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Jayce is a brilliant inventor who has pledged his life to the defense of Piltover and its unyielding pursuit of progress. With his transforming hextech hammer in hand, Jayce uses his strength, courage, and considerable intelligence to protect his hometown. While revered throughout the city as a hero, he hasn’t taken well to the attention it brings. Still, Jayce’s heart is in the right place, and even those who envy his natural skills are grateful for his protection in the City of Progress.

A native son of Piltover, Jayce was raised to believe in the principles that made the city great: Invention. Discovery. Not going to Zaun if you could help it. With a knack for understanding machinery, Jayce earned the honor of being the youngest apprenta to ever be offered patronage by Clan Giopara, one of Piltover’s most respected ruling clans. Utterly unsurprised, Jayce took the offer, and spent most of his early years constructing potential hextech devices and designing transformable multi-tools for Piltover’s working class: a wrench that transformed into a prybar, a pickaxe that could morph into a shovel, a hammer that could turn into a demolition beam, if only it had a sufficiently powerful battery. Everything Jayce touched put his contemporaries to shame.

Most things came easy to Jayce, and he could never understand why his peers had so much trouble with what, to him, were simple concepts. As a result, nearly everyone who worked alongside Jayce found him arrogant, dismissive, and unwilling to slow his pace to help his colleagues catch up. As time went on, his patience became shorter, while at the same time, a chasm grew between decorum, charm, and Jayce’s natural demeanor.

Only one person ever managed to match Jayce’s intelligence while also maintaining a healthy indifference to his superior attitude.

His name was Viktor.

The two met at a mandatory Progress Day party, and immediately bonded over how little either of them wanted to be there. They started working together shortly after. Viktor expanded Jayce’s intellectual horizons and challenged many of his assumptions. While Jayce sought to improve humanity via versatile technology, Viktor sought to solve problems inherent to humanity itself, such as physical decay or illogical prejudices. They constantly argued with one another, but their conflicts never got personal – though their methods were different, the two colleagues knew their ultimate goals were very much the same. More than that, they both knew what it was like to be ostracized by their colleagues: Viktor because of his unconventional thinking, Jayce because of his rudeness.

Together, Jayce and Viktor invented a mechanized construction suit for Piltover’s dockworkers – something hearty enough to enhance the wearer’s strength, but light enough that its wearer wouldn’t immediately drown upon falling overboard. However, the two reached an impasse when Viktor’s design for the next version of the suit included a chemtech implant that would increase the wearer’s strength output by tenfold, while also preventing them from getting tired, panicking, or disobeying instructions from their superiors. While Viktor considered this feature a brilliant means of reducing the frequency of construction accidents, Jayce found its indifference toward free will immoral. The two nearly came to blows over the design and ultimately, after Jayce warned the academy of Viktor’s invention, Viktor was stripped of his honors and ostracized from Piltover’s scientific community.

Viktor was the closest thing Jayce had ever really had to a friend, and distraught over their falling-out, went back to working on his own. He grew more insular. His patience toward others grew even thinner.

As Jayce studied in solitude, Clan Giopara’s explorers discovered a raw, blue crystal deep within the Shuriman desert. Though Jayce volunteered to experiment on it (specifically by suggesting the clan’s other scholars wouldn’t be smart enough to get anything out of it), his lack of tact in doing so prompted Clan Giopara to give it to their better-mannered scholars as a form of punishment. Yet, after many months, the scholars reached a unanimous conclusion: the crystal was worthless. A power-drained hunk of rock. The disappointed clan leaders finally handed the crystal over to Jayce, assuming that even he, with his remarkable intelligence, wouldn’t be able to learn anything from it.

Something inside the crystal called to Jayce. No, more than that – it sang to him. He couldn’t explain why, but he knew the Shuriman gem still held mysteries yet to be discovered.

He spent many months running every variety of test on the crystal. He braced it into a cogwheel centrifuge; he superheated it and deep-froze it; he tinkered, and observed, and hypothesized, and beat his head against his copper pantograph. Quite simply, Jayce wasn’t used to working hard: this damned crystal was the first thing that had ever resisted his considerable mental aptitude. For the first time, he realized how his peers must have felt, trying so hard to solve a problem, only to bump against your own limitations. It felt frustrating. It felt unfair.

And it probably felt much, much worse if you were working alongside an arrogant inventor who dismissed your every effort.

Jayce realized that despite how dismissive he’d been toward his fellow scholars, none of them ever gave up. None of them ever stopped seeking the very things that defined Piltover: Progress. Discovery. If they wouldn’t give up, Jayce decided, he wouldn’t either.

And maybe he’d try to be nicer.

Maybe.

Jayce approached the problem from a completely different angle. Rather than trying to experiment on the crystal as a whole, he wondered, why not run more invasive experiments on a smaller shard? Jayce chiseled off a piece of the crystal and suspended it in a liquid alloy. As he sent a voltaic current through the liquid metal, Jayce’s eardrums nearly shattered from the booming baritone note that blasted from the shard. Heat radiated from the crystal and, with a flash, it glowed bright enough to nearly blind him. This was unexpected. This was potentially dangerous. But this was progress. Jayce couldn’t erase the smile from his face as he worked well through the night, into the dawn.

