#hextechdreamed

(( Starter for @hextechdreamed))

It was Progress Day and everything had gone to plan...at first.

The problem with favouring theatrics was that it invited an audience. That alone wasn’t always an issue, but when the crowd was expecting an attack and had their own plans to tackle the threat, it added an extra layer of challenge.

It was swiftly apparent that neither party had really expected an arrest to be made. With Topsiders squabbling about where to put the girl, Jinx vacillated between mild cooperation and sudden bouts of ferocious resistance. They’d taken her guns, the grenades, just about everything she kept on her person bar the clothes on her back. A precaution, perhaps, but it wasn’t the end of the world. They hadn’t taken everything.

The cell was little more than a cage, stripped bare of anything that could be fashioned into something. The confinement and solitude would have been enough to break her had the circumstances been ever so slightly different. But it wasn’t a prison cell- not when she had something to bargain with- something they wanted. It was this knowledge that had Jinx nonchalant as she engaged with the enforcers that tried questioning her. She ignored some, pretended to play along for others and elected to make her own entertainment out of the spectacle she was still managing to cause behind bars.

It was when conducting a routine check on their latest prisoner that the cause for her casual air became apparent. A report was relayed to the relevant persons that their prisoner was laying on her front on the cell floor with a hex stone approximately two inches from her face. Occasionally she would blow on it, sending it rolling a couple of inches further from her nose.

What was the point in trying to escape when you could easily do so if you wanted? Why run from the birthplace of all the fancy tech? Jinx had decided to wait them out, just to see what her patience would be rewarded with.

It wasn’t long before there were more footsteps. Another set of enforcers trying to haggle for her prize, no doubt. Piercing blue eyes lifted from where Jinx was comfortably sprawled on the floor, both feet swaying blithely in the air.

This one didn’t have a uniform.

Jinx narrowed her eyes, fixing the man with an appraising look.

“Leeeet me guess.” Jinx drawled, planting her index finger on top of the gem and proceeding to roll it around.

“Oh... You’re one of the folks with the Zaun Grey...” Vi couldn’t quite stop herself from speaking, shaking her head quickly. “Sorry. Sorry, that was...” It was hard being nice, at times. Vi was still learning boundaries. 

Part of her was brought back to Vander. How he would praise them so happily on their abilities. But it had never felt like enough. “It’s never enough...” she replied, her tone somber, as greyish blue eyes met his. “You know that, right? You push and push, but it’s about where you come from at the end of the day. Great achievements, yeah. But one screw up, and they’ll remind you..”

"Being caught nude in public, or like..." Vi gestured with a hand rather lazily to the side, tying to think of something else humorous, before shaking her head, letting out a soft sigh. "Nah man... I know how you feel..." she said softly. "Well, at least, sort of. Afraid that you're never gonna be better?"

She uses the opportunity to instead use her other sleeve while he has her wrist. 

“It’s just a bit of blood. It’s fine. What’s not fine is you’re coughing up more.” 

Her brows crease as she traces his jaw gently with her finger tips. He looks so ill and it’s frustrating. She needed to figure out how to stop this. Without making more of him... Less human. She’d already seen what him tampering with the arcane had done to him.

“Shimmer might be able to slow it. In the pits it’s used as a healing accelerant... While it might not get rid of it it might ease it.” She offered, he knew she could easily get hold of it, being the barons daughter after all. 

❝     yours is not the kind of face one would expect to see in here.       ❞

          A MOLECULE OF MOCKERY,     but claggor is a lazy predator used to being fed.     no more feral than a large housecat:     instead,     an appreciative gleem in his eyes.

❝     i am a great fan of you work.     i had the change to go to one of your lectures in piltover,     you’re truly a brilliant man.        ❞

Till something catches her eye; a light near the edge towards where she knew the path to Singed’s lab was. She stopped humming, slipping off the rock to creep towards the source of the light. No one ever came out here, especially at night. The old tales of the siren of the lake kept most away. 

She creeps towards it even as it moves towards the steps down, obviously knowing the route but being cautious. Shimmer quickens her movements, and despite the distance she covers, it’s silent. She draws her gun, taking aim. She recognises him now she’s closer, still silent as she slowly makes her way towards him from behind.

“Well well well. What’s Piltover’s token zaunian doing all the way down here?” 

Her voice rings out like a gunshot, deafening in the silence. Somewhere across the water, the singing stops, the monster of the lakes attention towards the voice and the light. She tilts her head, her hair, currently in a single ponytail, mirroring her movement. Venom drips from her voice, her tone lower, almost threatening. 

“What are you doing here, Viktor?” 

{⚙️}: When Viktor entered his laboratory, he hadn’t expected to find anyone inside. He had left for only a moment, long enough to brew himself a cup of coffee, which he carried in his unoccupied hand as he stepped through the door. He stopped dead in his tracks, blinking in surprise, before his expression turned into a scowl.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, taking a step forward, his crutch making a distinct tink against the polished floor, followed by the metallic step of his brace, “Who are you?”

The shuffle of uneven footsteps echoed into the room soon followed by the man creating them. Turning on her heel the pale woman tried to come up with a good excuse for wandering around, though just as soon as she had created one it left her mind. That was Victor, wasn’t it? It almost had to be. She couldn’t remember seeing many others around with a limp like that. 

“Oh, hello.” The mage greeted, attempting a friendly smile. “I am looking for someone named Victor.” Even if the man in front of her fit the description she’d heard it was better to be sure. “But I think I might have gotten myself lost.”