Jinx had already forgotten how she got back here.
She staggered as she walked, her head filled with other people's voices.
In a burst of anger, she hurled her pistol away, smashing a cluster of wind-up butterflies.
"You lost her."
"I didn't lose her! She was taken!" Jinx screamed at the mirror.
"She really cares about that Enforcer..."
The door creaked open.
Jinx instantly snatched up her pistol and aimed it without hesitation.
"Easy." Caleb raised both hands. "I came to bring you this."
The Hextech gemstone glowed in his hand.
"You're... the guy who jumped off the tower?" Jinx eyed him with obvious suspicion. "What are you here for?"
"I came to ask you for the hextech cores."
The moment he said that, it was as if Jinx had been dragged back beside that old building all over again.
The blue light from the hextech crystal explosion. Mylo pinned to the wall. Claggor buried along with him...
All she had left now were those goggles and the rabbit toy her sister had given her, little relics that only made her miss them more.
"Silco sent me to make a few more copies. You like explosions, right?"
"Who knows? One boom, and a gemstone's gone."
Caleb's voice seemed to come from somewhere far off in the distance. Dizzy and lightheaded, she dropped to her knees.
Jinx gasped for air, as if she had gone back to the sump with Silco again.
That sinking feeling wrapped around her. She couldn't breathe. She just kept falling lower and lower...
"It's okay, Powder. It wasn't your fault."
Suddenly, something pulled her out of the darkness and brought her back.
"Caleb?" She recognized the man in front of her and immediately shoved him away.
"What are you doing?" she demanded between ragged breaths, staring at him in disbelief. They had barely met a few times, and this guy already thought he could just come over and hold her?
"You looked like you were having a moment, so I came to comfort you." Caleb shrugged, sounding completely casual.
"Where are the hextech cores?" Caleb asked, holding out his hand.
"There." Jinx pulled out a small box. When she opened it, several more cores were inside.
Caleb picked one up and examined it in his hand.
A hextech core.
Something packed with enormous energy, yet so unstable it was even more dangerous than nitroglycerin.
Even though Caleb had only mastered the basics of chemtech and hextech, that was still enough.
Jayce and Viktor's experiments had only succeeded a few years ago, and it wasn't until recently that they had created Hextech gemstones.
And even that only counted as "basic" within the entire hextech system.
After all, hextech could do far too many things—weapons, energy, all kinds of devices, even mechanical bodies.
A stable Hextech gemstone was an immensely powerful energy source, something that could be applied to almost anything.
That was exactly why Caleb had to copy them.
Without it, the Undercity would have no leverage to negotiate with Piltover.
...
"The structure's pretty crude." Viktor removed the outer shell of the grenade, Mr. Chomper, and studied it for a moment before saying, "But the design itself... it's imaginative."
"Do they actually have the ability to crack hextech?" Jayce asked from the side.
"It's too early to say." Viktor examined the explosive in front of him and gave his conclusion.
Jayce had tried taking one apart too, but nearly gotten himself blown up in the process. In Viktor's hands, though, the grenade behaved as obediently as if he had built it himself.
"But there have been rumors," Mel said, standing nearby with a deep frown. "Rumors that the Undercity may already know how to use Hextech gemstones."
"If we assume the worst, they may have already made weapons with them."
Viktor's hands remained steady as he removed the plating around the core, exposing a couple of wires beneath.
"Are those rumors even confirmed?" Jayce asked, turning to Mel.
"If we wait until they're confirmed, it'll already be too late." Mel straightened up.
"Wait. What exactly are you saying?" Viktor turned his head, confused, and looked at her.
Mel paused, then said it anyway. "We need a response. We can't just sit here and wait to be attacked."
"You want us to make weapons too?" Jayce immediately understood what she meant.
"Absolutely not." Viktor's reply was immediate and firm.
"If we do that, then we betray hextech's original purpose." He put heavy emphasis on those last words.
"It would destroy every attempt to preserve peace. Heimerdinger would never support—"
"We're in this situation because Heimerdinger refused to act." Mel cut Jayce off with his own words.
Viktor turned and looked back at Jayce in disbelief.
"The peace has already been broken, Jayce." Mel held his gaze. "All I'm asking is that you prepare to protect your people."
"If we're lucky, we won't even need to use the weapons."
"The choice is yours."
After tossing out those words, she turned and walked out of the room.
"What nonsense." Viktor let out a scoffing laugh. "You're not seriously considering it, are you?"
"But what if she's right? Are we just supposed to stand there and watch while the enemy comes for us?"
"We're scientists, not soldiers." Viktor turned back to argue with him.
"But our science can be used to defend ourselves."
"We agreed hextech would be used to improve lives, not take them." Viktor plucked out one of the wires.
"We might not have a choice!"
Viktor calmly snipped the wire.
Mr. Chomper hissed out a puff of air, then went still.
Seeing the explosive disarmed, Jayce let out a long breath of relief.
"As long as we're alive, we still have a choice."
"I need to think." Jayce turned and walked out of the room as well.
...
"Go back to your camp and tell them to meet at the agreed spot."
Caleb unlocked the Firelight prisoner's shackles and whispered the words into his ear.
The man dashed into the street and disappeared from sight in the blink of an eye.
"The Firelights really are something else..." Caleb murmured, genuinely impressed. To survive while being squeezed from both sides by corrupt cops and Silco meant they clearly had real skill.
"No one follows him," Caleb warned aloud.
Silco stepped out from the shadows.
"Letting the line out to catch a bigger fish?" Silco asked. "No... you're not planning to have those two killed."
"If somebody dies, things get troublesome." Caleb stretched lazily. "I'm an efficiency guy."
"The Hextech gemstones are ready?"
"They are." Caleb took two gemstones from his pocket. "Jinx still has a few more. Here, one for you."
He placed the gemstone in Silco's hand.
"Just what are you?" Silco studied the gemstone closely. It looked exactly like the real thing.
"Does that matter?" Caleb rubbed the gemstone lightly with his thumb and asked casually, "Did the Chem-Barons finally fall in line?"
"A bunch of spineless cowards. The air in the mines was enough to break them." Silco let out a cold snort.
"Well, when their profits take a hit, people get greedy." Caleb looked at the pipe on Silco's statue. "You can't expect that kind of loyalty from them. Not like the Lanes had under Vander."
"...That's true." Silco fell silent for a moment before continuing. "What about your gemstone?"
"I'm going to hand it over to Piltover. And while I'm at it, I'll try to convince them to negotiate." Caleb lowered his head and slipped the gemstone back into his pocket.
"If Zaun wants independence, then Shimmer production will definitely have to stop as part of the negotiations," Caleb went on. "Won't the Chem-Barons come after you like mad dogs?"
"That part's easy." A cold, ruthless light flashed in Silco's eyes. "I was the one who pulled them out of the pit. I can throw them back in just as easily."