The next day, Jayce was surprised to find his old friend Viktor on his doorstep. Alerted by the massive power spike from the crystal shard, Viktor had a simple proposition.

Since his expulsion from the Piltovan scientific community, Viktor had commenced work on a secret project in Zaun. He’d finally learned how to achieve his dream – how to eradicate disease, hunger, hatred. If Jayce joined him, the two would accomplish more than anyone from Piltover or Zaun could have dreamed of: they’d save humanity from itself.

Jayce had heard a monologue like this before from Viktor. He never liked where it led.

Viktor told Jayce that he only needed one thing for his Glorious Evolution – a power source like Jayce’s crystal. Jayce disagreed, informing Viktor that what he truly needed was a moral compass. Viktor, who had long grown tired of Jayce’s rudeness, leapt upon him, grabbed the crystal and knocked Jayce unconscious with it. When Jayce awoke hours later, he noticed that though the Shuriman crystal was gone Viktor hadn’t seemed to notice or care about the smaller shard.

Jayce knew whatever Viktor was planning, he would only resort to these measures if he were close to completion. Even though he didn’t know what Viktor’s Glorious Evolution consisted of, it probably didn’t have a lot of respect for the free will of others. Without wasting a second, Jayce retrieved the suspended shard and installed it into a massive, transforming hammer – a demolitions invention he’d abandoned years ago for lack of a strong enough battery to power it. Though he had no idea where Viktor might have taken the crystal, he could feel the hextech hammer vibrate, pulling him not north, south, east or west, but down, toward the undercity of Zaun.

The shard, eager to be reunited with the crystal from which it was chiseled, eventually led Jayce to a warehouse in the depths of the sump. Within the cavernous building, Jayce found something horrifying. Dozens of corpses, their skulls sawed open and hollowed out, their brains transplanted into an army of immobile metal soldiers, hooked up to the now-pulsing crystal.

This was the first step in Viktor’s Glorious Evolution.

Jayce’s stride grew less confident as he approached Viktor. He and Viktor had not always seen eye to eye, but this was something else entirely. For the first time, it occurred to Jayce that he might have to kill his old friend.

He called out to Viktor, flinching as the army of robots stood to attention. Jayce asked him to look around – to see what he was doing. Whatever this was – this Evolution – wasn’t the progress they fought for in their youths. He even, to Viktor’s surprise, apologized for acting like such a jerk.

Viktor sighed. He had only two words in response: “Kill him.”

The automatons sprinted toward Jayce, breaking free of the wires connecting them to the crystal and introducing Jayce to another new emotion: panic. He gripped the hammer tight, realizing he’d never actually used it before. When the first golem was within reach, he swung as hard as he could, feeling the shard’s energy surge through his muscles, accelerating the hammer’s movement until Jayce was worried it might fly out of his hands.

It slammed into the automaton, all but exploding it into a hail of metal. Despite the obliteration of their comrade, the other machines didn’t even pause as they rushed at Jayce, trying to pummel him into unconsciousness.

Jayce analyzed the formation of the mechanical wave coming at him and attempted to quickly calculate how to take out the largest number of them with the fewest amount of swings. It was pointless; they were on him before he could swing even once. As he fell to the ground under a storm of their blows, Jayce saw Viktor looking on, not with triumph, but with sadness. He’d outsmarted Jayce and ensured humanity’s future, but he knew that future came at a cost: he couldn’t let his old friend live. Jayce vanished under a sea of swinging metal limbs.

That’s when Jayce, for the first time in his life, decided to stop thinking and just break stuff.

No longer caring for his own safety, Jayce used every last bit of strength he had to break free from Viktor’s automatons. He sprinted to the glowing crystal, and struck it with all of the hextech-enhanced force his hammer could muster, crushing the mystical object.

Viktor cried out in horror as the crystal shattered to fragments, the shockwave blasting them all backward as the army of automatons collapsed lifelessly to the floor. The very foundations of the warehouse shook, and Jayce barely managed to escape before the entire building toppled.

Viktor’s body was never found.

Upon his return to Piltover, Jayce informed his clan masters of Viktor’s nefarious plans. Soon, Jayce found himself a topic of discussion in both Zaun and Piltover alike. Hailed for his quick thinking in a time of crisis, Jayce became a beloved figure (at least, amongst those who hadn’t met him), earning himself a nickname: the Defender of Tomorrow.

Jayce cared little for the adoration of his fellow Piltovans, but took the nickname to heart. He knew that Viktor was still out there, plotting his revenge. One day – maybe someday soon – an awful lot of trouble was headed for Piltover.

And Jayce would be waiting.

Ziggs was born with a talent for tinkering, but his chaotic, hyperactive nature was unusual among yordle scientists. Aspiring to be a revered inventor like Heimerdinger, he rattled through ambitious projects with manic zeal, emboldened by both his explosive failures and his unprecedented discoveries. Word of Ziggs' volatile experimentation reached the famed Yordle Academy in Piltover and its esteemed professors invited him to demonstrate his craft. His characteristic disregard for safety brought the presentation to an early conclusion, however, when the hextech engine Ziggs was demonstrating overheated and exploded, blowing a huge hole in the wall of the Academy. The professors dusted themselves off and sternly motioned for him to leave. Devastated, Ziggs prepared to return to Bandle City in shame. However, before he could leave, a group of Zaunite agents infiltrated the Academy and kidnapped the professors. The Piltover military tracked the captives to a Zaunite prison, but their weapons were incapable of destroying the fortified walls. Determined to outdo them, Ziggs began experimenting on a new kind of armament, and quickly realized that he could harness his accidental gift for demolition to save the captured yordles.

