Archive of Our Own

The streets are empty, doors shut, windows shuttered, as Vi is led through the streets of the Undercity. She allowed them to cuff her hands, and now she’s being dragged along by them. The cuffs are too big, and even as tight as they go, they chafe. If she was willing to take the pain, she could probably pull one of her hands free and slip out of them.

But, she can’t. For Powder. For Mylo and Claggor and Ekko and Vander. For the Lanes.

She wishes that she’d left a better goodbye, but it’s too late now, and there’s nothing she could have said to Powder that makes leaving her baby sister okay. Even if it’s to protect her, she’s leaving Powder behind after she promised not to.

Grayson, the older enforcer, the sheriff, keeps looking at Vi, and Vi knows that she’s seeing Vi’s youth, her naivety. Vi can feel the pity, and her rage snarls and howls inside of her. Vi can’t do anything, but Grayson could. Grayson could choose to stop all this, could choose to not arrest this young girl she pities, could choose not to terrorize the Lanes, but she doesn’t, she didn’t, and now she has the gall to look upset that her thief hasn’t turned 15 yet. At least the younger one, Marcus, actually hates her, keeps shoving her because apparently she’s not walking fast enough.

One such shove, and an uneven part of the road, and Vi falls, her left wrist taking the brunt of the impact before it gives up and her head hits the ground in a burst of pain. She curls up on herself for just a moment, closing her eyes against the sudden dizziness.

There’s a thud. Something wet splashes on her face.

Vi blinks her eyes open. Blinks again. She can’t clear the red from her vision. It’s blood. Not hers. It belongs to the headless body on the ground in front of her, the blood still spurting out of the stump. Vi shoves herself up, away, and trips again over another body. Its throat is slashed. Her wrist aches, yet she forces herself to yank one half of the cuffs off. She bites her tongue to keep from screaming. One or more of her fingers are fucked. She balls her hands into fists anyways.

Bodies and their parts litter the ground. Grayson lies, bent and broken. Vi wants to hurl, but she can’t even breathe right, her breath coming too quick.

Something glows purple in the dark.

“You’re not Vander,” someone says. A looming shadow with one glowing, orange eye emerges from the Grey. It resolves into a man. A scar stretches from his temple to his mouth, a strange black and gray scar with deep lines.

“Who are you?” Vi keeps her fists up. A man couldn’t do this, but he seems too unaffected by the gore to not have some hand in it.

“My name is Silco. I’m surprised he didn’t warn you about me, Violet. Where is Vander?”

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. What did this? What did you do?”

Silco cuts a terrifying figure, and Vi has to be brave now. But, something, some dusty bell in her memory rings with the name. Silco. There’s something she should remember. She has heard his name before. But, the thought passes as quick as it came when a hulking beast stops behind Silco, its veins pulsing that strange purple light. If this was a person, their body has been mutated by some terrible force, and their face —

“Deckard?” Vi asks, and is answered as the monstrous head turns to her. That slimly little toad who attacked her and the others earlier, he’s now this? Vi steps back, careful not to slip in the blood. He growls.

“Don’t try to run, Violet. I’d hate to have to send Deckard after you. He gets so messy,” Silco drawls, gesturing at the mess of flesh on the ground around them. Vi takes another look and has to swallow the bile that rises in her throat. But, she does spot Ekko. She shakes her head at him, as minutely as possible. He has to stay out of this, stay safe.

“What do you want?” Vi asks Silco, “What do you want with me?”

Why am I alive? goes unasked.

“With you? I’ll admit I hadn’t planned for you. But, there’s potential in this situation, in you. As bait, bare minimum. An ally, perhaps, if you aren’t as hard-headed as your guardian. Would you like to take this conversation somewhere a bit more comfortable? The stench of rotting pigs rather sours my mood.”

“I’m not going back to your secret lair with you.”

“You should be glad I’m giving you the option to be conscious. Walk or be carried.”

Vi shuffles towards him. She can’t help but cradle her left hand to her chest. It throbs in time with her heartbeat.

Noise comes from an alleyway, and Marcus stumbles out, vomiting like Vi wants to, at the sight of his destroyed colleagues.

“This is wasn’t the deal!” He yells at Silco.

“Deal’s changed.”

Silco pulls out a knife and slits the young enforcer’s throat. Vi’s ears ring, and her head aches. Silco hands the knife to a goon. He gestures to Vi to follow him, and he leads her away from the cooling bodies. Deckard and the rest of Silco’s goons let them through and then form a wall behind her and Silco. There is nowhere for her to run.

