[Fanfiction] Fracture - 23
PROLOGUE: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/fZAXxjHA-fanfiction-fracture PREVIOUS CHAPTER: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/IudgQGiF-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-22
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.)
RENEWAL
Empty.
He didn't know if he was describing himself, or the room. He had dug out as much rubble as he could, and propped up the last vestiges of its roof, but it had been stripped by looters while he was gone.
The last month had been all a blur. Zaun wasn't decimated like Piltover, but it had still been wrecked, and most of the city's key figures had disappeared. There was a lot of reconstruction to do, and he had given it his best.
Even so, he couldn't help but feel utterly hollow inside.
There is a sky above him made entirely of smoke.
Zac trudged wearily in with a strange heaviness about him that he couldn't shrug off. It hung on him like a weighty shroud, and try as he might, he just couldn't get the bounce back into his step. Settling onto the dingy half-couch, with the slanted seat and the scummy cushions, all he could think about was going home to his folks.
Mom would be so happy to see him, and she'd probably have coffee on the stove – she was really big on coffee when she was stressed, as he suspected an interplanar threat might make her – and Dad would probably be complaining about how she was using the labware for her cooking again. Despite himself, a tiny smile found its way to his face. It felt tight, like it stretched his cheeks even if he had only moved them just a little bit. The Secret Weapon sighed. He just wanted to go home, stuff his face with sweets, and go to sleep.
It struck him then, something cold and dry feeling in his chest, as if it was withering him up inside. What in the world was he saying? He was home. He and Twitch had roomed together for at least a year.
Zac hunched over, head held in his hands as he tried not to listen to the silence. The echoing of dripping water resounded all too loudly in the distant tunnels, pitter-pattering little noises that he mistook for the scurrying of feet if he wasn't careful. He was really glad he couldn't produce tears either – he might have shriveled up by now if he did.
Little claws, stiff and limp all the same, a bloody coat shoddily mended – a face, far, far too peaceful.
"Don't do this to yourself," he muttered under his breath, eyes shut tight. "You know how it goes... Keep it together. Keep it together, Zac."
He wasn't sure if he really meant it, or if he was just trying to fill in the silence.
There's a rumbling in the distance – screams all around. He should move, he has to move, to help people, to save them.
He just sits there on the concrete, arms full, but empty.
"I want this to be a dream."
The Secret Weapon wasn't certain if he had said it or thought it. It was hard to tell when he was all on his own, no one to call him out if he was rambling. The only thing he was certain of was that it was true.
There was a rolling in his torso – not quite his chest, but not quite his stomach either. Some kind of insidious, unsettling sort of feeling that made him nauseous and nervous and restless all at once. Zac hefted himself onto his feet, a slight wobble in his legs before he stabilized and started to pace, up the room, down the room, around the rubble and what was left of the furniture.
Zaun had pulled the plug on its support of the Institute of War – and so had a lot of the other city states. They had been incredibly riled up when news broke about the system. Piltover got on its ethical science high horse, and Demacia got on its everything high horse, and they both left. Then Ionia called it an utter betrayal and a house of iniquity – among other things – and officially pulled out too. Zaun was just pissed off about its dealings with the Machine Herald, and he couldn't even guess why Noxus left, if only just because it didn't seem worth it to stay. Official announcements from Bilgewater, Bandle City, and such were still pending.
The League was dissolving, and so was the Institute.
He would be lying if he said that the truth hadn't disturbed him, hadn't shaken him to his core – he'd almost thrown up finding out about it – and it wasn't as if he didn't support taking down the Institute. But the fact that everything he had known for so long was crumbling so fast was... Hard to swallow, to say the least.
When the quiet fell, he doesn't know. He feels as if he has been staring into the gray horizon for an eternity. When she arrived, he doesn't know either, but suddenly, Janna is pulling at his arms, telling him, "We need to bury him, Zac."
"You're right," he says softly, nodding. She pulls again.
