Chapter Text
“One of the many privileges of serving as your councilor—”
He’d told himself he would do the best that he could to be present for this occasion. That he owed it to Cassandra and to Cait to take his spot as one of the remaining councilors of Piltover, and show his respect for the lives lost.
No matter where his mind is, or where his body aches to be.
Today, he has to be here.
And so he stands, front and centre, watching as Mel takes to the podium to deliver her speech. He cannot deny that she looks beautiful standing there. A figure of strength and determination amidst ever growing uncertainty, it’s impossible not to admire her. In the back of his mind, Jayce is so thankful that Mel was one of them that made it out that awful day.
The same cannot be said for himself. Not when facing the cost of his surviving the attack on the council. Not when remembering smoke, debris.
And a pale, frail body laying broken and lifeless; forgotten in the rubble with the pandemonium surrounding them all that day. Pandemonium that he ultimately used to his advantage in order to quickly get Viktor back into their lab.
It’s all Jayce can remember whenever he closes his eyes. The sounds of screaming (his screaming, Mel would later tell him), the way he’d desperately spent far too long trying giving him chest compressions. So long, in fact, that the enforcers were all about ready to yank him away, when Jayce detected the slightest pulse.
The tiniest flicker of Viktor’s will to survive.
That was all he needed to know.
The rest of the night was all but a blur to him. One moment he was arguing with enforcers that yes, Viktor was enough of a priority to be brought to the nearest medical center, and the next he was sprinting down the hallway, in a mad dash to get to the lab before it was truly too late.
Jayce wishes he could say that he didn’t know what he was doing when he’d grabbed the Hexcore and allowed it to connect to Viktor’s body. He wishes he could say that he was an honest mistake made out of desperation and helplessness.
Jayce was never really one to outright lie to anyone, except maybe to himself. He knew exactly what he was doing, and that in doing so, would break a promise he’d made to Viktor. He would take away Viktor’s right to die on his own terms, all because Jayce could not bear to let him go.
“Our compulsion to leave behind us a world better than that before.”
Mel’s words pierce through the daze in his mind, creating an echo that reminds him of the ways in which he lost himself during the last year.
Leaving the world better than before had been his intention. His and Viktor’s, in the beginning. Before everything got so… Complicated wasn’t the right word, and neither was political. Building a better world for both Piltover and Zaun was nothing but complicated and political.
Maybe the right word was arrogance, directly at him entirely of course. If he weren’t so caught up with the council and thinking he could change decades of hostility just because he demanded it, maybe things would be different. If he weren’t so self-centered, he could have noticed that Viktor’s disease had progressed much faster than they’d anticipated. He could have used his influence within the council to devote time and research into the effects of the fissure gases on human lungs.
He could have been by Viktor’s side while he was experimenting and doing Janna-knows-what on his own body, making sure he wasn’t alone.
Perhaps that was why Jayce found himself unable to leave Viktor’s side from the moment the hexcore connected with him. He owed it to Viktor to study and understand what was happening to him inside of what Jayce could only describe as some arcane-infused sludge. No matter how out of his depth he felt, he wouldn’t give up on this.
He could never give up on Viktor. Never.
“We will find those responsible, and they will account for their crimes.”
An iron band winds its way around Jayce’s chest along with Mel’s words. The remaining council have been in deep discussion over how to proceed with retaliation, with the popular sentiment being to use HexTech in order to create weapons. Weapons that would then be used against the citizens of Zaun.
Thankfully, Mel was able to divert their attention elsewhere, but the entire idea has weighed heavily on Jayce’s mind. They had been ready to give Zaun its independence. He and Viktor had managed to convince the council to trust him to broker a long-awaited peace deal.
Only for all of it to end with a bang.
By all accounts, he should be completely on board with developing weapons. He should be leading the charge for an all out war against those responsible. From where he stands, the Zaunites had taken his olive branch, and struck him with it.
So why then, does the idea of handing over weapons infused with magic to the enforcers cause Jayce’s stomach to churn painfully?
He’d even drafted some blueprints on what some weapons would look like during one particularly difficult night of watching a silent, comatose Viktor.
