Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

DANTE:
The scent of ash woke him first, then came the heat, a suffocating, heavy wall of it that pressed Dante flat against the floorboards. Around him, the manor groaned like a dying beast. On the walls, the fire danced, throwing jagged, monstrous shadows that looked entirely too alive.

"Dante!"

Through the thick haze, Eva appeared. Her crimson robes trailed behind her, catching stray embers as she sprinted to his side. Her blonde hair was a wild mess and ash, she forced her hands to remain steady as she gripped his shoulders.

"Come with me." She pulled him up and shoved open the door of a nearby closet.

"You have to hide, Dante," she urged, her voice cutting through the roar of the flames. "No matter what you hear, no matter what happens, you stay put. Do you understand?"

The foundations of the estate shuddered violently. Eva flinched, she cast a frantic look over her shoulder. When she turned back to Dante, she forced a fragile smile, cupping his face in her hands. 

“I have to find Vergil. I promise I’ll come back for you." Her voice caught, a rare tremor slipping through her composure. "I know you're scared, sweetie. But you have to be brave now. Be a big boy. Be a man for me, okay?"

Dante couldn't find his voice. He entirely paralyzed by the nightmare unfolding around him. All he could manage was a terrified nod.

Eva’s hands lingered on his cheeks for a painful second before she tore herself away. "If I don't come back..."she swallowed back a sob, grounding her voice in desperate certainty. "You run. You run as fast as you can. Change your name, forget this house, and never look back. Give yourself a new beginning."

The closet door slammed shut, plunging him into near-total darkness.

Peering through the narrow slats of the door, Dante watched his mother turn and sprint back into the smoke.

"Vergil?! Where are you, Vergil?!"

Those were the last words she ever spoke to him.

Seconds later, a horrific, agonized scream that didn't sound human came. It sliced right through the roaring fire. Dante clamped his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut as he wept in the dark, wishing the world would just stop. Then, a sudden, crushing silence fell over the house. The screaming stopped.

Trembling violently, Dante opened his eyes. Beside him in the cramped closet, a faint gleam caught the firelight leaking through the door. It was Rebellion. The massive greatsword, adorned with its skull-shaped guard, sat propped against the wall, one of the few artifacts left behind by a father Dante had never even met.

The heavy steel was nearly twice his height, but adrenaline took over. Gritting his teeth against the tears, Dante wrapped his small hands around the hilt and dragged the weapon out into the open hallway. The house was collapsing around him, then, he stumbled upon her. 

Eva lay motionless in the heart of the ruins. Her beautiful crimson robes were charred and torn, her body still in a way that his young mind couldn't fully comprehend, though a deep, instinctual horror told him everything he needed to know.

Before the grief could even register, a fresh sound shattered the quiet.

"AAAAAHHHH!"

Vergil's voice echoed from outside the burning estate, packed with a terrible, agonizing pain.

Dante froze, he wanted to run toward the voice. He wanted to save his brother. But the overwhelming, suffocating terror of the dark took hold of his legs first.

He turned and fled, the heavy edge of Rebellion scraping against the floorboards behind him. He burst through the scorched entrance of the estate, collapsing out into the crisp air of Piltover. Behind him, a massive pillar of black smoke stained the pristine sky.

No enforcers arrived to help. No fire brigades raced up the cobblestone streets. No one came to stop the fire.

Deep down, even at eight years old, Dante knew this wasn't an ordinary accident. There was magic laced in the ash, something unnatural, and deeply evil. But he didn't stop to ask questions. He didn't wait around for answers.

He just kept running.

POWDER:
The Bridge of Progress was no longer a monument to a bright future.

It was a meat grinder.

Ash fell through the suffocating air like black snow, dusting the burning wreckage of overturned carriages. The smoke was dense, wrapping the entire span in a heavy, toxic gloom. The grand bridge that joined Piltover to the Lanes had been reduced to a wasteland of broken bodies.

Through the fog, gunfire cracked like thunder.

Enforcers prowled through the haze like faceless executioners, the filters of their gas masks hisses  with every breath as they executed fleeing Trenchers.

Yet, floating above the crackle of fire and the screams of the dying, a child's voice sang.

“Dear friend across the river,
My hands are cold and bare,
Dear friend across the river,
I’ll take what you can spare…”

The little girl’s voice was tiny and hauntingly clear against the destruction.

A few yards away, another rifle cracked, the heavy thud of a body hitting the stone followed.

“I ask of you a penny,
My fortune it will be,
I ask you without envy…”

Through the smoke, two sisters picked their way carefully through the ruins, hand in hand.

The younger one, with bright blue hair tied into messy braids, squeezed her sister’s fingers . Her free hand was clamped tightly over her eyes, desperately shielding herself from the horrors.

“We will raise no mighty towers,
Our homes are built of stone…”

The older sister forced her legs forward, step by agonizing step. Her knees shook, but she refused to falter. She couldn't let her terror break through.

“So come across the river,
And find—”

The singing abruptly cut off, the older sisters froze instantly. Slowly, the younger girl lowered her small hand from her face. She stared into the dark. And saw the end of the world.

Corpses covered in blood and ash. Men and women lay dead, thrown like ragdolls where they had been gunned down. The air was a sickening soup of smoke, copper, and burning flesh.

The older girl’s grip tightened, pulling the younger closer to her side. She had to stay strong for Powder.

Then, a sickening, wet crunch shattered the quiet, making the older sister snap her head toward the sound.

A mountain of a man stood in the clearing, his metal gauntlets dripping with fresh blood. He was driving his fists repeatedly into the face of a fallen enforcer, each strike ringing out with a brutal thud until the enforcer stopped twitching.

Chest heaving with ragged breath, the giant slowly turned his gaze toward the two young girls.

Instinctively, both sisters took a step back, shrinking away.

The man saw the terror in their eyes. Softening his stance, he took a single, deliberate step forward, carefully not trying to spook them further.

The older sister stared up at him, her wide eyes silently pleading, screaming the one question she couldn't bring herself to utter.

Where are they?

The man closed his eyes for a second, with a devastating, reluctant tilt of his chin, he gestured toward the swirling smoke behind him.