He can't let go.
It hadn't been a perfect world. In fact, he had been trying his damnedest to change it for the better. But it had been a world where he knew what went where, who went with whom, what was and wasn't. It had been a world where he had been happy, and every time he so much as glanced at a rusted pipe, he wasn't sure he could ever be happy again.
It was stupid, he knew. But for him, this was how mourning went.
Zac heaved another sigh and covered his eyes with one hand. He needed to get a hold of himself. He needed to straighten out. Moping was getting him nowhere, and he couldn't just sit around in the sewers all day – but suddenly, he didn't want to run home to his parents anymore either. It felt like a kind of cowardice.
The Secret Weapon stretched his limbs, only slightly at first, then widely, until the gentle tug became a yanking on his core, and he felt as if he might snap in two. He felt as if the straining sensation grounded him. What to do, where to go? He couldn't stand to sit and stew anymore – there was too much festering within.
Maybe he wouldn't run back to his parents, but he could still get out of Zaun for a little bit. He'd done his share of rebuilding, and the Machine Herald had showed up a few days ago, and with him a resurgence of his acolytes throughout the city. He didn't know where any of the city bigwigs had got to, but Viktor could handle it. He would have to.
He hadn't even been in the den an hour after getting back from the latest building project, but Zac didn't care. He needed to leave – he needed to leave right now. He could sleep on the road, scrounge up some kind of food later. The Secret Weapon bounded hurriedly for the door.
It was time to pay a visit to his friends.
.
.
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"This compound should have a longer duration than its predecessor. More than the fifteen minutes afforded to you last time, at any rate. Give it a moment to run."
The Revered Inventor gave the heavy tanks on his back a tap as the low hiss of gas sputtered, and then filled the room. He rose from where he knelt, and then closed and opened one hand experimentally, checking for any tangible difference. Something bitter settled on his tongue – at the very least, the taste was the same.
"Do you feel any pain?" asked Heimerdinger, stepping back to survey his work.
He gave a low laugh, raspy by the echoes of the respirator. "I am always in pain, professor."
"But any less?" he pressed, crossing his arms. "I finally found a gaseous anesthetic capable of working in tandem with this cocktail. A very fascinating one, recommended to me by a surgeon. Not too strong as to incapacitate you – but also comprising of chemicals that won't react with the regeneratives. It's really a very intriguing discovery. I ought to tell you about it one of these days."
"You've just told me about it," pointed out Kassadin, with a wry smile hidden beneath his mask. "But to answer your question, it is a little less, perhaps. I cannot be sure."
"Oh! What a fool I am," cried the yordle, giving his temple a light rap. "Now that I've mentioned it to you, it could just be a placebo effect. The opportunity's lost – oh, what a shame..."
"It's fine, professor," said the Void Walker with a placating hand raised. "If nothing else, it is doing no harm. I appreciate the efforts you've gone to help me with this."
"I owe you at least that much," Heimerdinger responded. There was a strange shift in his inflection – sounding something like regret.
This was a change. Kassadin frowned, though it was not visible, tilting his head slightly. "If anything, I am the one who is indebted to you. I would not be alive were it not for your efforts."
The Revered Inventor sighed, pulling himself up onto a stool and reclining back onto the laboratory counter. He glanced up at the Void Walker with an unreadable gaze.
"Even so," he began, adjusting his goggles, "you are in a considerable amount of pain, aren't you?"
"That is no fault of yours," he reminded him, quietly. "I will be in pain as long as I live."
It was true, existing on the brink of death was not pleasant. The sensation of necrosis was... consuming. It was a constant burning, a feeling of something eating away at him underneath his skin. The dark energy of the Void pulsated within his heart, hummed with each breath he took in such a way that he could never forget it was there. In it, there was a strange ache, a convulsing strain that felt of illness but sang with temptation – to what sin, he did not know, nor ever have the intention of finding out – but it made every breath sharp, every swallow thick. He found reprieve only in sleep.