Something itches in her brain, and she picks at it. What is the memory she can’t remember? Why does Silco seem familiar?

…

The cannery on the docks has been abandoned for as long as Vi can remember, but when they get there, it is as bustling as any other factory in the Undercity. People work at forges, or with an odd, glowing ooze that bubbles in smalls vials and one giant tank. They are surrounded by Silco’s men.

“Step into my office,” says Silco. It must have been the foreman’s office when this was a real factory. Vi shuffles into the door’s open maw.

“Sevika?” Vi asks, surprised.

She knows of the woman, more so than actually knowing her. She’s a brawler, a revolutionary who hangs out at the Last Drop. Vander respects her. Vi can’t understand what she’s doing here, in Silco’s office, looking over papers.

“What’s she doing here?” Sevika asks Silco over Vi’s head.

“The info we received appears to not have been the full truth. Vander wasn’t there. Miss Violet was.” Silco pushes Vi towards one of the chairs by the desk. He rounds it to sit behind it. “Sit. Someone will come to treat your hand.”

“What happened to your hand, kid?” Sevika reaches for it, and Vi lets her take her injured hand. Sevika’s gaze is intense when focused, even just on Vi’s hand. Vi hopes Sevika can’t tell what she’s thinking. She tsks at Vi’s hand.

“Looks like you’ve dislocated your thumb, sprained or broken your wrist, and your pinkie might be broken as well. What happened?” Sevika directs the question at both Vi and Silco.

“I broke out of a pair of cuffs.” Vi tilts her chin, trying to look cool instead of in pain.

“She also tripped,” Silco says immediately ruining it. Sevika barks out a laugh.

“Sounds about right for one of Vander’s kids. What’s the plan then? This changes things.”

“It changes the timeline, but we’ll keep it the same as before. And this saves the trouble of having Deckard dragging Vander’s unconscious body here. He’ll come of his own volition.”

“What plan? What are you planning to do to Vander?” Vi asks. She can’t fight and win against Sevika even if her wrist was fine, but she can try. For Vander.

“Justice. Everyone getting what’s coming to them, including Vander,” Silco sneers. His fingers run along the handle of a knife on his desk, before picking it up. The motion, the action, the memory Vi has been trying to find springs to the front of her mind.

“The knife. That’s — you gave me the knife!” She points with her uninjured hand at Silco, who raises his one eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it. I was six; you gave me a knife. It was from Noxus. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me play with it. Said I was too young. You gave Powder the airship mobile that she loved though she said she was too old for it. Mom said that ‘Your uncle Silco was never good with children. Or gift-giving. You’ll have to forgive him.’

“That’s where I remember you from. You gave me a knife.”

The memory grows stronger, as Vi speaks. He had longer hair, really long, and he had it braided. His eye injury hadn’t happened yet. And he smelled like salt and ozone, the scent of the airships. He’d given Mom a string of colorful banners that she hung over the kitchen window, and spices that Dad let them smell before putting them away. They’d had dinner, maybe. She’d gotten to play with the knife that night, before her parents took it away. She’d been so angry. It took Vander promising her to teach her some boxing moves for her to start talking again. She wonders where the knife went.

Silco looks like Vi’s just punched him in the gut.

He schools his features to his frighteningly cool facade, but it’s too late. Vi remembers him now, and she’s seen him. Whoever he is now, Mom and Dad told her to call him ‘Uncle’ once upon a time.

“A knife?” Sevika chuckles, “For six year old?”

Silco glares at her. But, Sevika just smirks right back.

A henchman knocks at the door, and, after a wave, scuttles into the room. Sevika grabs the kit from him and kicks him back out the door. She leans against Silco’s desk and takes Vi’s injured hand again. Vi’s stupid teenage heart kicks up again.

“So, Violet, how’d you end up arrested by Enforcers?” Silco changes the subject.

“The explosion that happened in Piltover, that was my fault. I ran a job, and we set off an explosive that we didn’t know about. I couldn’t let everyone in the Lanes suffer because of my mistake. So, I turned myself in.”

“My informant said that the message came from Vander.”

“Yeah, Grayson, the sheriff, she came by to threaten Vander the other day. Said if the culprit didn’t come forward soon, there’d be a full scale invasion into the Undercity. Big pressure from topside since there was something weird in the apartment that blew. She gave him a message tube, said she’d take it easy if he handed the culprit over. I stole it and sent it.”

