Hello! I'm an og league Viktor enjoyer, and with the recent... interesting decisions on his character, I'm taking it upon myself to catalog and archive his & his associated champions' lore. Current list of items to be cataloged are as follows;
Punches and Plants
Feel free to send in submission or asks regarding anything- whether it be complaints about the rework, suggestions for archiving, or anything else!
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TAGS ARE AS FOLLOWS
#short story - for character's short stories.
#short bios - the bio that pops up when the character's champ page is opened
#lore text - longer bio/lore that appears when a champ's bio is extended
#splash art - character splash art
#standalone art - art that goes along with a specific story/scene
#quotes - main quote on a character page
#skinlines - skin splash art as well as splash text
#quotes - for character quotes and interactions
#interactions - for character interactions
ALL POSTS WILL BE TAGGED WITH THE #machine herald archive
LoR AND LoL WILL BE DISTINGUISHED BY #viktor lol OR #viktor LoR
VIKTOR: “The needs of flesh are enemies of intellect.”
Taric
ENEMY ARRIVES:
TARIC: “Beauty and life.”
VIKTOR: “Efficiency and Efficacy.”
Zoe
ALLY ARRIVES:
ZOE: “You know the fundamentals of spacetime only apply to realities with less than five dimensions, riiight?”
VIKTOR: “You have my attention, shiny child.”
ZOE: “Reality is just your mind crumbling under what it doesn’t understand, silly!”
VIKTOR: “I-Impossible! Years of empirical evidence…!”
ENEMY ARRIVES:
VIKTOR: “Do not make me harm you, small child.”
ZOE: “Ooh, you!”
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Once more, wonderful work by @pavetheway !!! They have been absolutely invaluable to the archival efforts for this blog, and again, just utterly delightful to work with. I am once again asking that they are shown appreciation and love for the work they have put into this!!
"Progress is essential to survival. But not like this, Viktor."
KILL:
"This 'glorious evolution'... it will not be our fate, Viktor."
Camille
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"Tell me. Is it the third arm that makes you extra-glorious?"
"Oh, your revolution is so... quaint."
"Your revolution has ceased to be useful."
"You have become an obstacle to progress. Time to remove you."
KILL:
“Never go full machine.”
“That… was glorious.”
Ekko
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"You’re everything wrong with Zaun!”
“Never go full robot.”
“I’ll never be like this guy!”
Heimerdinger
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"If you seek to replace all humans, there will be no one left to appreciate your work."
Illaoi
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"Change, or feel my God’s wrath.”
Renata Glasc
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"You forget whose money made you what you are, Viktor.”
Urgot
EXECUTION:
"Evolution gives way to revolution."
Warwick
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"Three arms…and no claws.
Yuumi
FIRST ENCOUNTER:
"The red…dot…belongs to you!?”
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HUGE thank you to @pavetheway , who did a large majority of the work on the collection of the interactions. They have been a huge help in the archival process, and are just a delightful person! Please go show them appriciation for all the work they've done!!
Hello all! I greatly appreciate the support for this blog.
Currently I am working on archiving all the audio interactions with Viktor in both LoL and LoR. This is a much heftier task than that of archiving bios/skins. As such I'm asking that anyone who has relevant information shares it (if you'd like!). This will make the process much smoother and quicker :-)
it you can, i would absolutely love if you could archive other champions' first encounter and kill voice lines with viktor (and any of his skins if you feel like it!). i know he doesn't have any lines towards other champs of his own but i love seeing how other people react to meeting him.
According to the wiki, 'a quick fix' was written by Anthony Burch - I have no idea why that credit isn't on the actual story page, but the wiki claims to be official - https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Universe:A_Quick_Fix (also thank you for archiving all of this! I'd hate to see it all wiped for good!)
Fixed! Thank you for sending in the information.
As a Machine Herald enjoyer, I would've also hated to see everything go. Glad other people feel the same!
