Chapter Text
“And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine.”
~William Wordsworth
Jayce’s mind was reeling. The raid sirens had begun blaring just before dawn, and he’d startled awake, his every muscle sore from yet another night spent hunched over his desk and snoring into the mess of schematics and empty bottles. He hadn’t meant to get so drunk, especially not while he was working, but… when did he ever mean to slip into the downward spiral of liquor and repressed memories? And he’d tried to go a little easier on the booze in recent weeks, he really had—what with Caitlyn expressing her worry multiple times, and following it with veiled threats of an intervention.
But… every time he stepped foot in that empty lab, his voice and chalk scribbles reverberating into complete and utter silence, he was reminded of the absence… of the glaring wound in this place that still hadn’t healed, six years later. His hands itched to reach out and grasp that familiar shoulder, his ears rang with the ghost of that familiar voice, hushed and dulcet but so excited and passionate. His heart ached in those moments, and nothing short of drowning it in alcohol seemed to help.
So when the raid sirens shook the walls and rattled the bottles, he’d nearly tripped over himself in his haste to pull himself together and respond—button the coat, straighten the cravat, soothe down his cowlicked mess of hair… and the hammer, where had he put the gods-forsaken hammer?
Nothing about the attack made sense. It had been the Herald, because of course it was—just what Jayce needed on a day like today; battling a raging hangover and aching from head to toe from sleeping at his desk again. Viktor had gone straight for the suspension cables, systematically severing enough of them to compromise the stability of the bridge, and all before the enforcers on the other side even had time to react. But Viktor had attacked alone; which was monumentally and unbelievably stupid, and while the Machine Herald was many things, stupid certainly wasn’t one of them.
All of this, though, had been explained to Jayce later, because he never even made it to the bridge before the secondary, higher-pitched alarms began blaring from behind him… the Hextech Laboratory alarms.
And the moment they did, he’d known it had been a trap; one he’d walked into face-first like a cobweb. The first attack on the bridge was a set up to get Jayce away from his lab, that much was clear almost instantly. They’d pulled Jayce away so that whatever… or whoever was poised to raid it could do so without encountering resistance. So with a defeated and disappointed sigh, he’d skidded to a halt in the middle of the street, spun around, and headed back for the laboratory with a frustrated growl, the Mercury Hammer swinging in his grasp.
But he didn’t make it there in time either—both attacks had clearly been precisely timed down to the second, and all Jayce found upon his return was a group of flustered enforcers, a door that had been blasted from its hinges, and a completely ransacked laboratory. And to add insult to injury, the burn pattern on the door lock was familiar—the soldering iron built into Blitzcrank’s revolving arm of gadgets, no doubt. Viktor didn’t usually send his golem on retrieval missions, preferring to keep his prized creation within Zaun city limits, but… he’d obviously made an exception today.
The rage that roiled up inside him was probably a bit unfounded, as his lab was getting raided by Zaun constantly. But that didn’t stop the sting of it—fucking idiot, maybe if you hadn’t drank yourself into oblivion, you wouldn’t be so easy to take advantage of. You’re a mess, you’re pathetic, and they fucking know it.
He’d been angrily kicking and tossing about the debris in his lab, taking stock of what he’d lost this time when Sheriff Kiramman came jogging in, her breath a bit labored and her uniform singed black at the shoulder. Vi trailed behind her, the enforcer’s uniform looking every bit as out-of-place on her as it had on day one.
“Mornin’ pretty boy. You look like shit,” she drawled, leaning against the ruined doorframe and crossing her arms sanctimoniously—only slightly hindered by the bulk of the Atlas Gauntlets.
“What did they take?” Caitlyn asked in a huff, ignoring Vi’s teasing as her sharp eyes jerked around the room to glean for herself.
“Don’t know yet,” Jayce snapped, flinging open the ornate chest at his feet to find it completely empty. “At least these six gemstones, that’s for sure.”
