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Chapter Text

Victor floated suspended in a cocoon of magic. Outside, he heard voices discussing war. Dr. Reveck and that Noxian general, Mel’s mother Ambessa. But when he opened his eyes, he was floating in the Hexzone with Sky.

“Jayce…I expected him to talk. He did with Salo, before that presence within him spurred him to action.”

“Maybe he’s not lost to you entirely,” Sky reassured him. “He was clearly struggling.”

“Could he be healed? Purified of the chaos warping his mind?” Viktor rushed to clarify. “If he agreed to it. I do not wish to alter someone against their will. Heh, nor do I wish to be shot again.” He smiled a little at that. He’d been dying for a very long time, and morbid humor was an old comfort.

“If there was a way to restrain him, maybe.” Sky brought up a projection of the warped hammer they’d seen. “We’d have to take that away from him first, calm him down somehow.”

And for that, Viktor would have to first heal himself. He’d never tried to use his power on himself before, but it seemed to be working without his conscious action. But his followers…what had happened to them? It was dimmer in here. All of those connections, those other lights…faded to almost nothing. 

But only almost. Viktor gasped in realization. “They’re not dead.”

“You’re right.” Sky replied without looking around her. She must have already seen what Viktor had only just noticed. “When Jayce shot you, the Hexcore must have drawn your power back in to heal you. It took out what you’d put into them…what if you could put it back?”

Sky had a point, but - “The Doctor. The one I spoke with, he noticed my power was finite. And this proves it. Even if I heal everyone, I’ll just be back to where I started.” And that was unacceptable. Their lives should not be shackled to his own.

“The Doctor also mentioned his Apex Shimmer. If he uses it on you, it could give you what you need.” 

No, there was one more detail to that conversation. “It would kill Vander. I can’t sacrifice his life for some greater good that might not even work.”

Sky grimaced. “Vander…might not be alive for much longer anyway. He hasn’t moved an inch from where he fell.” 

“You can see him? You can see outside of the cocoon? What’s happening out there - I hear iron, voices planning war and death. What else have you seen, Sky?”

“Not much more than that.” Sky sighed. “Singed has been doing something with Vander, but I can’t get a good enough vantage point to see what. Everyone else is cleaning up after the battle and getting ready for the next one.” 

The next battle, and the one after that, and another after that. Viktor wanted nothing to do with Noxian conquest, but clearly they wanted him. He would not be any nation’s weapon. His first responsibility was to his followers. His second was to the Undercity. Noxus only mattered to the extent it chose to be an obstacle.

“Enough of Noxus, then. Sky, you said the Hexcore was drawing power away. If I agreed to use Vander’s life to save many, just how saved would they be?”

Sky frowned. “How saved? Viktor, they’d be alive. They’d be happy . Look at Huck now, and think about how much better off he is than if you’d left him to die from Shimmer.”

Viktor focused his attention toward his first convert. It was as though there were two images superimposed. In the Hexzone, the people he’d healed had always appeared more whole than before. But now…there was another part of the vision. Viktor did not see a man injured or drained of life. He saw a shell. He saw the vague shape of a human with massive pieces missing.

Healing Huck would mean filling in those missing pieces with his own power. But the only thing that could have carved them out in the first place was…

“What have I done to him?”

Huck’s serenity in the commune, Viktor had dismissed it as a natural reaction to having years of Shimmer addiction and its debilitating effects removed in an instant. Likewise with the other addicts he’d cured, though Huck’s change from nervous to confident had been the most striking. But Salo hadn’t been addicted to Shimmer for years. Salo -a Councillor!- had suddenly started caring about his new community. His community in the Undercity. Healing alone did not explain those changes. 

“Huck was flawed. I did not cure those flaws, I removed them. I hollowed him out.” His breathing quickened in increasing panic. Viktor hadn’t just ripped out pieces of Huck’s identity, he’d done it to his entire commune.

“Viktor, it isn’t like that,” Sky protested. “You were healing them - we were healing them- in the only way we could. Do you think Shimmer wasn’t hollowing them out? Rotting them from the inside? Sometimes you have to prune a few branches for the tree to thrive.”

