Champions of Zaun

Chapter Thirteen

Jayce sat quietly, drinking some coffee that Viktor had offered him some time ago. It had long since gone cold, but he barely even noticed. After several more hours of Viktor and Camille being stuck in some sort of trance together, courtesy of the power of the Hexcore—where amongst other things, Viktor showed her heaps of pictures—he was now watching her train in a room Viktor had set up specifically for that purpose. The large, windowless room was filled with punching bags, obstacle courses, training dummies and pretty much everything else one could need to practice fighting, while Jayce himself sat off to the side on what he assumed was some patio furniture.

Camille was moving with incredible speed, almost launching herself through the obstacle courses, going from training dummy to training dummy and slashing out with blades that were contained within her arm and legs. The one from her arm folded out from her limb to almost look like the kind of claws found on a Preying Mantis; it was a terrifying sight. The ones from her legs simply slid out and became almost like an extension of her foot. It allowed her to kick at opponents and slice straight through them. Though less intimidating than the blade that folded out of her arm, they were perhaps even more dangerous since it was hard to see them coming.

She'd been training for perhaps an hour, and the increase in her lethality was obvious even to Jayce's untrained eye. She moved so fast he was barely able to follow her, and every strike against a dummy was one that he knew would instantly kill a human being. Several times she'd had to stop while Viktor replaced the destroyed dummies with new ones. Jayce had thought the J.E.U. was impressive, but it had been a clunky, useless pile of Hextech junk compared to Camille.

He turned his gaze towards Viktor, who was sitting beside him with a satisfied smile on his otherwise emotionless face. "So why Camille Ferros, specifically?" Jayce asked curiously.

Viktor shrugged, as if it was of no concern. "She needed a name. She could no longer go with Malea Morichi, since that is no longer who she is. I've used the Hexcore to alter her personality, overwrite it with another one, that of a killer entirely devoted to the ideals of Piltover. I imprinted on her that she was a member of house Ferros, and she has been for a long time. You will have to arrange that with house Ferros, of course, though I imagine they won't require too much persuasion—they are gaining quite an asset, after all. As for her first name, she picked that herself after I mentally ordered her to pick a different... one." As he finished his sentence, Viktor suddenly launched into a coughing fit.

Jayce nodded. He remembered the woman she had been had originally carried the name Malea Camille. If she couldn't go by Malea anymore, picking Camille seemed a logical option. "Okay, but why house Ferros, specifically?"

Viktor held up his hand to pause the conversation for a moment as he continued coughing. It didn't sound too pleasant.

"Are you alright?" Jayce asked, feeling concern well up inside him. "I thought the whole point of your glorious evolution was that you wouldn't get sick anymore?"

Viktor grimaced as he finally finished coughing, spat out a huge glob of phlegm, then sat up straight. "That was the idea, yes. Perhaps I need to make a few changes. It seems something has slipped past still." He shrugged dismissively. "It could also be that I simply weakened myself severely through such sustained use of the Hexcore. It is of no moment."

"Okay..." Jayce said dubiously. He gave Viktor a few more moments to gather himself, then asked, "So... House Ferros?"

"They have always been secretive, with many of Piltover's citizens knowing very little about them. I could have made her a member of any other house, of course; I could have turned her into Camille Talis, or Camille Medarda, just as easily, but it would have been more difficult to explain where she suddenly came from. I could have made her a peasant, had I wanted to. But by making her a member of one of the major noble houses, she has an added incentive to fight to maintain the status quo in Piltover, since that's where her new house stands most to gain, and house Ferros has always zealously guarded its own interests. Besides, you just gave them their exclusive license to sell Hextech. I figured they owe you."