Chapter Text
“You think it’s ready for a real test run?”
Powder took a deep breath in through her nose. Motor oil, pollution, and the general stink of the Undercity greeted her senses. Given their location, however, she did also manage to catch a whiff of brine and saltwater.
“He.” Her answer was a correction, and Ekko laughed.
“Right, he. What’s his name again?”
Powder grumbled, pretending to be upset before grinning. “Rumble. And yeah, I think he’s ready for a spin.”
Rumble was a two-person contraption that Powder and her white-haired best friend had been working on. He had two seats built into a single large wheel that could spin fast enough to provide stability, allowing them to ride in tandem. Piloting the contraption was a two-person job, and Ekko took his spot in the driver’s seat. He placed his hands on the handlebars, which didn’t turn, but instead allowed him to steer by leaning.
Taking up her spot behind and just above Ekko, Powder took out her telescope. It was her job to be Ekko’s backup eyes in case he couldn’t see past the headlight and handlebars. Reaching behind her, Powder flicked on the engine, and Rumble slowly started to crawl forward. Ekko allowed his feet to keep the contraption stable by skimming them over the ground.
Experience and failure had been their teachers for piloting Rumble. Both of them had a handful of bruises and scrapes from failed tests. Rumble himself had been busted up countless times, and they’d had to replace parts or fix him up. The belt that drove them forward started to speed up as Powder increased the engine’s power.
“Should we cruise by the docks?” Ekko laughed, taking a hand off to fist-bump Powder.
“Took the words right outta my mouth, Little Man!”
Powder grinned, and started spotting for Ekko. Their commotion hadn’t gone unnoticed, but no one seemed to care too much about two sump rats driving a deathtrap around the Southern Harbor. That was, until they caught the wrong sort of attention.
“Head’s up! Three Mask-Breathers at 7 ‘o’clock!” A patrol of Enforcers had glanced over at the two, and started to give chase. “In pursuit! Increasing our speed, it’s gonna get bumpy Little Man.”
“Woah! Three more on our 2, Powder!”
Ekko’s voice made Powder spin around. Sure enough, another pack of Pilties were running right at them, and Ekko swerved, nearly causing them to crash. Taking his hand off the bars again, he flipped the Enforcers off as they leaned just out of reach.
Powder frowned. Why were there so many Enforcers out? It wasn’t like they were in the main harbor. This place only dealt in cargo and freight. Everyone knew that! A few Enforcers were understandable, but they’d already run into another 4 patrols.
“Does it seem like there’s more Enforcers than usual?”
“Actually, I’m not too surprised. Progress Day’s a week away, right? I’ve been a few times with Benzo.”
“Lucky…” Powder interrupted Ekko with a grumble while he swerved them away from another patrol.
“Yeah, well… There’s probably gonna be a lot of foreigners arriving in Piltover over this week. Folks coming from the west will probably be arriving at these docks since the North Side will be full up as well. The Enforcers are probably here to keep us lowlifes nice and orderly.”
“Well…” Powder grinned, and Ekko chuckled, already hearing the mischief in her voice. “It’s a good thing we showed up to ruin that peace, eh?”
Indeed, the two had managed to dodge and evade Enforcers long enough that they had made it to the docks. As Ekko predicted, an enormous ship, which Powder had never even seen the design for, was just pulling into port. Unfortunately, the chaos they’d attracted was finally starting to catch up to them. Before they could get any closer to the intriguing ship, the surrounding Enforcers finally overwhelmed them.
Handheld bolas were being thrown at them from every direction, and Ekko swerved once again in the direction of the pier. Unfortunately, he overcorrected, and Powder suddenly felt weightless for a split second as they tumbled over the edge of the docks. Below them, the water was 20 feet away, and closing in fast. They both leapt off, and managed to grab a mooring rope just as Rumble crashed into the river.
Shouts could be heard above them, and Ekko frantically gestured for Powder to follow him. It took all her strength to pull herself up the slippery rope, but Ekko was higher up than she was. With his help, she heaved herself onto a walkway below the pier. Together, they climbed into the support structure below the pier, and hid in the shadows. 30 seconds passed, and three patrols of Enforcers barreled onto the walkway. Powder thought the pounding of her heart or the silent gasps for air she was making would alert them to their presence, but after 5 tense minutes, the Enforcers gave up the search.
Peering through the cracks of the wooden pier, Powder could hear the same Enforcers give their report a minute later. “No sign of the sump rats or that contraption of theirs. Must’ve either swam off or drowned.”
