Chapter 1
Welcome to the big Leagues
“Is it done yet?”
Silcos voice reverberates through the rough darkness of the cavern like a supplication.
Underneath the surface of Zaun, Silco stands before a wall of glass. He looks at the swallowing blue ocean behind it; somewhere out there, his beautiful pets echo his question with a low keening cry.
The alchemist, silent, observes the glass cage in front of him. Their test rat took to the variant and, with newly heightened senses, navigated its surroundings as if for the first time. Silco waits for the results, which come a moment later with the crunch of glass cracking from the force of the creature's attack. It sends a shiver down Silcos spine.
“Yes. At least, the spinal cord is certainly…done.” Singed chuckles as the mutation snaps the spine in two with its teeth.
Silco meets his own eyes in the reflection of the glass- one brown, one luminescent blue inside its black sclera- and deftly brings his hand to touch the fracturing scars on his face.
“Wonderful. And this flower, what was it called?”
“The topsiders had an old valoran word for it, roughly translating to ‘sickness.’ I have noted its glowing properties once it's been crushed- like a, ‘shimmer.’ A much more appropriate name for its unique properties, no?”
With heavy rubber gloves, Singed carefully releases the killing toxins into their little experiments enclosure, watching it twitch and scream as it claws at its body. Silco moves to the man's shoulder, noting how long it takes for the creature to perish.
“You have done excellent work, doctor. We can move forward to increasing the production rate; much more is still needed for the streets of Zaun.”
The alchemist seems surprised by this, though he hides his reactions well.
“You…want to sell it?”
“I want to use it. Then I want to sell it.” He glances at the desktop covered in the alchemist's neat and sprawling notes, spreading his fingers over the research in reverence.
“I’m sure it will take a long time yet to reach the amount I need.”
Pages upon pages of vast, detail oriented notes and instructions in front of him, owing to the potent nature of the drug. Years of research and waiting, ready to boil up to the surface.
“You aren’t afraid someone will try to copy your work? There is much spillover from topside, those who have the means for replication. ”
Silco doesn't miss how the alchemist puts distance between himself from his own creation. Whether out of aversion or disinterest, it didn’t matter as long as he kept producing it.
“I’m not afraid of anything, old friend. There is only one person smart enough in the whole of either who could recreate such a drug, and he's in this room. You can do it again from memory, can’t you?”
The other man begins to document the conclusions of the trial run, procuring a small leatherbound notebook from his deep pockets.
“Naturally.”
This brings a grin to Silcos face.
“Good.”
Taking out his lighter, Silco lifts a singular piece of paper detailing side effects of their product, and holds it to the open flame. He lets it fall onto the other pages, the blue fire consuming the top of the table.
Singed watches without emotion as years of research is compounded into ash. He returns the book to the deep pockets of his trenchcoat. The shadows of the mans hooded face deepen around his brow, as he mulls something over, the table splintering in half between them with a warm, succinct crack.
He reaches a private conclusion, the black pits of his eyes briefly flitting towards Silco.
“There is one other who knows how to make it.”
This is news. Silco feels a sudden awareness roll over him as he draws his arms behind his back. The cold room, details of the leather backed chair in front of him, the almost-quiet of the underground. He asks his question lightly.
“Could this be the boy that you are referring to?”
A nod from Singed as he quells the fire with the flat of his gloves.
Silcos' mouth curls in displeasure. He forgot it for a time, but the lad was still lurking somewhere within their base of operations. Wrought from the fissures or the mines, what with the coughs that wrack his body, the boy was another product of Piltovers negligent pollutants. Before this child, Silco has never met anyone so possessive of the killer instincts that come with surviving the struggle of a lifetime. Silco distantly observes that he dislikes the boy a great deal.
“Why don’t you call him over? If he knows all about our little project, I'm sure he can administer it smoothly.”
Singed inadvertently straightens, surprised.
“Are you sure you want to trust something so important to a child?”
Silcos artificial eye flicks to Singed, who knows better than to disobey a direct order.
The man sighs once before disappearing into the cave mouth. The connected caverns eventually lead up to the surface just as they run deep, an intrinsic mushroom root system; but the boy never strays far from Singed.
Silco settles into his chair, attention back on the water. This child is closer to a son than the alchemist realizes; an unfortunate liability to have, if he hasn’t realized it by now.
The boy comes limping out of the darkness a moment later, alone. He approaches Silco slowy, using a crutch under his left arm.
“You'll excuse me if I've forgotten your name, boy.”
The boy keeps a healthy distance between them, but doesn’t shy away from Silcos appraisial.
He recalls from the details Singed has offered that the boy is now 12. He’s tall for his age, thin and lanky, malnourished enough that his shirt hangs off of his figure. His brown hair is dirty with grime, swooping outward from his face. He’s tucked the front two pieces of hair behind his ears, displaying a pale, solitary face. Though the look on the boys face has an air of openness, Silco has had enough experience with liars to know this boy is proficient at it. He suspects the boy is orphaned- most children do not take to Singed at all, much less this closely.