“Something weird in the apartment? How so?”

“Dunno.” Vi shrugs even as Silco’s gaze narrows. She doesn’t really have any more information and she won’t endanger Powder by telling him about the blue stones.

Sevika chooses then to pull on Vi’s pinkie and snap it back into place. Vi can’t help but scream. The aches fades however, now that the finger is back in position.

“One more,” Sevika warns, as she yanks on Vi’s thumb. Vi screams a little less that time. When she goes to wiggle her newly aligned fingers, Sevika stops Vi.

“Nuh-nuh, kid. You do that and your fingers are gonna start dislocating for fun down the line. You gotta keep them still. Limited movement for at least a week, and then you’re gonna have to strength the joints again.” Sevika wraps Vi’s pinkie and ring finger together and Vi’s thumb to the side of her hand, before starting to wrap up her wrist.

“I’m serious. Rest the hand as much as possible, or you’re never gonna live up to that brawler’s reputation that you’ve started growing.”

Vi grins. Even if Vander doesn’t want her fighting, it’s pretty cool to be noticed by one of the best brawlers on the Lanes.

“Oh, Janna weeps, whatever will we do without another punch-happy pup on the streets,” Silco groans, “Likely, I gave you the knife, so you might learn that some problems are better solved in ways besides your fists.”

Vi can’t help herself; she laughs. It’s an odd mirror to what Vander’s always telling her. Fists are apparently never the answer, but where Vander wants her to use the peaceful option, Silco is telling her to be more precise about her violence. She can tell the adrenaline is starting to fade and she’s crashing, because she can’t stop laughing. The confused looks that Silco and Sevika send each other just cause her to continue laughing. Tears well up in her eyes. Between two breaths, her laughter turns to tears. Giant, aching sobs she had thought she’d grown out of. Embarrassing. But she can’t stop. Everything is so much.

She wants Vander and his massive hugs that make her feel small and safe. She wants the smell of axel grease and rough hands in her hair.

She leans over and empties her stomach onto the floor of Silco’s office. Silco, who has kidnapped her and saved her life, who must be some sort of chem baron revolutionary, who was her parents’ friend, who holds her life in his hands, who she can’t be sure about even as he jokes with her.

A hand starts rubbing her back.

Slowly, she gets her breathing under control, and the hand disappears. She focuses on the in and out of the air in her lungs, and soon her sobbing is under control as well. Vi wipes her eyes and blinks them free of tears. Sevika is gone, but Silco has rounded his desk. He stares at her, possibly considering that his bait has lost her mind.

“What?” Vi tries to sound tough, but it comes out all snotty and wet and weak. She rubs her nose on her sleeve and ignores the taste of bile in her mouth.

“Use a handkerchief,” Silco scoffs, as he hands her one.

Vi glares at him and blows her nose. She tries to do it as messily as possible. Silco just gazes in that impassive way of his. The unblinking eye helps.

“Are you going to kill me?” She asks, “Are you going to kill Vander?”

“Maybe. When I was informed that Vander had made a deal with the Enforcers, I thought he had betrayed me again, and I did want to kill him for that. I was surprised to find a 13 year old instead.”

“I’m 14. My birthday was two weeks ago.”

“Apologies.”

“That’s not really an answer. And when did Vander betray you for the first time?”

“The night your parents died. See, we were friends once. Vander, Felicia, Connol, Benzo and I. We were revolutionaries, dreamers, dreaming impossible dreams. We started small. Getting the Grey out of the Fissures. Felicia, your mother, she could get people to do what she wanted; she could get them to listen and organize. Organize we did. The children of the Fissures, united as one, fighting, we brought Piltover to the table and made them fold. Our dream got bigger. The dream for a better future, an independent Undercity, the nation of Zaun.”

Silco’s eyes go distant as he speaks. He sounds wistful, and the harsh fire of his orange eye calms like embers. It stares at her, but he gazes into the past.

Zaun, another name Vi has only heard whispers of. She’s seen Vander shut down in sadness when it’s been mentioned. Benzo’s eyes go hard. When Silco speaks of it, Zaun isn’t as improbable as it seems. He believes in it. He can’t help the honesty of his own belief.