“Personally, I hope it’s the latter.” The Enforcer’s superior growled in a harsh masculine voice. “To pull a stunt like this, here of all places. At this time?! ”
Powder scrunched her nose in disgust. Pilties. Always thinking about themselves. Glancing over at Ekko, she could see her expression reflected on his face through the few cracks of sunlight hitting it.
The Enforcers spent another 10 minutes searching the docks and calming the public down. They hadn’t noticed while driving, but a sizable crowd had gathered at the docks. Some were there because they were interested in Rumble, but Powder could now see that most of them were waiting for whoever was on the ship. Many of the gathered parties looked like wealthy Pilties, hardly the type to be seen on this side of the river.
Just who were these foreigners?
“With that… unplanned delay now dealt with …” The superior to whom the Enforcers had been reporting to was now addressing the crowd in a booming voice. “May I officially welcome Pieter Crownguard: Might of Demacia and Right Hand of His Majesty King Jarvan Lightshield III, as well as his son and daughter: Garen and Luxanna Crownguard, to our humble City of Progress.”
Ekko's wide eyes caught Powder’s and they both shared a look of awe. Powder had thought that this was some pompous diplomat, not the “Right Hand” of a King! Her thoughts were interrupted as a loud cheer rose up from the crowd, and she managed to catch a glimpse of three individuals crossing a massive gangplank onto the docks, followed by an entourage of retainers and soldiers.
Pieter Crownguard was dressed in ceremonial silvery armor, and had a navy blue cloak flowing over his shoulders. On his back was a massive empty scabbard where a truly fearsome blade must lay in. His features were handsome and chiseled, and on his face was a rugged 5 'o'clock shadow. A little further up, his brown hair was tightly trimmed, though a bit grown out. Maybe they’d been at sea for a long time. Powder didn’t have a clue as to how far away Demacia was.
Behind Pieter were his two children. Garen looked like a carbon-copy of his father, right down to the way his hair grew out like Pieter’s. He looked even older than Vi - Powder’s big sister, maybe 16 or 17. Luxanna, however, caught Powder’s attention almost immediately.
She was definitely Powder’s age. Maybe a few months or a year older, but they were both around 11 years old. The contrast in looks to her brother and father were what made her stand out to Powder. Her face was softer, and her jaw more angular than the squared jaws of her family members. What stood out most about her, however, was the shock of brilliantly golden-blonde hair that fell to her shoulders, and framed her face. In the bright sunlight, it seemed to glow. Powder couldn’t seem to take her eyes off her, until…
Oh, shit! Without realizing it, the three Crownguards passed just above and next to her and Ekko. Powder, who was still staring at Luxanna, took an intake of breath as the girl glanced down right at her . For a second Powder caught a glimpse of sparklingly bright eyes the color of the ocean, which widened in confusion. Luxanna hesitated for just a heartbeat before continuing her walk onto the docks.
The rest of the crew followed the Crownguards, but Powder paid them no attention. Her heart was pounding. The girl had seen her! What if she told that horrible announcer guy, and they kept looking for them into the night. How would they sneak away?! There was no way anyone on the ship didn’t know what had apparently held their arrival up.
A small part of her wondered what the girl had thought about her, and whether she’d seen her and Ekko riding Rumble.
Probably thinks I’m just some street trash causing a scene.
She had to admit that it’d be hard to get any other impression of herself, but still… ouch.
Ekko didn’t seem to be sharing her concerns, practical or impractical, and he was instead looking for an opportunity for them to sneak down to the walkway. Despite Powder’s internal dilemma, Ekko did in fact announce that the heat was letting up once everyone was off the ship. They still had to be careful, as Pieter Crownguard was apparently giving an impromptu press conference, but slowly they made it down. The walkway was about a foot above the water level, and ran the entire length of the harbor, disappearing around a curve about 200 feet away.
“I’ll scout the turn, but we should be good to keep moving…”
Ekko’s whisper to Powder was met with a silent nod, and he started creeping down the walkway. Every few steps, he crouched behind crates, barrels, or piles of rope to keep quiet and out of sight. Soon, Powder lost sight of him, and she was about to start following when-
“Just what exactly are you doing?”
Lux was finding it difficult to hide just how excited she was. After years of being denied the opportunity, her father had proclaimed that she was finally old enough to accompany him on his annual voyage to Piltover. It was her first time ever leaving her home city of High Silvermere, let alone Demacia! Of course, her mother had put up a fuss, but allowed the ruling. Even Augatha Crownguard knew that it was a boon for Lux to be able to see the world and her family’s interests. One more step towards filling in her roles one day as the daughter of House Crownguard.