Their parents lay motionless among the piles of the dead.

The older sister's legs finally gave out, and she collapsed to her knees as an agonizing wave of grief ripped through her chest. Powder dropped with her, burying her face into her sister's shoulder, weeping bitterly without fully understanding the finality of what she was seeing.

The man looked down at his hands, disgusted by the blood coating his gauntlets. With a hollow look, he unbuckled the metal weapons and let them drop. Crashing loudly against the stone.

Without saying a word, he scooped both girls up into his arms, shielding them against his chest as he turned his back from the slaughter. He carried them away. Down into the safety of the undercity.

Resting her chin heavily against his shoulder, the older sister looked back over the man's arm one last time.

The smoke above the river briefly parted, offering a glimpse of the gleaming, golden towers of Piltover sitting high above them.

And in that exact moment, Vi’s hatred was born. A burning, absolute hatred for the enforcers. A hatred for Piltover. A hatred for the golden city that watched her people bleed out in the dirt and did absolutely nothing.

DANTE:
The Redgrave Manor had never truly belonged to Piltover. It shared none of the vanity of the grand estates perched beside avenues or the academies. Eva had built their lives to avoid that gaze. Their home sat far beyond the city proper, tucked into the quiet outskirts where the forest swallowed  roads. It was close enough for the essentials, like quiet walks to market, library visits, grocery trips, but remote enough that eyes never wandered near.

It was meant to be safe, at least, that was the illusion.

Dante stumbled down an empty road alone, the weight of Rebellion dragged behind him with a scraping screech. The sword was far too large for an eight-year-old to wield, let alone carry, but his fingers refused to loosen their grip.

His mother’s voice flared in his mind, cutting through the shock.

Be a big boy… be a man, okay? If I don’t return… you run.

So he kept running, even if he had no destination. His legs moved on pure survival instinct, carrying him through unfamiliar backstreets while the rest of Piltover loomed in the distance, entirely undisturbed.

Up on the main avenues, life moved with a sickening normalcy. Warm, golden light spilled from expensive windows. People laughed over drinks in pristine restaurants..

Dante felt a sudden, toxic wave of hatred twist in his chest. How could the world keep spinning? How could these people breathe, laugh, and live while my mom lay dead in the ashes of our home?

He kept his chin tucked low and avoided the lanterns. Eva had taught him enough caution to know that a lone child covered in ash and blood would draw the kind of attention he couldn't afford.

Eventually, the air grew thick again. The scent of smoke rolled over him, but it wasn't coming from the direction of his home.

Dante slowed his pace as the Bridge of Progress came to view. He came to a halt. 

The grand crossing had been turned into a wasteland. The wind howled through the canyon, carrying fresh ash across the river.

Dante stared at the devastation in stunned silence. At first, a desperate thought crossed his mind, that maybe this was connected to the attack on his home. Maybe the monsters who murdered his mother had marched here next. But as he took a cautious step forward, his eyes caught the details.

He saw broken enforcer rifles smashed against the stone. Discarded masks glinting in the dark. Torn, blood-soaked fabrics from the undercity. And a terrifying pattern of bullet impacts, all chewing into the stone in a single direction.

The Lanes. 

Dante’s hand tightened around the hilt of Rebellion, while his family was being slaughtered in the woods, the enforcers had been right here. But they hadn't been defending anyone. They hadn't been saving lives. They had been executing. 

He didn't understand the politics. He didn't understand the deep, festering hatred between Piltover and the undercity. But he understood enough to realize that no one had ever intended to help his family. No one came to stop the fire. No one came to rescue Eva.

The city only drew its barrels to protect its own wealth.

The worst of the violence had passed by the time Dante crossed the bridge. The thunder of gunfire was gone, replaced by a hollow silence. Below him, the waters of the river flowed through the deep canyon, separating two entirely different worlds.

Ahead of him waited the undercity.

It was a place Eva had rarely permitted him or Vergil to even speak about. Not out of malice or prejudice, but out of absolute terror.

Dante reached the far side of the bridge, his legs trembling under his weight. The lighting here was entirely different from the warm gold of Piltover. Here, the dark was pierced by sickly chemical greens, harsh, buzzing neon, and the steady, rhythmic hiss of toxic smoke venting from rusted overhead pipes. The city felt alive in the worst way possible, groaning, breathing, and rotting all at once.

Looking down into the smog, Dante felt a strange, cold comfort. It felt honest. Nobody down here hid behind academies or pretended the world was fair. Dante turned back one final time, looking across the skyline of Piltover. He looked at the city that had watched his world burn and done absolutely nothing.

Turning his back, he dragged Rebellion over the border and disappeared into the neon shadows of Zaun.

Zaun only grew more suffocating the deeper he descended.

The air turned heavy, thick with a foul, metallic tang that burned the back of his throat. Overhead, massive pipes rattled, venting hisses of fumes from the rusted cracks in the walls. The pathways narrowed into a labyrinth of cramped alleys, lit only by the erratic buzz of flickering neon signs and lamps that barely put up a fight against the dark.

Nobody looked at him.

That was the strangest part of the undercity. An exhausted, shivering child wandering the slums alone should have drawn stares, but Zaun was populated by people too busy fighting for their own survival to care about another stray.

Dante kept the sword wrapped tightly in an old tarp he’d scavenged near the docks. His small arms burned with agony as he dragged the heavy bundle, shoving it out of sight behind rusted crates and dark corners whenever shadowy figures passed nearby. 

His mother’s voice refused to let him rest.

If I don’t return… you must run.

Eventually, the chaotic noise of crowded bars and the rhythmic thumping of machinery faded, replaced by the steady drip of leaky pipes and the distant hum of ventilation engines.

Dante slipped through a doorframe into what looked like an abandoned storage room attached to a long-dead shop. Overturned shelves lined the walls, stripped bare long ago.

He kicked the door shut, shoved a broken crate against it, and finally let the sword fall. It hit the floor with a metallic thud. Dante stared at the shape beneath the tarp. Even wrapped up, it looked absurdly large. And yet, through a tear in the fabric, the skull-shaped guard seemed to stare back at him.