One of the all time greatest keepers for Chaos FC, Blitzcrank has finally taken their place in the Sports Hall of Fame. Their image rests proudly with the likes of Volleyball Dragon, Women's Tennis Scuttle Crab, and Badminton Baron Nashor.
Boom Boom Blitzcrank
Their fists are named “boom” and “boom,” proving that robots are a perfect facsimile of human life.
Piltover Customs Blitzcrank
Your robot's legs were busted, so we replaced them with a vintage '32 hot rod, and eight-cylinder external mounted coal engine. Plus we painted flames on his fists. The flames cost extra.
Definitely Not Blitzcrank
I, not a robot.
iBlitzcrank
Built as household assistance automata, thousands of iBlitzcranks were corrupted by Program during a routine software update. With their human owners oblivious to this fact, they continue to help, waiting patiently for the time their new command lines are initiated.
Riot Blitzcrank
A Riot Games skin obtained by either meeting a Rioter or attending an official Riot event in 2013.
Battle Boss Blitzcrank
A boss hailing from a popular science fiction shooter, Blitzcrank is well known in the gaming community for cheap mechanics, powerful attacks, and a massive health pool. Veigar fittingly made them the gatekeeper of his personal fortress, because Veigar hates fun.
Lancer Rogue Blitzcrank
An ancient sentinel corrupted by mysterious black lightning, Rogue Lancer Blitzcrank mercilessly crushes provincial armies, destroying entire castles with kings still on their thrones. What caused its rampage is still uncertain, but for now it seems to be following its dread protocol to the letter.
Lancer Paragon Blitzcrank
A silent protector of the masses, the artificial paladin Blitzcrank was aroused from the earth by a bolt of mysterious white lighting. It now serves all honorable subjects, defending with true and calculated precision.
Witch's Brew Blitzcrank
Once nothing but a simple cauldron, Blitzcrank was enchanted, brought to life in order to assist Miss Fortune in her beguiling bewitchments.
Space Groove Blitzcrank
Blitz and Crank are Cat Planet's fiercest warriors, and work together seamlessly (mostly) to pilot their mech, Blitzcrank. While Crank believes that he can overcome his lack of rhythm with the help of his exuberant copilot, Blitz is… well… he's busy dancing to his own beat. Together they plan to take over Dog Planet and claim its sunbeams for themselves.
Victorious Blitzcrank
Victorious Blitzcrank was awarded to players who reached Gold or higher in the 2021 season.
Zenith Games Blitzcrank
Originally a bomb defusal robot, Blitzcrank was made a referee because of their ability to make split-second adjustments to stay ahead of the prodigious athletes. Only later did everyone realize that the bot's background made them unusually effective in defusing the intense... disagreements that often arise.
Beezcrank
Beezcrank has a reputation for getting his bee-infantry into sticky situations. Probably because of that giant honey-comb mech-arm.
Wild Rift Exclusive
Cottontail Blitzcrank
They said Blitzcrank was too big to be a bunny, but he’s clearly got the cottontail spirit. He made his own costume, found himself some ears, even made a bunny puppet for his claw-hand. How could anyone say no that? Let him have some fun. He’s as good a cottontail as anybunny.
Backed by RiotCorp as the Full Metal Fighting League's first corporately sanctioned champion, Jayce has dethroned Pantheon and won the hearts of audiences worldwide—especially those who realize they gain 15 Riot Points every time they cheer his cyclonic blasts.
Debonair Jayce
You're a scholar. You're an inventor. You're the man of the hour and the hour is now, yesterday, and tomorrow. Don't just be the father of invention—be the ivory god of substance, class, and style. It's you, Jayce. It's always been you.
Forsaken Jayce
Opposed to balance in all measures, Jayce has gone down a path he cannot return from. He has sworn vengeance upon Chosen Master Yi and all he stands for.