The voyage over sea was… less than thrilling. Even with a vessel as large as the LMS Crownguard , her stomach churned. Whenever her seasickness got too terrible, Lux glanced toward the sun in hopes to quell the storm raging inside. Besides the fact that the horizon was the best place to focus on, for whatever reason Lux always found that looking to the sun eased whatever burdens she was feeling at the time. It was a little quirk she loved about herself: most people found discomfort, or even pain and blindness when gazing at the sun. For Lux, however, it didn’t bother her in the slightest, and she had even learned how to tell the time by the sun’s position in the sky.
12:37… We should’ve disembarked 10 minutes ago. What’s-
As they sat anchored in the harbor, Lux’s internal question was answered rather abruptly. A commotion on the docks prompted her to grab a nearby spyglass, and locate the disturbance. What she saw made absolutely no sense whatsoever: two kids riding some sort of moving mechanical wheel. The dark-skinned boy with white hair was giving their pursuers a very rude hand gesture, while the pale girl with a long blue braid also glanced through her own spyglass. For a moment, the girl passed right over Lux, but that seemed more like an impulse more than anything else. Lux watched the girl reach down, and suddenly the wheel they were riding sped up.
“Is that girl a… mage?” Lux all but whispered, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.
Her father had explained that magic wasn’t as heavily prosecuted in Piltover as it was in Demacia, but more so than in Noxus. If that little girl was a mage, it would make sense as to why the Piltover Enforcers were chasing them so vehemently. Lux also had no other explanation as to how the girl was powering such a bare-bones moving device. Lux had been learning about electricity, but couldn’t see anywhere for a leyden jar, or one of those massive batteries she’d read about, to fit on that contraption.
Suddenly she gasped, and watched in horror as the Enforcers knocked the wheel of the contraption, and the boy driving it swerved toward the dock. Unable to tear her quivering eye away from the spyglass, Lux followed the pair’s horrific plunge into the polluted water, but at the last moment both of them managed to grab onto a rope.
Lux breathed a shaky sigh of relief, despite knowing that those two were likely the cause of their delay. She didn’t think she’d be able to handle seeing those two die, mage girl or not. Her father and brother might’ve been soldiers, but she was still only 11. Even her mother agreed that that was no age for a young lady of society to know Death.
After being given the all-clear (Lux had watched the progress of the Enforcers), the family and its entourage prepared to disembark. Once they were announced, Pieter Crownguard led his children across the gangplank, and onto the pier. In her silence, Lux wondered to herself what had become of the pair of kids. Had they gotten away? Were they still hiding somewhere closeby? All she knew was that they hadn’t been apprehended. Absentmindedly, she spared a glance down to where she’d seen the culprits disappear.
A terrified grayish-blue eye met hers. They stared at each other for a heartbeat, but Lux couldn’t stop moving. She shakily managed to keep in step with Garen, who gave her a reassuring smile. He must’ve thought she was nervous for the crowd in front of them.
At that moment, she couldn't care less about such people.
Once they made it off the pier, her father pulled Lux and Garen aside while the crew finished disembarking.
“This crowd is going to want me to answer a few questions.” He chuckled apologetically, and glanced at Lux. “Don’t worry, I know you’re not feeling very well right now, Luxanna. Garen, you can stay with me. Luxanna, feel free to have a look around the harbor. It’s safe, so long as you don’t stray into the streets. Return once you see the crowd breaking up, so we aren’t too late for our next stop.”
“Thank you, father.” Lux curtseyed, and excused herself at once.
With her father now addressing the public, Lux immediately set off to try and work her way down to that walkway below the pier. Just to the right of the pier, a set of stone stairs was carved into the side of the docks. Making sure she could still see the crowd, Lux slowly descended until she broke line of sight. For just a second, Lux paused to reconsider before her curiosity drove her forward.
Once she hit the bottom of the steps, Lux was certain she heard voices whispering back and forth from the shadow of the pier.
“-should be good to keep moving…”
Lux snuck behind a stack of crates, and peered out to see the dark-skinned boy sneaking off in the opposite direction of her. She was now more or less alone with the blue-haired girl who may or may not be a mage. Were she older, and in her Auntie Tianna’s position in the Dauntless Vanguard, she might be expected to behead such a girl.
