Pyrrha stepped away from him, her hand grabbing at the sofa for support as she took a few deep breaths, the effort seeming to have taken a lot out of her, a bead of sweat running down her forehead.
"What happened?" Taylor asked in a worried voice.
Ethan looked down at his open hand, he felt his newly awakened aura working, a part of his soul not only protecting him from physical damage, but making him… more, reinforcing his very identity.
He immediately felt his mind clearing, as if a weight had been lifted, it wasn't anything he could put words on, but he felt as if his aura was already protecting him, repelling an insidious influence he hadn't noticed before.
Or perhaps he should say, it felt like he now had a thin veil between him and something trying to manipulate him, a distinct will inside his mind he couldn't feel before, and even now was still hard to grasp.
"That was… more tiring than I expected," Pyrrha said, shaking her head and recovering from the whole ordeal. "It felt like there was someone else trying to awaken and I had to struggle against it."
"Can aura be stolen?" Ethan asked. "If you're awakening someone's aura and another person tries to touch him, would they awaken too?"
"No, it doesn't work that way," Pyrrha said, seeming far more tired than when she had awoken Maelle's aura. "But you're right, this felt like the way Taylor's aura wanted to spread to her passenger, only worse... Somehow."
Ethan sighed, did that mean he had a shard too, or was something else sharing head-space with him…
He did feel like he had been a little too ruthless lately, and he had been feeling an urge to use his blood magic more often, but he had thought it was just because it was… well, magic. Who wouldn't want to experiment with magic?
"Shit," Jinx grumbled. "This is gonna delay my turn, isn't it."
"Getting to know you is what's delaying your turn," Maelle said with a teasing smile. "And I bet Pyrrha is gonna awaken Isha first."
On Jinx's lap, the little girl nodded furiously, a wide smile on her face as she gave Maelle a thumb's up.
"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side!' Huffing, Jinx put a hand on Isha's helmet and pushed it over her eyes, then she glared at Maelle. "And you, stop trying to poach my minion."
Squeezing out of Jinx's lap, Isha took off her helmet, showing everyone her blue hair, then she ran to Maelle's side and shrugged. Clearly, the kid was still trying to look like her idol, but when it came to superpowers, it was every girl for themselves. Ethan approved.
Putting a hand over Isha's shoulder, Maelle smirked and shrugged too. "What can I do? The girl recognizes talent."
Closing his hand into a fist, Ethan found a new strength there, something he only felt when pulling deep on whatever source gave him his blood magic. He had already been superhuman, but now he was no longer at the bottom tier of that scale.
Taylor had been deep in thought, her eyes turned away from them, but eventually she seemed to relax. "I don't think it's a shard, your blood control doesn't seem like a parahuman power, and you've had it since we met, there wasn't enough time for mine to bud."
"Maybe," Ethan said. "In any case, there's not much we can do right now, just… keep what happened in mind if I start acting strange."
From what he knew, the entities that landed on Earth Bet were far from the only ones in Taylor's part of the multiverse, there was always the possibility he had a shard from another, but also, those weren't the only things that could piggyback on someone's brain, or even soul, and considering Gods existed both in Runeterra and Pyrrha's realities?
The girls nodded, so Ethan took another breath, closing his eyes for a few seconds and trying to put his concerns aside for the moment. It wasn't that he didn't want to find out what was going on, but besides visiting Victor again, he had no idea how to even start.
Even then, he didn't think the inventor/savior would be up to looking inside someone else's mind right now, not after what he had seen in Taylor, so he decided to change subject.
"What about Vi?" He asked the blue haired menace. "Any news from your sister?"
"Yeah… No, seems like her little dictator girlfriend isn't feeling very chatty right now," Jinx shook her head. "Also, I don't think she has as much pull with topside as she thought she did. Maybe she can get a meeting with someone important, eventually, but it's not gonna be easy, and they're gonna leave us hanging for as long as possible."