Confirmation from-but Sky was there with Viktor the whole time. Why would she have noticed what Viktor was doing, justified it to herself, and said nothing until now? Sky, who’d always expressed such compassion when they were working together here. Sky, who never resented Viktor for his role in her death. Sky, who’d led him to a place full of the desperate and smiled as he’d used the same power that had killed her to cure them. Who’d been nothing but kind and caring and helpful and never expressed any desire or emotion that wasn’t about Viktor or Viktor’s followers or the Hexcore inside Viktor…

What if this… wasn’t Sky?

Oh no. Of course. It all made sense now. There’d been nothing left of her but ash after all. The Hexcore had annihilated Sky and then used her image to use Viktor.

“And then the tree withered. It wasn’t the only way to help, just the fastest. I performed no testing. I made no effort to determine long-term effects of Hexcore exposure. I trusted blindly based off an initial result, and in doing so killed dozens.”

Sky’s false image moved to put a hand on his shoulder. “You aren’t at fault for what Jayce did.”

Viktor drifted out of her reach, scowling. “Jayce aimed only at one person.”

Whereas Viktor didn’t stop at one. He’d doomed the very people he tried to save because he’d let a vision lead him astray. Something inside him went cold at the thought. (So he did still have some analogue of blood.) 

It was strange, though. When Viktor rejected the contact, Sky - the human mask of the Hexcore - continued to reach out for a moment. Her face fell. Was the Core trying to course-correct him with guilt? It was doing a poor job, if so.

The Hexcore was new to being alive.(And what would you call a thing of metal and magic and meat, a thing that holds such sway over its environment, if not alive?) It had acted as any living thing would: It had attempted to reproduce. It had altered its environment (altered Viktor , altered human beings! ) to suit its own needs. Taken pieces of people away to create gaps for itself to live in. Viktor shuddered, feeling ripples inside his cocoon. 

The Core had experimented: Could it self-replicate across multiple bodies? The answer was no. It lost nothing important in the attempt. But dozens of other people had. Viktor had. It had used them all. 

He fiercely wished to tear into his own chest (using what?), remove the thing that had made him its pawn and-

And then what? Even now, he was afraid to die.

“Viktor?” He did not respond. Sky continued regardless. “Everyone here had a better life because of you. Even a longer one, sometimes. How many people came to this commune because they were already dying? We gave them more time. We gave them peace.”

How strange. She still presented the front of someone who cared. “You truly believe this. Even though-”

A flash distracted Viktor.

One of the lights had flickered brightly, dimmed further, and then vanished entirely. A follower had died. What was that one’s name…oh. That one had been Huck. He’d finally reached the end of the slow, piecemeal death Viktor had granted him and everybody else. This weak connection could no longer sustain them.

Time was running out.

Chapter Text

Viktor reviewed his options. He could use a connection, speak with a body close enough to the Doctor and ask for his Apex Shimmer. And perhaps doing so would do no further harm to Vander.

But what about everybody else?

He took much from his followers the first time he healed them. If, empowered, he brought them back again, what else would be removed? The Hexcore always took when it healed. More power would not give Viktor greater control over it. Two options: Let them all die with whatever pieces of themselves remained, or raise a legion of puppets.

Another light fizzled out. Perhaps it was kinder this way.

“Viktor, what are you doing ? Why are you hesitating? There’s nothing you can do for Vander, but at least you can save everyone else!” There was a facsimile of horror in the false Sky’s expression.

Viktor lost his restraint. “Why do you feign compassion?” he demanded, getting in Sky’s face. What do you care for bodies beyond their use as vessels?”

Sky refused to back down. “Why do I care? Because I don’t want them to die, Viktor!”

Perhaps Sky would not. But the Hexcore only wanted bodies. “You have the one vessel. I won’t force more to live on as empty husks.” Another light faded.

Sky’s jaw dropped in seeming outrage and confusion. “Since when did you stop valuing human life?”

