[Fanfiction] Fracture - Chapter 10 (2)
PROLOGUE: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/fZAXxjHA-fanfiction-fracture PREVIOUS CHAPTER: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/Wksy4MBf-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-9-1
Fanfiction.net link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10770866/1/Fracture
Genres: Suspense/Drama/Mystery/a lot of others Characters: Leona, Caitlyn, Nasus, Kassadin, too many to list
Summary: The machine that sustains the lethal matches of the League fails. Events spiral outwards. (Character death.)
Note: Thanks to word limitations I have to separate this chapter into two parts as well. I might have to do this for a lot of coming chapters. Previous Part: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/GoVBrfPK-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-10-1
REVELATION
It looked strange. So very strange.
At the water's edge, she stood and peered out over into the murky depths of the sea. It had felt like ages since she had been in the ocean, but Nami could not help but feel there was something off about it. There was an empty quality to its turbulent tides.
She had been loathe to return without a moonstone, but now that the Institute had fallen, there was no choice. There was nowhere for her to be now, and she couldn't keep her people waiting forever. Better to get bad news than no news at all, the Tidecaller figured.
Still, there was an odd reluctance in her to set fin into the coming waves. It should have been as familiar as the waters of home, but somewhere in a distant part of her mind, something screamed at her not to do it.
But there was nothing else for her to do now.
Nami clutched her staff close, looking out over the stormy sea. The color was strange – there was a darkness surging, almost like something was... bubbling upwards? She took a deep breath, and then inched forward.
A hundred dead fish floated to the surface.
.
.
.
It was so empty.
Caitlyn hadn't expected it to be so empty – the laboratory, that was. That Zaun's streets made it look like a ghost town was no surprise to her. News of the disaster at the Institute probably kept most indoors, planning should it strike there. This was, naturally, good for her since it allowed her entry uncontested. But Viktor's lab should have been different, it should have been positively crawling with acolytes and locked down tighter than a treasury vault. She knew how he was.
Her heels clicked as she walked, echoing throughout the wide, high-ceiling halls. No one was here, and all the electronic locks seemed to have been set on 'access' full time. It was incredibly curious, and it made her feel uneasy. Did something happen to him?
The sheriff came to a large door. No doubt it led to the main complex where Viktor did his actual work. Its lock, too, was set on 'access,' the green light signaling to her its openness. Was she being baited into a trap? Had someone stormed the Machine Herald's laboratory? Had Viktor evacuated?
She opened the door – and saw something terrible.
They were enormous, lined up on either side of the room like half-done museum displays. She could see the sharp edges to their metal teeth, the shine to their steel in red light. They were armed to the teeth with rockets and razors and she didn't know how he had accomplished it, but what had looked before so utterly terrifying now looked completely bone-chilling.
Caitlyn strode past their immense, unmoving forms quickly. Their dead, looming stares seemed to follow her and she had to repress a shudder. There was a large workbench on the other side of the room, with some kind of computer sitting on one end. Papers were strewed all over the top, and they just might have been the clues she needed; if not to what she came here for, then to what these monstrosities were.
They were blueprints. Extremely detailed blueprints.
She dug through them, skimming over the ones that read BATTLECAST at the top, trying to find something – anything – about the system. At the bottom of the pile was an untitled blueprint, a figure sketched on, and she stopped, eyes widening, to read it.
The figure was the Machine Herald of course – and it detailed all of the modifications he had made to himself. Augmented eyes, a few replaced organs, a self-lobotomy that made parts of his brain function as a program instead of the usual, scattered thoughts of the human mind. She had known that he had... altered himself, but to what extent she had had no idea.
How much remained of his original self?
"I thought you'd come."
The sheriff whirled around, hands clamped on top of the papers to keep them from slipping off.
"...Viktor."
The man in question stood before her, but he seemed different. There was something sleeker to his appearance. His mask was gone.
"Sheriff," he greeted stolidly. "Come to rifle through my research?"
It was strange to hear his voice, without the filter the mask applied. Even without the echo, it sounded low, and harsh beneath his heavy accent.
"I had some questions for you," she answered carefully, still braced against the workbench.
This was the first she had seen of his face in a long, long time. It didn't look very different except for the scars. Although, she didn't know if his eyes had been so tired before; dark-lined and sunken in, but still they glowed in the dimness of the room.
His eyes, she realized – they were ringed and swirling like the spiraling shutters of a zoom lens – but most of all, they were green. She had known that before, of course, but it had never struck her quite so prominently. Another might have likened their color and glow to that of the 'access' lights on the electronic locks she had passed before, but the sheriff could only think – how ironic it was that one so obsessed with metal and machines had eyes the color of life.