Jayce Brighthammer
A noble paladin who has inexplicably mastered science and engineering, Jayce Brighthammer is a stout ally no foul creature can best! Unless that foul creature is a loophole in the rulebook, since Jayce likes to get any advantage over the Rift Master he can.
Battle Academia Jayce
A prestigious 2nd year whose face is known throughout the wider city of Durandal, Jayce is the class president, head of the world-renowned Luminary Club, and prodigious inventor of miraculous Jayce-branded technologies. He hopes his inventions will prevent the kind of tragedy that struck him in his youth, though he refuses to speak about what that was.
Resistance Jayce
While many presumed him dead, Jayce's sudden return to the Resistance has been heralded by some as a miracle and others as a curse. Burdened by guilt, he still blames himself for his failure to halt Viktor's rise. Only time will tell if Jayce can turn the tide.
Arcane Jayce (Jayce Talis)
Zenith Games Jayce
Jayce invented Hammerjack as a showcase sport for humanity's new augmented abilities. Nothing else tested athletes across so many directions and terrain, and with this being its first year in the Zenith Games, he intends to show everyone what THE sport of the 22nd century looks like.
T1 Jayce
Honoring Zeus's winning performance as Jayce during the 2023 World Championship.
Prestige T1 Jayce
After T1's shocking defeat at last year's Summoner's Cup, many lost hope that they'd ever be able to reclaim their throne. But Jayce's support for these legends never wavered. Sporting a bright white-and-gold glow, he stands tall in the front row and proudly cheers every victory, great or small, against WBG—a symbol of hope for all die-hard T1 fans.
Wild Rift Exclusive
Superhero Jayce
By day, Jayce is a genius inventor and pillar of the communit; by night, Jayce dons a costume and patrols the streets of Topside as his alter ego Hextech Man! Wielding his trusty hextech hammer, Jayce will stop at nothing to protect his people.
Crystal Rose Jayce
Jayce earned his invitation to the Crystal Rose Ball by proving himself to be one of the brightest minds of this age, but he’ll need to woo all of the right people tonight if he’s going to secure his research funding. Nothing will stand in the way of his pursuit of progress, least of all formal wear.
Created from the same circuitry as the Full Metal champion, Jayce, Viktor was cast into the tunnels beneath the robot fighting arenas to serve as a janitoribot—while his twin was groomed for glory, simulcast en español. Upgrading himself with the cast-offs of the destroyed, he has sworn la venganza.
Prototype Viktor
Creator Viktor
The creator of the Battlecast machine army, Viktor has perfected the art of transplanting living brains into low-tech, mass-produced weapons. But his work is far from complete, and even now he tinkers on newer, deadlier creations to crush all who oppose him.
Death Sworn Viktor
On a cold, dreary night, a pioneering inventor was tried and hanged for preaching his glorious vision of the future—a world in which the living knelt before the dead. Death had to admire Viktor's conviction, and sent him back into the mortal world, blessed with powers beyond imagination.
PsyOps Viktor
Leader of the rogue military known as the Black Rose Group, Viktor is a psychic technomancer whose vision for a utopian world was abandoned when he suddenly departed High Command decades prior. Obsessed with an alien 'gate' uncovered during the Arctic Ops event, his experiments into human bioweapons would allow him to breach it and upend the global order.
High Noon Viktor
Many a road to Hell was paved with good intent. Dr. Viktor may be the Mechanical Devil's kept engineer now, but his work began as charity: trying to “rehome” the souls of the dead in clockwork bodies, in order to circumvent mortality itself. Shame that Mordekaiser saw the good doctor's kindness and struck him a deal he could not deny.
The plump belly of the Rising Howl looms before me, churning with its endless gears and elaborate ironwork. Some say the Howl is named for the wrought iron wolf that cries atop the apex of the hexdraulic descender; others swear the ghost of a black-veiled gentle-servant haunts the cabin, and when the Howl lifts him away from his lost love in Zaun, the sounds of his moans reverberate and shake its metal core. Many Piltovans, convinced as they are in their own sound judgment, are sure the name refers to nothing more than the cold wind whistling between the crevasses below their city.
