Scattered 5.12

2001, July 10: Washington, DC, United States

I sat in my room, Number Man's preliminary report clenched in hand. Six-point-four million people lived in Hyderabad. An estimated three-point-six million were dead or missing and practically all the rest were otherwise displaced. I let that number roll around in my head. Leviathan had hit somewhere completely unexpected, and thus completely undefended. Add in India's crowded cities and relatively poor infrastructure and this number seemed inevitable. People were calling it the single biggest loss since Kyushu.

The Musi River basin was more like one giant lake now. Survivors were rowing between collapsed ruins of skyscrapers that jutted out like islands. Pictures of people making cooking fires out of broken furniture were making their rounds. Their eyes were the eyes of people who didn't know whether to laugh or cry such was their disbelief. I'd felt that only once before in Busan.

The Indian government had prepared billions of dollars in aid, except they were located near Chennai, Mumbai, and other coastal cities. Redirected supplies were only just now starting to trickle into the broken city, four days after the attack.

I felt numb. Distant.

I'd done all I could, I told myself, but that excuse felt increasingly hollow.

It was so easy to read the numbers and accept the statistic, to close off my heart and go no further than that. It was easy to go with the flow of my Ymelo, to allow it to dampen my grief.

I couldn't. I couldn't because that would mean dampening my empathy. This wasn't why I built the Ymelo.

I had to care, because I feared that if I didn't, no one else in Cauldron would.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. As always, Fortuna was there in the brief moments when I stopped paying attention. As always, she inserted herself into my mental conversation seamlessly. "You don't have to care."

"Who else will?" I asked bitterly.

"The ones who are broken will care. The mothers who fish their children's corpses from the river will care. But you are not they."

"You're fucked up."

"I've never denied it. But you have done all that is in your power. You know this. You are not responsible for the millions."

"Then why don't I feel any better?" I bit back sarcastically.

She laid down on my bed and leveled me with disinterested eyes. "Because you are not me," she said with an ambivalent shrug. "You are not the doctor. Nor Alexandria. Nor Number Man. You are Yusung. Hyunmu. So you care, even when you know it was not your fault."

"If I remembered more clearly-"

"You would still be here, tearing your own heart to pieces as you oscillate between deep empathy and the Ymelo's artificial calm. One million or three, it would not matter. You would care because you are not us."

I tried to laugh but the sound came out raw. "Would… Could you…"

"No. You also know this. The Path is not almighty. I cannot magically move six million people out of Leviathan's way any more than I could evacuate all of Naples. You were not this saddened last year. Why now?"

"I… I guess I hoped," I whispered. "I hoped that this one would be even better than Naples…"

"And hope is the most insidious disease of all," she finished for me.

"Is this your way of making me feel better?"

"No. That path involves narcotics you would never forgive me for. I don't need you to feel better. I need you to use this loss to drive yourself. It helps to talk to another and no one else is in a position to do so with you. Rational discourse will let you accept the efforts of your Ymelo more readily by reframing your grief. There will be well-wishes from the Phoenix Wards when you speak with them next, but such would sound like mockery coming from me."

"Fuck you. And fuck your Path," I said, but I was too mentally exhausted to add any heat to the insult.

"You cannot save everyone."

"I know."

"But you want to try anyway."

"I do…"

"Then try. Struggle. Build."

She was helping, in her own fucked up way. Her Path was blind to endbringers. Even now, days later, it probably hadn't settled with all the triggers expected in Hyderabad. So, she was here, doing what she could. She'd decided to motivate me, whether by buoying my spirits or filling me with spite, it didn't matter.

The drive mattered.

"Something that could face an endbringer…"

"You can." It was not a question.

I thought of Hextech Galio and Alistar. Dr. Heimerdinger's T-Hex. Of weapons and systems I could build that would not require my direct presence. "I can… Something to hold the line until I mature…" I whispered. "It might take years…"

She smiled that thinker-smug smirk that made me want to slap her. "We have years. What do you need?"

X

Fortuna hadn't made me feel better, not really, merely redirected my moping to something more productive. We spent hours like that, just talking about what upscaling my industrial production might look like. I showed her designs for more advanced Wrenchbots, robots that could be automated to perform more complex tasks than simply fetch tools or water the more dangerous plants in Babylon. I gave her a rough idea of the size of the production facility I'd need if I wanted to make a Hextech Galio of my own out of Petricite.

