone survive the process. But whatever happens to you, you’re still you, Viktor, and I am in love with you. I started packing my things but Father said I probably shouldn’t move in with you just yet. I nearly fought him on it, but I imagined what you might say and imaginary-Viktor echoed his sentiment. Taking things slow will be hard; as you know, I either avoid things outright or dive head-first into them, and only my travel schedule set the pace of our first reunion. What matters is that we figure all of this out together. I can wait a little longer for that. We have the rest of our lives to live out. Yours, Sparrow —-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Viktor fiddles with the Hexclaw at his desk, testing out minute movements when he hears the chime of the doorbell several floors below. He opens a window and peers down into the alley; a cheeky, soot-covered boy waves up at him with a toothsome smile. Viktor waves back with his mechanical arm, letting the narrow rays of filtered sunlight catch a glint. A pressurized system brings up the mail from the first floor to his apartment, and he rushes over to the bin to check. Your letter sits at the top of the pile, and he eagerly reads your hurried response. He smiles, a wide grin that threatens to stretch all the way across his face, but he can’t help it. For the first time since he first received his terminal prognosis, he feels real hope, free of desperation and anguish. He feels… liberated. The doorbell rings again and he pokes his head out of the window in mild concern. Had the mailbox forgotten something? But he sees something else entirely; a fish out of water in these parts of the city, and yet someone who has never cared about those kinds of socioeconomic divides. He dashes down several flights of stairs with a limber ease he’s never felt before even in the past few weeks of getting acquainted with his augmented body. Parts of him still act up every so often; he’s learned that some pains are psychosomatic whereas others are part of his unique inherited myalgia, but Viktor has lived a long life of pain management and finds these flare-ups bearable. Stopping short in front of his door, he clears his throat, dusts off his vest, and tries vainly to fix his always-unruly hair in the reflection of a small, darkened window. Then he opens the door only to be accosted in a warm hug that feels like strong Piltovan sunshine. He laughs as he thinks about that day all those years ago, when you'd surprised him on a very different doorstep just to waltz back into his life. Some habits didn't change, and he revels in the familiarity. He pulls back, gazing down at you fondly—though you can still see an undercurrent of worry flickering through his amber irises. You can’t say you aren’t anxious, yourself, but the joy of seeing Viktor again trumps all other emotions at present. “I’d only just opened your letter,” he wheezes as you squeeze him tightly around the ribs; even with the metal augments, you have a knack for leaving him breathless. “Patience truly isn’t your strong suit, hm?” “No, it isn't,” you smile shyly, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of hair up into the goggles he has pushed into his hair as a makeshift hairband. Viktor wants nothing more than to kiss you silly, but he surveys you for a few beats more before leaning down to press a chaste peck to your cheek. You look up at him, noting the slight flush in his face from his trip down the stairs and the vitality in his stature. At least it looks like he’s eating well, his cheeks filling in when months before they’d been hollowing out and wasting away. You bask in each other’s presence, charged with equal parts excitement and nervous trepidation. But above all, you bask in a shared optimism that despite the odds, and despite the challenges that would pave the road ahead, you would endure it all, together. “Well,” Viktor exhales, allowing his lips to curve into a smile. His eyes sparkle with the joy of a child on a Yuletide morning. “Would you like to see my laboratory?” He says the possessive word with pride, his posture perfecting itself as he flourishes under this marker. You laugh. “I’d love a tour of your new place,” you reply, and Viktor gives your cheek another excited kiss as he closes the door to Emberflit Alley behind you.

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