It is nine o’clock, twilight hour. A time where musicians will be setting bows on strings, gathering a tempo. Where the clink of champagne glasses will ring to high gilded ceilings as talk of money and music and rank steals the crowd. Where gossip will spill out of their pretty mouths like a dripping hot drug.

Viktor won’t know for sure if this is how the gala will transpire. He can only guess, because he isn’t there.

He hangs up his keys, and the lab doors shut dramatically from behind. Blitzcrank has rolled up immediately, dutifully, tall and polished bronze, and Viktor tells it, “It is only me.”

Because Blitzcrank holds up two steaming cups of coffee.

If the robot could blink in confusion it would. It just stands there, wholly uncertain. From one of its extended arms Viktor accepts a warm mug and wraps it in his palm. From another arm, the second one remains. The robot does not move. There is nowhere for it _to_ go, because the task of “bringing coffee” is not complete.

Viktor notices this, supposes he can re-program the robot’s routine for the night, except he doesn’t have time. A headache isn’t helping the urgency, but maybe coffee will.

It had been so long since Jayce had been invited to a party, Viktor forgot about setting an alternative mode for when he was left alone…

“Jayce will be here tomorrow,” Viktor says, rubbing at his temple. He supposes the robot deserves a bit of explanation, regardless if it will understand the meaning. “You may return the mug.”

On that order, Blitzcrank turns its large metal body around and disappears behind a corner to complete the task. In the dark, the runes that power its body pulse faintly blue inside of the embedded metal hull.

The mechanical whir of the robot can be heard from the small kitcheonette after Viktor settles into his studies. He’s suddenly become more aware of the other sensations around him, heightened by his head, the blue of Hex crystals and runes, the bubbles rising in beakers, the clicking of gears. So much kinetic energy, but there is a lack of…something, a potent silence too noisy to ignore. A voice unheard.

Jayce, of course. Viktor reminds himself that he will be here tomorrow.

Time becomes automatic. In the first half hour, Viktor fills out a whole paper chart documenting the pulse strength of an acceleration rune at twenty millisecond intervals. In the second half hour, he transcribes an entire mock up of a new transponder in chalk. Runes are carefully aligned to metal components. A list of parts are written in order of manufacturing. The work is diligent, satisfactory, impressive.

It is not the only task, though. Sitting in the other corner of the lab is the Hexcore.

Except now…Viktor is thinking about it while trying not to think about it. His headache gnaws its way to the nape of his neck. Viktor allows himself a glance from the chalkboard, but peels his eyes away at once with a hammering heart. The odd, alien shape of the anomaly glows purple, like…usual. No changes, so that was good.

Nothing needs to change, because Jayce will be here tomorrow. It will be worked on tomorrow.

Eleven thirty, and Blitzcrank returns from the kitcheonette wielding a cast iron pan. It beeps to get Viktor’s attention for a scheduled programming to make a late night snack. Except Viktor isn’t the one that eats while he is working. He waves the robot off, remembering to tell it to return the pan.

Viktor sucks in a breath. If he ignores the other purple…thing…in the corner long enough, he will leave the night without a single urge to approach it. But occasional check-ins are still a necessary safety precaution. Another glance here and there and he sees there are no changes. Again. Still purple. Still dormant.

Midnight, or close to it, and there is a loud startling boom followed by a heavy screech of metal wheels from behind him. Blitzcrank is in haywire rolling around the lab. If it could utter a scream, this might be the sound. Viktor startles, too, immediately searching for a source of the boom. Faulty equipment, a fallen device, an attack?

All manner of colors are spilling across the lab —the Hexcore?

No. It remains exactly as it was, in the corner.

Viktor approaches the lab windows to get a better idea. Ah, fireworks.

A whole array of colors, glittering down like the stars as they explode. His first thought is of the gala, marking a midpoint into the celebration. He didn’t realize the display would be seen and heard so close.

Blitzcrank is inconsolable, set into overdrive by the commotion. And Viktor’s headache hammers into his eyeballs, overstimulated by it all.

“Stop,” he tells the robot. “We are safe.” Because if he says that, the emergency faculties installed inside of Blitzcrank might cool off. Which they do, almost immediately. Blitzcrank’s engine slows as the firework show ends, and the robot comes to a slow stop at Viktor’s feet. The hinge of its jaw flaps open and closed. Light in its eyes flickers from bright red back to calm blue. The runes in its body resume a duller, arcane glow.

An interesting theory, that chaos makes it near unable to function, and order controls it.

Jayce will be here tomorrow. Viktor should tell him.

They had only been testing Blitzcrank as a lab assistant for a couple of weeks. They needed the extra hands for quite some time — someone who could keep up with their quick pace, and provide them a little reprieve when it came to…physical faculties, like nutrition. Except they couldn’t ask an academy student like Sky or Ekko or, god forbid, Jinx, to dote on trivial needs. And with Jayce being gone more often…it had been Jayce’s idea to build one instead, test the limit of what runes could power, and see how well a forged collection of alloys could follow a pre-programmed task.