Or, to be more specific, facilities. It looked like I'd need a dedicated foundry just to make tons and tons of brightsteel, Demacia's Petricite alloy derivative, another to shape the metal into the outer shell, yet another to make the internal components, and still one more to put it all together. It was the kind of undertaking that most countries couldn't manage.

Everyone liked thinking about piloting a gundam or a jaeger or megazord or what have you, but no one wanted to think about the logistics of building one.

Years. Years of work, but with Unsealed Spellbook and Cosmic Insight, at least I felt like I was finally at the starting line.

Then, my attention trailed to the side and came to rest on the Mask, that other thing that might let me compete with an endbringer. It was as though I was being drawn in. It had rebuked my attempts to work on it before, but it now seemed to beckon to me.

Before I knew it, almost as though it had taken on a life of its own and jumped into my hands, I'd begun to carve. My hands were firm and steady yet gentle with reverence for what it represented. Just as before, Isolde took the thinnest possible shavings with each cut. I had begun to smooth out some of the imperfections near a brow when the world shimmered around me. Just as before, the mana I was infusing into the Mask reached a crescendo.

And then, I was somewhere new.

"Another vision," I whispered. With curious eyes, I looked around.

This time, I was a bit more cognizant of my surroundings. The vision was an expected outcome; the World Rune was using my own act of creation as a bridge. It promised renewal and purpose, rest and hope in the same breath. Most of all?

It promised power.

I looked around to find myself in a temple I could not name. Everything was vaguely oriental, not that that meant much. I was clearly in Ionia, but where? Navori? Shon-Xan? Bahrl? The many disparate cultures of Ionia were not as readily identifiable as the flowing script unique to the Helian people.

No matter where I was, the view was breathtaking.

The temple was located atop a high cliff and the garden in which I found myself overlooked the crashing waves. Below me, spires of limestone jutted out into the sky like gnarled fingers, their edges shaved away until smooth by the waves and winds.

Here, by looking at the way the shadows fell, I could see that the sun was halfway past the horizon, though given my sudden relocation, I had no idea if I was facing east or west, dawn or dusk.

As beautiful as the scenery was, I found my attention drawn to two figures. Both were masked, but one could not be more different from the other if they tried.

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The first was short and squat. He had two pairs of scrawny, stick-like limbs and wore a shirt of green leaves and a robe of bark. He was about the size of a yordle, but nothing could make me mistake the tremendous mana wafting from him for that of the mischievous not-faes'. His magic sang of the tides and the sea, that origin from whence all life came. His mask was red and white, with a prominent "lip" that could be mistaken for a moustache. At his side was a staff made of wood that I just knew was older than the entire Ionian civilization.

The second was a bird, a vulture, who perched on a tree just behind the first. She, for I knew her to be a she, wore a cowl made of some unknown leaf and a necklace of bones, ribs or perhaps fangs of some great beast. Her magic whispered of the sky and the evening breeze that blew before an unrelenting storm none could avoid. Her mask boasted a long, crimson beak that would have looked outrageous on anyone else.

I didn't dare mock it for I recognized them. And with them, I knew where I must be. This temple belonged to the Kinkou Order, those legendary assassins and caretakers of the Balance.

"Oho, a guest," the first spoke. His voice was low and soft but not unkind. "Come, come. You must join us for tea."

"Yesss," the vulture let out a sibilant hiss. "Come and join us, little star."

Warily, with great reverence, I took a seat. I made sure to sit on my knees, mindful of the tradition of these lands. Why? They wouldn't care. And yet I did, the small things one focuses on in moments of turmoil…

Before us, a table of blood-red cedar sprouted from the earth, its edges rimmed with branches and leaves that shone like emerald with new life. I was looking and yet, I wouldn't have been able to point out just when the mugs of tea appeared. Still, I took a sip as to not be rude.

"I am here."

"You are," the first rumbled.

"And yet, who are you?" the second added.

"I am He Who Inspires," I spoke without much thought. It seemed the right thing to say, what I said to the Mother the first time.

"You are. And yet you are more."

"You are. And yet you seek more."

"What is it you seek, little star?" the vulture whispered her question.

I opened my mouth to speak, only for the not-yordle to shake his head subtly. There was more to this question, more to this dream.

