Mechanical heart (Viktor x OC)

3

"So watch this!" Aya grabbed a petal from one of the blooming flowers on the plant and yanked it out. "One, two, three," Aya started counting the seconds from the moment she pulled out the petal. When she got to twenty, the new petal started growing already, and by the time she had reached thirty, it was all freshly replaced. 

"Holy," Elvira tried to speak, but was too shocked and amazed to finish the sentence. "We've been working on the elixir for a year now, and it's gotten stronger!" Aya stated, proud of their work. "It used to take an hour, now it didn't even take a minute!" Elvira muttered to herself, but Aya could hear her perfectly fine. 

"I took all the calculations and worked all night to produce this new elixir, and when I watered the plant with it early yesterday, I plucked the petal mid-day and it grew out so quick!" Aya clapped her hands together in excitement. "This is incredible, next step is to regrow the entire flower, we're getting closer Aya!" Elvira pulled her friend into a hug, which shocked her. 

Elvira wasn't really a big hugger, not since her mother died. So this was unusual. But Aya embraced Elvira and appreciated the moment. She was about to speak when the entire room shook and a loud explosion was heard. "What in the world," Aya said as both herself and Elvira struggled to keep their balance. When it settled down they all ran over to the window and looked out to see a building close to theirs, covered in smoke. 

"Omg, that's Jayce's lab!" Elvira gasped as she rushed out of the lab and down the streets. Her heart was beating so fast, as she ran down the street thinking about the worst care scenario. She saw a few kids run away from the building, but she did not have any time to worry about anything other than if Jayce was alright. 

"Sorry Miss, you can't enter here," some enforcers were blocking the entrance to the lab when Elvira got there. "I need to check up on Jayce, he's my cousin!" she pleaded but they stood their ground, not letting her through. "It's ok, let her in," someone spoke from the door of the building his lab was in. It was Caitlyn. 

"We can't let her through, there's an investigation going on here," the enforcer argued, but Caitlyn gave him a stern look. "It's my family's building, I know her. Let her through," she ordered and the enforcer sighed before letting Elvira through, not wanting to argue with Caitlyn any longer. 

"Thank you, Cait. What happened here?" Elvira asked as she walked with Caitlyn inside. Since Caitlyn's family is sponsoring Jayce's work, she had both seen and spoken with Caitlyn many times, and they were good friends. Caitlyn was younger than Elvira, about 5 years younger, but they still bonded over the fact that they both had to babysit Jayce quite frequently.

"Jayce and I had just been out gathering some material, and when we got here there was noise coming from the lab. And when Jayce's tried to get in, the door was blocked from the inside. And then," she explained, swallowing hard when she got to the explosion part. "It was a massive explosion, I have no idea what it was," she looked at Elvira with a scared expression. 

"I saw some kids running down the street followed by enforcers on my way here, that may be who's responsible," Elvira said as they reached the door...or where there used to be a door, leading into Jayce's lab. 

Inside, Jayce was sitting on a chair, while a medic was taking care of a cut on his face. Elvira would have healed it for him, but considering how many people were here, she thought it best to leave it to the medics. She looked around the room, shocked at the state it was in. Where there once was a door leading to the balcony, there was now a gaping hole. The papers that used to lie on his desk, was now scattered all around the floor.

"Elvira," he spoke breaking the silence in the room. Elvira looked over to Jayce and dropped her shoulders when she saw that he was fine. Just a few scrapes. "I told you to be careful!" she scolded him, but he only chuckled. "Careful about who I let break into my lab?" 

"I'm sorry, but you can imagine how I felt when I looked out of my window and saw your lab covered in smoke, after hearing that loud bang!" Elvira was stressed and Caitlyn had to pull her aside to try and comfort her. "You're freaking out more than Jayce is," Caitlyn chuckled as she sat Elvira down on one of the remaining stools in the room. 

"Sorry, I just thought about the worst-case scenario on my way here. I'm sorry, I'm making the whole situation worse," Elvira laughed to cope with the traumatic experience. "No, you're not. But everything is good here, just some stuff that was stolen. No one was hurt," Caitlyn reassured Elvira. 

"Yeah, sorry," Elvira apologized again before taking a few seconds to gather herself. Then a few more people walked into the room, looking around, evaluating the scene. "We need to look over this place, and we need to ask you all to leave," a female enforcer asked. 

"Of course," Elvira stood up, looking over to Caitlyn who nodded softly. They all left the room except Jayce, and Elvira almost walked into someone in the doorway on her way out. "Oh, I'm sorry," she apologized to the male, stepping aside to allow him entrance to the lab. "No worries," he said with a bit of an accent. 

"Would you like some tea?" Caitlyn asked Elvira, who smiled and nodded. 

After Elvira had tea with the Kirammans, she started walking to the academy to visit the library. She had also heard the news of Jayce's arrest during tea, and she was restless. It was already evening, and she didn't have a single calm bone in her body. 

She walked around the library towards one of the bookshelves containing books on chemistry, grabbing the books she would bring with her to her lab. She hadn't spoken with Aya since the explosion, but she expected her to be at the lab. She expected her to be there all night actually, and Elvira would probably be there with her. 

Making her way towards another area containing information on plants, she ran into the same boy she saw at Jayce's lab. "Hello, I saw you earlier, didn't I?" she spoke,  causing him to jump in surprise. "Oh, sorry! I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized as he turned towards her with a curious look. "Oh, no. I was just not expecting it," he said while shrugging. 

"You were at the crime scene," he stated. "Ah, when you say it like that you make it sound as if I were the one breaking in," she nervously chuckled, scared he might actually see her as a suspect. "Were you?" he simply asked. "Huh? No!" she couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. "I'm only joking," he clarified, and Elvira relaxed more. 

"Plants and chemistry?" he read the titles on the books she was carrying. "Ah, yes. It's for a project me and my lab partner are working on," she smiled, happy to talk about her science. "May I ask what you are working on?" "Um, well. It's an elixir that can regrow stuff. We're testing it on a plant for now, to regrow flowers and leaves and such, but the goal is to regrow human body parts, sounds farfetched I know," she chuckled. "No, it's rather interesting actually," he looked like he was thinking. 

"It would certainly take a lot of time to get right," he mumbled more to himself than to Elvira. Then he walked off. "Um," Elvira muttered to herself in confusion. Why did he just walk off? Was it something I said? she thought. "This should help," he spoke from behind her, startling her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he said, repeating the same words she said just a few moments ago.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," she said as he looked at the book he was presenting to her. It was about alchemy and medicine. "Oh, this is actually really helpful, thank you so much!" she smiled as she took the book from him. "I wish you good luck on your project," he gave her a weak smile before walking away. "Thank you!" she yelled after him.

After flipping through the book he had brought her, she realized she never got his name. She looked around the library to see if he was anywhere to be seen, but he was gone.