Silco continues, “A short time after you were born, I went abroad. We agreed that someone should see if we could get international support, if Runeterra would support a new nation, or would we be fighting for independence and our continued existence? I traveled for many years, sending word back about the things I’d seen and learned. I moved too often for them to send regular mail back, so the sporadic updates had not prepared me to come home and find them softened by time. The Last Drop had flourished under Vander as a bar, not the organization’s home as we had imagined it. His gauntlets hung on the wall, unused for years. You and your sister had grown like sumpweed, parasitic, and they had lost that fervor we used to possess. They were like ghosts to me. And I am sure, to them, I was a strange, angry poltergeist.

“It didn’t take too much to get organized again. They were still believers in Zaun. Vander, especially. We organized what was supposed to be a peaceful protest on the bridge. Your parents died. And when I suggested that their sacrifice shouldn’t be in vain, that they shouldn’t have died for nothing, Vander tried to drown me in the river. We fought. This is the result.”

Silco gestures to his scar, but something makes Vi think he means something deeper. Silco’s account of her parents differs from Vander’s, but it almost makes sense. He’s been grieving them for longer, and the grief is a sharp, angry thing. It’s not like Vi’s grief, but they rhyme in certain ways. The pain of being left behind, the rage at Piltover that took them, the struggle of going on alone, and the undeniable change that happened on the bridge. Vi became an orphan; Silco became a wraith. The timing is strange as far as Vi can tell, but her own memory of the night is warped by grief. Silco’s must be warped as well.

Vander asked what she would be willing to lose to hurt Piltover. Silco has already lost everyone, hasn’t he?

Vander’s gauntlets still live on the wall.

“So, revenge, you do want to kill him?” Vi asks.

“I want to show him what he showed me that night. The thing I finally understood when the filth and toxins of the river mixed with my blood. The only way to defeat a superior enemy is to stop at nothing, to become what they fear.” Silco smiles, cruel and cold, “Tell me, Violet, what will the Hound of the Underground do when one of his whelps is threatened? What will he do to protect you? Or is he as tamed as the rumors say?”

“He wants peace. That’s not a bad thing.”

“Peace? This isn’t peace. He might have convinced himself, convinced the Lanes, convinced you, that it is. This is just another kind of violence. They call it peace because the boot, the belt, the gun, isn’t on your throat, not yet. But it’s waiting, where you can see it in the corner of your eye. They’re always watching, waiting, to remind of your place beneath them in the gutter, in the dark, in the Grey. The violence of toxins in the water and air, no place to grow our own food. They don’t need to hurt us directly when they control the environment to do it for them. There’s never been peace in the Underground. And after tonight, there is no peace to cling to. The boot is coming down.”

Vi comes to the realization as Silco says it. A dozen or so enforcers dead in the Lanes, including the sheriff. They won’t be any peace. It’s her fault. If only she hadn’t tried that stupid job.

“It sounds like you’re planning for war. People are going to die. Our people.”

“Have you heard of Shimmer?” Silco hold one of those purple vials. Vi shakes her head, and Silco continues, “It would be limiting to call it a drug. It has many near miraculous properties. Highly flammable for one. But, the one that interests me, is what happens when this particular strain is put into a person.” He pulls out a device. It looks like a gun except it has a needle instead of a barrel. Silco sets it on the desk, pointing the needle at Vi. She shrinks back from it and from him. He stares at her with that impassive gaze.

“When you ingest this, it enhances speed, strength, durability, size. Makes you harder to stop. You saw what it did to Deckard. It makes men into monsters. Imagine what fighters, empowered by Shimmer, could do.”

“You won’t win a war against Piltover like that.”

“I don’t need to win. We just need to make a statement. A message.”

“How many innocent people will you kill for your message? Deckard’s barely human with that in him. How many of us are you willing to throw away?”

“There are no innocents in Piltover. They are all complicit!”

“There are children!”

“Do they care about Zaun’s children?”

“Do you?!” Vi yells, standing up from the chair. Silco snarls at her, pushing her back down, knife to her throat. She tries to think, but her brain is screaming, Knife! Knife! Knife!

“Were you not a child when Piltover left you orphaned? How many are like you or less lucky? And you’d do well to remember, that your luck holds because you are more useful alive, but even dead bait can catch big fish.”

“Where were you when we were orphaned? And you would kill me now, for asking a fair question? Would you have killed my mother for doing the same? What are you willing to lose?”

“For Zaun? I’d burn the world,” Silco spits.

She searches his eyes and sees it. The inferno in that dark eye, it’s all he has. All Silco has is his revolutionary flame, and he will feed anything to it to keep it burning even as it burns him too. It will eat him, consume whatever is left of her uncle, if he tends to it alone. Perhaps it already has, and she’s trying to convince herself that inferno won’t burn her too.