A silent reminder of his father.

Dante had never met him, besides the giant portrait in the living room of when Dante and Vergil were infants. Looking at the grim skull on the steel, Dante felt a cold chill. 

His breathing slowed as he stepped deeper into the room, stopping before a cracked mirror hanging crookedly from a rusty nail. For a terrifying second, he didn't recognize the boy staring back.

Ash smeared his cheeks. His white hair was matted with soot, sweat, and grime. He looked small. Weak. Utterly defenseless.

His mother’s final command echoed in his mind again, sharper this time.

You must change your name. Forget your past. Start a new life.

Dante lowered his eyes, his gaze drifting back to the tarp on the floor. The sword was a death sentence. It was too unique, too striking. Anyone who saw a white-haired kid hauling a sword would remember it. Questions would get asked. Whispers would spread. And if the monsters who butchered his mother were still hunting him, carrying that blade was a beacon guiding them straight to him.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he dragged the weapon into the darkest corner of the room. Using a rusted iron bar, he pried up a loose section of the floorboards hidden beneath a pile of shattered crates. With every ounce of his strength, he shoved the sword into the hollow space below and kicked the boards back into place.

The moment the weapon vanished, the room felt hollow. Dante stared at the hidden spot for a long moment before turning away to strip off his past. The abandoned place still had old rags and discarded clothes scattered in the corners. He rummaged through the piles until he unearthed garments small enough to wear. A pair of trousers, a oversized shirt, and worn boots that were a size too big.

He peeled out of his ashy clothes, gagging slightly at the lingering smell of smoke that clung to the fabric.

Nearby, a rusted sink connected to a water pipe sputtered to life with a screech. The water that dribbled out was cloudy and smelled faintly of copper, but he didn't care. He cupped his hands and threw the freezing water onto his face.

He scrubbed until his skin burned, refusing to stop until every last trace of a burnt down manor was washed down the drain.

Dante looked back into the cracked mirror. The white hair remained. The striking blue eyes were still there. He was still himself, but the boy from the manor was gone. Growing up, Eva had always drilled one rule into her sons: caution above all else. They were citizens of Piltover, yet they lived like ghosts. They were homeschooled, kept far away from the academies, the noble galas, and the political circles.

She had been hiding, terrified that someone would connect the dots and realize who they were.

Dante gripped the sharp edges of the sink, his knuckles turning white. "Dante..."

The syllables felt dangerous. Like a curse that belonged to a ghost left behind in a burning house.

His lips thinned into a hard, determined line. He took a breath, letting the toxic, honest air of Zaun fill his lungs.

He spoke again, his voice barely louder than a breath. “Tony."

The fake name felt awkward and clumsy on his tongue. But it was safer than his real identity.

⸻

The first few days passed in a blur.

Dante, now living under the name of Tony, spent almost every waking hour moving. Watching. Learning. Surviving. The undercity was an ecosystem all its own, a machine constructed from platforms, hanging bridges, crowded market alleys, and pipes, with endless layers of civilization stacked crudely on top of one another.

To his own surprise, Dante was remarkably good at navigating it.

He always was constantly climbing trees, scaling fences, and sneaking into hidden corners that Eva had explicitly forbidden him from exploring. Now, those exact same rebellious instincts were the very things keeping him breathing.

He hopped across gaps between rooftops, scaled rusted support beams, slipped effortlessly through narrow maintenance tunnels, crossed frayed hanging cables that would make most grown adults freeze in absolute terror.

Nobody noticed the white-haired boy. He became just another forgotten, stray kid drifting through the undercity.

The hunger didn't hit him immediately. At first, he barely even registered it. One day bled into another, and then another. A normal eight-year-old child would have been starving, even collapsing from exhaustion. But Dante wasn't normal. He didn't understand why, of course. He knew absolutely nothing about demonic blood, or the immense, slumbering power resting deep inside his veins. He only knew that he had somehow gone days without food, and his body was still pushing forward.

Eventually, though, his stomach began to growl. Then it ached. Finally, it twisted into a painful, hollow knot. By the fifth day, the sensation became impossible to ignore.
Sitting atop a massive, rusted pipe that overlooked the bustling crowds of the Lanes, Dante held his midsection and frowned down at the streets.

"Okay..." he muttered to himself, thinking hard.

Food cost coin. Even as sheltered as he had been on the outskirts of Piltover, he understood that fundamental rule of the world. Coin came from work. Adults worked. Kids didn't, at least, not any kids he had ever known back home. Which left him with exactly one viable solution to his problem. He had to steal.

The moral weight of the idea didn't bother him nearly as much as it probably should have. He was hungry.

Dante hopped down from his perch and started scouting. The Lanes were packed as always. Vendors shouted over one another to advertise their wares while customers crammed in, moving shoulder-to-shoulder through the smog. Eventually, Dante spotted the perfect target. It was a food stand that was busy, popular, and absolutely swarming with hungry patrons. Nobody would ever notice one missing meal. It would be simple, quick, and easy.

Dante’s  confidence returned in a flash, he slipped through the crowd like a cat, closing the distance.

The stand itself was run by a massive fish-vastaya with deep teal skin, webbed features, and broad, imposing shoulders. The owner moved with surprising agility despite his immense size, plating food and serving customer after customer without a single pause. Dante paid no attention to the giant, his eyes were locked firmly on the prize.

But as he got closer, a wave of profound disappointment washed over him.

Fish. It was just fish. Specifically, chunks of cooked fish drenched in some kind of thick, bubbling sauce. That was it. There was no pizza, nor strawberry sundaes.

Who willingly chose to eat this? Dante stared at the steaming plates with heavy suspicion.

His stomach growled again, louder this time, sending a sharp pang through his ribs. “Fine.”

He could be desperate, just this once. 

The exact moment the owner turned his back to tend to a steaming pot, Dante lunged forward and reached for one of the prepared plates. His movement was fast, silent, and visually perfect.

Then, a heavy, webbed hand clamped firmly around his wrist.