The thought made her even more sick to her stomach than the month-long voyage from Demacia. Instead, she called out after a moment.
“Just what exactly are you doing?”
The girl squeaked, and fell forward, tripping over a coil of rope. She looked back, trying to scramble to her feet.
“Y-you!” She looked terrified, as she had when Lux had caught her eye before. “Are you gonna turn me in? Why didn’t ya tell on us?”
Lux frowned. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to her to tell tales. Remembering her mother’s teachings, she gave a little scoff. “I’m an heiress of House Crownguard. The affairs of the lower classes are quite beneath me.”
The words meant little to her, but she immediately saw the look of fright get replaced by hardened anger in the girl’s stormy eyes.
“Yeah?” She sneered, to Lux’s surprise. Such a soft and… and nice looking face shouldn’t be capable of producing such venom. “Why’d you drag yourself down here, Blondie? Come to laugh at the sump rats like the rest of the privileged, entitled Pilties?”
“No, I-” Lux backtracked, seeing that she’d accidentally offended the girl. “Are you a mage?”
“ What?! ” The look of incredulity and confusion on the girl’s face told Lux everything she needed to know before she got her answer. “Fuck no, I’m not. What stupid reason made you think that?”
Lux felt herself blushing from embarrassment and irritation. This girl wasn’t exactly easy to get along with, conveniently ignoring the fact that it’d be Lux who had upset her in the first place. Her vulgarity also threw her for a loop. She was full of surprises, apparently.
“That… thing you and that boy were driving. It was locomotive, able to move on its own, but had no power source. Surely it was powered by magic? I saw you adjusting its speed.”
Surprise broke the girl’s venomous look for a second before she snorted. “You mean Rumble? He’s… he was chem-powered. Bet they don’t teach ya about Undercity innovations. Nah, from what little I know about Demacia, I should count myself lucky your stupidness hasn’t landed me in a cell, or… or with my head on a spear or something.”
Lux had to check her emotions. Everything this girl said was true and, she now hated herself for even thinking this, well informed. Intelligence shone in this girl’s angry irises. At that moment, despite knowing that objectively she had a better education , Lux knew who the smarter, more clever of the two girls was.
With a sigh, she swallowed the pride that her mother had instilled in her. “You’re… you’re right. I had no business making such an assumption of you. Indeed, if we were in Demacia…”
She shuddered at the thought. How could she possibly one day pick up a sword and defend the Crown from mages? If she were older… if she were older…
The thought of this girl’s head rolling on the floor flashed in her mind, and she nearly buckled.
“Hello? Runeterra to Blondie, ya there?!” For whatever reason, the girl hadn’t run off during Lux’s lapse of attention.
“My name’s-”
“ Luxanna , yeah I heard. You’re still so blonde that I’m pretty sure your hair is literally glowing.”
Lux frowned. Surely the girl was just speaking in hyperbole. Her hair most certainly did not glow or emit any sort of light, whatever her nickname was. “Please, it’s just Lux. I’m sorry if I offended you. May I know your name?”
The girl scowled, giving Lux a hard look for a while. Just as she was certain she wouldn’t tell her, the girl opened her mouth.
“Powder!” Before she could say anything, a boy’s voice hissed from a few feet away. “What are you doing? The crowd’s breaking up, we gotta leave while we still can!”
A look of irritation crossed the girl’s face. She gave Lux a look like “That’s me!” when the friend let her name slip. In a flash, she disappeared out of Lux’s sight.
Powder…
Suddenly, the rest of the boy’s words registered. If the crowd was breaking up, that meant that Lux was running late! Slightly panicked, she hurried back up the stairs, straightening her dress where it had creased. She made it back to her father just as he was finishing up.
“Perfect timing, Luxanna. Did you enjoy your first time on foreign soil?”
Vi yelled at her that night. Powder hadn’t returned with Ekko. Instead, she ditched him in favor of following the Crownguards into Piltover. They weren’t extremely difficult to keep an eye on, what with the way they parted the crowded street, and how the crowd stretched to follow them. If there was one thing that Pilties loved, it was rich foreigners who could swell their purses even fatter without tossing a single coin across the river.
Predictably, the Crownguards and their entourage crossed into the gated Academy District with no problems at all. Fortunately, Ekko had shown Powder a way to sneak in a few weeks ago, and once again she was able to keep tabs on the much smaller, but still ever present crowd. Eventually, they came to a halt in front of an upper-scale house that was within throwing distance of the Academy itself. When Progress Day rolled around, they’d just have to step past the doorstep to take part in the festivities.