"Perhaps you're right," agreed the Revered Inventor. There was an air of weariness to him that Kassadin was not used to. It brought his age to sharp relief. "But, you would not be alive were it not for me. You would not be suffering had I not arbitrarily taken your fate into my hands."
"What do you mean?"
"When you were rushed into the academy clinic all those years ago, you were... a lost cause," he explained, inhaling deeply. "I was called down to supervise, you see, as you were a very peculiar patient, and when we ran diagnostics tests on you, you were harboring an incredible amount of magical energy."
The Void Walker glanced down at his hand – at where it had clutched at his chest without his even realizing – and slowly, he dropped it back to his side. Heimerdinger watched him knowingly.
"I thought that it would be a terrible waste if you were to die," continued the professor, sounding very far away. "So I had you placed on the best life support we had and did some research. You were in a constant state of necrosis, the origin of which we could not determine – but we hypothesized that if we found a way to counteract it, you stood a chance of surviving."
"I have always wondered how you went about developing this chemical," remarked Kassadin, with tentative curiosity. "You are not a man of medicine, if you'll forgive me saying."
"Certainly not," he concurred, with a heavy sigh. "But even if I am a man of mechanical sciences, I did do my studies in chemistry – which is the basis of all medicine, you see. The archive had some very intriguing, some very incredible, very unethical data, published by a doctor from Zaun. An expert on regeneratives, you see."
"You don't mean that doctor?" asked the Void Walker, surprised.
"Although he's certainly a brute, I won't deny that Dr. Mundo gets results," admitted Heimerdinger, grimacing. "It was through his notes that I was able to develop the miracle cocktail that keeps you alive today."
"I don't see how you can have regrets in that, professor. What you did was a marvelous thing, and I owe you all the more for it."
"But what I did was merely a means to prolong your suffering," the yordle observed bitterly. "I have seen the way you carry yourself. Heard the way you speak. You are a man waiting to die, Void Walker, do not deny it."
"Though I am wanting for reasons to live," he told him calmly,"there is no shame in saving a life."
"But there is shame in agonizing one," returned the Revered Inventor, shaking his head. "Is it not a struggle for you to carry on like this? You are a literal dead man walking, do you realize that?"
Kassadin chuckled lowly. "All too well." He paused, sucking in a deep, aching breath full of vapors, before exhaling slowly. "Certainly, I feel that I was meant to die at the bay – die as the Prophet did, both our purposes fulfilled. But if I have lived, it is for a reason. Don't you think?"
The professor leaned over the counter, head resting in his hands. He didn't reply for a long moment, and the Void Walker wondered if he had heard him at all.
"Maybe so... Maybe so." He heaved another deep sigh. "But nonetheless I have created something that only brings suffering. I should have predicted it from the beginning. Anything born off the back of the Madman of Zaun could do no good."
"What do you mean?"
"I sent a canister of the original cocktail to the Demacians," answered Heimerdinger, and interestingly, there were tangible notes of agitation entering his voice. The yordle shifted on his stool. "I received a call about high-profile patients in critical condition, who needed to be stabilized en route to a hospital. Demacia and Piltover have always held close ties, so I saw nothing wrong. Only later did I find out what they used it for."
"Does this have something to do with the recent outcry in Zaun, and one of its alleged reasons for withdrawing from the League?" asked the Void Walker curiously.
He nodded. "Yes. I got the full story from the sheriff later – she was certainly livid about it, as was I!" Heimerdinger adjusted his goggles once more, brows furrowing such that his anger was palpable. "Though they did use it for its original purpose, it turns out that at the behest of Institute officials, they employed it for torture as well! Can you imagine it?"
Kassadin grimaced beneath his helmet. A gruesome deed, though well within the hearts of Demacians. They were not so moral as they liked to think. In war, no one was.