"It was always a long shot," Ethan nodded. "Anyo-"
A deafening explosion happened in the distance, the impact rocking the hideout, Ethan almost lost his footing as the floor dropped from under him and the noise hit his chest, driving the air out of his lungs. Everything was shaking, at least one window broke and several of Taylor's spiders fell from the ceiling.
Reaching for a support beam to steady himself, he widened his stance and felt adrenaline hitting his system as a second explosion, closer this time, happening, his blood immediately starting to leak from all his pores to harden as a layer of armor.
"I didn't do it!" Jinx shouted as she recovered from a fall, making them all stare at her. "What? It really wasn't me… this time."
For a few moments longer they all kept quiet, waiting to see if anything else exploded in the Undercity or, even worse, if the explosions continued to come closer, but everything was quiet, whatever had gone wrong being too far away to continue affecting them.
"What happened," Maelle asked, adjusting her own posture after things finally stopped shaking in the hideout.
"It felt like an underground dust explosion."
"Whatever happened, it didn't come from the lanes," Taylor quickly noted, taking a moment to calm down her "Nor was it coming from the bridge, and I don't think Piltover would have any other target."
"I don't think we've pushed the upper city enough that they'd start bombing us," Ethan shook his head.
"Nope," Jinx agreed with him. "This was definitely something from here, I'd recognize a chemtech explosion anywhere."
Looking at the people available, Ethan considered the situation, if there was another attack, the hideout had to be protected, even more so since Isha was here, but they couldn't all stay hidden.
With her swarm and time in the Wards, Taylor was probably the best at both disaster relief and keeping watch for anyone approaching, but Pyrrha had to have some training in that area too, and she had more experience with aura, making her just as effective if an attack actually happened.
"Sevika is probably already trying to deal with what happened, so we'll have local support… Pyrrha, Maelle, do you think you'd notice if anyone approached the hideout?"
"Hey, I have traps, I'd notice," Jinx protested.
"If I'm paying attention, I can feel any metal moving closer to me," Pyrrha nodded.
Right, he had almost forgotten about that, he doubted anyone would try to attack them without metal weapons, which meant Pyrrha would be even better at holding down the fort, he looked at the parahuman.
"I'll go, let me just calm the spiders down a little," Taylor said, already starting to put on her newly made light armor, something that reminded him of her supposed hero costume.
"Good, I'll go with you," he said. "With aura, I'm probably stronger than Maelle if a fight breaks out."
The redhead was still more skilled than him, but she had yet to find her semblance, so he had a large advantage outside the canvas, what with his blood magic and other superhuman abilities.
Putting on his own armor, a mixture of spider silk reinforced by Taylor's aura and metal armor shaped by Pyrrha and Jinx working together that went over his chest, protecting any internal organs, he left the hideout.
Most of the Zaunites were inside, the people unwilling to get involved with whatever was happening, and those that he sensed outside were quickly to hide away, diving into side-streets as soon as they saw him.
"Looting," Taylor said with a scowl. "I'm… discouraging them from continuing with my swarm, but I doubt it will keep them away permanently."
"I'll talk with Chross about putting some men into protection."
The ground shook again, not a new explosion, but like something had come loose, then came the sound of a collapsing building, a cloud of dust and toxic gas rising up in the distance.
They stopped for a second to watch, almost waiting for something else to go wrong, and there were a few smaller tremors now that they were closer, the windows around them rattling, but nothing significant.
Turning away from the cloud, Taylor continued walking. "Don't bother with empty houses, this is happening all over the Undercity and we don't have enough people to cover everything, just focus on keeping people safe."
"Was it anything like this? Your city after Leviathan, I mean."
Taylor looked at him for a second then away, her voice distant with memories. "Not exactly. Well, the gang members were more or less the same, but even in the Bay, normal people weren't as used to violence as here. I could see the city devolving into something like this if nobody helped, but we had… different problems."
"Boss, you're here," a guy from Chross crew said, waving his hand to draw their attention.
The guy was young, about a year younger than Ethan and one of the younger men the Chem-baron would accept, preferring those with more experience for his main followers, probably why he was coming to receive them. He wore a black suit and had a prosthetic leg, as well as several tattoos on his face.