Caitlyn sighed in defeat, but the silence that followed was suspicious—she usually fired off into her explanations, laying out what had happened, why, and how he could assist. It was practically a tick of hers, filling silences, and it was glaringly obvious when she didn’t.
“What?” he asked skeptically, pausing his fishing through of the debris to level her in a curious, prodding glare.
“It’s… the attack, on the bridge. It was V—“
“I know who the fuck it was,“ he hissed, releasing the instant tension of nearly hearing his name by kicking the empty chest and watching with some kind of sick glee as it skittered across the floor like a frightened Poro underfoot.
“Yes, but… we… we were able to subdue him, and… and he’s been… taken into custody.”
“What?!” he practically yelled, taking an unconscious and slightly intimidating step toward her, but she didn’t budge.
Viktor was never subdued. He either won, or calculated that he was going to lose, and fled long before he could. He wasn’t swayed by pride or personal ambition to beat his foes at all costs, no, he was smarter than that. He understood that fleeing did not make him weak—it provided an opportunity to learn what he’d done wrong, correct it, and come back harder, faster, stronger. It was what made him so formidable; where most people would get frustrated and make crucial errors in their desperate bid to win, Viktor was cool, collected, and calculating. But then again, he wasn’t people anymore, was he?
But if he’d been caught, something was wrong—either this was all another trap (in which case Jayce needed to weed it out before they suffered any more losses), or… or Viktor had actually been overpowered. Which seemed unlikely, but on the off chance he was truly injured…
Jayce’s heart slammed in his chest, that age-old worry that he’d locked away but never quite banished beginning to swell and claw at his lungs and throat.
“Take me to him,” Jayce snapped, sweeping up the Mercury Hammer as he strode with purpose toward the door.
“Jayce…” Caitlyn drawled, her tone a warning.
“Cait,” he hissed back, more clipped and hostile than he’d intended to be toward his oldest friend, but he didn’t have the energy or the patience to argue this right now.
“Do you think that’s wise?” she asked, unfazed by his attitude and apparently dead-set on arguing.
“Of course not,” he responded, his heart clenching as he was unhelpfully reminded of a time when Viktor had said those exact words to him—are you sure this is safe? Of course not. But before the Sheriff could argue with him further, he hoisted the hammer onto his shoulder and walked with purpose from the lab, leaving her little choice but to follow.
It was a long, silent, tense walk to the jail (a relatively new addition to the lower east side of Piltover—they’d needed something more immediately accessible than Stillwater, ever since the war with Zaun began). It seemed Caitlyn kept trying to speak, to say something, anything, but she always closed her mouth again and bowed her head, continuing to walk quietly at his side. In the past, he might have paused, reached out to hug her, prodded for what was eating at her, but… bitterness had chipped away at his empathy for so long that he’d started to wonder if he had any left. It was at the point now that numb was his default state—he couldn’t manage to drudge up his old boyish curiosity, couldn’t breathe new life into his previous zeal for collaboration, for love, for magic. He just… wanted to get this over with and go have a drink.
He walked straight through the dull, lifeless foyer to the cell hall after barging through those too-intricate wrought iron doors, completely disregarding the warden as the man pointed to Jayce’s hammer and began firing off demands,
“Uh, s-sir? Sir?! You can’t… you can’t take that inside, it’s against our… weapons… policy… oh… okay, I guess…”
Caitlyn must have waved the man away or pulled a cautionary face to warn him off, but Jayce didn’t care enough to thank her—he would have taken it inside regardless, it might have just… had some blood and nasal cartilage on it.
He was greeted by a single deputy, who already appeared to know where to take him, because she met his stride and led him down the long hallway to the more secure cells—the ones they used to hold the most violent and vicious of perpetrators… or the ones that couldn’t be held in any old run-of-the-mill jail cell.