Before long, Ziggs had created a line of powerful bombs he lovingly dubbed ''hexplosives.'' With his new creations ready for their first trial, Ziggs traveled to Zaun and sneaked into the prison compound. He launched a gigantic bomb at the prison and watched with glee as the explosion tore through the reinforced wall. Once the smoke had cleared, Ziggs scuttled into the facility, sending guards running with a hail of bombs. He rushed to the cell, blew the door off its hinges, and led the captive yordles to freedom. Upon returning to the Academy, the humbled professors recognized Ziggs with an honorary title - Dean of Demolitions. Vindicated at last, Ziggs accepted the proposal, eager to bring his ever-expanding range of hexplosives to greater Valoran.

Zaun is a place of wondrous experimentation and vibrant, colorful life where anything can be achieved—but not without a cost. For all its boundless creativity, there is also waste, destruction, and suffering in the undercity, so pervasive that even the tools created to alleviate it cannot escape its corrosive grasp.

Designed to remove the toxic waste claiming whole neighborhoods of Zaun, lumbering mechanical golems toiled in violently hazardous locations. One such golem worked alongside its fellows, fulfilling its programming to reclaim Zaun for the people. But the caustic reality of their mission soon wore away at its robust form, and before long it was rendered inoperative and discarded as useless.

Useless to all but one person. The inventor Viktor discovered the abandoned golem and, seeing the potential still within the inert chassis, inspiration struck. Viktor began a series of experiments, seeking to improve the automaton by introducing a new element that would elevate it far beyond the original scope of its creation.

Hextech.

Implanting a priceless hextech crystal sourced from the deserts of Shurima into the chassis of the forsaken golem, Viktor waited with baited breath as the machine rumbled to life.

Viktor named the golem Blitzcrank after the fizzing arcs of lightning that danced around their frame, an unexpected side effect of the hextech crystal, and sent them down into the most toxic regions of Zaun. Not only did Blitzcrank prove as capable as any of their steam-powered brethren, but they accomplished their tasks with vastly improved speed and efficiency, and as the days turned into weeks, Viktor began to watch something miraculous unfold…

His creation was learning.

Blitzcrank innovated, interpreting and extrapolating on their daily directives. As a result, they did far more to serve the people of Zaun, and even began to interact with them on a regular basis. Seeing his golem progress to the cusp of self-awareness, Viktor sought to replicate his achievement, but found only frustration and failure, as the key to Blitzcrank’s blossoming consciousness eluded him.

Not all of Blitzcrank’s growth was cause for celebration. Concepts like moderation and nuance escaped them, and Blitzcrank would pursue any effort with the entirety of their being, or none at all. They would occasionally overdo or misinterpret the requests of Zaunites, such as smashing down the front of a tenement to admit a single resident who had lost their key.

Or even tearing an entire factory apart.

Dispatched by Viktor to clear a neighborhood of toxic chemicals, Blitzcrank traced the caustic runoff to its source. Reasoning that the most efficient means to prevent further pollution was to eliminate the source of said pollution, Blitzcrank proceeded to destroy the factory, their lightning-wreathed fists not stopping until it was reduced to a mound of rubble and twisted iron.

Enraged, the chem-baron who owned the ruined factory descended upon Viktor, demanding that he destroy the golem or pay a steeper price in blood. Viktor was devastated, having come to view Blitzcrank as a living being rather than simply a tool to do his bidding. He concocted a scheme to smuggle his creation to safety, ready to accept the dangers and consequences of doing so—but as he returned to his laboratory to set his plan in motion, he discovered that Blitzcrank was already gone.

Blitzcrank’s evolution beyond the constraints of their original programming had yet to cease. Having grown into full self-sufficiency, they resolved to take up their mission independent from their creator. Rumors abound that the golem has even begun to upgrade their own form as they labor tirelessly to assist and protect Zaunites without pausing for instruction.

They now patrol the undercity, deciding for themselves how best to shepherd Zaun down the path to becoming the greatest city Valoran has ever seen.

Any fool could have predicted that Viktor would strike back at some point. If one weren’t a fool, one might predict the exact date and time of an attempted counterattack.

Jayce was not a fool.

He stood in his workshop, bathed in sun rays from his skylight, surrounded by dozens of artifacts of his own genius: Gearwork boots that could cling to any surface. A knapsack with articulated limbs that always kept the user’s tools within easy reach.

Greater than all these inventions, however, was the weapon that Jayce now held in his hands. Powered by a Shuriman shard, Jayce's transforming hextech greathammer was renowned throughout Piltover, but he tossed it from hand to hand as if was any other tool from his workshop.

Three sharp taps echoed from Jayce’s door.

They were here.

Jayce had prepared for this. He'd run experiments on Viktor’s discarded automata. He'd intercepted the mechanical communications. Any second, they’d beat down his front door and try to rip away his hextech hammer. After that, they'd try to do the same with his skull. “Try” being the operative word.