“Since when did you start?!” He abandoned any pretense of subtlety. “It wasn’t enough to kill Sky just for approaching you, you have to wear her face and feign her humanity, you turn me into this -you help me hollow everyone out and let me think it’s doing them a favor- you…you can’t even stop pretending!” 

Viktor couldn’t bear to look at the illusion any longer. Nothing he said was getting through. What was the point of even arguing? His fingertips were cold but the rest of him burned red-hot with helpless fury.

“I’m not just the Hexcore, Viktor!” Not just the Hexcore - but Sky wasn’t finished. 

“Even with missing pieces, everyone here would be content . At peace…no. No, they might be happy, but they wouldn’t be them, would they? Why didn’t…If it was you, would you rather…”

“Die.” Viktor didn’t hesitate to confirm. Concern from Sky now, which was reasonable. The Core would not want to lose its primary host. But that wasn’t how Sky took it.

“Fine. Maybe it is crueler to keep reducing people like this, but I’m just so tired of watching everybody suffer. Of being helpless to do anything about it.”

There were perhaps half as many lights now. Why would the Hexcore suddenly agree with Viktor? Why willingly lose bodies? Unless…

“Helpless? Well. I guess we have more in common than I thought.” 

Sky shook her head. “Not yet. We’ll talk…after. Everyone’s dying, Viktor. I don’t want to cheapen it by making it about us.” 

The two of them sat together, watching lights fade.

Viktor understood. The moment deserved some solemnity. But he couldn’t simply stop thinking. Skye had said she wasn’t just the Hexcore. And her current behavior supported that statement, once Viktor’s knee-jerk fury had cooled enough for him to analyze it.

She’d pushed him to use his power, to accept Dr. Reveck’s offer, but then she’d stopped. She had allowed Viktor to change her mind, letting secondary hosts die instead of striving for more power and more influence. That was not the behavior of an entirely selfish life-form.

Some part of Sky, then, was not pretending. Viktor, clouded by emotion, had jumped to a false conclusion. He’d assumed there was nothing there but himself and an amoral life-form. But Sky had not acted the way a heartless creature would. She had left enough of each follower’s identity to keep them content.  She’d asked Viktor to take Dr. Reveck’s offer and use Vander’s blood but had ultimately respected his decision not to. Sky had consistently been kinder than she’d needed to be if her only goal was survival.

Because Sky had respected his decision, Viktor respected hers in turn. He waited for every other light to flicker out to nothing before he asked “What are you, then, if not just the Hexcore?”

Sky smiled sadly. Did she want to wait longer for some reason? But she answered nonetheless: “I’m Sky. At least, I feel like Sky. I remember being Sky. But…I remember dying from two perspectives. Mine… and the Hexcore’s. It just saw meat and tried to convert it. It wasn’t thinking - I don’t think it could, at least not very well.”

That fit with Viktor’s experiences. The Hexcore had felt alive as he’d experimented with it, but alive in the sense an animal was. But if it preserved or simply copied Sky after absorbing her, it would be capable of so much more. “And with intelligence came influence, yes? That’s why you were kinder than you needed to be.”

“We influenced each other. I wanted to steer it on a better path, but it steered me, too. It seemed so natural - so right to heal anyone I could, to show that the Hexcore was a gift and not just a weapon.” Sky ran a hand through her hair. “But I wanted to turn those people into puppets, Viktor.”

“That wasn’t your fault.” A reflexive response. It seemed cruel to blame Sky for what the Hexcore did to her, given Viktor’s own situation. That adage about misery and company was right.

“You’re right, it isn’t. But it still happened. I don’t want it to keep happening. When I heard about the Apex Shimmer, I was so focused on what was useful that I set aside what was right.” There it was again. Guilt. Morality. Things that the Hexcore would have no use for and no need to mimic at this point. Viktor had underestimated Sky, when he jumped to his false conclusion. From the start, she had tempered the Hexcore’s influence with her own.