"I have no love for the Machine Herald. The man is brilliant, but mad. However – to treat him as they did...!" Heimerdinger harrumphed, crossing his arms. "The political backlash was well deserved, I say! A deplorable act of inhumanity was what it was."
He sat there, puffed up and furious for a moment, then seemed to deflate all at once. For the umpteenth time, the yordle sighed heavily.
"And I facilitated it," he cursed beneath his breath, clutching at his hair. "What a fool I am! To expect anything good out of dabbling with the work of a sadist! I should have just kept to my turrets..."
"And left me to die?" asked the Void Walker. He shook his head. "Take no shame in your work, professor. You told me yourself that scientific development was never a bad thing. That even failures yielded data that would in turn yield –"
"Progress," finished Heimerdinger. He gave a short, bitter laugh. "The very words out of my own mouth. You have listened far too closely to the ramblings of an old man."
"An old man that has taught me much," reminded Kassadin gently. "You hold yourself far too accountable for your own inventions. If we were all responsible for the sins of our creations, a great many techmaturgists would be in jail."
The Revered Inventor sat for a long while, regarding him with a critical eye that he could not see, but could sense. Heimerdinger hmph'ed, turning away from him sharply.
"I've taught you less than you believe, I think." The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, into a tired, conceding smile. "Your advice is far too practical."
At that, he had to laugh. "And yet, still lacking in hard data, you would say."
"Hm-hm!" The professor chuckled. "We have spent far too much time in each others' presence is what I say."
"When you take a man apart and put him back together again, a few meetings a year is enough to know him inside out." Kassadin paused, going back over his own words. "Literally, I suppose."
"Not an experience I want to repeat," commented the Revered Inventor mildly. "Men are far messier than machines."
"And for that, I am glad," he replied. "Or else you would be a menace like none other."
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.
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"You cut your hair."
It was a simple observation – one that he wasn't certain as to why he made, as it should have been fairly apparent to both of them. Pointless. Ahri smiled coyly, running her hand through her now shoulder-length hair. There was something in her eyes that he had never seen before, even if the expression was familiar. It was something very worn.
"I thought it was time for a change," she replied softly. Her face turned uncharacteristically pensive. "It seems like a good season for change."
The Eye of Twilight inclined his head towards her. "But are you not cold? You are rather... exposed."
She was wearing a fur-trimmed dress, made of thick looking material that seemed well-insulated, but her legs were not covered. It was already autumn – nearing winter – and in Ionia, particularly where the Shojin Monastery was located, it was very cold. It would be unfortunate if she were to fall ill.
The fox laughed, and it was quiet, and gentle. She was being very strange today.
"The same as ever," said Ahri, gaze turning downwards. "No, I'm warm enough."
Shen nodded once, crossing his arms and watching as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. The Nine-Tailed Fox glanced back up at him, a far more familiar smile painting her lips.
"Come to think of it, I never did get to thank you for helping me," she remarked cheerfully. "I heard about it from the sheriff."
"I only did what was needed," he replied simply. The times had been turbulent, and it had been imperative that they stood united. That brooked no special gesture of gratitude – not by his estimation.
"You saved my life," she pointed out. "Let me repay you."
"You owe me nothing," maintained Shen impassively. She had no more of a debt to him than the Unforgiven for delivering her to the Starchild. Were it not for her swift treatment, even his intervention would not have saved her. What could she possibly repay him with, at any rate?
Ahri tilted her head, drawing near. "It's custom to repay people who have done something for you, isn't it? That's what I've been told."
"It is also custom to refuse unnecessary payments," remarked the Eye of Twilight. He backed slightly from her reach. She was standing far too close.
"I think you're just being stubborn," she said, pouting. There was a hand on his arm, and he tensed. "I've been told that people do that sometimes too."
The Nine-Tailed Fox took another step closer, and Shen leaned back in response. There was something else in her eyes, something purposeful, yet somehow painfully clueless just the same. Her head tilted upwards, to properly face him, and with a jolt he realized what she intended - and silently cursed the fool who taught her such falsities.