Dante’s heart nearly stopped dead in his chest. For a terrifying fraction of a second, the world flashed a violent, he smelled smoke. He heard screams. He saw his mother's face and the roaring fire consuming the manor.

Instinctively, he tried to wrench his arm back, bracing his body for a brutal beating, a strike, or being thrown violently into the dirt of the street.

Instead, the fish-vastaya simply stared down at him. The giant looked at Dante's remarkably skinny frame, the soot and grime still trapped beneath his fingernails, and the raw, hollow exhaustion lingering in his bright blue eyes. Something softened in the vastaya's harsh expression.

Without uttering a single word, he released Dante's wrist, and grabbed a giant bowl, and shoved the entire offering directly into the boy's arms. For free.

Dante blinked up at him, stunned. “What?"

The vastaya simply grunted and pointed a finger toward a small, empty wooden stool nearby.

Dante looked back and forth between the food and the owner, his mind racing with suspicion. This had to be a trap. Nobody in this cruel world just gave things away for nothing. Still, the hunger won. 

He slowly sat down, and the fish smelled incredibly strange, and the sauce looked entirely bizarre. Everything about it screamed that it was a terrible idea, but he took a bite anyway.

Dante chewed, his eyes widening. He took another bite. Then another. Then another. The fish was somehow perfectly crispy on the outside while remaining incredibly tender on the inside. The mystery sauce was a salty, sweet, and spicy all hitting his tongue at the exact same time. Within minutes, Dante was completely devouring the bowl, eating like a wild animal.

He forgot to be cautious, for the first time since the night his home burned to the ground, he simply ate.

The vastaya watched the display from behind his counter, his webbed face twisting into an expression that looked like amusement. Eventually, he spoke, directing a long string of deep, rumbling words toward the boy. It was a language Dante had never heard in his life, sounding like complete, incomprehensible gibberish.

“Graah nah shou varrah nikko?"

Dante looked up from his bowl, a smear of spicy sauce on his cheek. "Huh?"

The vastaya repeated the phrase, but this time, he pointed a thumb at his own chest. 

Dante listened closely and managed to pull exactly one coherent word out of the rumble. "Jericho?”

The owner grunted, nodding. "Jericho."

Then, the giant pointed his finger directly back at Dante, his head tilting in question.

Dante stared back for a second, his mind blank, before realization finally clicked. Oh. He wants a name.

He swallowed the last bite of fish. "Tony."

The vastaya blinked his large eye. "Tony?"

Dante gave a firm nod. "Tony."

The fish-vastaya immediately let loose another stream of incomprehensible words, his face breaking into a broad, toothy grin. Dante still had absolutely no idea what any of the sentences meant, but the owner seemed genuinely happy. So, Dante decided to play along. 

He pointed a finger across the counter. "Jericho."

Then, he tapped his own chest. "Tony."

Jericho threw his head back and laughed, nodding vigorously in approval.

Dante felt a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth. It was the first time he had smiled in days. It was tiny, barely noticeable beneath the grime on his face, but it was completely real. But a flash of movement caught his eye.

White hair.

For a split second, the everything stopped spinning. The fork slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the bowl.

The boy passing by the food stand was about the same age, but his age didn't matter. The hair did. It was a stark, bright white, cutting right through the murky gloom of the Lanes.

Just like Dante and Vergil’s.

Dante shot to his feet so violently that his stool scraped against the floor. Jericho looked up instantly from behind the counter, barking a sharp, questioning sentence in his rumbling language, but Dante was already gone. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. 

Vergil? The thought was ridiculous. It was completely impossible. 

But grief-stricken hope wasn't logical. Hope didn't care about probabilities. Dante dove headfirst into the sea of people, desperately trailing the white-haired boy.

The kid walked with absolute confidence, weaving effortlessly between vendors and crowds of pedestrians like he had lived in these exact streets his entire life. Dante kept his distance, close enough to ensure he didn't lose the white hair, but far enough back to avoid catching the boy's attention. But the closer he got, the more a strange unease began to settle in his chest. At first, he couldn't quite figure out why his instincts were hesitating.

Then, the boy stepped beneath the buzzing glow of a street lamp and turned his head.

Dante blinked. “Oh."

The realization hit him like a physical blow. It wasn’t Vergil. Not even close.

The kid had dark skin. Vergil most definitely did not. And unless something completely rewrite-the-laws-of-nature insane had happened over the last five days, Dante was pretty sure people didn't just change their skin color overnight.

The desperate hope vanished as quickly as it had ignited, leaving him entirely hollow.

"Right..." he muttered to himself. 

But either way, Dante found himself following the boy anyway. Not because he expected a miracle anymore, but simply because he had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.

Eventually, the white-haired kid stopped in front of a cramped, weathered storefront wedged tightly between two buildings. A sign hung crookedly over the entrance: Benzo’s. The boy pushed the heavy door open and vanished inside.

Curiosity tugged at Dante, drawing him forward. He crept up to the front window, pressed his back against the brickwork, and carefully peered through a relatively clean glass.

The interior of the shop looked like someone had gathered every single piece of scrap in the undercity and packed it into one room. Shelves groaned under the weight of rusted gears, discarded tools, mechanical parts, leather-bound books, and broken gadgets that Dante couldn't even begin to identify. It was a pawnshop, or something very close to it.

Behind the wooden counter stood a mountain of a man. He had broad shoulders, a balding head, and thick, dark brown mutton chops that climbed up the sides of his face to meet a prominent widow's peak. He wore leather straps crossed over a faded green shirt, with heavy, scuffed shoulder pads framing his stance.

The moment the man spotted the white-haired kid, he a thick finger at him. "You’re late."

The kid rolled his eyes, completely unfazed. "By two minutes."

"Three."

"It was two."

"Three."

The boy let out a dramatic, exaggerated groan. The older man simply smirked, a glint of amusement in his eyes.

Dante watched the quiet exchange from the dark. The man’s voice was gruff, sarcastic, and a bit blunt, but there was a unmistakable layer of warmth beneath the teasing. The specific kind of tone adults only used when they genuinely cared about the person they were talking to.

Then, the shopkeeper called out. "Ekko."