But to me the Howl is not a single lone cry. It is an orchestra of noise, a melodic blend of a thousand unique sounds. It is why I am drawn to the machine.
The multi-tiered elevator, supported by three vertical structural beams which span the height of the city, descends to the Promenade level and slows to a lurching halt.
“Disembark for the Promenade!” the conductor announces, her voice magnified by a bell-shaped sonophone. She adjusts her thick goggles as she speaks. “Boundary Markets, College of Techmaturgy, Horticultural Center.”
Passengers pour from the descender. Dozens of others board and spread throughout its floors: merchants traveling to Zaun to trade in the night bazaars, workers returning home to sleep, wealthy Zaunites visiting night blooms in glass-domed cultivairs. Then there are the unseen riders who have made the Howl their home. I spy them scurrying in the shadows: plague rats, shadowhares, and viridian beetles.
Sometimes I climb down the crevasses to descend to the Sump, but tonight I long for the harmony of noise I know the descender will create.
Instead of entering through the doorway, I swing around the outside and lock my grip on the bottommost bar where ridged steel brackets frame the glass windows. My metal plates clank as I clamber onto the Howl, drawing stares from the passengers and what looks like a grimace from the conductor. My knowledge of facial expressions grows each day.
Most passengers ride within the compartment, away from the cold and soot, but outside, in the open air, I can hear the satisfying click-clack of mechanical parts snapping into place and the soft hiss of steam releasing as we sink into Zaun. And besides, I don’t easily fit through most doors.
A small boy clings to his sump-scrapper father’s hand and gapes at me through the window. I wink at him and his mouth opens in what I estimate is surprise. He ducks behind his father.
“Going down!” says the conductor. She rings a large bell and adjusts the dials on a bright red box. I can almost feel the commands buzz as they surge through wires into the descender’s engine.
Below us, the iron pinnacles of Zaun’s towers and green glass cultivairs glitter like candles in the dimming light. The Howl whirs and creaks as its cranks spiral down against the three towering beams, weighted down with iron, steel, and glass. A blast of steam whistles from the topmost pipe.
Inside the cabin, the sump-scrapper and his child look on as a musician tunes his four-stringed chittarone and begins a sonorous melody. His tune synchronizes with the clacking gears and whirring machinery of the Howl. The father taps his foot to the rhythm. A beetle snaps her pincers as she scrambles away from the man’s heavy boot. A gang of chem-punks lean against the wall in soft repose, a pause so unlike their usual frenzied jaunts through the city.
The Howl whirs in its perfect fusion of sounds during our descent. I marvel at the symphony around me and find myself humming along to the deep buzzing tones. The rhythm thrums through me and I wonder if those around me feel it.
“Entresol!” the conductor calls out as the descender slows. A pair of couriers carrying parcels wrapped in twine disembark, along with a crew of chemtech researchers and a crowd of chem-merchants. A merry crowd of Zaunites from the theater district steps aboard.
“Down we go!” she says, ringing her bell, and the Howl responds with a whir. The descender sinks and the windows mist as vapor pours from pipes above. Beads of water spread across my metallic chest as the harmony of clanking machinery and whooshing steam begins anew.
A discordant murmur interrupts the pattern of sounds. The vibration is subtle, but I can tell something is off. The descender continues as if all was normal, until a jarring clunk breaks its perfect rhythm.
Though I have never dreamed, I know a break in the pattern this abrupt is a machine’s most frightening nightmare.
The spiralling gearway is jammed, and the cabin’s iron brackets grate against it with a horrible screech. Many lives are at stake and I feel the machine’s pain as it braces desperately against the support beams. The entire weight of the Howl heaves against its bending columns and the cabin tilts at a lurching angle. Rivets burst from their seams as metal is pulled away from itself.