Meanwhile, Powder would be lucky to even be allowed out of the Fissures .
Powder knew she ought to make her way back home, or find Ekko to apologize, but she didn’t end up going with either option. The blonde girl, Lux, was an angry insect buzzing around in her head. In an instant, she’d proven that she was no better than the Pilties when it came to poverty. Why then, did she immediately seem to back track as soon as Powder had called her on it?
Why had she even spoken to Powder in the first place? With her sparkling eyes, and perfect, golden hair…
And what was that shit about Powder being a mage?! The ignorance of foreigners, and stupidity of supposed scholars would’ve made Powder laugh if such traits hadn’t nearly gotten her killed. Lux herself had admitted that such a poor judgement indeed might’ve been enough for Demacians to do the deed and unmake her.
And they call us the savage ones… Powder snorted.
For whatever reason, she continued to keep watch over the Crownguard residence well into the afternoon. A nearby Wendler tree provided cover in its pink blossoms, and a vantage from twisting branches to see over the gates and into most of the windows facing her with her spyglass. She watched the older boy, Garen, training with his father Pieter in the private garden. They were using real swords to strike at each other with, but the edges had clearly been dulled. Once or twice, Garen caught his father’s arm, and his father roared with approval.
At some point, Lux had stepped out, and Powder’s breath hitched. Her single eye followed the progress of the pretty, golden hair. The girl awkwardly picked up a rapier, but was never quite able to get past her father’s unyielding defense. Even Powder thought she saw an opening once or twice, but Lux hesitated and the opening was gone a second later. Still, by the end of the spar, Pieter seemed to be praising Lux.
Powder scoffed. Vi would’ve told her to step it up. She gave her and all of their friends lessons on boxing. While Powder wasn’t incredibly physically gifted, she still was able to land a few blows to Vi’s body every match. Shots to the face didn’t count, as Vi seemed to prefer blocking with it more than her guard sometimes.
With her mind on Vi, and seeing that it was definitely getting late, Powder sighed. Looking around to check that there was no one nearby, she climbed down the tree. Getting back to the Undercity wasn’t too much of an issue. The streets of Piltover were safe as ever, and when she crossed the bridge, it wasn’t too much worse. Mostly, there were still a few Enforcers wandering around, and she decided to stick near them on her way down. Hate them or love them, criminals would have to be the dumbest bolts in the bucket to try anything near an Enforcer.
With a sigh of resignation, Powder stepped onto the lift that would take her down into her underworld home. Before her, a chaotic sprawl of neon and haze opened up. Despite its rough exterior, the Lanes were generally pretty safe if you were affiliated. They all had Vander to thank for that sense of community. It was like a big family, and just like any family there were tensions and fights that broke out amongst the members.
“Where’ve you been Pow-Pow?!”
As soon as she stepped within shouting distance of the Last Drop, Vi’s angry, but clearly relieved voice was the only warning Powder had before a soul-squeezing hug crushed her entire body. For the first time that day, Powder thought about what she’d likely put her sister through, and started to cry gently into her arms.
“Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Ekko says you were following him, then suddenly you just weren’t there!” Vi failed to keep the shakiness out of her voice, which was almost always strong and stoic. Nothing fazed her sister. Nothing.
Except…
“I’m really sorry, Vi…”
Powder felt her voice tremble as well. She hated disappointing or worrying her sister. If Vi thought she wasn’t capable… wasn’t able to stick around…
Wasn’t useful…
Worth protecting…
“Powder, where did you go?! I got the story from Ekko, but he told me some bullshit about you being face to face with some kinda Demacian princess.”
Despite the thoughts and voices in her head, Powder scoffed. “She wasn’t a princess, that much I know.”
Vi’s look of astonishment caused Powder to cover her mouth.
“ WHAT?! ”
Powder sighed and told Vi about the conversation she’d shared with Lux, and subsequently following her to her home. Vi, of course, asked Powder the very question she herself had been wondering.
Why?
Why did she follow the rich Demacian princess (Vi refused to call her anything else) and her dangerously armed family back to the nest of Piltie snakes and Enforcers?
“I-I dunno. I guess I was just curious what it'd be like... to have a friend across the river?”
Even as Vi sighed and crushed her sister in another protective hug, an image manifested in Powder's mind.
Luxanna Crownguard...
An angelic face with ocean eyes framed by curtains of golden light.