Chapter 26 – Ashes and Aftermath
The rain came late.
As if the heavens themselves had hesitated, unsure whether this city deserved cleansing. When it finally arrived, it was gentle — not the punishing downpour that might wash away sin, but a slow, somber drizzle that soaked the smoldering wreckage of Piltover in silence.
Ash fell like snowflakes, clinging to rooftops and shattered glass. Black smoke still rose in lazy spirals from the shells of buildings that once stood proud. The scent in the air was acrid — a cocktail of scorched metal, blood, and something chemical and bitter. A city of progress, brought to its knees.
Caitlyn Kiramman moved with her rifle drawn low, boots crunching over broken cobblestones and scattered belongings. A child's doll, dirtied and missing an arm. A pair of shattered goggles. The remnants of someone's dinner table, now splintered like bones.
She had seen chaos. She had seen the worst of Zaun's desperation. But this… this was something else.
The attack had been coordinated. Surgical. And merciless.
They hadn't come to make a statement. They came to destroy.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Ahead, through the veil of smoke and rain, a collapsed plaza emerged. The marble statues here were crumbling, one having lost its head entirely. The once-elegant fountain at the center was cracked open like a ribcage, blood and water pooling together in its basin.
And in the center of it all, two figures.
One lying flat on the ground, the other curled beside them.
Caitlyn hurried forward, heart pounding. She recognized the girl first.
Sera Valemont.
Young. Fiery. The kind of person who cared too much, too deeply, in a world that rewarded cold ambition. Sera was the sort of girl who'd throw herself into a burning building if it meant saving someone — and from the look of her lifeless body, that might have been exactly what she did.
Her hand was outstretched, fingers curled toward the boy lying next to her.
He looked barely older than a teenager. Torn shirt, pale skin streaked with blood and soot. His body was limp, but not lifeless — she could see the shallow rise and fall of his chest.
Caitlyn dropped to one knee beside him, rain streaking down her face.
"Hey… can you hear me?"
The boy didn't respond.
She gently turned his face toward her, brushing wet hair away. He was bruised, battered, burned — but not broken. Not yet. Around his wrist was a strange gauntlet — unlike any Hextech device she'd ever seen. Sleek. Scorched. Fused unnaturally into the remnants of some older bracer tech.
His fingers were locked around something small.
A chain.
Sera's necklace.
Caitlyn's chest ached.
"Gods…" she whispered, her voice catching. "You poor thing."
Lightning cracked somewhere in the distance, and for a brief moment, the city was lit in white. She saw the blood trails — not just his, but hers — painting the stone beneath them like some grotesque mural. Two young lives. Entwined in tragedy.
Then — he stirred.
The boy's eyes fluttered open, just barely. Not fully conscious, but not quite gone either.
"Stay with me," she said, gripping his shoulder gently. "What's your name?"
His lips moved, barely audible through the rain.
"…Steven…"
Then — it happened.
His eyes flashed.
A brief flicker — blue, digital light — pulsing behind his irises. Caitlyn blinked, startled. It wasn't natural. It wasn't Hextech either. Something else entirely. Something deeper.
But then it was gone.
She didn't have time to question it. She hooked his arm over her shoulders, pulling him into a rescue carry. He groaned softly, pain etched into every breath, but he didn't resist. He couldn't.
As she staggered forward with him through the ruined plaza, she looked back once.
At Sera.
At the quiet stillness that now rested where fire and spirit had once burned.
"I'm sorry," Caitlyn whispered, the words lost to the rain. "I was too late."
But one step at a time, she carried Steven away.
Unseen — within his fractured mind — something stirred.
Something born not from power or knowledge, but from loss.
[GACHA SYSTEM – CORE SYNCHRONIZED]
User: Steven LiamSync
Rate: 100%Status: Stable
Inventory: 1 Pull Acquired
Pull: Spider Instinct [Active]
No additional rolls available.Awaiting manual trigger or external activation…