He flicked a switch on the hammer’s handle. With an energetic sizzle, the head of Jayce’s masterpiece transformed into a hextech blaster.

He took aim.

Stood his ground.

Watched the door open. His finger tightened on the trigger.

And he almost blasted a seven-year-old girl’s head off.

She was tiny and blonde and would have seemed adorable to anyone who wasn’t Jayce. The girl pushed the door open and walked in with shuffling, tentative steps. Her ponytail swished to and fro as she approached Jayce. She kept her head down, ever avoiding his gaze. He had two hypotheses regarding why she might refuse eye contact: she was hugely impressed to be in the presence of someone so acclaimed, or she was working for Viktor and about to surprise him with a chem-bomb. Her blushing indicated it was likely the former.

“My soldier broke,” she said, proffering a limp metal knight, its arm bent backward at a perverse angle.

Jayce didn’t move.

“Please leave or you’ll probably die.”

The child stared at him.

“Also, I don’t fix dolls. Find somebody with more time on their hands.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“I don’t have any money for an artificer, and my muh–,” she said, stifling a sob, “mother made him for me before she passed, and–”

Jayce furrowed his brow and, for the first time in quite a while, blinked.

“If it’s so precious to you, why did you break it?”

“I didn’t mean to! I took him to the Progress Day feast and somebody bumped into me and I dropped him, and I know I should have just left him at home–”

“ –Yes, you should have. That was stupid of you.”

The girl opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. Jayce had seen this kind of reaction before. Most everyone he met had heard the stories of his legendary hammer and his unyielding heroism. They expected grandeur. They expected humility. They expected him to not be a massive jerk. Jayce inevitably disappointed them.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“Most facets of my personality, so I’ve been told,” he replied without hesitation.

The child furrowed her brow. She shoved the broken doll into his face.

“Fix it. Please.”

“You’ll just break it again.”

“I won’t!”

“Look,” he said. ”Little girl. I’m very busy, and–”

Something flitted across the skylight, casting a quick shadow on the two of them. Anyone else would have assumed it was nothing more than a falcon passing overhead. Jayce knew better. He fell silent. A wry smile spread across his face as he yanked the girl toward his workbench.

“The thing is,” he said, “machines are very simple.”

He lifted a large, thin sheet of bronze and began to hammer its corners with sharp taps. “They’re made of discrete parts. They combine and recombine in clear, predictable ways.” He beat the sheet over and over until it took the form of a smooth dome.

“People are more complicated. They’re emotional, they’re unpredictable, and – in nearly every case – they’re not as smart as me,” he said, drilling a clean hole into the top of the dome. “Now usually, that’s a problem. But sometimes, their stupidity works in my favor.”

“Is this still about my doll, or–”

“Sometimes, they’re so insecure in their inferiority – so desperate to take their revenge – that they make a foolish mistake.” He grabbed a shining copper rod, and screwed it into the center of the dome.

“Sometimes people fail to protect their most precious assets,” he said, nodding at her tin soldier before holding aloft the newly-formed metal umbrella. “And sometimes, that means instead of assaulting my workshop through the more obvious front door, they try to take…”

He looked upward, “...the more dramatic approach.”

He handed her the umbrella, which took all of her meager strength to keep aloft.

“Hold this. Don’t move.”

She opened her mouth to respond, only to yelp in surprise as the skylight shattered above her. Glass bounced off the makeshift umbrella like rain as a half-dozen men leapt down to the floor. Tubes of bright green chems protruded from the base of their necks, connecting to their limbs. Their eyes were dead, their faces emotionless. They were definitely Viktor’s boys, alright: drugged punks from Zaun’s sump level whom Viktor had pumped full of hallucinogens and hypnotics. Chem-stunted thugs who would follow Viktor’s every whim whether they wanted to or not. Jayce had been expecting to see automatons, but Viktor likely couldn’t have gotten so many through Piltover unnoticed. Still, these chem-slaves were just as much of a danger. They turned toward Jayce and the girl.

Before they reached the pair, however, Jayce’s hextech blaster exploded with voltaic energy. An orb of hextech-powered lightning shot out of its core and detonated in the middle of the group. The chem-slaves slammed into the workshop's immaculate walls.

“So much for the element of surprise, huh, Vikto–”

A hulking brute of a machine leapt down amongst the pile of unconscious chem-slaves. It looked, Jayce thought, like a cross between a minotaur and a very angry building.

“Watch out,” the girl yelped.

Jayce rolled his eyes. “I am watching him. Stop panicking. I have the situation well in-ow!” he said, interrupted as the metal beast rammed him in the chest.

The beast sent Jayce hurtling backward. He landed on a rolling cart, his back cracking from the impact.

Grunting, he pulled himself to his feet as the beast charged again.

“That’s the last time you touch me,” he said.

Jayce swung his hextech weapon as hard as he could, transforming it back into a hammer mid-swing. The minotaur lowered its head to ram Jayce again, foolishly ignoring the weapon’s arc.

The hammer found its mark with a resounding crunch. The minotaur, its head caved all the way back into its metal neck, collapsed to the floor. A cloud of escaping steam hissed from its carcass.