“How the hell did you catch him?” Jayce asked, actually curious—the method used would tell him all he needed to know to ascertain if this was one of Viktor’s traps. If there was anything sloppy, any mistake or apparent miscalculation on Viktor’s part… then it was. While Viktor wasn’t completely infallible… he hardly ever miscalculated.
“The enforcers sedated him, actually,” the deputy (Hastings, per her name badge) replied shortly.
“Sedated?” Jayce snorted, disbelieving. “He can’t be sedated, he has blood filtration systems. I know, I’ve tried.”
“Not with chemicals,” Hastings said, coming abruptly to a halt as she fished in a pouch on her belt, and Jayce was forced to stop as well. “With one of these.”
Hastings pulled a small, soft point bullet from her belt and held it up between them—she pinched the tip to hold it steady, then twisted the base, and the whole thing began to glow and release a rhythmic and repeating pop pop pop, like severed electrical wire.
A cold chill rolled down Jayce’s spine, and he felt his hands go clammy and his throat close up as he stared down at the seemingly innocuous little thing. He reached out to take it, but Hastings pulled back, eyeing his gloved hands.
“Don’t let it touch your skin while it’s active, this little bugger could jump-start an airship,” she said, relinquishing the bullet and letting it plop into Jayce’s proffered palm.
It was giving off a charge, that much was immediately clear, but it seemed to be mostly contained within the casing. But… the soft tip… of course. The spire point was meant to shatter on impact, exposing the target to the full force of the electrical charge within. Jayce might have been impressed if he wasn’t increasingly horrified.
“And…” his voice caught in his throat as that worry that had been building and building within his chest began to constrict around his lungs like a hungry Python. “Y-you… you got him with one of these?”
“Yep,” Hastings replied, far too chipper considering the subject matter. “It’s ingenious, actually. The Machine Herald has this… walk with me… he has this pattern of systems within his augments. One feeds off of another, which feeds two more. That’s why it’s so difficult to take him down…”
Take him down. Like he was some kind of rampaging monster thundering through the city, and not…
Not the sweet but endearingly chaotic young man he’d been all those years ago, not the brilliant inventor, not the generous lover nor the kind-hearted soul, trapped in the shrinking cage of a brutal illness and slowly falling down an isolating spiral of existential dread and terror… with no one, not even Jayce to pull him out.
Jayce was forced to clear his throat as it nearly closed up, and without even looking over his shoulder at her, he could tell Cait gave him a somber and pitying look.
“… but this,” Hastings went on, apparently blissfully unaware of the miniature crisis Jayce had just had. “This changes everything. It disrupts that cycle within him. Think of it sort of like… like a cybernetic circadian rhythm. And this interrupts it, sending him into a sort of… dormancy; suspended animation, almost. It really is innovative, Sheriff.”
Jayce ground to a halt and spun to level Caitlyn with the full force of the shock and disgust he was feeling.
“You did this?!” he snarled, and she met his hostility with her own.
“Well… gods, Jayce, what was I supposed to do? He’s been grinding us under his boot heel for months! We can’t keep up with him; he’s too strong, too fast, and apparently impenetrable. I’ve lost enforcers to his raids, good men and women! What was I supposed to tell their families—that I can’t bring them justice because the Defender happens to still be in love with him?!”
“Watch it,” he hissed, stepping into her space and pointing accusingly at her. Her words cut to the quick, and his voice shattered in his throat as he tossed a glance back at Vi. “It’s real easy to look down on the rest of us from cloud fucking nine.”
She sighed, deflating a little as she held up her hands in a show of surrender.
“I’m sorry Jayce, that was uncalled for,” she said, soft and contrite. “But as I said, I had to do something. It won’t cause any lasting damage, I promise. It just… slows him down.”
Jayce sighed, all the fight draining from him in that single breath and leaving him feeling like a stuck balloon.
“Just…” he turned back to Deputy Hastings, pinching the bridge of his nose and doing his best to ignore the barely-disguised judgment on her face. “Take me to him. Now.”