The boy immediately perked up. "Yeah?"

Dante mentally noted the name, filing it away. Ekko. So that was who he was.

A heartbeat later, another realization clicked into place in Dante's mind. He looked up at the sign hanging over the door, then back down at the large man behind the counter. He looked at the sign again. Then back at the man.

"Oh," Dante whispered. 

The owner was Benzo. That was why the building was called Benzo’s Shop. He felt an odd, fleeting spark of pride for figuring out something so incredibly obvious.

Inside, Benzo continued talking quietly with Ekko while sorting through crate filled with parts. The two clearly shared a deep bond. They were family, or the closest thing to it you could find in a place like this.

Dante slowly pulled away from the glass, looking down at his worn boots.

The familiar, crushing ache returned to his chest. For a fleeting second, seeing that flash of white hair had made him think— No. He wasn't going to let himself think about it. Vergil wasn't here. This boy wasn't his brother. This pawnshop wasn't his home. And nobody was out there searching the streets to find him.

He pushed himself completely away from the window, the weight of disappointment settling deep in his stomach, and began to drift back down the dark alleyway.

Then, his brain finally caught up to a crucial detail of what he had just witnessed.

Ekko was a kid, he was working a real job. He wasn't just helping out for a few minutes or doing chores. He was earning his keep at a real shop.

Dante frowned, considering this. Back on Piltover, children didn't do manual labor or run businesses. At least, not any children he had ever crossed paths with. But the Lanes weren’t the upper city. The rules down here were entirely different. In the undercity, people worked because it was the only alternative to starving. Even the kids.

The thought lingered in his mind, buzzing with potential as he wandered back into the crowded, neon-lit streets. Maybe Tony could find a job. And if Tony could work... then Tony could buy his own food. Preferably something involving a large pizza next time.

⸻

Dante spent the rest of the day thinking a concrete plan for survival. Surviving meant food. Food meant coin. Coin meant work.

Jericho was the obvious choice, but Dante couldn't stomach the thought of spending the rest of his childhood gutting fish. Fish in the morning. Fish in the afternoon. Fish forever. ...Nah. The food was great, but it wasn't that great.

Benzo’s shop was infinitely more interesting. It was packed with scrap, heavy machinery, iron boxes, tools, and moving heavy things was something Dante happened to excel at. Back at the manor, he and Vergil used to wrestle constantly, tossing each other across entire rooms and breaking furniture. Eva had hated it, mostly because both boys always walked away without a single scratch.

The real problem was introducing himself without sounding completely insane. 

Walking into the shop and saying, "Hello, please hire me because I am eight years old and possess freaky, unnatural muscle power," seemed like a fast track to getting thrown out.

So, he engineered a plan only an eight-year-old could think was brilliant: he would "accidentally" cross paths with Ekko, naturally become helpful, and smoothly get himself hired. Foolproof.

⸻

The next morning, his target appeared. Ekko was trudging through the Lanes, practically hanging his entire body weight off the handle of an cart piled high with scrap metal. The wheels groaned under a load that would have snapped an ordinary kid's spine.

Dante grinned. His moment had arrived. He hopped down from a nearby railing, casually brushing ash off his shirt, and strolled over.

"Need a hand with that?" Dante asked, casually leaning against the side of the cart.

Ekko stopped, wiping a layer of sweat and grease from his brow. 

He blinked, squinting at Dante's messy white hair. "Oh. You're the Fish Guy."

Dante’s grin instantly vanished into a frown. "I’m not the 'Fish Guy.'"

"You’re always hanging around Jericho’s stand," Ekko pointed out, crossing his arms defensively. "I've seen you. You practically a giant bowl of slop yesterday."

"That’s because I was starving," Dante huffed. "Not because I’m a fish."

"Fair enough," Ekko muttered, glancing back at the massive cart with a heavy sigh. 

He grabbed the handle again, struggling once more. "And yeah. I actually do need help. This stupid axle is completely warped, and the whole thing weighs like a fully loaded carriage."

"Step aside," Dante said confidently. 

He reached down and wrapped his fingers around the cold iron handle. Then, he pulled, the cart violently lurched forward, its wheels shrieking as it practically rocketed halfway down the street. Ekko, who hadn't fully let go of the frame, was yanked forward so hard he nearly tripped over.

The cart finally rolled to a halt, Ekko stood frozen, his eyes wide, staring from the heavy heap of iron back to the skinny, white-haired boy.

"What the hell was that?" Ekko whispered, utterly stunned. "Are you secretly a mutated human or something?"

Dante’s heart skipped a beat as his mother's voice echoed violently through his head: Never show people what makes you different. Never draw attention.

Crap, Dante thought. 

His mind raced, panicking as he tried to scramble for a perfectly normal, human explanation.

"Uh..." Dante stammered, sweating. "I... eat all my vegetables?"

Ekko just stared at him. The silence stretched between them for five seconds, broken only by the hiss of a nearby steam vent.

"What?" Ekko finally asked, his expression completely blank.

"Vegetables," Dante repeated, nodding with forced, intense seriousness. "Lots of them. Broccoli makes you strong. My mom always said so."

"That is literally the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my entire life," Ekko said, shaking his head. "Vegetables don't turn a kid into a hydraulic press."

The two boys grabbed the handle together and continued down the alleyway. Well, technically, Dante dragged the entire weight of the cart with one hand while Ekko mostly walked beside it, occasionally pushing it to feel included. As they navigated the neon-lit maze of the undercity, Ekko proved to be a talker. He rambled about the Lanes, the chem-fumes, and how Benzo was always breathing down his neck about timepieces. Dante mostly listened, keeping his gaze moving.

Eventually, names came up.

"I’m Ekko, by the way," the boy said, leaping over a puddle. "Fixer-in-training."

"Tony," Dante replied smoothly.

He didn't like how natural it was becoming to bury his real name, but he pushed the guilt aside. Tony couldn't be traced back to the ashes of Redgrave Manor. Tony was just another stray, and strays were safe from the monsters in the dark.