Jayce pulled back the hammer again, readying for another attack. He watched the skylight. A few minutes passed. Soon enough, he seemed satisfied the assault was over.

He tried to step back toward his workbench, only to double over in pain, grasping at his stomach. The girl rushed to his side.

“Still hurts where he tackled you, huh?”

“Obviously.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have let him,” she said. “That was stupid of you.”

Jayce raised an eyebrow at the kid. Her eyes widened, unsure if she’d crossed a line. A slow smile crept across his face.

“What was your name?”

“Amaranthine.”

Jayce sat at his workbench and grabbed a screwdriver.

“Gimme the doll, Amaranthine,” he said.

A massive grin broke out on her face. “So you can fix it?”

Jayce smirked at her.

“There’s nothing I can’t fix.”

Viktor’s third arm emitted a thin ray of light that welded metal into his left arm with steady precision. The smell of burning flesh no longer bothered him, nor did the sight of his left wrist splayed open, veins and sinewy muscle fused with mechanical augments. He did not wince. Instead, he felt a sense of achievement gazing at the seamless blend of synthetic and organic materials.

The sound of children shouting gave Viktor pause. Rarely did anyone venture down the fog-bound confines of Emberflit Alley. He had chosen this location for that very reason — he preferred not to be interrupted.

Keeping his left arm immobile, Viktor adjusted a silver dial on his iridoscope. The device contained a series of mirrored lenses that angled light to allow him full view of the street outside his laboratory.

Several children were violently shoving a malnourished boy toward Viktor’s wrought iron gates.

“I doubt Naph will last a minute in there,” said a girl with imitation gemstones embedded above her eyes.

“I bet he comes back with a brass head,” said a boy with a shock of red hair. “Maybe then his brain won’t be dull as the Gray.”

“You better return with something we can sell, or we’ll be the ones to give you a new head,” said the largest one, grabbing the small boy by the neck and forcing him forward. The other children backed away, watching.

The young boy trembled as he approached the towering gate, which screeched as he pushed it open. He passed the front door encrusted with interlocking gears and shimmied through an open window. An alarm blared as he fell to the floor.

Viktor sighed and pressed a switch that quieted the ringing.

The skinny boy stared at his new environment. Glass jars, containing organic and metal organs floating in green fluid, lined the walls. A leather gurney stained with blood, upon which lay a mechanized drill, sat in the center of the chamber. Dozens of automatons stood motionless against every wall. To Viktor, his laboratory was a sanctuary for his most creative and vital experiments, but he could imagine it might seem frightening to a child.

The boy’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Viktor at his workbench, arm splayed open on the table. He ducked behind a nearby crate.

“You will not learn anything from that box, child,” said Viktor. “But on top of it, you will find a bone chisel. Hand it to me, please.”

A trembling hand reached to the top of the crate and grasped the handle of the rusted metal tool. The chisel slid across the floor to Viktor, who picked it up.

“Thank you,” said Viktor, who wiped off the instrument and continued work on his arm.

Viktor heard the boy’s rapid breathing.

“I am replacing the twisting flexor tendons — ahem, the broken mechanism in my wrist,” Viktor said, reaching into his arm to adjust a bolt. “Would you like to watch?”

The boy peeked his head around the crate.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” said the boy.

“No,” said Viktor. “When one eliminates the anticipation and fear of pain, it becomes entirely bearable.”

“Oh.”

“It also helps that my arm is almost completely mechanized. See for yourself.”

The boy stepped away from the crate and sat across from Viktor without a word, eyes fixed on his arm.

Viktor resumed welding a new boltdrive onto the tendons beneath his skin. When he had finished, he sealed the flaps of dermis onto his arm. He drew the beam of light across the seam, cauterizing his flesh and fusing the incision.

“Why did you do that?” the boy asked. “Didn’t your arm work fine as it was?”

“Do you know what humanity’s greatest weakness is?”

“No...” said the boy.

“Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo.”

The boy gave him a blank stare.

“People fear change,” Viktor said. “They settle with fine when they could have exceptional.”

Viktor walked to his stovetop. He mixed a blend of dark powder and Dunpor cream into a saucepan, heating the liquid with his laser.

“Would you like a glass of sweetmilk?” said Viktor. “A weakness of mine, but I have always enjoyed the anise flavor.”

“Um... you’re not going to saw off my head and replace it with a metal one?”

“Ah. Is that what they think of me now?” Viktor asked.

“Pretty much,” said the boy. “I heard one kid had theirs replaced just because they had a cough.”

“Did you get this information directly?” said Viktor.

“No, it was my neighbor Bherma’s cousin. Or uncle. Or something like that.”

“Ah. Well in that case.”

“Would replacing someone’s head even get rid of a cough?” asked the boy.

“Now you are asking the right questions,” said Viktor. “No, I imagine it would not be much of an upgrade. Coughing stems from the lungs, you see. And to your earlier point, I am not going to saw your head off and replace it with a metal one. Unless, of course, you want that.”

“No thanks,” said the boy.

Viktor poured the thick liquid into two mugs and passed one to the boy, who stared longingly at the hot drink.

“It is not drugged,” said Viktor and took a sip from his own mug. The boy gulped down the sweetmilk.

“Are the others still watching outside?” said the boy through stained teeth.