Jayce wasn’t sure what he expected, knowing that the indestructible Machine Herald had been subdued, but it wasn’t this. The large cell was positively dwarfed by Viktor’s size and mass, his battle-damaged armor gleaming in the low light and making of him a rather gruesome and terrifying sight. Shackles shone from his wrists and ankles, all secured by impressive steel chains bolted into the ceiling and floor, which kept him hanging limply by his outstretched arms. There was also a thick metal collar of some kind clamped around his neck, and that too was secured to the ceiling by a long chain link tether. The Hexclaw seemed to have been curled down and around his front, fastened with the laser’s barrel snugly against Viktor’s chest—making it impossible for him to use it without first maiming himself. His mask had been removed, and Jayce shuddered to think how enraged he would be, were he conscious to know it.
His head was sagging against his chest, and those unnatural glowing eyes of his were closed, and if he tried, Jayce could convince himself he was merely sleeping. But he could hear the rhythmic popping of the bullet, wherever it was lodged, and every time he did, he noted the jerk that went through Viktor’s entire frame, rattling the chains.
“Janna, Cait, was all this really necessary?” he asked incredulously. The amount of restraints was honestly overkill, and they would have to come off before Jayce got anywhere with him.
“Yes, it was,” Caitlyn replied, stepping forward to stand next to him and eyeing Viktor’s nearly lifeless visage. “We weren’t sure how long the cyberbullet would last, and we weren’t exactly keen on him leveling the place.”
Jayce sighed, trying and failing to fight off the decade-old protectiveness that was still festering somewhere deep in his ribcage. Their caution was probably… scratch that, definitely founded—if Viktor woke, he certainly wasn’t about to comply or behave himself. He would, as Cait predicted, level the place.
“Alright, well… I need to talk to him; try to figure out what the hell this was all about, see if I can get him to tell me who raided my lab. I have a feeling I know, but…”
He allowed himself to trail off, deciding that exposing Blitzcrank without due cause was probably irresponsible, at this point. Besides, for all he claimed to be emotionless and unreadable… without his mask, Viktor did have his tells. Only Jayce knew them, but still. It was something.
Hastings pulled a ring with a heinous amount of keys from her belt, shuffling through it for a moment before pulling a simple brass one free and leaning in to unlock the cell. She pushed the rolling door to the side then, motioning for Jayce to step inside. He did, first lowering the Mercury Hammer and propping it up against the bars.
“S-so… how do you reverse the effects of the cyberbullet?” he asked as he approached, still analyzing Viktor’s frame as he drew nearer and failing to find the entry wound. “Do I gotta go dig it out of him?”
“Oh, no. We can control it remotely,” Hastings said casually as she joined him inside the cell, pulling a square contraption from her belt which bore a simple red button in the middle. “See?”
And she pressed it.
Jayce’s blood ran cold, sheer panic flooding through every inch of him.
“No, wait!”
“Jayce… what is it, you know you can ask me?” Viktor cooed, curling onto his side in the bed and raising his hand up to caress his thumb down Jayce’s cheek, and Jayce shuddered with the lightness of the touch. Typically, with his circulation issues, Viktor was cool to the touch, but not now; now he was bed-warmed and cozy, and his skin was like newly-laundered fleece.
Jayce didn’t know why, but he still, even after all these years, struggled to ask for what he wanted. Perhaps it was a lingering remnant of the trial that had nearly stripped him of everything, or perhaps it was simply part of who he was—brimming with hopes and dreams and ideas all ready to share, but… terrified to ask for anything for himself. His throat closed up and his hands began to tremble, and all at once he felt like he was fifteen again, standing before the Academy Board and shaking like a leaf as he made his admittance presentation. He’d practiced in the mirror, he’d practiced in front of his mother… but that was the trial run. Now there were stakes, and they made him freeze up and choke.