"I do not think whatever you're about to do is wise," came his terse warning. Should he use force? No, perhaps too excessive - and what was the harm in allowing her this much?
Two hands rested themselves on his shoulders, and the Eye of Twilight stiffened. Ahri smiled at him.
"Hush," she murmured, leaning in, "and let me thank you."
It was quick – a simple peck on the lips through his mask – but he stood still as stone until she pulled back, noting her cheerful beam in dismay. For all her experience in seduction, her understanding of normal, social gestures was really...
There was a figure down the hall, and Shen stifled a sigh.
"Your wanton displays of affection are going to bring you trouble," he told the fox, gesturing over her shoulder. She turned to look.
It was Akali, fast approaching, and she seemed extraordinarily unamused. Her swift, purposeful stride did more than betray her displeasure, and the moment she reached them, she seized Ahri by the shoulder.
"What was that?" she demanded, in a low voice.
The Nine-Tailed Fox did not answer immediately, looking at the Fist of Shadow with a bright-eyed gaze. A smile stretched across her face – a smile of ill omen, if his experience was anything to go by.
She grabbed Akali by the front of her clothing and then – to the immense surprise of both Kinkou – pecked her on the mask as well.
"There!" she exclaimed, pulling back with a wide grin. "Now you're even."
Akali sputtered, recoiling in shock before lunging forward, attempting to catch the retreating fox.
"Wha-!"
"Have fun, you two!" called Ahri over her shoulder, already running down the hall. She paused for a moment, to blow the both of them a playful kiss, before disappearing around the corner.
"Well," he said, after a time. Akali shot him a sideways glance. "She seems to have reverted to her usual self."
"That girl is strange," she huffed, brushing herself off, "but it is good if she is in high spirits. Her punishment will not be light if any of the city states attempt to indict her."
"With the Institute's dissolution, I doubt that any will press charges," he replied soberly. "Nonetheless, she means well, and did not act out of malice."
"Meaning well is not enough these days," Akali remarked, crossing her arms. "People are slow to forgive."
"By your experience," the Eye of Twilight pointed out. She had always been very vindictive. "In her case, they will have patience. She is rather misguided in the realm of human interaction, as it stands."
His companion shrugged one shoulder. "If you say so, then so it must be. The Nine-Tailed Fox is of little concern right now." Akali glanced at him with a keen gaze. "The judgment of the Unforgiven still requires your input."
Shen closed his eyes.
"I will review the evidence submitted in due time," he replied at length. "Allow none to harass him until then."
"Understood," she said, with a single nod. "I will be off."
He bowed his head to her as she went, watching as she slunk away into the shadows. Even in the safety of the monastery, it seemed she could not shake old habits. In a strange way, for that, he was glad. It was an element of constancy in a rapidly changing time.
The Institute had been dismantled by the propagation of the truth, and after the near-disaster at the bay, the Kinkou Order had yet managed to restore a tentative balance in the realm of nature. However, there was an element of uncertainty that seemed incredibly foreboding – some air of shifting power, rising tension that did not bid well for the future. Zaun remained unstable, and many of its prominent figures were still missing. There seemed to be activity in both Demacia and Noxus of a militant nature that was concerning, to say the least, as well as an upsurge of strange rumors from Shurima.
Trouble painted the horizon, this he knew for sure. Whether they, or Ionia, were equipped to deal with it was another matter entirely.
.
.
.
He was glad she was happy. Someone needed to be.
"Daddy makes Amumu sleep in the shed," Annie told him, skipping at his side as they strolled past the houses of her village. "He says that he doesn't want a mummy in the house at night."
"That's a weird reason to make someone sleep in a shed," chuckled Zac. "What's he got against mummies?"
"He said he didn't want him getting dust everywhere," she replied, swinging her arms. "I don't know. It's great though – we can play everyday."