"Any idea what happened?" Ethan asked as he approached.
"We thought the Piltie goons were coming after us again," the guy said, opening a door for them. "But nothing else happened… I say it's probably some homemade chemtech exploding in an idiot's face. Little bigger than usual, but it happens."
"It's not," Taylor said once they were inside. "I just heard Chross, someone helped blow up the Dredge."
The Dredge, Zaun's prison mine, they had been meaning to deal with the place, but with so many problems to deal with, it hadn't been a priority. The place didn't even show up in Arcane, so Ethan thought it wasn't that important.
Unfortunately, it seems like their presence had changed things even more than he thought… Was this an escape attempt or someone trying to destroy even more of Zaun's supply?
The thing was, Ethan had very little idea of what the place even looked like, he knew it was a mine and separated from the center of the Undercity, close to the sump and some of the more dangerous factories, but that was about it.
Entering the office, Ethan noticed Sevika, Babette and Chross were already inside. Chross seemed to have replaced his desk, his hands resting on top of a new metal table, with the yordle sitting on a sofa to the side.
"We already know it was the Dredge, any idea what happened?" Ethan said, letting Taylor take the empty chair while he stood beside her.
"Takeda," Sevika said, then closed her eyes and turned her head up in frustration as her colorful prosthetic released another spark. "He ordered the hit, one of the boys found his saboteur trying to escape the explosion."
"How?" Taylor said. "I know we didn't have anyone close to the prison, the guy should have been long gone by then."
"Takeda didn't exactly warn the boy how big the explosion could be, so escape may have been too strong a word, more like crawl away, and we didn't get much, he died soon after we caught him."
"Why blow up the place?" Ethan asked.
"The boy thought they were working with someone on the inside," Sevika said. "A new partner Takeda would use to take over the lanes."
"He's escalating," Chross said, cleaning some dust from his glasses before putting them back on. "Most of our chemtech supply comes from the Dredge, we'll be forced to cut back production by a lot until it's working again, giving his own drug production room to grow. We'll also be too busy to continue pursuing him."
"How many escaped?" Taylor asked.
"No way to know," Sevika shook her head. "With the mine and cells collapsed, we can't be sure how many are still buried, but there was a tunnel leading into the lower levels of the sump."
"They'll turn up," Babette said with confidence. "Those people sooner or later end up with one of my girls, and they don't know how to keep their mouths shut either, I'll keep you informed."
"We'll increase security for your brothels," Ethan said, a bunch of criminals from the worst prison he knew off didn't seem like they'd make good customers.
"I appreciate it," the yordle smiled, taking another puff of her cigarette.
"Any idea who's supposed to be this new partner?" Taylor asked Chross.
"No, I never had much interest in the Dredge beyond knowing the chemtech was flowing. And that's if there's even a partner, it may just have been an excuse to keep his men loyal."
"I think I'll just expect the worst," Ethan said. "That way I'll just be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong, not the other way around."
"Would they keep records inside the prison?" Taylor asked.
"Maybe for the more important inmates," Sevika shrugged. "The Dredge is worse than Stillwater, the Warden didn't care if someone was guilty or how long their sentences were supposed to be, he just took or released people at the Chem-Baron's orders and kept things running."
Holding on to the back of Taylor's chair, Ethan briefly thought it may have been a blessing the prison was gone, there was no way to know if the people inside had served their sentences, much less if they were guilty.
In the distance, another of Zaun's makeshift buildings collapsed, the impact shaking the room and spilling a glass of water Chross had been drinking.
Then again, maybe not, the number of deaths this caused must be in the thousands.
"We're going to the mine," Taylor said, getting up. "I'm probably the best person to find survivors, and I want to see if there's any documentation available. Sevika."
"Is the small mask factory still working?" Ethan asked.
"No, but we still have a few crates since the trade stopped," Chross said, being in charge of most business with Piltover.
"Get me a few, then distribute the rest to anyone working on the rescue and rebuilding efforts."
