"Thank you, thank you, everyone."
Looking at the excited crowd below, Jayce felt genuinely happy too.
People were people. There was no such thing as high or low.
What was more, both sides had originally come together to resist a common enemy.
It was only after Zaun kept sinking lower and lower that Piltover's attitude had become something shameful.
...
Backstage, Viktor came hurrying over and said to Caleb, "I'm not late, am I?"
"Wasn't I the one who told you to get some proper rest?" Caleb went over and helped steady him.
"I came to bring you this." Viktor still had another surgery scheduled for tonight, but he had come anyway.
The pollution of the undercity had ravaged his entire body so badly that there were barely any healthy parts left.
That was why Caleb had said that line, flesh is weak, but glorious evolution awaits.
Caleb took the Hex Claw from him and said in surprise, "This is your work. I can't take it!"
"Just keep it." Viktor struggled over to a place where he could sit down.
"I used it without your permission before. I already felt bad enough about that."
Caleb still wanted to refuse. The only reason he had borrowed the thing for self-defense before was because he hadn't had anything better on hand.
If a wrench could have smacked Ambessa to death, Caleb might have kept one in his pocket too, purely as a scientist, of course.
"You're becoming Zaun's governor. Consider it a gift from me to congratulate you. Just take it."
Viktor was absolutely firm about it.
Caleb accepted the Hex Claw and strapped it onto himself, then looked it over.
"Yeah... this definitely makes me feel more high-end."
He studied himself in the mirror.
The sensation of a third arm extending from behind his back was strange in a fascinating way. After all, it was controlled entirely by thought, and the design was incredibly refined.
Then, accompanied by the roar of an engine, a white-haired figure came charging in.
"Haha, I got so absorbed in the research that I just rode the hoverboard over."
Ekko scratched his head and laughed.
Heimerdinger, meanwhile, finally let go of Ekko's leg and swayed unsteadily, completely dizzy.
"For someone my age, that was still a little too thrilling..."
"Ugh..."
After saying that, he grabbed onto Viktor and started throwing up.
"Viktor, can you still go onstage later?" Caleb asked. "If not, don't force yourself."
"If it helps them trust you more, then yes, I can."
Viktor crouched down and gently tried to calm the woozy little professor.
"Sorry about this."
Caleb knew perfectly well that Viktor hated public attention and feared the way people looked at him.
But once he thought about his future plans, he had no choice but to push Viktor into the spotlight.
His ambitions would never stop with just the Twin Cities.
After all, Valoran was so vast that the Twin Cities didn't even make up half of a real nation in any meaningful sense.
...
"We have come here today to demonstrate our spirit of service, our willingness to embrace one another, and our desire for unity."
Holding the microphone, Jayce finished a brief self-introduction and prepared to bring out the star of the day.
"And because of that, we are willing to use Piltover's resources to help the undercity break free from this terrible environment."
...
"Is this for real?"
"It has to be. Didn't you see? All seven councilors showed up."
"That Talis kid seems pretty capable, but can he really go up against Silco?"
"Hard to say, but Silco already stopped shimmer production. Maybe they reached some kind of deal."
The crowd buzzed with discussion while Jayce was speaking.
Over the years, they had suffered under gang exploitation too. So if Piltover was finally giving them attention now, then while they were thrilled, they still couldn't help muttering to themselves, is this actually real?
Wasn't this just about getting something out of the undercity?
Then again, thinking about it, people from the topside probably wouldn't even care about scraps like that.
"We hereby announce that Zaun will be separated from Piltover's direct rule and will operate within a shared system alongside Piltover!"
The moment those words came out, the people below exploded.
"What does that mean? We don't have to live by the topsiders' rules anymore?"
"Does that mean Silco's gonna be on equal footing with the councilors?"
"No clue if this is gonna be a blessing or a disaster."
"Tch, this could be bad. If they all start working together behind closed doors, then we're all screwed."
Jayce coughed twice to settle the crowd.
"And now, we present to you the governor we have selected."
"He is Caleb, from beyond the Twin Cities!"
The people below fell into confused murmurs as they watched Caleb slowly walk out from backstage.
"Who's that?"
"I think I saw him walking around with Vi before. He even went into Benzo's."
"So he's got connections with both the streets and the big shots? Worse than Silco?"
"What's that on his back? Some kind of claw?"
"Silco's here!"
Nobody knew who shouted it first, but the crowd immediately parted to make way.
Silco and his group of followers walked straight up until they stood before Caleb.
"Well then, first things first, Mr. Silco, please put on the cuffs and head to Stillwater Hold to serve your sentence."
Caleb's very first sentence made the entire crowd suck in a sharp breath.
Silco really did walk up from the side and onto the speaking platform, and right in front of everyone, Caitlyn locked the cuffs around his wrists.
Silco understood perfectly well what Caleb was doing.
The kid was using him to establish authority.
But if they had chosen not to start a war, then this outcome was actually the best possible one.
"As for his men, they will be sentenced to periods of compulsory labor of varying lengths until their terms are complete."
Caleb had no intention of going easy on the remnants of Silco's gang either.
Of course, he could have simply thrown all of them into prison.
But right now, manpower was exactly what he lacked most, and free labor was free labor.
Sevika clicked her tongue in displeasure, but still motioned for the others to line up below the platform.
Without a leader, they were nothing more than a scattered rabble.
Instead of getting hunted down and ending up with one less body part somewhere along the way, they might as well surrender now.
"The Chem-Barons must stop producing shimmer, or die."
Caleb said it bluntly because he had no liking for the Chem-Barons at all.
Honestly, they were just a pack of lunatics who had gotten hold of a formula and decided to build their whole business around it.
Now that Silco had been arrested, they were no longer under the control of a single gang and would each be fighting for themselves.
Expecting them to accept this quietly was almost impossible.
"Some of you may be wondering why you haven't seen Heimerdinger today, the Father of Piltover."
Caleb's words immediately drew the crowd's attention again.
"That's because he has come to Zaun! He'll be helping me design facilities to improve people's lives!"
The moment he said that, a wave of cheering crashed over the whole place.
"So when he came here before, he was inspecting things?"
"And we were so cold to him!"
"We judged him wrong!"
"That's the Father of Piltover, coming to Zaun!"
People talked excitedly among themselves. The surprises just kept coming today.
"At the same time, you've all heard that the topside now possesses a new technology, Hextech gemstones."
"They can power Hextech devices, like the Hex Claw on my back."
"And that technology will be shared with Zaun too!"
That line drew a storm of shocked cries.
They had all heard about the Hexgates already. And now there was something even more advanced, Hextech gemstones.
"The first people we'll share it with are the Firelights of Zaun!"
"And Vander's daughter, Vi!"
Caleb took two steps back as Ekko and Vi walked out from backstage.
Ekko had just used his hoverboard to track Vi down.
"Oh, damn, this is really happening!"
Caleb stretched out his hands and passed the Hextech gemstones to the two of them.
"I should've joined the Firelights!"
"They get Hextech gemstones before anybody else!"
"This stuff's definitely gonna spread more and more in the future!"
"Maybe one day Zaun's air won't be this filthy anymore!"