"I was expecting you," he told her. "My acolytes have been scattered for the time being. I hope you appreciate the trouble I went through to make this convenient for you."
"It was certainly very... easy, to get here," she admitted uneasily, glancing around. "Why?"
He didn't answer, moving past her to reach around and organize his blueprints. His upper arm glinted, and for some reason, something in her stomach turned to lead.
"Your arm," she began, reaching out, almost to touch it, "that part wasn't mechanical before."
"Since the Institute has fallen, I have been making some... improvements," he answered coolly, backing out of her reach. "Your questions, sheriff?"
Caitlyn straightened off the bench, grimacing.
"Firstly, what are those?" she asked, waving an arm in the direction of the monstrosities in the room.
He glanced upwards briefly, almost casually.
"Do you like my creations? The Battlecast line." Viktor walked past her, staring up at the immense contraptions. "Another step towards the beginning of my revolution. They are still in their proto-type forms, unfortunately."
She stifled the distaste rising into her throat - but only just. "Why did you use... them as a model?"
"They are immensely powerful creatures, but they suffer the flaw of flesh." He looked back at her and smiled a strange smile."I took them and I made them metal, I made them eternal – I made them perfect."
There was something chilling about his expression, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other warily.
"Were you going to set these loose on Piltover?"
The Machine Herald shrugged, and she hated how careless it seemed. "Whoever opposed the glorious evolution to come." The smile was gone now, but his gaze remained even as it turned on her. "You would have been one, I expect."
She wasn't sure how to take that.
"They will serve a different purpose now, you'll soon find," he continued, before crossing his arms. "Now sheriff, why don't you ask me about what you really came here for?"
"The system," she muttered, more to herself than to him. Caitlyn glanced up at him curiously. "You're being awfully open today."
"If that is what you choose to believe," he responded cryptically.
She rolled her eyes. "Well, while you're being as open as you are, will you tell me how the system works?"
"Are you interested in all the technical details?" asked Viktor. "Or the gist of it?"
"The gist, if you will."
"Very well." He clasped his hands behind his back, beginning to pace. "It operates using a very complex interplay of magic and machinery. When a champion dies, their remains are reconstructed in the Respawn Room while magic draws their soul back to their body. The more damage to their corpse, the longer it takes."
"Hence why it takes so long, later in matches," she noted, eyes widening. When they had gotten gold in their purses and items on their belts, all that was left could end up being a fine, red mist.
"Indeed," he affirmed with a nod. "After that, they are summoned back to the fountain, to return to their match."
"And that's it, then? We register for the system, and then we're basically immortal?"
There was a short pause. The Machine Herald stopped in his tracks, head turning slightly as if he wanted to look back at her.
"Essentially," he said after a moment, returning to his pacing.
He had hesitated.
The sheriff raised one brow, hands on her hips. There was something else, something that Viktor wasn't telling her – she knew it. The Voidborn had nothing to gain from sabotaging the system other than a distraction and the ability to kill other champions, but in doing so they too forfeited their own immortality. It made no sense as a catalyst to their cause, there had to be something else that motivated them. Something about the system that no one wanted to tell her.
"Why did Malzahar sabotage your machine, then? What were the Voidborn hoping to gain?" she demanded, taking a step towards him.
He didn't even look, stopping with his back facing her.
"A distraction, wasn't it?" offered the scientist.
"You and I both know that's not true," Caitlyn asserted, voice steely. "What aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing you'll want to hear," he replied calmly.
"I think I can be the judge of that, thank you," she snapped. "What is it about the system that demands so much secrecy?"
"You're treading on thin ice, sheriff," he warned, still not looking at her.
"You're the one on thin ice – do you know I could arrest you for obstruction of justice?" she told him firmly, glaring at him even if he couldn't see.
"On whose authority? You're standing on Zaunite soil."
"The Institute's."
He chuckled mirthlessly. "The Institute has fallen."
"And I need to know why." Caitlyn shoved past him, moving to stand in front of the Machine Herald with a scowl. "Tell me."
He stared at her impassively, exhausted visage immutable. "I can't."
"Yes you can."
"There's nothing to say," he insisted, expression irksomely even in the face of her glare.
"Yes there is!" she snapped. "I know there is, and the only reason why I haven't arrested you on the spot is because I'm giving you the benefit of doubt as an old friend!"
Something in those words shook him. His eyes widened, mouth opening as if to speak, then closing again. She watched him with careful eyes.
For a long moment, there was only silence. His countenance melted back into restraint.