-----
Taylor Hebert
Adjusting the breathing mask on her face, Taylor enjoyed the reprieve it provided, not that it managed to get rid of all the scent, but it was better than breathing the air directly.
The sump was the lowest layer of the undercity, and it was like someone took the worst parts of Brockton Bay after Leviathan, then filled it with a poisonous fog, a caustic cloud that even now was eating at her new aura. A testament to the uncaring nature of the twin cities.
She doubted anyone from Piltover had ever come down here, stopping at the first, perhaps even the second Layer of the undercity, where the heavier chemicals in the air didn't reach and the Chem-Barons made an effort to seem only poor, not entirely destroyed.
Sewer water ran down the street like toxic sludge, forming rivers that converged at every intersection, merging until they formed an actual river of chemicals and household trash, Taylor could even see a mischief of rats the size large cats climbing out of the river, dragging some bag behind them as they fled down an alleyway.
According to Jinx, it was also where the majority of Zaunites lived, the place filled with small houses, all of which had collapsed closer to the prison, and Taylor's swarm could feel several dead bodies under the rubble.
On the way, Taylor had ignored almost everything, trying not to think of how the people inside had died, was it fast, or were they slowly crushed under the weight of their own houses as help never arrived, their neighbors too afraid or uncaring to get involved?
Still, every minute or so she'd direct one of the men following them towards a house where she noticed someone alive with her swarm, someone trapped but still moving.
Despite the location, Taylor could feel a subtle wind hitting her face, the air helping blow away the majority of the dust from the explosion, as well as most of the toxic cloud it had raised, letting them see clearly the damage done.
A large part of the sump had just... collapsed, some places forming four to five meter cliffs, the ground completely uneven as earth filled the tunnels of the mine under them, some houses were cut in two, and pieces of the street were spread everywhere.
The main entrance of the mines had completely collapsed and everyone she asked agreed it would take at least a few days to excavate it, but she still wanted to see if there was anyone alive inside, and if she could find papers in Warden's room.
That's why she stood there, in front of the escape tunnel, a hole almost twice her height and similarly wide, and up to her ankle in water so toxic she could feel it eating at her aura, Ethan the only one by her side while Sevika and two others waited at the riverbank.
Taylor agreed with Babette, the released criminals would show up eventually, and it would probably be at one of her whorehouses… they'd have to establish a new prison for them, but she didn't want to arrest any innocents, someone being worked to death just because he angered one of the Chem-Barons.
She had read about Silco, Jinx's adopted dad, he at least had a goal, even if she didn't agree with the way he went about it, and she had read about Vander before him, but every other Chem-Baron Chross and Margott had information on was a waste of space, ranging from people like Lung and Kaiser, to almost reaching Jack's level of evil.
If she could get close enough to the Warden's room to sneak a few insects in, she could use them to… not quite read, most insects didn't see things the same way as humans, but her ability to sense through her swarm had gotten good enough that understanding written words wouldn't be a problem.
Her swarm drew her attention to the side and she saw two large rats, almost the size of big dogs dragging a body out of the water, the man already missing an arm from the beast's teeth.
At her side, Ethan hummed with displeasure, pointing with his finger and shooting two bullets of hardened blood at the animals, the makeshift projectiles hitting with such strength their heads exploded on impact.
Taylor… was still struggling to come to terms with Ethan, by all accounts, his defined muscles and face were exactly her type, making it hard not to think of him in that way, but he seemed to be involved with Jinx, and he was taking far too easily to being a warlord.
She… didn't want to make the same mistake as with Brian, and besides, she had never even considered anything but a monogamous relationship.
But right now, she was glad he had come with her, supporting her decision without even discussing it.
"Plague rats," Sevika cursed, spitting to the side. "Damn things aren't good for anything, we kill them whenever we can, but they breed too fast."
"I'm assuming they spread disease?" Ethan asked.
"Like you wouldn't believe," one of the men answered. "Gutter rats are smaller and make for good eating, but my cousin mistook one and died the day after taking a few bites."