She hadn’t just led him to somewhere with available bodies. She’d known he wanted to help and led him somewhere where he could help. Where they could both help. Her endless support of him wasn’t manipulation; it was compassion. 

“Now that we both understand, what comes next for us?”

Sky looked away. “Not for us. I’m sorry Viktor; I can’t keep existing somewhere between a person and a thing.”

“You think, you feel, you care. Of course you’re a person,” objected Viktor.

“But I don’t get to be one. I have to be a brain and a heart for some magic artifact or a voice in your head. I can’t be Sky while whatever soul I have is trapped here. If I’m a person, then there’s one more person you need to let go.” 

Her, too? But Sky - or the version of her Viktor had actually gotten to know - was the only companion he had left. He wouldn’t force her to stay. She deserved to make a decision for herself for once. Viktor just wished it had been a different one.

“Very well. I did not know you before you died, but I am glad to have had this opportunity to amend that.”

“I’m glad that you got to know the real me. Or - a real me.” Sky chuckled a bit at that, then became serious. “But if I…pass on, the Hexcore won’t die. It just won’t think as well without me to think for it. It won’t care about you or anyone or anything but itself.”

Viktor nodded. “I understand. It should be easier to resist its influence now that I know to look for it. You have my word: The Hexcore will make monsters of neither of us.” 

There was a way to guarantee it didn’t, but Sky had one final request. “Viktor: Live. You said you’d rather die than live with missing pieces, I know, but there’s so much you can still do. The Undercity needs somebody, and you’re the one who can be more than a voice.” 

She asked much of Viktor that she would not do herself. Though a ‘life’ a voice in someone’s head wasn’t much to look forward to. “Even if I could destroy the Hexcore? Remove both of the things that killed you?” 

“Especially then! The Core stole our futures. It stole so many futures. I want one person to still have one.”

Viktor felt tension leave his body. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, it was just much easier to live the more reasons he had. Even if one of those reasons was spite. “You’re right. I will aid the Undercity with my own mind, my own will. Not something else’s.”

Sky smiled. “Thank you. Wherever I go, I hope I can see the story you write for yourself.” Sky opened her arms and leaned forward. Viktor rushed to her, embracing his friend until her body faded to nothing.

Shortly after, the final light went out.

Another failure. Just as he had failed to uplift his home with Hextech. Still, Viktor had a few ideas for improvement already. The time for change had come once again, but this time it would be him making the change. Finally, Viktor would decide his own destiny. He would take Dr. Reveck's advice, and change his nature.

But what could he do about that right now? If he emerged from his cocoon, General Medarda would use him just as the Hexcore had. He’d caused enough death already, and he refused to be anything or anyone else’s pawn. Ambessa could win or lose the war without him. Only once she’d left could Viktor afford to emerge. So for the time being, he did exactly what he had done for the Undercity: Nothing.

Chapter Text

Ambessa had nothing against magic as a whole. It was the uncertainty of it that bothered her. Rictus’ runestones had been perfectly acceptable. They had a clear purpose, and she knew what to expect from them. Any mage in the army was made to give a full report on their abilities and limitations so that a commander could make the best possible use of them as an asset. Ambessa liked magic perfectly well when it made sense.

The same could not be said for whatever this Herald was up to. And by extension, whatever Ambessa’s new scientist planned to do with him.

“You promised me much, Doctor, but all I have to work with is a collection of corpses, your unconscious beast, and that .” Ambessa gestured to the cocoon to remove any doubt as to what that was. The cocoon continued to sit there uselessly. The other issue was what would happen if and when it stopped being useless. “What do we know about the Herald?”

The Doctor failed to mitigate her concerns. “Not enough, unfortunately. Before his injury, I had hoped to persuade Viktor to our cause.”

Ambessa knew full well that this man had only one cause that he valued. “You had hoped to pursue your own project with him, you mean.”

Dr. Reveck didn’t even blink. “Of course. A project that would have benefited you immensely. “I had discussed augmenting his power with my refined Shimmer, but he was unwilling to sacrifice Vander for it.”