We wobble for a moment, then drop.
Inside the cabin, passengers scream and grasp at the nearest railing as they plunge. This is a different kind of howl.
I tighten my hold on the cabin’s bottommost platform. I extend my other arm, launching it toward one of the three vertical structural beams. The iron column is slippery in the mist and my grip misses it by inches. I retract my arm and steam blasts from my back as I try again, whizzing it toward a second beam. Another miss.
Time slows. Inside the cabin, the chem-punks cling to a ledge while the viridian beetle flies out an open window. The sump-scrapper and his child brace themselves against the glass, which fractures under their weight. The boy tumbles out, scrabbling at the frame with his fingers before he slips and falls.
I reach up and catch the boy in mid-flight, then retract my arm.
“Hold on,” I say.
The child clings to the plates on my back.
I fire my arm up toward the support beam once more, and this time my hand meets solid metal with a resounding clang as I secure my hold. My other arm is forced to extend as it’s wrenched down by the plunging cabin, so much that I feel my joints might fracture. Suspended in midair, I try to steady my grip.
With a great jolt, my arm jerks as the descender halts its freefall. It shakes from the sudden stop, now supported only by my arm. The boy shudders as he tightens his grip on my back.
The Howl is still fifty feet above the ground, hovering over the Sump-level buildings. My overlapping metal plates groan as they strain against the weight and I concentrate all my efforts on holding myself together. If I fall, the Howl falls with me, along with all its passengers.
While locking my arm onto the support beam, I slide my arm down the pillar. We drop ten feet and the cabin sways precariously before stabilizing again.
“Sorry about that!” I shout. Statements of empathy can be reassuring to humans in moments of crisis.
I must try again. I must be strong.
I release my grip on the support column ever so slightly, and with a piercing screech we gently slide down the remaining forty feet to the ground. My valves sigh as they contract.
Passengers echo my sighs as they stumble through the doors and broken windows into the Sump level, leaning on each other for support.
The boy on my back breathes rapidly as he holds my neck. My arms whir as I retract them and lower myself to the floor, crouching down so the child can touch the ground. He scrambles back to his father, who embraces him.
The conductor emerges from the descender and looks at me.
“You saved us. All of us,” she says, her voice shaking from what I think is shock. “Thank you.”
“I am simply fulfilling my purpose,” I say. “I am glad you are not hurt. Have a good day.”
She smiles, then turns to direct the crowd of Zaunites who have gathered to offer their assistance to the passengers and begin repairs. One of the chem-punk girls carries the musician’s chittarone for him as he crawls from the descender. Several of the theater-folk comfort an elderly man.
Two Hex-mechanics stumble toward me and I direct them to a medical officer who is setting up a tented repair station. The murmurs of the passengers and the hissing groans of the wounded descender blend with the whirrs and churning of the Sump. The steam-engine within my chest murmurs along, and I am moved to whistle a tune.
The boy turns and waves shyly at me.
I wave back.
He runs to catch up with his father, his heavy boots tapping a rhythm on the cobblestones. Shifting wheels sing and gears click-clack within the belly of the Rising Howl. The viridian beetle snaps her pincers in time with the beat as she zooms away into the Sump.
A behemoth of burnished metal, steam, and crackling electricity, Blitzcrank walks the streets of Zaun in a tireless effort to improve the undercity and give aid to those in need. Created to descend into the most caustic and dangerous of environments in Zaun to dispose of harmful waste, they have evolved beyond the bounds of their original programming, thanks to the genius of their inventor, and the mysterious power of hextech.
Blitzcrank is an enormous, near-indestructible automaton from Zaun, originally built to dispose of hazardous waste. However, he found this primary purpose too restricting, and modified his own form to better serve the fragile people of the Sump. Blitzcrank selflessly uses his strength and durability to protect others, extending a helpful metal fist or burst of energy to subdue any troublemakers.
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?”