The Secret Weapon patted her on the head, a muted smile on his face.
"As long as you're having fun with your life."
He had fully expected to be met with some kind of resistance when he decided to pay Annie a visit, but it looked like the people in her community remembered the last time he showed up a month or two ago. Her parents had been very welcoming when they heard about him, and he was pretty pleased at that.
The Secret Weapon spared a nod for a passerby that had waved to Annie, trying not to be too conspicuous – not that that was possible. The Dark Child skipped alongside him happily, waving her teddy bear around. Speaking of...
"Say, how'd you find Tibbers?" he asked curiously, shooting the raggedy animal a glance. As far as he knew, she hadn't gone back to the Institute. Who'd picked him up?
"He came in the mail," she answered simply, hugging him close. "Mommy said he came express."
"Really? Was there a letter?"
Annie nodded eagerly. "Yeah! I almost read it all by myself, but I couldn't do some of the words."
"Wow, that's really cool," he said, smiling at her. "Who was it from?"
"It was from the police lady," she told him, beaming. "She got him cleaned and everything!"
"Aw. That's real nice of her. Are you gonna write back?"
"Yeah! Mommy told me to wait until it's not so busy anymore," said Annie, nodding. She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Say Mr. Zac, why are you here anyway? Don't you have to be working or something?"
Ah. That brought him back down to somewhere closer to earth. Zac froze for an infinitesimal moment of a second, before glancing down at her.
"I needed to get out of Zaun for a little bit," he answered noncommittally, with a shrug. "Breathe some real air."
"Oh." The Dark Child tossed her teddy bear into the sky, spinning in a quick circle before catching him. "How's Mr. Mouse? Is he still stinky?"
Now he was on the dirt, grounded.
The Secret Weapon fought to keep the emotion off his face as something ugly seemed to bubble back to the surface. There was a pang in his chest – a seizing on his heart that came with the guilt of being happy after a tragedy. Despite himself, his face screwed up.
"He's, uh, he's not..." He tried to find the words, struggled to phrase it in a way that would convey to her exactly what he meant – she was only a child, after all. Zac swallowed, and it was thick in his throat. "He's not with us anymore."
"Oh."
They stopped under a tree. Annie looked up at him, and her eyes were very large and bright and green, he noticed. Very young, innocent looking eyes.
"Are you sad, Mr. Zac?" she asked, taking his huge hand in hers. There was a strange sort of earnestness in her voice, a sincerity written on her face that rattled him. "Don't be sad."
His fingers splayed out and stiffened, and it was all he could do not to pull his hand from hers. Zac took a shaky breath.
"You know, Annie," he began, a bitter smile spreading across his face, "I'm trying. I'm really trying, but... it's hard."
"He went to the moon," she told him reassuringly, swinging their joined hands. "Where there's lots and lots of cheese."
"Do you think he's happy?" he wondered, giving a short, weak laugh that hurt his chest. Zac had to take another breath, and he covered his mouth with one hand as if it would help him hold in his dry sob. When he glanced down, Annie was hugging his arm, cheek pressed into his wrist.
"The happiest."
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.
.
"Come to boast?"
His voice came out raspy, crawling out of his throat like a sandworm on coarse legs. He could hear the low breathing of the Voidwalker's mask - the hesitant shift of his feet on stone. Malzahar swallowed, licking his lips with a dry tongue.
"I've come for many things," was the reply. "Namely, as to why you aren't dead."
They must not have told him right off. What an unpleasant surprise that must have been! The seer let loose a laugh, leaning against the chains that bound him as if he could take a closer look at his longtime adversary. Even revived, he could feel the ache in his chest where the nether blade had pierced through. The blindfold was hot and muffling upon his face.
"Are you sure?" he asked, with a wide smirk.
"Do not play games with me, Prophet."
"The dead and the imprisoned are quite the same. Only, one sits in a cell and the other in a grave."