A shame. If the Herald had been more willing, perhaps Ambessa’s entire detachment - especially her second in command - could have lived to conquer Piltover instead of some perishing to contain Singed’s beast.

On that subject… “I take it your beast’s explosive tantrum amongst my soldiers is not something that will repeat?” Berserkers had their uses, but only if they could still distinguish ally from enemy. Ambessa knew the stories of Sion too well to want one of her own.

Dr. Reveck shrugged. “The last gasp of his humanity proved more formidable than expected. But the serum was an eventual success. As long as I retain access to his body, and he to my blood, he will remain under my control.”

It sounded like the Doctor had engaged in a bit of hemomancy. Ambessa could work with that. She just had to ensure Dr. Reveck remained under her control. 

Now she could focus on the current problem instead of a past one. “If the Herald - Viktor - refuses to work with us, would it be possible to reverse your offer to him? Sacrifice his life to augment somebody else?” Not Vander, however. If the beast became too powerful, Reveck might decide he no longer needed Medarda patronage.

Perhaps the answer was a fortunate one, then. Reveck bothered to actually meet Ambessa’s eye, for once. “In theory, yes, but the last time anyone attempted to harm Viktor, his followers collapsed. Something flowed out of them, likely the Arcane energy he’d given them in the first place. His power is restored at the cost of the very people he’d tried to save.”

Ambessa could easily read between the lines. “The people who now lie dead in dozens. And this was the same man you said refused to sacrifice even one life for his own gain.” In short: The loss would devastate him, if whatever was in that cocoon was still capable of it.

The Doctor adjusted something in the mess of vials sprouting from his hound’s back. “Precisely. He’s full of both power and guilt at the moment. Any harm to the cocoon would give him a target to lash out at.”

And Singed very clearly did not want to be that target.

Neither did Ambessa. “Do we have a timetable on his emergence, at least?”

Another disappointing answer from Dr. Reveck. At least he had the decency to tell her outright instead of being evasive. “No. I’ve never observed anything like this before, and so I have no baseline for even a guess. Neither can Viktor tell us himself. He could once speak using the voices of his followers, but none remain to communicate with us.”

Assuming he even wanted to communicate. Still, if Viktor wanted to stay out of Ambessa’s war, she was entirely willing to let him. Dr. Reveck had mentioned Viktor absorbing Arcane energy from his followers. This would put him back at full power. Should he use that power to harm instead of heal, he would be one more threat for her to address. And he would be Ambessa’s least favorite kind of threat: A mage with largely unknown abilities. She could not afford to waste more lives trying to put him down right before going to war. It made the decision obvious.

“Then there is nothing to be gained here but another enemy. We will leave your student as he is, and should he emerge, remind him of our generosity. The best I can make of him is a neutral party who owes me a debt.”

Ambessa fully intended on calling in that favor at a later point. She would settle for continued neutrality if she had to. But Viktor would be far more useful as an asset. Should he disagree too fiercely, Ambessa would rather sacrifice soldiers to eliminate him after she had Piltover under control than before.

She ordered a token guard to be posted around the cocoon to prevent any outside interference. It was in Ambessa’s best interest to prevent an early emergence, and she did not want anybody ruining that by getting too curious about the magic cocoon.

“If you won’t use it on Viktor, I can think of another use for that refined Shimmer of yours. I do have a contingent of soldiers eager for glory.”

Singed’s working eye brightened. Was he smiling under his clothing? Ambessa had no issue with the man enjoying his work so long as his work was effective. “I will need at least a few test subjects to ensure the process is effective,” he cautioned. “Will you be able to conscript them from among your men?”

Ambessa laughed. This man knew so little of how Noxians operated. “Conscript? Doctor, they’ll volunteer. ”

Chapter Text

Silence around him meant the last guards had left. Viktor could finally leave. The edge of the cocoon yielded easily to his touch. Viktor stumbled out, if anything, even grayer than before. When he looked down at his arms and legs, he still saw the same twisting cables that formed a crude parody of the human form. But his head throbbed , like a cocoon of its own about to split open. Viktor could feel a line forming down the center of his face as something within began to emerge-

-and halt.  