Concentrating on the edge of her swarm, on the things she had caught while coming down into the sump, but kept distant so as to not alarm anyone, Taylor called for her new vile spinners, as well as some other giant spiders.
The swarm of vile spinners arrived first, head sized spiders with thin legs that could move with surprisingly speed and produce webs stronger than any she knew of in her previous world.
With her new aura, Taylor could further reinforce that, making it strong enough to hold the underground mine in place if she used enough…
Then the other giant spiders arrived, those were much bigger, almost the size of Isha, and she set them on the plague rat swarm she could feel gathering on the very edge of her range.
"Let's go," Taylor said as she took a step inside the tunnel. "I'm reinforcing things with my spiders, but we wouldn't die even if it collapses."
"I'm pretty sure you're right," Ethan said. "And I think I could dig us out if it did collapse."
That it was the only reason he was following her without a fight remained unsaid, but while Taylor wanted to help people, she was no longer at the point of throwing away her life just for a chance of rescuing a few criminals.
They didn't bring any light, but Taylor could easily navigate through her swarm, and Ethan must have had a changer ability, something that let him see without problems, he didn't even stumble.
Being guided by her insects, they navigated the labyrinth of tunnels at a fast pace, and Ethan only had to lift an obstruction once, a dozen of her larger spiders working together to fix the metal support in place with webs.
"Here," Taylor said, breaking the silence. "I'm in range of the Warden's office here, and I just found a few survivors that way."
"Do you need my help?" Ethan asked.
"A few men are locked in their cells that way, I'll have a spider guide you, but I can manage the rest with my swarm."
"Good, I'll go help the prisoners, then try to explore a little, do you have anything other than a spider to draw my attention?"
Landing a firelight on his shoulder, Taylor refocused on the information, the warden room was under a part of the collapsed mine, someone seeming to have taken the effort of targeting it, but the metal box had survived mostly intact, even if the paths leading into it were blocked.
The Warden, however, hadn't survived, from his position, it seems like he had taken his own life to avoid facing the prisoners, and it hadn't been anytime soon, probably when Chross and Margott were fighting and not paying attention to the mine.
Sitting on a piece of rubble, Taylor started trying to learn what happened, at the same time, the biggest of her swarm were helping people escape the mine, spiders big enough to lift ruble, carry bodies and guide/scare men towards the tunnel, there were far fewer survivors than she expected.
"Any luck," Ethan asked when he returned, an unconscious boy over his shoulder.
"We knew the mine was mostly under Smeech, when he died, the Warden started to lose control and there was a riot... He couldn't get out of the prison fast enough."
"So, he's been dead for a long time," Ethan said, pacing around her. "Why was the mine still working?"
"One of the guards took over, and he had control of the main entrance," which meant he controlled a small tunnel, filled with murder holes and ending in a hundred meter long shaft to the surface. "He didn't have enough people to retake the place, so he made a deal with the inmates to get money."
Greed, the man had given the prisoners control of the mine, but he controlled the entrance, being the only source of food and water. The inmates mined if they didn't want to starve or become cannibals, and Levi pocketed Chross and Margott's payment.
The information she found was from the prisoner's point of view, but they thought Levi had even stopped asking for help, deciding to get as much money as he could and flee when things couldn't be sustained anymore.
"So, that's why nobody did anything about the tunnel, the prisoners were just obeying until it was finished. Any idea who was in charge?"
"The only papers I found were confusing, the man rambled too much about survival of the strongest," Taylor said with disgust, the words reminding her of Sophia in a way she hadn't thought of in years. "He called their leader the Dreadnought."
"Urgot," Ethan said with confusion. "Right, I thought he was from Noxius, but there was that Zaun video…"
Taylor got up, she still couldn't believe he had read about them, that her entire world had been a story for someone else, but any name he recognized would be trouble. "Tell me about his power."
.
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A/N: If you like this story, you can read one chapter ahead on my P.A.T.R.E.O.N.
Also, think about reading one of my other works or giving me a tip if you have some spare change by supporting me on patr eon.com/CapCaverna or ko -fi.com/capcaverna