Before long, the familiar, cluttered storefront of Benzo’s came into view. The large, imposing shopkeeper was standing out front, sorting through a crate of discarded gears, when his eyes locked onto the approaching duo. More specifically, he noticed the mountain of scrap. Then he looked at Ekko. Then back at the scrap. Then back at Ekko.

Benzo raised an eyebrow. "You moved that by yourself, kid? I told you to hire a loader from the docks if it was too heavy."

Ekko immediately shook his head and gestured proudly toward Dante. "Nah, didn't need one. He practically pulled the whole thing. Most of it, actually. I just steered."

Benzo’s gaze shifted, landing heavily on Dante. For a second, Dante felt entirely naked under the inspection, as if the man could see straight the secrets hiding in his blood.

"Who's the kid?" Benzo asked.

"This is Tony," Ekko grinned, slapping Dante on the shoulder. "Found him hanging out by Jericho's."

Benzo nodded slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Tony, huh? White hair, skinny arms, pulls half a scrapyard without breaking a sweat.”

He stepped closer, shadowing the boy. "Why are you hauling my junk around for free, kid? Nobody does anything for free down here."

This was it. The moment. Dante took a deep breath, puffed out his chest, and pointed a determined finger toward the shop door.

"I want a job," Dante said firmly.

Ekko and Benzo blinked, just staring at him like he had grown a second head.

"What?" Ekko asked.

"A job," Dante repeated, trying to sound professional. "At the shop."

"You're... excited about getting a job?" Ekko let out a dry laugh. "Most kids down here are trying to escape chores, and you're begging to sort through rusty metal?"

Dante instantly realized how bizarre he sounded. Ordinary children didn't actively seek out hard labor. 

Think, think, think, he scolded himself. 

"Well," Dante began, spinning a tale on the fly. "My uncle always told me that hard work builds character. He said a man who doesn't work doesn't deserve to eat."

The lie flowed out of him effortlessly, perfectly paced and utterly convincing. 

Dante mentally frowned at himself. Wow. I completely made that up, and it sounded totally real. Am I actually a disturbingly good liar?

Benzo nodded, a spark of genuine respect in his eyes.  "Alright, Tony. You're hired."

Dante froze, his mind struggling to process the words. "Really? You're not joking?"

"Really," Benzo grunted. "I can always use an extra pair of hands that won't snap under a twenty-pound crate."

A massive wave of pure relief flooded through Dante's chest. Food. He was going to have real, consistent food. Regular meals. He wouldn't have to resort to stealing from vendors, and he wouldn't have to spend every night wondering if his stomach was going to rip itself apart from hunger. For the first time since his world had turned to ash, a tiny piece of his life felt stable.

Then, Benzo broke the silence again. "You start tomorrow morning."

Dante nodded eagerly, a smile breaking through the grime on his face. "Okay! I'll be here."

"We open early," Benzo added smoothly. "Sunup."

Dante’s smile weakened a fraction. "Oh. Early. Right."

"And you're gonna haul scrap," Benzo continued, counting off his fingers. "Unload incoming crates. Sort through broken parts. Heavy lifting."

"Oh," Dante muttered, his confidence dipping.

"Then you'll clean the back," Benzo smiled warmly, clearly enjoying this. "Scrub the oil slicks off the floor. Organize the heavy iron shelves. And sort through the junk bins."

"Oh..." Dante’s shoulders slumped lower and lower with every single task added to the list.

Benzo smirked, crossing his arms again. "And, of course, you'll get paid after all the daily work is completely finished. Not a second before."

Dante frowned, letting out a dramatic sigh. There it was, the catch. Work an absolutely unfair, absurd amount of grueling work. The exact kind of mind-numbing labor that adults usually reserved for themselves.

Benzo let out another laugh at the boy's misery, and even Ekko was snickering from the side. Dante crossed his arms, pouting. It wasn't funny. Sure, whatever weird, unexplainable thing was hiding inside his biology meant he didn't get physically tired or sore like normal humans, but that didn't mean he actually wanted to spend his childhood carrying garbage around a dusty room.

Unfortunately, he also really liked eating. And eating required coin, which required work, which meant this was officially his new life.

Dante let out one final groan.

Benzo grinned, reaching out to give Dante a playful pat on the shoulder that would have knocked an ordinary eight-year-old flat on his face. Dante didn't even budge.

"Welcome, kid," Benzo said warmly.

And somehow, despite the absolute nightmare of the past week, Dante looked at the cluttered, chaotic safety of the junk shop, he felt a strange sensation wash over him.

For the first time since losing absolutely everything, he felt like he actually belonged somewhere.

⸻

Dante’s first official day of work taught him a very valuable lesson about life.

Working absolutely sucked. It wasn't because the labor was physically difficult. If that had been the case, he wouldn't have minded at all. Dante actually liked moving around. He enjoyed climbing up things, smashing boxes, and occasionally getting thrown through furniture by his brother. The real problem was that the work was just so incredibly boring. It was a tedious crawl.

He spent the first two hours of his shift moving dusty heaps of scrap from one side of the shop to the other. Then, Benzo had him move a completely different pile of junk back to the exact spot where the first pile had originally been. Dante was entirely convinced the man was just making tasks up on the fly to test him.

At one point, Dante carried three crates all the way across the shop, only for Benzo to point at a different corner.

"Wrong shelf, kid. Move 'em over there."

Dante nearly quit on the spot.

Then came the inventory tracking. Somehow, that was even worse than the lifting. Benzo would dig through a box, pull out a rusted piece, and hold it up to the light.

"What do you think this is, Tony?" Benzo would ask, turning it over in his hand.

Dante would stare at the useless object with a flat expression. "I have absolutely no idea."

"Yeah, neither do I."

"Then why do we even have it in the shop?"

"Good question."

And just like that, the nameless piece of garbage would go right back onto a display shelf with a price tag on it, waiting for some unsuspecting customer to buy it. Apparently, that was just how business worked in the undercity.

Meanwhile, Ekko seemed completely used to the routine. The two boys worked side by side throughout the afternoon, though Dante couldn't help but notice something interesting about the dynamic in the shop.