Viktor glanced through his iridoscope. The three children were still waiting by the front entrance.

“Indeed they are. Do you wish to give them a scare?” Viktor said.

The boy’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.

Viktor handed him a sonophone and said, “Scream as loud as you can into this.”

The boy gave an exaggerated, blood-curdling shriek into the sonophone. It echoed along Emberflit Alley, and the other children jumped in terror, quickly scattering to hide. The boy looked at Viktor and grinned.

“I find that fear is more often than not a limiting emotion,” said Viktor. “Tell me something that scares you, for example.”

“The Chem-Barons.”

“The Chem-Barons are feared because they project an air of dominance and often the threat of violence. If no one feared them, people would stand up to them. And then where would their power go?”

“Uh...”

“Away. Exactly. Think of how many Chem-Barons exist compared to how many people live in Zaun. Fear is used by the powerful few to control the weak because they understand how fear works. If someone can manipulate your emotions, they can control you.”

“I guess that makes sense. But I’m still afraid of them,” said the boy.

“Of course you are. Patterns of fear are carved deep into your very flesh. Steel, however, has no such weakness.”

Viktor retrieved a vial containing miniscule silver beads floating in milky fluid.

“That is where I may be able to assist,” he said. “I have developed an augmentation that eliminates fear altogether. I could let you try it out for a short time.”

“How short?”

“The implant will dissolve in twenty minutes.”

“You’re sure it’s not permanent?”

“It can be, but not this one. You might find that without fear, your friends out there lose their grip. Bullies feed on fear, you see. And without it, they will starve.”

The boy nursed his drink, considering the offer. After a moment he nodded to Viktor, who inserted a thin needle into the vial and injected one of the silver beads into the skin behind his ear.

The boy shuddered for a moment. Then he smiled.

“Do you feel your weakness falling away?” Viktor asked.

“Oh yes,” said the boy.

Viktor walked him to the door and twisted a dial to unlock it before waving him out.

“Remember, you can always return if you wish a more permanent solution.”

A wave of fog created a ghostly silhouette around the boy as he emerged from the laboratory. Viktor returned to his workbench to watch the experiment through his iridoscope.

Emberflit Alley was empty, but as soon as the boy walked out his companions emerged.

“Where’s our souvenir?” asked the red-haired boy.

“Doesn’t seem like little Naph has held up his end of the deal,” said the girl.

“Guess we have to punish him,” added the large boy. “We did promise him a new head today, after all.”

“Don’t you touch me,” said Naph. He raised himself to his tallest height.

The bully reached for Naph’s neck, but Naph turned and punched him square in the face.

Blood streamed from the bully’s nose.

“Grab him!” the bully screamed.

But his companions were no longer interested in grabbing him.

Naph stepped toward the bullies. They stepped back.

“Get away from me,” he said.

The bullies eyed each other, then turned and ran.

Viktor closed his iridoscope and returned to his work. He stretched the fingers of his newly repaired arm and tapped them on his desk in satisfaction.

Vi remembers little of her childhood in Zaun, and what she does remember, she wishes she didn’t. Running with the sump-snipe gangs, she quickly learned to use her wits, as well as her fists, to survive. Everyone who encountered Vi knew she could talk—or punch—her way out of trouble. More often than not, she chose the latter.

None of the old-timers from her youth could tell her anything of her parents. Most assumed they had died in one of the industrial accidents that were, sadly, all too common in the undercity. Though she had ended up in the crumbling Hope House orphanage, a notoriously mad sump-scrapper claimed to have found her adrift in a bassinet large enough for two in the ruins of a collapsed chem-lab. In the end, Vi figured some things were best left unknown.

With her wild pink hair, she became a distinctive sight on the streets of Zaun—hightailing from angry shopkeepers in the boundary markets, swaggering through the colorful bazaars of the Black Lanes, or hitching rides up into Piltover aboard the hexdraulic conveyors. Wherever there was a scrape to be gotten into or a scam to be run, Vi was in the thick of it, though she never stole from those that couldn’t cover the loss… and never hurt those that didn’t deserve it.

As she got older, the capers of childhood became more audacious and daring, and Vi formed a gang of her own. Brash and quick to anger, she still relied on her fists a little too much, and was rarely without a black eye or split lip.

She found a mentor in the owner of a bar on the edge of the Lanes, who tempered some of her more self-destructive tendencies. He tried to reinforce her moral code, and showed her how to fight with discipline, as well as teaching her ways to better direct her simmering anger.

In time, Vi earned a reputation as someone who got things done, no questions asked.

Listening to the chatter of the Zaunite miners who frequented the bar, she came to learn when big deals were being made, and how payments were to be delivered. To a chem-baron, this was chump change—but to her and her friends, it would be a fortune. She planned a heist, but knew it would require extra bodies to pull off, so Vi reluctantly brought a rival gang, the Factorywood Fiends, in on her score.

Everything was going fine, until the leader of the Fiends killed the mine owner with a pair of oversized pulverizer gauntlets, and trapped the rest of the workers in the tunnels. Even as both gangs fled with the loot, Vi knew she could not leave these innocent people to die. She snatched up the gauntlets, the wrist mechanisms clamping down painfully on her arms, but she endured the agony long enough to smash open a path to free the miners.