“You’ll fight a war with the world for what? To be baron of what’s burnt? To lord over the ashes?”

“To be free, Violet. True freedom.”

“There has to be a better way. One with less death. Don’t burn Zaun to free it.”

“The base violence necessary for change is a price that must be paid. Piltover will pay it.”

“Our people will pay it. They will suffer. No one wins in war.”

“They are already suffering. At least, now it will matter.”

“No, it will be different.”

“Of course it will be different. It will end.”

“There has to be a way that we can fight without sacrificing more of our own.”

“Oh, does there? Well, if you find it, please enlighten me. Tell me your non-violent plan for independence, and I—”

A large crash echoes through the cannery. The sound of a door being kicked off its hinges.

“Silco!” Vander roars, and it echoes up, into the office, to Vi. She jumps from the chair, not caring that she steps in her own vomit as she sprints out. She hits the walkway railing and sees Vander below.

“Vander!” She yells, tears springing unbidden.

“Vi!” Vander punches two goons out of the way and rushes towards her. Vi stumbles down the stairs and jumps the last ones into his arms. His gauntlets drop, as he brings his arms up to catch her. Vander stumbles at the force of Vi slamming into him, but he doesn’t drop her. Vi clings to him like she hasn’t since the bridge.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she sobs into his shoulder, blabbering her apologies.

“It’s alright. It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you,” Vander soothes her although she barely hears it. Vander sets her down and looks her over, sees her injuries.

“Did he hurt you?” Vander examines her bandaged hand.

“No, no, I fell. And I dislocated my thumb, getting out of the cuffs. Silco actually got me fixed up.”

Vander sighs with relief, knocking his forehead to hers.

“Well, isn’t this touching?” Silco sneers, as he descends the stairs towards them. Vander shoves Vi gently behind him.

“Silco,” Vander growls, “What did you do?”

“Vander, it’s okay.” Vi pulls on his arm. “Silco saved me.”

Some of the fight goes out of Vander. He’s still suspicious; he keeps himself between Silco and Vi.

“A generous interpretation of events, Violet. And I must say, except for the vomit on my floor, you’ve been an intriguing hostage, if nothing else. Reminded me of a young man I once knew.”

“What do you want?” Vander asks.

“Our dream. Do you remember? The nation of Zaun.”

“How does Vi play into that? Were you going to turn her into one of your monsters?”

“If she wanted to give herself to the cause in that fashion, I wouldn’t stop her. But, no. She was a pawn to get you here.”

“If you’re going to kill me, then let her go.”

“There was a time I wanted to. I hated you. And I respected you. Until a little blue birdie told me that you’d been making deals with the pigs. Then I wanted to kill you again. But, it turns out it was Violet, making deals in your name.”

“Make your point or let us leave.”

“Would you fight for Zaun, brother?” Silco sneers, “Or will you roll over and die?”

“This war you want, it doesn’t end the way you think it does. Even with your monsters, we won’t win a war against Topside.”

“We don’t have to. We just have to scare them. They’ll never fuck with us again.”

“You’ll throw lives away for what? Pride?”

“Respect! Opportunity. Everything they’ve denied us.”

“Respect? Is that what this is about? You had my respect, the Lanes’ respect—”

“Stop! Stop. It’s too late.” Both men turn to look at Vi. She continues, “It doesn’t matter now. Everything is already in motion. Topside won’t let that massacre go unanswered. They will demand blood. War is coming, Vander. You can’t stop it.”

She stands in between them, pushing Vander back from where he's up into Silco’s face.

“Nobody wins in war, right? But, we don’t have to lose. We will lose if we fight each other instead of the real enemy. If we poison ourselves to win, it won’t matter, because the poison means we lose anyways. Our people, the people of Zaun, they aren’t expendable. There has to be another way. Both of you, you have to figure out another way.”

She turns to Silco. “Are you willing to not burn the world?”

She looks to Vander. She searches his eyes for understanding. She needs him to understand this, to understand her in this moment. She can’t lose him. “You can’t protect us, not from what’s coming, not alone.”

“For Zaun,” Silco declares, extending his hand for Vander to shake. Vander looks at Vi. She pleads with her eyes as best she can. He gives her a small smile.

“And the people who live here.” Vander shakes Silco’s hand.

For Powder, Vi thinks to herself.

And they get to work.