There’s been ample time for the boy to respond, but he’s kept his mouth shut. Silco loathes asking twice for anything. A moment more ellipses them, locked in stare.
At last the boy looks away, muttering in a heavy accent, “It's Viktor.”
Silcos mouth twitches upward, and he steeples his fingers together.
“Viktor. I’m told you know all about our little project here.”
He pauses, waiting for a reaction.
“Well, I’d like you to demonstrate your understanding. It's a simple enough task- successfully administer a shot of the variant where you think it will affect the body most. Can you do that?”
A vial of shimmer was already stationed on the table. Silco holds the syringe outstretched, handle side outward.
The boy has it in his mind to remain silent, until the approach of the alchemist. Silco dangles the syringe from two fingers.
“I don’t bite, boy.”
While loading the syringe he hesitates again, looking to Silco for any second thoughts.
Silco has none; the boy finally limps over, putting one of his hands at the back of Silcos head- he controls the urge to jerk away. Then his head is tilted sideways, as if he was a specimen being inspected. Silco thinks the boy was aiming for his neck with his injection. If he was, he missed his target completely as the needle was jammed directly into Silcos artificial eye.
Silco did not have a moment to react before the shimmer was coursing through his brain, into his bloodstream. He yells, gripping the arms of his chair in pain. He brings his hand to his throbbing eye out of instinct. He feels his agitation multiply and for a second he thinks he will kill the boy in front of him, whose hand is still clinging to the back of his head. The child pulls back like he read his mind, backing away to the safety of the alchemist.
It fades soon enough. Fortunately, he can still see past the pulse in his face- if he would have had to find a new one, it would have cost Singed’s little animal an amber eye.
“I apologize Silco- Viktor tends to act without warning. He is used to working with significantly less alive specimens.”
“The eye. Quite an interesting option, isn’t it?”
Singed pulls the boy back by his shoulder, closer to himself.
“I understand the discomfort it causes, but the optical injection will advance first the cells of your brain, and slowly the strength and repair of your body. I would have done the same thing, perhaps at a lesser dosage to avoid any possibility of unwanted mutation.”
The boy can't help but cast a glance towards their previous mutation's carcass, still bloated with its enlarged muscles and entering rigamortis.
“Does it scare you, boy?” Silco asks.
He shakes his head definitively, even as a small tremor runs through the hand gripping his crutch.
“There is nothing to fear except death itself. Death–” and here Silco strides within inches of the lad, “comes for us all.” Silco walks back toward his ocean as he talks.
“And all we can do is watch it drag its rotten, decomposing touch closer, until it lays its claim over us. Pain, suffering, they'll kick you over and over again until death arrives- unless of course, we cheat the system.” Silco turns back to the boy, and looks to Singed with the same admonition on his lips.
“Here is a little secret to living longer. Don’t make an enemy out of a well practiced cheater. It won’t end well for you.”
Viktors gaze hardens. He will grow up to be obstinate, that much is clear. It would be much easier to sleep at night knowing he could control the one person making his narcotic. Emphasis on one.
“A word alone, old friend.”
Singed mentions something to his protege briefly, before he makes his escape, presumably to where he was hiding before. The foul taste in Silcos mouth finally begins to dissipate with the fresh absence of that unpredictable child.
“I see many ways your situation could go wrong,” Silco begins.
“If he hasn’t told anyone about our operations for the past 3 years I’ve known him, then he is not going to.” Singed crosses his arms.
Silcos considerable amount of patience is wearing down; a possible after effect as well.
“He could be taken out from under you by anyone. Like taking candy from a baby. And there goes the means by which I am to control our glorious nation once and for all. For what? Affection?”
The alchemist leans against the wall of glass, undeterred.
“You underestimate the boy. He is worth a great deal more, perhaps than you and I combined. ”
He bristles at this. Silco wants the boy dead. Inexplicably, irrevocably gone from his underground world.
But it’s Singed’s little problem, not his, nor will it ever be. The way the alchemist stares in complete resolution, an affirming nod in Silcos direction- he would take on the consequences of being wrong. Just maybe, Silco would take a liking to the boy as much as his instincts tell him he’s letting a fox into the roost.
“We will see how long he lasts.”
A complete shadow eclipses them when his beautiful monster passes by, slow and powerful. The silence is held out of respect in the presence of such a beast. The entire cave is hushed, with the only thing left to illuminate the cave being the electric blue of Silcos eye, and the pulsing veins of the shimmer both in him and in the dead rat behind them. He hopes it can see him through the shield between them, hope it knows Silco is the same. The wails of his pet encapsulate them like the final stone in a tomb.