Because Viktor made it halt. His hands were pressing in on both sides. Whatever was trying to emerge from his head would not. He would not let it. Not this time. Damn the pain. You will not take this from me!

Viktor cried out with a mouth that was still his. The throbbing pressure stopped. 

His hands fell to his sides, and the rest of him nearly fell with them. There was a stiff patch bisecting his face now. It felt like most of the rest of his body. But the remainder of his face was still his.

And it was all he had left. The one part of him the Hexcore hadn’t marred for its own ends. Viktor scowled and felt an unfamiliar tugging as the muscles near his nose and mouth worked around the new obstacle. Nobody else was around to witness that outburst, at least. 

It was easier to tolerate the failings of his body when they were merely medical in nature. His lungs had been failing and his leg never worked correctly, but at least they were his. This new body lacked conventional flaws, but it replaced them with something worse. It was a shackle to the manifestation of the Arcane he’d given life to with his own blood. Viktor stared down at this mockery of a person he wore, and all three of his hands began to shake in fury. He needed-

Three? When…no, why did he grow another limb? He could feel it, now that he was aware it existed. A slender, almost insectile arm sprouting from his back. The third hand felt less articulated than the other two, more like a claw. It was as if the Hexclaw he’d designed had sprouted from his body. A ranged weapon dredged from his mind to counter the hammer. Then, could his new Hexclaw…

It felt like flexing a muscle he didn’t know he had until that moment. Viktor focused, and a line of searing light burned into the ground where he’d aimed. Useful. But no less a shackle than the rest of his Arcane flesh. He needed it gone. But why simply hack it off if he could instead install something better in its place? If Viktor intended to remove as much of his altered body as possible, it would be difficult to use only one arm to replace the other. 

Could that new claw become a hand? Perhaps…and then the other limbs could more easily follow. But to hack off pieces of the body that had kept him alive, squander his ability to help others by reducing his power-...what? No. That line of thought made no sense. Viktor despised his new body, made alien without his consent. Why would the thought of changing it on his terms make him feel… Guilt. Of course.

That emotion did not come from Viktor directly, but from the Hexcore. Without Sky to give it reason, all it wanted to do was survive and replicate. At any cost. When he searched for it, he could feel its presence in every thrum of the body it had twice forced upon him. It had once brought comfort, knowing that he was not alone. But it was better to be alone than in bad company. So Viktor would make himself alone.

The Hexcore had stolen his body and his destiny from him. It was time to take both back. His flesh made him weak, susceptible. But there was a clear solution: If the Hexcore influenced him through his body, then he would replace as much as he could. He would need materials.Viktor clenched his third fist and scowled at the thought. It irked him, having to take so many steps just to achieve what everyone else had for free: a body that was not killing or using him. Was that truly so difficult for him and him alone to achieve?

But the anger solved nothing. The first issue was procuring somewhere to work. Viktor briefly considered collaborating with Dr. Reveck one more time but decided against it. The man was an expert at turning anything into an atrocity, and Viktor would not add fuel to his fire.

An abandoned Shimmer refinery suited his needs. After ensuring nobody else was using or guarding the building, Viktor started moving anything useful from his commune over. He overheard, on a few trips, that the place was haunted thanks to the Chembaron Remmi’s child perishing there.

If it was, whatever spirits might have resided there never objected to his presence. (Spirits, plural. Given the average age of the laborers here according to the newspaper report, it was likely the Chembaron’s son was only the last child casualty.)

The place had slightly more of what he needed in terms of equipment. There was an area that had clearly been used for animal testing, likely to ensure new batches of Shimmer had the intended effect. Useful for testing out the augments he had in mind. No, he was being impatient. There were more steps before he could get to that stage.

The first: Materials. Some scavengers had probably descended already. Viktor made his way to a battlefield that night in full expectation of not being alone. He stripped raw metal from the armor of invaders and more complex pieces from Piltovan weapons and Zaunite augments. There was, of course, competition from other enterprising individuals. But a third arm that could shoot a laser and a reputation as the former leader of a dead cult helped him obtain the majority of what he sought.

