“Why would you say that?” Viktor hisses, glaring at the mechanism occupying his desk, “It was not a ‘Give and Take’ scenario! Not some kind of bargain!” Viktor glances worryingly toward his right leg, hoping Jayce wasn’t looking too closely at his fake limp.


    “Yes. It. Was.” The Solver shoots forward as it had done before, but Viktor stands his ground, “I. Give. Some. Of. Me. You. Give. Some. Of. You~” It continues in an eerily sing-song voice as if trying to scare a child with a creepy nursery rhyme.


    “Some of me? My blood?” Viktor remembers the flesh only began to form after his coughing fit not too long ago. Is that what made it like this?


    “You? False. Blood? True.” It pauses, its gaze moving to his concealed leg. “Are. You. Ashamed. Of. It? More. Can. Still. Be. Done.”


    It’s true. Viktors crippled leg has been fixed, but his fissure lung is still tearing through his body. Having the Solver in his lung would be much more invasive than the limb replacement. His lungs are really what he wants cured, so Viktor’s leg was used as a sort of patient zero. After all, if something went wrong, he could live without a leg; He couldn’t live without his lungs.


    But, what is truly worrying: Viktor is out of shimmer. It’s not like he can galavant back down to the undercity to see Singed with the blockade still up. He violated it once before, and that caused a riot and a small but noticeable hit to Jayce’s reputation as a trustworthy counselor. Viktor can’t do that to his lab partner, not again.


    Although, Viktor still isn’t entirely sure how necessary the shimmer is. The Solver is clearly sentient, and it doesn’t strike him as idiotic. Whether it has restraint or not is a whole other question he doesn’t want to find the answer to. But at this critical junction, he’s faced with the same final options as always: die with certainty within months or die now with the chance to live longer.


    “Could you do it?” Viktor asks, approaching his desk cautiously.


    “Yes. With. Certainty. Prideful. Tone. But. I. Need. Assurances.” Viktor narrows his eyes, still unconvinced of the candor of the Solver’s narrations.


    “If you fix my lungs, and only my lungs, I could get you a living creature of your choice. I imagine a pig or cattle would be sufficient? Alive, I assume?” Viktor offers, knowing that getting livestock for experiments is trivial for him with his near endless supply of academy grants and permits.


    “Not. Cattle. But. Another. Living. Animal. Of. My. Choice. Would. Do. As Payment.” Viktor clutches his obsolete cane out of habit, moving one hand to rest on the desk.


    “One animal of your choice, and I get my lungs fixed… fine. Let me prepare for the procedure,” Viktor attaches his braces, carving into the metal the symbols and runes he used before on his leg that allow him to guide the transformation. The Solver does not comment, remaining quiet and serene. Over its eye, a circle of dashed lines light up one by one repeatedly.


    Viktor finishes his preparations, approaching the Solver with only immodest leather wrappings covering him, “I’m ready,” Viktor places his hand on the former Hexcore, bracing himself for what he knows will be the most painful experience of his life.


    His fears are vindicated, when a wave of unimaginable agony washes over him. Then, nothing. His body flaps back as if stuck to a meat hook on an especially windy day. Golden tethers reach out from the core and hold him, some burying into his chest like parasitic worms. Viktor can’t hear it, but he knows he’s screaming. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Only one voice can be made out above his internal cries: “Material. Insufficient. Damages. More. Severe. Than. Anticipated. Collection. Protocol. Active. Scheming. Target. Acquired.”


    A bright, golden light swallows the room and his mind. Viktor is reminded of his youth, when he found himself on the order between Piltover and the undercity. There, he could see the sun clearly, but the blinding radiance he witnessed on those days doesn’t come close to what he sees now.


    <hr>


    “–key. Wakey. Sleepy. Head. Wakey. Wak–”


    “Stop!” Viktor clutches his head and lifts himself up, throwing himself into his chair.


    “You. Are. Fixed.” Viktor side-eyes the Solver, hesitating to look down to his chest. If he’s alive… the procedure must’ve gone on without any issues.


    The scientist looks down slowly, holding his breath. His gaze doesn’t make it all the way down, as he’s suddenly distracted by the entire laboratory floor having become a soup of blood and bone.


    “What did you do?” Viktor gasps out in response to the macabre sight, hoping and praying this is his blood.


    “Oh. There. Was. A. Mishap. Tee. Hee. I. Am. So. Naughty. Giggle.” The solver fakes a chuckle. Its lower shutter moves up cheekily. Viktor decides he’s better off not knowing what it did to him.


    Instead, Viktor’s gaze greets his chest which looks… surprisingly normal. His skin seems… off in some areas, like it was haphazardly melted together with something else. Additionally, other parts of his skin look discolored and grafted on, similar to his leg, though not nearly as copious. One, long line of stitches patched up the center of his body like an axis of symmetry, dividing him like livestock.


    Viktor takes a deep, heavy breath, and releases. He feels like he just removed a gag he didn’t know he was wearing…


    “This is… incredible. Thank you.” Viktor smiles toward the Solver, a whirlpool of gratitude swirling in his eyes.


    “Gross.” The device moves away, scrunching a shutter up in disgust.


    “Well… I’ll go get you your animal. What do you want?”


    “Human.”


    “Absolutely not.”


    “Human.”


    “No.”


    “Hu–”


    “I said ‘animal.’”


    “Humans. Are. Animals. Silly.”


    “That’s obviously not what I meant.”


    “Maybe. Specify. Next. Time. Annoyed. Expression. I’ll. Settle. For. Something. Else. Maybe.” The Solver once again dives back into the core, peeking at him with a frustrated look in its eye through the gaps of the rune matrix. It speaks only one word every few seconds now: “Scheming… Scheming…”


    Viktor sighs, grabbing a mop from the nearby janitorial closet and attempting to clean the soup of blood and broken bones. Normally he wouldn’t be able to clean like this, so despite the horror and tediousness, he reluctantly welcomes the opportunity to explore his body’s newfound fitness.


    As he places the buckets of blood onto his desk for the Solver to access, he notices a strange pair of bones peeking out from the crimson. Two, partially shattered segments of human spines. He hadn’t noticed them when he was cleaning, the mindlessness of the task clouding his judgment; But here, standing before the Solver, his blood runs cold at the only reasonable conclusion. He needs to find whichever enforcer was on interior patrol last night, and he needs to find Skye.