"Was it the system? Did you not sabotage it?" the Voidwalker demanded, voice tight with a vexation that amused him greatly.
"You live as well, don't you? Metal men made wrong my right," he replied easily, "and so others die too early, and I too late."
"Abandon your riddles," he demanded angrily. "Your power is gone - you are blind now, Prophet."
"Blind?" Malzahar barked out another laugh, and his throat strained and stretched with it. "I who have had eternity in my sight - do you think mere cloth would blind me?"
"Then tell me where your precious Void is now? What oblivion awaits us non-believers who have met your blows at every turn?" His voice was harsh, echoing as if were trapped inside his mask. He could hear the Voidwalker take another step forward. "You were right, only in that they came. And now that they have been beaten back, you are nothing but blind."
"I was a seer before I was a prophet," he rasped, "just as you were a mage before you walked the Void."
"And where has that left us?" he asked lowly. There was another rattling breath and he sounded close - too close. Malzahar clenched his teeth, and listened to the creaking of his jaw.
He could hear it, in the distance. The clicking of type, the whispery threads of magic unraveling. There was the strange sensation of something crumbling, of something fading away - erasure. Words flashed brightly behind his eyelids: terminate.
Let it never be said that prophecy was limited to sight.
"Who is more monstrous?" he wondered aloud, and he cradled the next words in his throat for a long moment, festering them against the back of his tongue with their poison. "The Voidborn you call abominations, or your League that terminates them with no remorse?"
"What nonsense are you spewing?"
"A single button pressed, and souls are lost forever," murmured Malzahar. "The Chain Warden would weep."
"I did not come here to listen to your madness," snapped the Voidwalker.
The Prophet of the Void tilted his head up towards the sound of his voice, as if he could see him. "Then what did you come here for?"
A long moment of silence, filled only by the reverberating breaths of the Voidwalker behind his mask. A grin stretched across his face, dried lips cracking.
"Your daughter, is it?" There was a quiet, sharp inhale - and he knew he'd hit the mark. He chuckled. "Poor unfortunate…"
"Hold your tongue!" He let out a long, ragged breath. "Tell me what you know."
"I cannot tell with a tied tongue," answered Malzahar flippantly. "Will you have silence, or - hck!"
A cold hand on his throat. A crushing grip. His bleeding lips drew up into a sneer. It was familiar, so familiar.
"Tell me what you know," growled the Voidwalker.
He choked out a straining laugh from his hold, gagging around struggling breaths as the grip tightened.
"Your daughter… is one with the Void now," he managed. "W-whether a changed child… or… a fresh feast…!"
"I could kill you," murmured the Voidwalker, and his voice was lethal and low. "I could kill you right now."
"Do it!" gasped the Prophet, grin stretching his face wide even as the very air seemed to draw from his chest. "You - did it - once!"
He could see it in the darkness, the wide, open door; freedom, eternity, rest. Death.
The hand on his throat clenched tight - his windpipe would be crushed! - and then drew away. Malzahar took long, deep breaths that rattled in his ribcage.
"I could… but I won't." He could hear the shifting of cloth and metal as the Voidwalker moved away.
"Cowardice," Malzahar hissed through the stabbing pain in his throat.
"Cruelty," he countered. "A vengeance like no other."
"Hah! Walk away with the knowledge that you've spared your daughter's killer!" croaked the Prophet, straining against his chains. The sound of departing footsteps hung heavily in the air.
No.
No – he could not possibly leave him here. Not like this. Not like the rest.
The slightest scritch of dirt as if someone were turning on their heel. The Voidwalker's voice, soft and far gone.
"Waste away with the knowledge that your end days will be in this cell."
Then a harsh screech, like an old gate swinging on its hinges – the clicks and hums of the gears of a runic lock whirring into place – the sound of his own breathing, ringing harshly in his ears, and then -
Utter silence.
A void.
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Next Chapter: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/fancreations/JhZPEBAA-fanfiction-fracture-chapter-24-end