'What do I want?' I asked myself as I stared into my reflection in the cup.

It was a simple question, but also one loaded with hypotheticals and what-ifs. I wanted Scion's death. I wanted Earth-Bet to not be such a shithole. I wanted to kill Leviathan, for all the people sure, but if I had to be honest with myself, I wanted to kill him to prove myself. I wanted to prove that I could conquer the ocean, prove that I could rise beyond the trigger that brought me to this world.

"You're warmer," the Wave said. Even through his mask, I could tell he was smiling.

'Warmer, but not there yet,' I mused.

Was I so simple? No, I wasn't the sort to be driven by revenge, nor the desire for a worthy challenge. Those were factors, but they weren't me.

It came down to a simple question: What next?

What would I do once I killed Scion? What would I do once the endbringers were gone? I could rule the world, or even the multiverse of earths. I could usher in a new era of magic and science. I could prove the two weren't mutually exclusive as I innovated countless treasures and wonders that would boggle the human mind. I could…

I banished the notion. That wasn't me either; I was no emperor or god-king. I loathed shackles on my person; it was why the thought of Camille still made my heart clench. I couldn't impose my rule on others. Not now, not ever.

But Inspiration… It was the act of creation that called to me.

Ultimately, that was it. I wanted to inspire, but not control. Delight in the creation of others, but never possess them. I wanted to save, but not dominate. If this brief stint into Cauldron's upper echelon had taught me anything, it was that responsibility did not suit me.

Let another claim that crown, I decided. I for one would be glad for it.

And yet, responsibility was mine nonetheless. It was not thrust upon me. Uncle Ben was wrong. With great power came great possibility. Responsibility… Responsibility was something I had chosen to uphold of my own will.

I'd chosen to make the world a better place. I'd chosen to join Cauldron. I'd chosen to become their moral compass.

I'd chosen, and until I chose to lay down that crown, heavy it would sit on my head.

I had my answer.

I phrased my words carefully. "I seek the waves that bring new life. I seek to stem the winds that sweep away so many."

"All things exist in balance, little star," the vulture warned. Every word made the air crawl with potential and dread in equal measure.

"They do. The wind cannot be locked away, but I wish to temper the gale and nourish with new waters. I seek to give those in my care time to bloom before the inevitable storm."

"A delay… You can only defer so long…"

I looked at her, at the Last Wind. Three million deaths… "Then I seek to understand," I spoke solemnly.

It was the First Wave who spoke. "A worthy answer, little star. You will ride the waves and winds. Call to us, and may you find your destiny."

He did nothing special that I could tell, but the world around me faded to nothing. In moments, I was back in my room. The Mask was closer to being complete. I must have been carving even as I had my little spirit-quest, because the edge of one eyehole and brow now boasted an elaborate pattern of waves. Or perhaps it was the wind, so intricate was the detail that it was impossible to tell.

X

2001, July 13: Washington, DC, United States

Building a gundam was hard work. Unfortunately, it was also officially unsanctioned work. Legally, a Ward was employed by the government, which meant we had to follow the local laws concerning the protection of minors from exploitation. Technically, in DC, that was forty-eight hours a week at the absolute most, but that law was written with the orphan looking after his two little brothers in mind. Most Wards in fact worked twenty-five hours, if that.

I was already stretching things, not having school to worry about and all, but there was another problem: Wards couldn't be knowingly asked to participate in A or S-class threat response.

Strictly speaking, I was one of four Wards in the entire country with an official "S-class" loadout, that being my Dream Blossom Censer. If it were up to the bureaucracy, I wouldn't have had that, but I'd made the Censer in a moment of extreme duress. The other three had similar stories.

All that to say, I couldn't be asked to make a gundam to punch Behemoth in the face. Officially. Which of course meant we, Rebecca, Eugene, and I, were doing it all unofficially on Babylon while using Rubedo's potions-making as an excuse for my absence from the Madhouse.

The release of Unsealed Spellbook and my foray into mass production taught me something: The "hextech" Champions I could make were not native to the Runeterra I knew. They belonged to an alternate universe from which the hextech line of skins could be sourced. There, a boom in magi-tech known as the Hextech Renaissance, took all of Runeterra by storm, to such a degree that Jarvan left his precious Demacia behind to experience the martial innovations of this new technology.