“Jayce,” Viktor said again, somehow both stern and so very gentle. He paused to lean in, pulling Jayce’s head down with the hand at his nape, placing a simple kiss to Jayce’s forehead.
His lips were a balm to Jayce’s anxiety, and their warm pressure against his skin soothed away his apprehension and settled a heady, reassuring blanket of contentedness over him, prompting him to sigh and sink into the bed, into Viktor’s arms.
He reached for the handsome burgundy rope that was coiled between them, fiddling with it as he finally looked back up into Viktor’s familiar honeywine eyes.
“Well… I was… I was wondering if… maybe… you’d wanna…”
Clearly taking note of Jayce’s ever-present discomfort, Viktor stroked his finger over Jayce’s cheek again; a gentle prodding for honesty, for trust. Jayce smiled bashfully— silently appreciative of his continued and constant patience.
“I was thinking… I could… tie you up this time?” he finally admitted, feeling the warmth in his cheeks as he blushed.
Viktor snickered, snaking his fingers up into Jayce’s hair and gripping lightly, and Jayce felt himself riddled with goosebumps in response.
“Is that all?” Viktor asked sweetly, his smile absolutely angelic in the warm morning light that was filtering through the curtains. He leaned in and placed a slow, chaste kiss to Jayce’s lips, his fingers scratching pleasantly at Jayce’s scalp. “Of course, sluníčko.”
He didn’t say another thing about it; merely rolled away to lie on his back, raising his arms up to the barred headboard in offering and tossing Jayce the most coy, provocative grin imaginable.
Heat flared through Jayce’s every muscle as the mere suggestion, the mere thought of it sent intense, skin-tingling arousal firing off to his groin—Viktor, splayed out beneath him and writhing in ecstasy, his wrists and ankles held securely in place and ensuring he couldn’t escape the onslaught of pleasure Jayce would rain down on him. His alabaster skin a lovely and stark contrast beneath the wine-dark rope, and his fluffy chestnut hair a wild mess against the pillow as he threw his head back and moaned at the ceiling.
“H-how… how should I…” he began, shifting to straddle Viktor’s hips and uncoiling the rope, his words catching in his throat when Viktor rolled his hips up against Jayce’s bum.
“Do you know how to do a slip knot?” Viktor asked, following it with a sultry bite to his lip, and Jayce was certain he was going to melt on the spot.
He nodded, not trusting his frog-besieged throat, and leaned in to begin looping the end of the rope through the bars of the headboard and around Viktor’s wrists. Viktor watched him with steely, hawk-like focus, his golden eyes so fiery in their ferocity that it was like two pools of pure midsummer sunshine.
Jayce paused to admire once he’d secured both of Viktor’s wrists, his eyes roving down over the slim lines of Viktor’s arms, the artful curvature of his ribcage as it expanded with increasingly excited breaths.
“Is it okay if I do your legs, too?” Jayce asked, punctuating the query by tracing the pads of his fingertips down Viktor’s chest from sternum to bellybutton, and Viktor positively shuddered, goosebumps rising on his arms and his breath leaving him in a huff that devolved into a barely-stifled whimper.
“Mmhmm,” Viktor replied, grinding his hips up against Jayce again, and this time there was a significant bulge in his underthings.
Jayce beamed with pride, retrieving the second coil of rope and slowly beginning to descend Viktor’s body. He couldn’t resist dropping errant kisses, bites, and licks as he went—first at Viktor’s stomach, then his sharp hip, then his upper thigh, torturously close to where he obviously wanted it. Viktor’s alluring noises only increased in frequency and volume as he did, and Jayce cherished the opportunity—cradling beneath Viktor’s bad knee and bending it slightly so he could place yet more kisses there.
He had to rise from the bed in order to give himself room to spread Viktor’s legs out how he wanted them, and Viktor released a dissenting, petulant whine at the loss.
“So needy,” Jayce teased as he looped the rope around Viktor’s delicate ankle, pausing to lightly run a single finger up the ticklish bridge of Viktor’s foot and delighting in the way Viktor squirmed and mewled.