Viktor, who’d been reduced to a near death state by the very same people he sought to defend, would be so disappointed at the very idea of those blueprints.
The little boy, having just seen magic save his and his mother’s life when all hope was lost, would be too.
And if Jayce were to really think about it, truly sit down and contemplate the ramifications for building these weapons, would he end up regretting it? HexTech was supposed to make the world a better place for both Piltover and Zaun.
It was never meant to harm innocent people.
And he promised Viktor. After breaking one promise to him, Jayce doesn't think he can bear doing it a second time.
He’ll destroy those blueprints. As soon as this day is over he’ll—
“Awful, isn’t it?”
A woman’s voice whispers almost mournfully into his ear, pulling Jayce out of his thoughts and right back to reality. He frowns, shifting slightly in order to get a better look at the woman speaking to him.
“Losing a loved one.” Her voice grows cold, as Jayce notices a flash of green out of the corner of his eye.
The woman behind him rips off her robe and veil to reveal a very tall figure with green tubes and a maniacal look in her eye. Jayce barely has enough time to dodge out of the way before she whips what looks to be a massive chainsaw towards him.
And nearly takes his head off in the process.
He stumbles back, doing all that he can to avoid what clearly looks to be an assassination attempt. The woman’s eyes zero in on him, her face twisted in mad glee, as if she was waiting to get him in the perfect place.
The crowd around him disperses in a frenzy of screams and panic as a loud gunshot rings followed by an explosion. Jayce is shoved out of the way by an enforcer who puts themselves between him and the chainsaw-wielding madwoman.
Chaos.
It's chaos. People scream, fire burns. A somber affair turned to a bloodbath.
Jayce watches, feet frozen in place as the rotating blades of the chainsaw carve its way through organs and muscles and bones until they pierce through the back of the poor enforcer that gave his life for Jayce's own.
He doesn't even know their name.
The chainsaw wielding woman cackles as she slashes upwards and the enforcer's body collapses in a pile. Their life gone. Strings cut. It's only as the woman begins to approach do Jayce's legs move. He runs, fleeing onto the stage, and grabbing a piece of the metal blockade as he does so.
The woman quickly catches up to him and once more nearly takes a limb off, before he blocks her with the piece of metal. Growling and practically foaming at the mouth, she presses down on him, the teeth of the chainsaw ripping into Jayce’s makeshift shield and pulling it free from his grasp.
Without a second more to think it over, Jayce grabs onto the chainsaw and pushes against her, fighting to gain any sort of momentum. An opportunity to hit back comes as she gears up for another slash, and Jayce manages to elbow her in the face. Building up on the momentum created, he reaches for her face, grabbing at the green tubes before she recovers.
Jayce yanks the green tube from her nose and pushes away once she collapses onto the ground screaming in pain. This is it. His one chance to escape. He makes his way to the backstage area, being careful not to make too much noise.
He takes a breath. Adrenaline still courses through his veins as he presses back up against one of the taller stacks, trying to make himself as small as possible. His shoulder stings with an injury he doesn’t remember receiving, but makes itself known now that he’s stopped running. He presses his fingers against a bloody wound on his shoulder—
SMASH!
The chainsaw rips through the boxes, inches from his face. Jayce dives away from the snarling woman, poking her head through the discarded wood, her eyes wild, like the villain from a horror story Jayce read as a teenager.
Boxes lie scattered around as he runs. He needs a weapon. And quick.
Jayce moves, shimmying behind stacks of cargo. Then he spots it - a hammer, resting on top of one of the crates. It's a Talis family made one, even, and he can't help but laugh. The universe has a sense of humor.
He makes his way further into the backstage area, his mind focused on finding a way out of there. Clutching the hammer in his hand, he shifts around another column of boxes and spots the woman. Chainsaw in hand, she prowls the disorganized area, a predator seeking out her prey, snarling through the torn tube.
If Jayce wants to have any shot at making it out of here in one piece, he’ll have to fight back with what he’s got.
With a cry of determination, he leaps from his hiding spot and charges at her, smashing the hammer against her face. The smirk on his face quickly vanishes as she recovers instantaneously, the hammer having no effect on her.