The following day, Vi paid a visit to the Factorywood Fiends. Still wearing the powered gauntlets, she took on the entire gang, administering a beating so legendary that it is still spoken of in the Lanes to this day.

Vi eventually disappeared from Zaun during a time of great upheaval, when tensions with Piltover were running high. Rumors circulated between the gangs that she had been killed in a huge explosion in the heart of the undercity, or that she had turned her back on her friends and struck out for distant lands. The truth, however, finally came to light when Old Hungry’s Scars—a vicious gang whose murder sprees had spread topside—were brought down by a respected sheriff of Piltover and her new ally… Vi.

The former gang leader was now in the employ of the Wardens, and she had replaced the chem-powered pulverizer gauntlets with a pair of brand new hextech Atlas prototypes.

No one yet knows the exact reason why or how Vi came to be working alongside Caitlyn—but given the anarchic nature of the crime wave now sweeping Piltover, speculation runs rife that it might involve a certain blue-haired hellion from Zaun…

Even amongst yordles, Rumble was always the runt of the litter. As such, he was used to being bullied. In order to survive, he had to be scrappier and more resourceful than his peers. He developed a quick temper and a reputation for getting even, no matter who crossed him. This made him something of a loner, but he didn't mind. He liked to tinker, preferring the company of gadgets, and he could usually be found rummaging through the junkyard.

Rumble showed great potential as a mechanic, and his teachers recommended him for enrollment at the Yordle Academy of Science and Progress in Piltover. He may very well have become one of Heimerdinger's esteemed proteges, but Rumble refused to go. He believed that Heimerdinger and his associates were ''sellouts,'' trading superior yordle technology to humans for nothing more than a pat on the head while yordles remained the butt of their jokes.

When a group of human graduates from the Yordle Academy sailed to Bandle City to visit the place where their mentor was born and raised, Rumble couldn't resist the temptation to see them face-to-face (so to speak). He only intended to get a good look at the humans, but four hours and several choice words later, he returned home bruised and bloodied with an earful about how he was an embarrassment to ''enlightened'' yordles like Heimerdinger.

The next morning, Rumble left Bandle City without a word, and wasn't seen again for months. When he returned, he was at the helm of a clanking, mechanized monstrosity. He marched it to the center of town amidst dumbfounded onlookers and there announced that he would show the world what yordle-tech was really capable of achieving.

A brilliant yet eccentric yordle scientist, Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger is lauded as one of the most innovative minds and esteemed inventors Piltover has ever seen. Relentless in his work to the point of neurotic obsession, he is fascinated by mysteries that have confounded his contemporaries for decades, and thrives on answering the universe’s most impenetrable questions. Though his theories often appear opaque and esoteric, Heimerdinger believes knowledge should be shared, and is devoted to teaching all who desire it.

Born into a wealthy and influential merchant clan, Caitlyn Kiramman swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed elite of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.

Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong, even within a life of comfort and privilege. Her mother was one of the highest comptrollers in Clan Kiramman, and would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.

All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.

Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.

Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. The trail eventually led her to a hidden safehouse, where her mother and father were being tortured for information. She rescued them under cover of darkness, and alerted the Piltover Wardens… though not one of the kidnappers they arrested knew the identity of the individual who had hired them—only a proxy with the initial C.

Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed. Her mother in particular could no longer face the politics and duplicity of clan life, and gave up her prestigious role, leaving something of a vacuum in the Kiramman leadership. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to take her mother’s place, nor to learn her father’s trade as an artificer.

Instead, her focus turned toward breaking through the web of intrigue surrounding the mysterious "C". Utilizing her hunting skills, she established herself as a private investigator, and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could find anything or anyone. In recognition of her self-made success, Caitlyn’s parents crafted her a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field.

After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.

She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C".

Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Wardens, always striving to make the City of Progress a better and safer place. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail.

What Caitlyn doesn't know, however, is that "C" is also keeping tabs on her... especially as her investigations bring her ever closer to the truth.

Okay, Zaun. I’m here, I’m fuzzy, and I’m ready to explode stuff.

All that time up there in Piltover serving high-quality pyrotechnics to ungrateful snoots, Heimerdinger making me hide behind that dumb glamour, never allowed to do what I want... It’s left me with a thirst for KA-BOOM!

But was Jinx right? Is the gloomy, stinking undercity teeming with whizz-bang potential?

Let’s see what we’ve got here. What am I looking at? Nondescript building, nondescript building, slightly bigger nondescript building, an explosives factory, another nondescript building, nondes—WAIT, WHAT?

Explosives factory?! Dreams can come true!

I’m not crying. That’s just the Zaun Gray gettin’ all up in my eyes.

Man, the things they must have in there... But it looks so normal. Dull, even. No flashing lights, no sparkling signs... just a rundown pile of bricks and ironwork. It’s like no one even cares how bombs are made. And it’s quiet... GASP! They must have it soundproofed because of all the live bomb testing! I’ve gotta get in there! Ooh, I bet there’s a super secret passageway or maybe you have to blow the front wall off or—

Oh, wait, there’s the door.

Hang on, what’s this?

You’ve gotta be kidding me! Why? How? How could this sacred place no longer be in use? How could anyone be so disrespectful of the creation of lovely explosives and shut it down forever and—what is that noise?