Once he had Viktor’s legs secured, Jayce crawled back onto the bed and straddled him again, his mind salivating at all the possibilities a fully restrained Viktor provided—typically Viktor was the one in control. And while being tied up didn’t make him not the one in control… it provided a certain tipping of the scales Jayce hadn’t really experienced yet; Viktor, at his mercy.
So he started slow, as he usually did—prowling in on top of Viktor and worshipping him with his mouth. He trailed a path of kisses and gentle bites down Viktor’s neck to his collar bone, all the while soothing a flat palm over the expanse of his chest and stomach—assaulting his skin with soft, careful touches. He knew Viktor to be an impatient man, preferring to just get to the point in all aspects of his life (including lovemaking). But that’s what was so beautiful about having him restrained—he was going to have to do things Jayce’s way for once… slow and precise, almost tantric.
But Jayce was so focused on his task that he didn’t immediately note the change… or perhaps he thought it was a good sign that Viktor’s breathing was quickening, his body shaking.
But what came next couldn’t have made it any clearer.
“Opal! Opalopalopal! Jayce, take them off, Jayce, pleasetakethemoff!” Viktor cried, his hands beginning to yank against the restraints in a decidedly distressed manner, and though the use of their word had surprised him (as he’d thought things were going swimmingly), Jayce launched into action.
He did it as fast as he could—yanking on the loose end of each slip knot to free him, but in the time it took to do all four, Viktor had descended into full-fledged panic.
Even before the final knot was fully loose, Viktor was violently kicking back and crab-crawling up the bed, his back slamming into the headboard as he reached out and grabbed a pillow—yanking it in front of himself and hugging it to his chest like a shield. His eyes were unfocused and manic, and those heavy, panted breaths quickly devolved into brutal coughing fits that shook his entire frame.
Jayce’s heart shattered—it felt like a black hole had opened up within him and was slowly gobbling up his organs one by one. Viktor was fearless… in a way that was almost counterintuitive to self-preservation. Jayce had never once seen him shy from an argument or back down when someone tried to intimidate him. But this—cowering against the headboard and shivering violently with terror—this went against everything he was, and… and it was Jayce’s fault. He did this.
“V, I’m… I’m so sorry, I—what did I… are you…”
He reached out then, fingers barely brushing Viktor’s forearm where it was gripping the pillow, and to his horror, Viktor yelped and pulled away even harder, the force of it rattling the headboard against the wall.
“N-not yet, p-please, Jayce, just give me a m—“
His voice caught harshly in his throat, and he jerked, his shoulders bunching as he swallowed hard.
“Shit, I’m going to be sick…”
Viktor tossed the pillow aside and rocketed to his feet, a hand flying out to grab his cane where it was leaned between the bed and nightstand. Jayce was nearly torn in two by his conflicting desires; to give Viktor the space he’d requested and the urge to reach out and scoop Viktor into his arms, to hold him tight and repeat it over and over like a hymn screamed at the heavens—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, Gods I’m so sorry…
Jayce’s focus was pulled back as he heard the thud of Viktor’s knees against the tile, the metallic crash of his cane, and the subsequent splash of vomit hitting the toilet bowl. He hurried in after Viktor, immediately taking note of the near-violent shiver wracking Viktor’s entire body, and although he was aware it likely wasn’t from cold, he reached anyway for the terry-cloth robe that was hung on the back of the bathroom door and gently draped it over Viktor’s shoulders. Viktor made a pitiful sound of tortured appreciation, propping his elbow on the toilet seat and resting his forehead in his palm. His breaths were still extremely labored, catching every so often on a stifled gag, and his skin had gone so sallow that it was almost ghastly.
Jayce crouched down next to him, reaching out and cautiously soothing his palm back and forth on Viktor’s back. A thousand questions were swirling about in his brain, but only one seemed pertinent—if Viktor had known, he would have told him.