Whatever it is that’s being fed to her, is making her unstoppable. She laughs darkly in Jayce’s face, as any hope of escape begins to falter.
There is nothing left he can do.
He needs to run.
He turns his back to her.
Takes one, two, three steps…
Blinding, white hot pain sears across his back.
He screams in pain, crashing onto the ground.
“For my son!” she shouts at him, landing a kick to his side, pushing him further away from the open stage. Jayce moans in pain, struggling to crawl away from her, but the pain is far too great, he can’t get further than a few inches.
“Do you remember him? The child you killed?” she spits, landing another sharp kick to his hip.
Of course he remembers. The look on that Zaunite child’s face as the power from his hammer snuffed out his life has been haunting Jayce’s dreams. The nights where he wasn’t dreaming about holding Viktor’s lifeless body, were spent repeating that awful night and those lifeless eyes, over and over.
Gasping for air and clutching his side, Jayce once more makes an attempt to escape from her, refusing to give up. The woman chuckles at him, a cat playing with her food, as she watches him struggling to get away.
“You will not get away from this, Councilor,” she seethes, her footsteps once more slowly approaching him.
“‘M sorry,” Jayce whispers, sweat on his brow and blood on his hands. He isn’t just apologizing to this heartbroken woman. He realizes that he might not make it out of this alive. He’s sorry he won’t be able to fix all the problems he started. He won’t be able to help his friends heal from yet another tragedy. He’s sorry that his mother will have to hear the news of his own gruesome death.
And he’s so sorry that he won’t be there to see Viktor wake up (when he wakes up). Who knows how he will feel once the HexCore is done fixing him? What if he’s scared? Or what if something goes wrong?
“It’s over. I can kill you so easily now,” she says. Jayce whimpers in pain as she kicks him once more, flipping him onto his back. A shadow looms dangerously over him, the teeth of the chainsaw’s gears hovering inches from his neck. Jayce twitches, doing all he can to move away from her, but the burning pain in his back quickly saps away any energy he has left.
“I was ready to kill you, but a higher power convinced me that keeping you alive might be worthwhile” she purrs, leaning over Jayce with an almost hungry look in her eyes. He narrows his eyes, a brief moment to wonder what she could mean by that when—
A sudden sharp pain explodes from his leg. Jayce screams as agony rips through his body, clouding his mind completely. It is only when the woman moves away from him that Jayce can see someone new looming over him, holding the spear now embedded in his leg. Through the edges of black creeping over him, Jayce forces himself to stay awake, despite the pain threatening to pull him under.
He can make out the shape of her—another woman. Tall, strong, with the mask of a wolf and short, thick, curly hair—
He knows her.
She’s—
It can’t be.
“G-General…” Jayce mutters incoherently, lifting his hand up to reach for her. He is met instead with an ice-cold glare and a cruel grimace.
“It is nothing personal, Councilor Talis,” she says, pressing down on the spear and sending a new shock of pain through him. His stomach churns, and darkness creeps closer to him.
No… Please. Not like this! He thinks, sweat pouring down his face.
“I need a weapon, and you happen to control the most powerful one,” she says, keeping a firm hand on the spear.
“Wha–HexTech? N-no…I promised. I—,” Jayce mumbles, quickly losing his fight against the crushing waves of pain.
“I was hoping you’d be more cooperative, but that does not matter.” With a slight gesture from her hands, two more figures appear from the shadows, both dressed in bright red armour.
Noxian soldiers.
“Take him to Ms. Renni’s hideout. We shall reconvene once we finish up here,” she instructs them. They surround Jayce, each one taking a firm hold of his arms. He yelps as they roughly pull him up. The more Jayce tries to fight them, the more his head spins and the dark pulls at him.
No. No this cannot be happening. I can’t let them take me. I promised.
The Noxian general, Mel’s mother, stands directly in front of him now, flanked by the woman with the chainsaw to her left. She hums in amusement, tapping the pommel of a short sword against his chest.
“My daughter was right. You are a charmer,” she says before slamming her pommel over Jayce’s brow.
The last image in his mind, swimming in a sea of darkness and agony, is a pair of golden eyes, sunken in despair at a promise broken.