Huh, I’m pretty sure locks aren’t supposed to be all mangled like that. Looks like this door’s been busted open. Let me poke my head around...

I appear to be looking at a pair of disgruntled young humans. Not bombs. Humans. In an empty room. I may be losing interest. They haven’t seen me, at least.

“This sucks,” one of them says. He looks as disappointed as I feel. “You said this place was full of bombs. Well, we’ve searched every corner, and there’s nothing here!”

Stop it now, kid. This hurts.

The other one kicks over an empty crate. “How was I supposed to know they cleared it out?!”

Did neither of them read the sign? I swear, humans never look—

“Whatever,” the first one sighs. Whoa. I wasn’t done thinking my thought. Rude. “I’m bored. Let’s go.”

Not before me—I’m not ready to have my fur ruffled today. See ya, kids!

Man, I can’t believe this. My first venture out in the undercity and I find a bomb factory! Entirely committed to making bombs! That could’ve been home. But no, instead it was the home of shattered dreams.

I’ve gotta do something about this. Yeah. Yes. That’s it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what it was made for...

I’M GONNA FILL THAT PLACE WITH BOMBS!

Oh, hey! Welcome to my lab. Well, Jinx’s lab. She’s letting me crash here while I find my feet in Zaun. She thinks I only exist in her head, so I guess I’m not taking up too much room. Besides, with all her scrap heaps and bits of junk everywhere, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only thing with fur running around this place.

What, these? Just some hexplosives I’m working on. My own design, of course.

These bad boys are gonna give that old factory the send-off it deserves. Let it go out with some dignity.

I can’t leave it as I found it earlier, waiting for another innocent incendiary enthusiast to come along, get them all excited, and then rip their heart right out without so much as a spark. It was a real emotional rollercoaster.

No, I’ll spruce the place up with my own devices, and then they’re gonna go off one after the other like little fireworks. Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tssss! Over and over until the whole place crumbles down in a huge explodey mess.

I call them “Chain Smokers”.

Almost done. I just take this bit here, and this thing here, and... Perfection.

Let’s go blow stuff up!

Okay, I’m back in the building. Come on, “KEEP OUT” sign, you had one job.

My little Chain Smokers are all laid out, ready to show their papa what they can do.

But Ziggs, I hear you say, how are you going to appreciate the products of all your talents if you can’t see them in action? My thoughts exactly. So I’ve got an extra treat for us all: I’m gonna blow the front wall off first!

This big one here’s the Party Popper, and it’s going to create the ultimate peephole!

Alrighty, time to push the button! Three... two... one... Big baddaboom!

...in sixty seconds.

What? I’ve gotta get out of here first—I don’t want to blow myself up!

Come on, come on, come on, I’m ready now! Got this nice pile of junk to hide behind. Perfect viewing distance. And... explode!

Nope. Forty seconds left. Turns out crossing the street doesn’t take that long.

Hey, why did the yordle cross—Oh no, what’re those kids doing back here?! They’re gonna get themselves a faceful of wall if they don’t move soon. Move. Move!

They’re not moving. They’re spray painting the wall. For the love of...

“Hey!” I call from behind the junkpile. “You kids! Get away from there!”

Yeah, that got their attention. A real Ziggs, out in the wild. They’re still standing there, though.

“What? You never seen a yordle before? Seriously, though, you need to move! You’re gonna get hurt!”

Are they...? They are! They’re laughing at me! Well, maybe I’ll just leave them to get exploded, after all! Jinx sure would.

Ohhhhhh, right. Jinx is a psychopath.

Ah! Ten seconds!

And I’m running. I’m running straight at those little sump-punks. Better to be tackled by a yordle than crushed by a building. That’s what I always say.

They’re not laughing anymore. The bigger one’s opening its mouth. “What’re you do—”

“No time! Move!”

BOOM!

We hit the other side of the street just as the wall goes up.

Yes! Bombs away!

Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tssss!

It’s mesmerising. Little lightning bolts striking every surface. Bricks tumbling down. Smoke pouring out, clouding all the locals who’ve come out to watch.

Flash! Bang! Tssss!

Wait, why are all these people staring at me instead of my art?

Flash! Bang! Tssss!

The roof is now completely caved in. It’s magical. No, I told you before, it’s the Gray! I’m not crying.

Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tsssssssss.

Haha! Yes! I can’t help it. I’m doing my happy dance. That was perfect!

Those two kids are looking at me like I just slapped their grandmother. I guess Zaunites are more used to collapsing buildings than gleeful furballs.

Whatever. I’m going in for a closer look.

My Chain Smokers performed just as they should; what was once a solid structure is now a blackened heap of rubble. That useless “KEEP OUT” sign is poking out from under a smashed roof tile. I’m gonna pick it up, a little souvenir for the lab.

Flash! Bang!

Gah! One of those sneaky little hexplosives waited for me to have a front-row seat. I think I’m on fire but—

“Wheeeeeee!”

—I’m flying through the air—

“Aaaaahahahahahaaaa!”

—trailing smoke—

“Oh, it burns! And tickles! But mostly burns! Hahahahahaha!”

—and all eyes are on this furry rocket.

“See, kids? Now that’s how you make bombs!”