“You… you didn’t know?” Jayce asked softly, yanking a bit of toilet paper from the roll and handing it out for Viktor to wipe his mouth with. He took it in a terribly trembling hand, nodding his thanks before raising it to dab at his lips.
“N-no,” he said, tossing the wad into the bowl almost angrily. “I… I’ve never… trusted anyone enough to allow it. My previous partners, they… they weren’t… they were never…”
He trailed off, his face twisting into a grimace as his hand strayed down to grip at his bad leg just above the knee. Jayce deflated, his heart aching at seeing Viktor like this; in pain and reeling from a fear he’d planted there.
“It’s not your fault, Jayce” Viktor said suddenly, as if he’d read Jayce’s mind. “It’s no one’s fault. You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me?”
Jayce sighed, nodding somewhat bashfully before he tipped to the side and sat on the cool tile floor—leaning back against the far wall and beckoning with a hand for Viktor to follow.
He did, scooting over with a grimace and throwing his legs over Jayce’s thighs as he leaned his shoulder against Jayce’s chest. Jayce tutted with sympathy as he wrapped one arm firmly around Viktor’s shoulders, and used the other to very cautiously begin massaging at his bad leg—it was definitely going to be sore later, with how hard he’d fallen to his knees in front of the toilet.
“I’m sorry,” he said into Viktor’s fluffy hair, punctuating it with a kiss.
“Jayce, it’s not your fault,” Viktor said, somewhat stern in tone—almost chastising.
“No, I know… I just… I’m still sorry it happened,” he clarified, squeezing Viktor’s shoulders and planting another kiss into his hair for good measure.
“Oh,” Viktor admitted, falling silent as he reached out and gently redirected Jayce’s hand to where he wanted it—just above the kneecap, where muscle met bone. “Yes, me too.”
“Give me the keys,” Jayce demanded lowly, holding his hand out toward Hastings but keeping his eyes trained on the Herald.
Viktor had jolted hard the moment the cyberbullet’s influence wore off, and now he was slowly waking—his body shifting as his systems rebooted one by one; a strange, ethereal hum beginning to fill the quiet of the cell.
Hastings flustered at his side. “What?! I’m not giving you the ke—“
“I do not have time to explain what a grievous error you’ve just made, give me the fucking keys,” Jayce growled, frantically flexing his hand in front of the deputy as Viktor’s augmented eyes began to strobe back to light.
“Give him the keys, deputy.” The voice was Caitlyn’s, and it sounded worried, cautionary—she could hear the barely contained hysteria in Jayce’s voice, no doubt, and knew to trust that it was warranted.
Hastings sighed dramatically, stepping forward and beginning to loudly shuffle through the key ring. “Alright, but each shackle has a different ke—”
Viktor jerked again, his fists flexing in the cuffs, and that was when he went stone-still. The air left Jayce’s lungs, leaving him feeling like he was holding a time bomb… which had just ticked its last tock.
He knows.
“V…” Jayce whispered carefully, his voice shattering as that image of Viktor—sweet, kind, human Viktor cowering against the headboard and shying away from even the gentlest of touches—began to eat its way through Jayce’s heartstrings. He held a hand out toward him in offering, like he might to a fearful animal. “I’m gunna get you out, I just… I need you to stay calm…”
Viktor had a suppressor on his amygdala, maybe… maybe his fear response would be moderated…
But given that his augmented eyes were still strobing and struggling to come back on… it stood to reason that his suppressor had also been knocked out by the cyberbullet. And likely his cybernetic eardrums too, meaning…
Meaning he couldn’t see Jayce, couldn’t hear his pleas for calm—Viktor was waking to complete and utter helplessness, and it was all compounded with one of his worst and most extreme fears. And if Jayce had learned anything about the man that the Machine Herald was, it was this; all his modifications, all his amputations and augmentations… each one was part of a desperate bid to seize back control of his own body. And it was the one thing he refused to surrender, the one thing he’d sooner die than relinquish.