"I wouldn't have thought you would still consider me a friend," he said at last, smiling bitterly. There was a heaviness to his voice, tinged with a strange kind of distance and regret. "Those days were long ago."
She heaved a sigh, angered expression softening. "Viktor. Please."
There was another near-eternal pause. He turned his back on her, and for a moment, she thought that was it.
"When you try to join the League," he began, "what is the one thing they require of you?"
"A judgment," answered the sheriff easily. She glanced up at his form curiously.
The Machine Herald nodded once. "And during that judgment, you..."
"Expose your mind," she finished for him. He nodded again, turning slightly to look at her. His eyes were bright, and piercing.
"And what else do you think is exposed when you do so?" he asked, words slow and deliberate.
Caitlyn faltered, brows furrowing in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Your soul," supplied Viktor, answering his own question. He turned away again. "You expose your soul – and the Institute claims it."
Something cold gripped her. Her breath shook in her lungs, but she pressed on, "I don't follow."
"The magic that allows summoners to peer into your mind also lets them seize your soul," he explained calmly. There was a steely sort of reserve in his tone - a detachment. "Essentially, they reach in and... chain it, so to speak."
"To what?" she asked, shocked.
He glanced back at her again, and she could see clearly the constantly shifting shutters of his augmented eyes.
"To my machine."
The blood had drained from her skull – her vision seemed bleached. Catilyn braced herself heavily against a filing cabinet, taking deep breaths as a wave of nausea washed over her. Their souls were chained to the respawn system? What did that entail? What did that do? What did that mean?
"I don't... How? Why?" she demanded, unclenching her jaw from a finely controlled panic that threatened to burst her heart from her lungs.
"Consider for one moment the nature of League matches," he said, and the level tones of his voice grounded her. The sheriff slowed her breathing. "Have you never wondered why, at the beginning of every match, a purported alien creature of incomprehensible power like the Terror of the Void seemed to stand on even ground with the likes of you, or I?"
"What are you trying to say?" she asked, trying to straighten up now that her balance seemed to return to her.
"Cho'Gath, Fiddlesticks, Nocturne, Shaco." He listed off the names calmly, crossing his arms. "They and several others are creatures of immense power and otherworldly origins. Now tell me, how do you think the Institute managed to control them?"
"Your machine," she whispered. "This – this chain on our soul. What is it capable of, what was it supposed to do?"
"Subdue," answered the Machine Herald shortly. As if it were something that he had said - or been told - over and over again. "It was to deliver unto the Institute of War complete control over the most powerful beings on Runeterra and beyond."
"And so that's why Malzahar sabotaged your system," she concluded shakily. "To destroy the chain."
He tilted his head to show acknowledgment. "They may die, but now they run free."
"Why?" asked the sheriff, utterly and nauseatingly confounded.
Viktor glanced at her, wariness and question in his eyes.
"Why did you do this? What did you stand to gain in developing this system? Was it for your 'glorious evolution,' was the Institute paying you a fortune? What was it all for?" she demanded, voice rising in volume.
"It was an unfortunate byproduct that the Institute wasted no time in exploiting," he replied, grimacing at her. "My original intention was only the respawn aspect of it."
Caitlyn looked at him - his tired visage, dark expression, the way there was an odd, resigned sort of relief lifting his features. Even as her gaze wandered up to the monstrosities looming above them, it could not help but be drawn to the muted earnestness in his face. He might have been a madman, but she knew Viktor. He was telling the truth.
"It's become a mess like this," she murmured to herself, one hand slipping over her eyes. She needed a moment to process this.
Neither of them made a sound for a long while.
The Institute of War had been controlling them this entire time – dancing them on strings like marionettes. To what end, she had no idea, but Caitlyn found herself wondering dangerously whether it was so bad that the Voidborn had destroyed the Institute after all. How many champions had they wanted to gather for the League before making some kind of move? She doubted their desire to control so many powerful beings was born purely of preventative motives.
"There's something you need to see," said the Machine Herald at last, breaking the silence. His voice sounded halting, and grave.
She looked up in surprise – when had he walked over to his workbench?
"What do you mean?"
He didn't answer, returning his attention to the computer in front of him. A bit of typing, and a few clicks later, a window had been pulled up on the screen, a video playing on it. She couldn't make out much – smoke and fire, screaming, and explosions. The sheriff felt lightheaded suddenly.
"That's not...?" She almost couldn't bring herself to ask. He caught her gaze with incisive eyes, and nodded.
"Piltover has fallen."
.
.
.
Next Chapter: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/WvTdnYHc-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-11