I swore I'd get around to making Jarvan's weird forked lance… someday…

That realization taught me that the World Rune was growing. Infinity couldn't grow, not really, but it was taking on a different shade, my shade. Just as Inspiration shaped me, I was shaping it. Otherwise, there was no way for Inspiration to have drawn from that particular line of skins, a line that did not exist on the Runeterra it originated from.

I suspected that it was only possible due to two factors: First was our strengthening connection. Just as the Mask Mother's will seemed to bleed through to the Mask, my own will and desires were influencing the database Inspiration drew from. Second was that none of the principles were new or unusual. Hextech existed on its Runeterra so scaling up was permitted.

We were in the early stages of planning and land all over that world was being zoned off for construction. There would be more hands-on things for me to do later, but at the moment, the best thing I could do was to build the Hex Core unique to Viktor and toss them all the blueprints for Piltover's factories that I could.

I carefully adjusted the last piece of wire that went into the Hex Core prototype. It looked a lot like Tony Stark's arc reactor. In truth, that wasn't an accident. If I could make an ice-zombies joke with my shoes, I could rip off one of the most brilliant engineers in fiction.

No shame.

As brilliant as Viktor was, the Hex Core he made did have room for improvements. I found that the easiest way to improve on his work was to incorporate some of the wonder-materials available all around Runeterra. Viktor, for all his genius, never had access to the sum total of that world's expertise after all.

This train of logic led me to produce brightsteel, the Petricite-infused metal used to armor the Demacia's elite formations. It unfortunately wasn't as hard as Neo-Petricite, but nor did I require Metalmaru's cooperation. It would have been impossible to secure enough Neo-Petricite for Hextech Galio anyway.

Brightsteel, like every rendition of Petricite, absorbed and stored mana. It was also magnetic, as expected of a ferrous derivative. The stored mana could then either be channeled elsewhere or fed back into the Hex Core using a series of electric currents to "overcharge" it for an exceptional output. Because it could be made to release mana on demand, brightsteel became an extremely important part of my new Hex Core design. Hell, with the way it insulated the rest of the device from magical currents, it could even be configured into a circuit breaker of sorts.

Relic stone similarly had its place. I attuned a piece of it and used it as the base for my Hex Core, allowing it to draw mana directly from my soul, no matter how far away it was. In effect, I'd created a miniature version of Babylon's Nexus. I decided on the relic stone because the same stone that channeled the "righteous will" of Sentinels into holy light would allow me to force through a far greater amount of mana from my soul than any other material I had access to.

I'd even begun to draw prototypes of a cooling system for Hextech Galio and other hextech mechs. By forming a suspension fluid composed of the Water of Life and tiny shards of True Ice, I felt I could create something that would both negate any overheating problems and give my mechs the ability to self-repair to an extent.

Bit by bit, my gear, no, my future, was coming together.

"Oi!"

I was brought out of my work by a wad of paper tossed at my head. I whirled, hissing like a wet cat and one hand already reaching for Isolde. "What?" I growled.

It was Pyrotechnical. The usually jolly tinker rather miffed at the moment. "Don't give me that, shorty. You're supposed to be off on patrol in six minutes."

I glanced at the clock. It was true, regrettably. "Yeah, sorry. I guess I worked through my alarm."

"Tell me about it. Brickhouse would rather bug me to bug you than come here himself, you know that?"

"Come on, I'm not that bad."

"You wouldn't be if you stopped trying to bite people's heads off whenever we need you away from your lab for a moment. Otherwise, you ain't bad. And don't think I didn't notice you reaching for your magic scissors."

I folded my hands in front of me. "Sorry."

"Just go to your patrol, Hyunmu. It's just a few hours. Hear you're doing the Potomac Route. That's the best one."

'Yeah, I hear you. I'm going. You can stop nagging now."

"Oi! I don't nag!"

"Sure, sure."

"Brat," he griped.

"Pepper Mario," I snarked back.

"Isn't it Paper Mario?"

I grabbed my things and began walking to meet the Wards. I called back behind me. "Pepper, cause you think you're hot shit."

Author's Note

Well then… This was a complex chapter. Not much I can say. Well, not much I want to say. So, have a plant fact!

Cucumbers are berries. But blackberries and raspberries are not.

Yes, you heard me right. Cucumbers, bananas, and pumpkins are berries. Botanical taxonomy is as weird as zoological taxonomy apparently.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.