“Fuck,” Jayce gasped in the single second before it happened.
Viktor positively erupted—thrashing violently and yanking against the chains so hard the metal began to creak and groan. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling, as the bolted fastenings on the end of the chains were put to the ultimate test by Viktor’s near-seismic strength.
Sparks flew immediately; Viktor’s frenzied and rabid flailing causing the shackles at his wrists and neck to begin cutting into his more delicate wiring. And through the cacophony of grinding metal and shorting circuits, Jayce could hear that odd snap and resounding tink that he was all too familiar with—twisted, ruined metal giving out and snapping. Or perhaps it was bone… Viktor didn’t have many left, but he did have a few; the delicate radius and ulna of his right forearm. The cervical vertebrae at the base of his skull. Those angular hips that Jayce still, after all these years, found himself admiring—even in the heat of battle, even with blood gushing from wounds Viktor himself had inflicted.
So even though Hastings was practically tossing the keys into his hands as she hurried to back away, Jayce turned and flung himself from the cell, diving for the Mercury Hammer.
“Get clear!” he cried as he swung it upright, yanking on the handle to open the hammerhead and charge the plasma cannon. With hands that had begun to tremble from the stress, he aimed it at the most crucial target—the plating in the ceiling that secured the chain to the collar around Viktor’s neck. He could weather damage to his wrists and ankles, in fact he’d probably relish the opportunity to finally amputate that strange, Hexcore-augmented right hand. But there was a host of delicate hardware in his neck… multiple suppressors, his air filtration vents, the motherboard that connected his brain to his augmented spinal cord, to the Hexclaw. He’d of course reinforced all of it, due in part to lessons learned in bouts against Jayce, but… like diamond, the only thing that could typically hurt Viktor… was Viktor himself.
Jayce exhaled slowly as Caitlyn had taught him—willing his hands to stop shaking as he leveled his sights at the chain plating. It was going to have to be a perfect shot, with Viktor flailing and panicking the way he was, and… he wasn’t masked. If Jayce’s shot was even a few inches off, he could do something he’d never intended to do, not even on his darkest days, not even when heartache and rage made him swing the hammer directly into Viktor’s chest.
“Please,” he whispered despite his shattered faith, closing his fingers around the l-bar trigger and pulling.
By some small miracle, his shot was spot-on; the plasma ball connecting with the steel plating and shattering it, sending the chain flopping against Viktor’s back. The collar remained, but at least there would be no more resistance as he violently thrashed against the remaining restraints.
So Jayce went for those next—aiming his sights on the plating that secured Viktor’s more fragile right arm and blasting that too from the ceiling in a single shot.
But the plasma blasts must have been felt by Viktor, startled him even worse, because his flailing intensified—to the point that Jayce heard an awful snap, followed by a shower of sparks and luminescent fluid from Viktor’s augmented left elbow.
Time seemed to grind to a halt as that sound met Jayce’s ears… the familiar, high-pitched whine that signaled the charging of the Hexclaw. The claw made a wretched grinding sound as it twitched and attempted to spin, but it failed—still secured as it was against Viktor’s chest… the left side of his chest, just over his heart.
“V, no!” Jayce cried helplessly, tilting the Mercury Hammer down and preparing to aim it at the HexClaw’s elbow joint... Viktor would despise him for destroying it, but it was better than the alternative. He just needed… a decent shot… if Viktor would just… be still…
But it was too late.
The entire cell lit up with shades of fiery orange, and Jayce could do little else but watch in stunned terror as the light collected between the claw and Viktor’s armor, sizzling and intensifying until, to Jayce’s abject horror, it broke through with a sickening crack.
The wet sizzling of seared muscle and filament as the beam tore completely through him and embedded into the far wall was immediately overshadowed by Viktor’s modulated and blood-curdling scream.