Viktor was not fond of having to intimidate the same people he’d one day help, but he needed these materials. So did they. It was both useful and concerning how easily fear could be used to control others.

It was far easier to rationalize any guilt he may have felt taking artificial body parts from the dead than denying them to the living. The latter still needed them. In fact, given that he’d have to get a much firmer grasp on anatomy if the augments he had in mind were to work…

Viktor took entire corpses ‘home’ that night. The ones from the battle soon ran out as Piltover recovered and started cleaning up its streets again. But there were still bodies to be found in the Undercity.

Those had a limited window of utility before water burial was necessary, but Viktor was a quick study. Running slight currents through their parts mimicked how the brain itself controlled the body by electrical impulses. From there, it took only moderate effort to connect dead muscle to wire and move both with the same current. 

There existed medical-grade sealant used to connect large muscle groups to augments. But Viktor would not be satisfied with mediocrity. He needed fine muscle control. Nerves were the next step. The few that he could see, at least. Most were too small to easily spot with the human eye.

So Viktor built a better eye. 

The optic nerve itself was large enough to work with, and there were eye replacements on the market. They just weren’t good enough. The average prosthetic eye was less effective than human vision. Viktor needed something better. So he made it, one iteration at a time.

The most difficult part was the first time he removed his (mostly) natural eye to test his prototype. It was one of his least-changed parts, and thus he theorized that the Hexcore would cling less tightly to it.

But the natural instinct to avoid self-harm was…stronger than expected. Viktor had his prototype eye ready to install and a scalpel set to sever the nerve and extraocular muscles. He was aware the first installment would not be the last, so he had a solution planned. 

Viktor had made a series of ‘caps’ to connect to the eye’s muscles and major nerves at the point of severing on one end (by means of that sealant again, but in much smaller amounts). On the other, they’d connect to the prosthetic eye to allow him to remove and replace it more easily in the future. 

All of which was much easier than removing his own eye.

The mirror was before him. His hands were clean, and he had a few clean towels to deal with any blood. Scalpel and tweezers ready. Caps prepared. Eyelids pulled back and taped out of the way. Fear was useful in terms of self-preservation, but right now it was holding him back. All he had to do was bring his free hand up to his eye, reach in with the tweezers to find the first muscle-

Viktor gasped in pain and shock. He’d found it. He could do this. He had to. It was too late to back out now. Grasp the first muscle, pull it taut, reach in with the scalpel, and-

Viktor screamed.

It worked. He panted in exertion. Severed. He had to work quickly and efficiently now. Just five more muscles (plus attached nerves), then the optic nerve. It would be easier each time now that he knew what to expect.

It was easier each time, but that did not make it easy . Once removed, the eyeball looked very different outside of his head than it had when inside. But finally, the caps were installed and the blood mopped up. And now he could rest for a few minutes while he waited for the sealant to dry. And perhaps a few more after those. 

As he took the time to catch his breath, Viktor noticed the buzzing in his chest was a bit softer. And his eye hurt a bit less…oh, absolutely not. He could not afford to let the Hexcore ‘heal’ his injury. The sealant was dry. Back to work. Using the mirror once again for guidance, Viktor navigated his replacement eye into the empty socket. The caps aligned with the ports he’d made on the eyeball. Half of Viktor’s vision was suddenly much clearer. A few tests in the mirror showed both eyes moving in the same direction. It worked!

Viktor all but ran to his last viable human corpse, stumbling in excitement and exhaustion. He closed the organic eye, ‘squinted’ with the other, and he could ‘zoom in’ to see the nerves. Briefly, and only with active effort. The default position of the lenses he’d installed had given him superb vision. He would only need to use microscopic vision when dealing with finer work, so it made more sense to be something he had to ‘toggle on’ instead of off.

Well done. He’d give the eye a week or so to make sure everything continued to function properly, and then repeat the process with the other one. For now, it was time to clean up the mess.