Ashes of Progress // Silco x OC

Chapter 4

The factory loomed ahead, its jagged frame cutting through the dim haze of the undercity. Thick plumes of smoke curled from its chimneys, the acrid stench of oil and chemicals wafting through the air. I pulled my hood lower, but my stride didn't falter.

This was where it started.

I'd spent the past week piecing together rumors, tracing whispers about where my stabilizers might have ended up. This factory matched every detail. It didn't matter who owned it or what they were using it for—this was about my work.

I needed to see it with my own eyes.

It wasn't fear that drove me tonight; it was certainty. Certainty that my stabilizers were here, certainty that they weren't being used as intended, and certainty that I could no longer stand by and do nothing.

I slipped through the side entrance, the faint hum of machinery growing louder as I stepped inside. The air was thick and stifling, the heat pressing down like a weight.

The factory floor stretched before me, a labyrinth of pipes, conveyor belts, and vats of glowing liquid that immediately set my nerves on edge. Workers moved between stations, their voices gruff and hurried, but none of them seemed to notice me.

Good.

It didn't take long to find what I was looking for.

My stabilizers were lined up against the far wall, their familiar frames unmistakable even in the dim light. I approached cautiously, my pulse quickening.

The first one was a mess.

The panels were loose, the bolts rusted, and wires jutted out haphazardly as if someone had tried to modify it without the faintest understanding of how it worked. I crouched down, prying open the access panel with the tools I always kept on me.

The sight inside made my chest tighten.

This wasn't just wear and tear. The modifications were reckless, the balance of the internal mechanisms completely destroyed. The stabilizer's core was overworked, straining under conditions it was never meant to handle.

And then I saw the pipes connected to it, the liquid pulsing faintly as it flowed through the system.

Shimmer.

My breath caught as the realization sank in.

This factory wasn't refining energy or producing goods. It was a shimmer lab.

And my stabilizers were at the center of it.

My fingers trembled as I traced the corroded wiring, anger bubbling up from the pit of my stomach. This wasn't what they were meant for. They were supposed to help people, to make production safer, cleaner, better.

Instead, they'd been twisted into tools for something vile.

I slammed the panel shut, my thoughts racing.

How could this happen? How could Piltover, with all its resources, fail so catastrophically? They'd abandoned my work, thrown it away like trash. And now it had ended up here, in the hands of people who had no idea how to use it properly.

But then another thought crept in, sharper and colder.

Shimmer wasn't just hurting the undercity. It had already infected Piltover's perfect streets, slipping through the cracks and toppling its pristine image. Scientists, enforcers, even council members—they weren't immune to its pull.

If shimmer was hurting Piltover—if it was tearing apart the city that had betrayed me—then maybe it wasn't such a terrible thing.

I exhaled sharply, pushing the thought aside.