But what Jayce and Viktor had ended up creating was downright astonishing.

Blitzcrank, called such in a delerious hour of the night when they named it based off an inside joke, had blinked awake right as Jayce embossed the final rune. Like any Hextech creation, it pulsed with a familiar blue glow at its core. But though it was not human, Viktor would swear it looked upon them like men, not objects. Uncertain if it was Viktor’s design or Jayce’s forge work, there was a sense of expectancy inside of its lit up eyes. Life.

“Oh! Ok,” Jayce had exhaled in sheer surprise, seeing what Viktor saw, stepping back carefully to be beside Viktor and gripping the engraving iron tight in his fist. Nervous.

They observed Blitzcrank’s gears spin and shift around to pull its own body upright, towering above Viktor, then even over Jayce. His partner ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what to say. “This is…”

Viktor had squinted in the face of their creation and found intrigue in its nature. “Blitzcrank,” he called to it by name, “please take the iron.” He needed to know an answer right away. How would it follow a command?

Jayce nodded at Viktor, understanding, presented the iron to the bot on the top of his palm. Silently it rolled foward, and in a moment of anticipation it held up its robotic hand, staring down at the little tool like it was calculating a distance, judging a speed, and then…it pinched its fingers gingerly down to pick up the tool as delicately as a flower.

Jayce let out a held breath. “That is…”

“Now put it away, on the rack,” Viktor ordered again. Kept it vague, didn’t bother to point to where. But the robot did so successfully. Knew exactly where the tool lived in the lab, just like so where it hung on the wall.

Viktor tapped the floor with his crutch. “Here.”

And Blitzcrank rolled back beside them, watching, waiting.

Jayce looked dazed. “How does it…?”

Viktor shook his head, “It seems it just knows.”

Jayce gave Blitzcrank a try, too. “Can you…move in a small circle?”

At this, the robot tilted its head, bobbed lightly back and forth, remained in place. This was the first taste they got of it stalling from improperly spoken words.

“It misunderstands,” Viktor realized. “You are asking it if it _can_. It does not know what that means.”

Jayce turned to Viktor thoughtfully. “No. You’re right, it has no ability to answer, regardless. It needs a concise direction. Blitzcrank, you can move in a small circle. Do it.”

And Blitzcrank whirred around on its wheels, spinning like a graceful mechanical dancer in the middle of their lab. And they knew exactly how to handle it from there on out.

Teaching a robot what it could and couldn’t do was like raising a young child. Patient, tedious, hilarious sometimes.

But pretty soon, Jayce and Viktor and Blitzcrank developed a work rhythm in a brand new way. A sort of odd lab family, where Blitzcrank was the first being ever to exist in their lab that seemed, oddly, natural in there. It was near in tandem with their thoughts. Able to execute routine requests without being asked, like it anticipated what they would say. Falling into place like a perfect spare part.

Except when something went wrong, something out of everyone’s control, and Blitzcrank caved in on itself.

The fireworks, for instance, have ceased, and the robot regains a nobler stance. Viktor’s head rings, but his ache is replaced by a dull static behind his lids. If not for the surprise of fireworks, he’d be battling against the will of the Hexcore right now. Instead, bathed in a sea of muddied thoughts, near exhaustion, exacerbated by a migraine, before any of the rest of his tasks are finished…

He tests a theory.

He points to the corner, into the purple shadows, where the Hexcore lies at bay but no doubt _lives_, because Viktor knows, _deep down_, that it is very much alive. It calls to him every moment of every waking day.

“Blitzcrank,” he orders, “go pick it up.”

Viktor doesn’t need to say what it is. Because Blitzcrank already knows. Because…and if his theory is correct…

The robot does just as Viktor asks without him actually asking. Rolls its wheels into the glow, bathed in an anomaly of arcane light, a marvel of the arcane itself, and very gently picks up the Hexcore into its arms. The Hexcore hums, allowing it, buzzing with life.

A single moment of clarity rips through Viktor’s skull. It is not a miracle, Blitzcrank’s innate ability to know intuitive thoughts and desires. It can already hear Viktor’s, because that _thing_, the _Hexcore_ is driving the wheels of their decorated metal friend. And the Hexcore has been wanting Viktor for a very, very long time.

Blitzcrank’s inner core begins to shift from blue to a deep, familiar purple.

Viktor wonders what would happen if Blitzcrank were to be removed from the lab. How the Hexcore would react. How it would _feel_. What it would do to say how it felt _right now_.

Another theory comes to mind, one Viktor bravely tests. “Are you lonely?” he asks. The two arcane creations in front of him are inextricably bound to one another. He can see that clear as day. He doesn’t know which one of them he is really asking. The world stops.

Blitzcrank does the extraordinary, and nods its head. Its eyes now flicker into purple, staring. Knowing. The Hexcore itself whirs and spins in its arms while the robot’s jaw moves up and down. An answer without a voice, but an innate, sheer will to be heard. Blitzcrank, a conduit for a…conversation.

Jayce will be here tomorrow.

And no, he does not, in fact, need to know about this at all.