Ekko and Benzo weren’t just coworkers. They weren’t even acting like a boss and his employee. Not really, the way they bickered, and the way Benzo would subtly check to see if Ekko had eaten any lunch. It was right there in the way Ekko rolled his eyes every single time the older man tried to offer him some life advice.

Perched atop a tall ladder to organize a row of heavy gear cogs, Dante paused to watch the two of them argue below him.

"You’re not supposed to stand on the very top rung of that ladder, Ekko," Benzo grumbled without looking up from his ledger. "It's a safety hazard."

"I’m literally taller when I stand up here," Ekko shot back, balancing precariously on the frame. "I can reach the top shelf faster."

"That’s not the point.”

"Then what is the point?"

"The point is basic safety," Benzo said, finally looking up.

Ekko scoffed, gesturing out the front door toward the smog-choked streets. "Benzo, we live in the middle of the Lanes."

Benzo paused, considering the argument for a long second before letting out a gruff sigh. "Fair point."

Ekko smirked victoriously, tossing a copper bolt into a bin.

Dante watched the exchange silently. He couldn't help but notice the obvious physical differences between them. Benzo was white, Ekko was not. They clearly didn't share a drop of blood, meaning they weren't biologically related. But that fact somehow made their bond even more obvious to an outsider. Benzo acted exactly like a father, and Ekko acted exactly like a rebellious son.

The realization left a strange, heavy ache in Dante's chest. It was a deep sadness, because he had possessed that exact kind of warmth just a week ago. He hadn't experienced it with his father, but he had known it with Eva. He had known it with Vergil. He had known it back at the manor.

Dante quickly forced his eyes away and focused back on sorting. Thinking about the past never ended well.

Eventually, the grueling shift came to a close. The sun had long since disappeared beyond the deep fissures of the canyon above when Benzo finally flipped the sign on the door to closed.

Dante immediately perked up, sliding down the ladder.

Benzo reached into the counter drawer, pulling out a small leather pouch, and casually tossed it across the room. Dante caught it out of the air, blinking in confusion. He pulled the drawstring open to find actual, jingling coins resting inside.

His blue eyes widened. Objectively speaking, it wasn't a fortune. A grown adult down here probably would cry at the small amount of coin. But Dante wasn't an adult, just an eight-year-old boy holding his very first paycheck. To him, this was the ultimate jackpot.

He immediately sat down on a crate and counted the coins three separate times just to make absolutely sure they wouldn't vanish. Then, he counted them twice more. Then, he did it one final time for good measure.

"Don’t go spending all of that in one place, kid," Benzo warned with a knowing smirk, wiping down the main counter.

Dante gave a very serious nod. "I won't."

Exactly five minutes later, Dante walked through the crowded streets, trying to figure out how to spend every single coin he had just earned. Specifically, he was hunting for pizza. He didn't want any more of Jericho's fish, he didn't want undercity stew, and he didn't want any more weird mystery meat. He wanted a pie.

The search, however, took far longer than he had anticipated. Apparently, the slums weren't exactly overflowing with pizzerias. Dante wandered through three separate districts, asking various locals for directions.

Several pedestrians just stared at him like he had lost his mind. 

One elderly street vendor even laughed in his face, claiming that pizza was strictly an upscale "Piltover luxury." 

Dante considered that particular statement a personal offense.

Eventually, against all odds, he located a spot. It was a tiny, cramped restaurant squeezed uncomfortably between a noisy bar and a machine repair shop. The flashing neon sign looked incredibly suspicious and the greasy cook behind the counter looked downright untrustworthy. But the menu explicitly sold pizza, and that was the only detail Dante cared about.

He marched up to the counter and slapped his entire pouch of coins. "I’ll take a large."

The cook raised an eyebrow, looking at the pouch and then at the kid. "All your money for one pie?"

"Yep," Dante said without hesitation. "Every bit of it."

The cook shrugged, scooping up the coins. "Your funeral, kid."

A few minutes later, Dante marched out of the shop carrying a flat cardboard box. It contained the largest pizza he had seen since arriving in the undercity. It was a victory. Pure, unadulterated victory.

He scaled a pipe, climbing up onto a quiet, secluded rooftop that overlooked the glowing lights of the Lanes, and sat down with his prize. The aroma drifting from the box was incredible. The melted cheese looked absolutely perfect, and the crust possessed a beautiful, golden-brown edge. For the first time in weeks, Dante felt genuinely, blissfully happy.

He eagerly grabbed a massive slice, pulled it from the box, and took a huge bite. Then, he completely froze. Slowly, he lowered the slice back down and stared at it in horror.

Olives. 

The entire pizza was absolutely covered in black olives. There were sliced olives baked deep under the cheese. There were olives crushed inside the tomato sauce. There were even whole olives hidden beneath other olives. It was as if the cook had declared a personal war on taste buds everywhere.

Dante stared at the ruined meal in absolute disbelief. He let out a miserable sigh and spent the next twenty minutes painstakingly picking every single piece of the vegetable off the cheese by hand. One. By. One. The dark pile resting on the rooftop beside him eventually grew into an impressive mountain.

Surely, it was fixed now. Surely, he had salvaged his dinner. Dante took another tentative bite and it still tasted completely like olives. The strong, bitter flavor had seeped into every single layer of the meal, into the sauce, into the cheese, into the crust, and directly into the very soul of the pizza.

Dante looked down at the expensive, ruined food, then at the mountain of discarded toppings beside his boot, and then back at the box. 

His left eye twitched with pure rage. “I got robbed. Why would anyone willingly do this to a pizza?"

It wasn't good. It tasted terrible. But it was still technically pizza, and after spending every single coin he possessed to buy it, he was going to eat every last slice.

⸻

The months passed faster than Dante expected.

Life in the undercity settled into a rigid, predictable routine. Wake up. Haul crates at Benzo’s. Get dragged into whatever dangerous, half-baked mechanical contraption Ekko was currently inventing. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. It wasn't the glamorous life he had envisioned when he lived on the outskirts of Piltover, but it was stable. And after losing absolutely everything in a single night, stable was more than enough.

The shop gradually became familiar. He grew to love the cluttered, sprawling shelves, the constant, grounding smell of machine oil and ozone, and even Benzo’s perpetual, gravelly grumbling. For the first time since arriving in Zaun, Dante found himself laughing again. It wasn't the loud, unburdened laughter of his childhood, but it was enough to make him feel alive.

Yet, the ghosts never truly left him. The memories always waited for the cover of darkness. Every night, the moment he closed his eyes, he was trapped back in the closet. He could hear the suffocating roar of the flames, the agonizing screams, and his mother's final, desperate words. And then, there was Vergil. Always Vergil. Was his twin brother even alive? Had he escaped the monsters? Dante didn't know, and that silent uncertainty hurt worse than any concrete answer ever could.

Still, the world kept spinning. October arrived, bringing biting, cold winds that drifted heavily through the deep fissures of the Lanes.

October 10th started out as a completely normal day. Dante was in the front, sorting through a bin of scrap metal, while Ekko sat nearby, hammering a gear out of a broken generator. Behind the counter, Benzo was frowning at a single sheet of inventory paperwork, pretending to be deeply occupied. Dante was fairly certain the man hadn't actually read a single line on that page in the last twenty minutes.

Suddenly, the bell above the front door chimed.

Benzo looked up with a genuine grin across his face. "Well, look what the smog dragged in.“

Dante paused his sorting and glanced toward the entrance. Three people stepped into the shop, and the leader was entirely impossible to miss.

Vander. 

Even Dante, who kept his head low, knew exactly who Vander was by now. Everyone in the Lanes knew the man who kept the peace in the undercity.

Trailing right behind him was a young girl with a mess of bright pink hair and an aggressive, confident stride. Vi. 

But it was the third person who made Dante completely freeze in his tracks. It was a little girl, and her hair was a brilliant, shocking, unnatural shade of bright blue.

Dante blinked, staring at the color. It was mesmerizing, and for some inexplicable reason, that specific shade of blue instantly triggered a deeply buried memory. He saw a blue gemstone. He remembered the half of the matching necklace his mother had given Vergil on their eighth birthday, the blue half that his brother vowed never to take off, just like Dante did with the red half. The mental comparison made absolutely no sense. This random undercity girl had nothing to do with his family, yet Dante found himself completely unable to stop staring.

"Benzo!" Vander marched forward. "Tell me you've got the things I asked for last week."

"For you? I might have 'em," Benzo chuckled, tossing his paperwork aside. "Depending on how much you're willing to pay for my premium storage space."

While the two men immediately dissolved into easy bickering, Vi crossed her arms and let out a dramatic sigh. "We’re only here because Powder literally wouldn't stop talking about this place all morning. It was driving me crazy."

Powder looked up, her cheeks flushing with mild offense. "I don't talk about it that much, Vi!"

"You absolutely do," Vi shot back, leaning down to poke her sister's nose. "You woke up whispering about gears."

"I did not!"

"Did too."

"Did not!"

Vander let out a deep laugh that echoed off the walls, and Benzo joined in. Dante watched the dynamic quietly from his corner.

Vi stepped forward and proudly gestured down to her little sister. "Besides, it’s her birthday today."

Powder immediately perked up, her expression instantly shifting into a bright grin as she held up nine fingers. "I’m turning eight! I'm officially almost as tall as Vi."

"Well, look at that. Happy birthday, kiddo," Benzo smiled warmly, before shifting his gaze over to the boys. "Ekko!"

"Yeah, Benzo?" Ekko asked, dropping his hammer.

"Tony." Benzo nodded toward Dante. "Drop the scrap for a minute. Help her find whatever birthday treasure she’s looking for in the back."

"Got it!" Ekko jumped into action, instantly sliding off his stool. "Come on, Powder, I found some really cool stuff yesterday!"

Dante followed quietly behind them. Powder wandered through the shelves with wide-eyed excitement, her small hands darting out to touch various mechanical components. Every single time she found a new piece of junk, she would gasp, only to instantly abandon it the moment another shiny object caught her eye.

Dante tracked her movements closely. The bright blue hair was still incredibly distracting to him. It wasn't because she actually looked like Vergil, but the sheer vibrant color was a constant, pulsing reminder of the life he had lost.

Eventually, Powder came to a halt in front of a heavy wooden shelf filled with delicate, internal mechanical components. 

“Oh! Oh, look!" She pointed a small, excited finger toward the very top shelf. "What’s that shiny thing with the gears inside?"

"Hold on, I'll get it down for you," Dante said. 

He stepped forward and reached up, wrapping his fingers around the metallic component she wanted. But in his haste, Dante's mind was drifting, and he completely forgot his own terrifying, unnatural strength.

CRACK!

The component instantly shattered into a twisted piece right inside his palm.

The entire shop fell into a dead, absolute silence. Ekko stopped talking. Powder's jaw dropped. Across the room, even Vander and Benzo ceased their conversation to look over. Dante stood entirely frozen, staring blankly down at the ruined junk in his hands.

“Oops," Dante muttered, his face burning with embarrassment.

Benzo let out a long-suffering sigh from across the counter, rubbing his temples. "Tony... please tell me you didn't just crush another pneumatic valve with your bare hands. Again?"

"It... might have been a valve," Dante mumbled, sweating. "Maybe."

Before Benzo could yell, Dante suddenly felt a sharp, stinging warmth spreading across his palm. He looked down and realized that a jagged, broken edge of the shattered brass had sliced a deep gash right across his hand, blood was already beginning to pool in his palm.

Powder let out a sharp gasp, covering her mouth. "Oh no! You're bleeding!"

Vi winced from the front counter, looking at the wound. "Yikes. That looks deep."

Ekko immediately took a step forward, his brow furrowing with genuine concern. “Whoa, Tony, that's a nasty one. Are you okay?"

Dante’s eyes widened in sudden, absolute panic. The cut. The blood. 

No. No, no, no.

A wave of terror washed over him as his memories rushed back. He remembered the times he had fallen out of towering trees. He remembered the time Vergil had broken his nose. He remembered the strange, terrifying way their injuries never lasted for more than a few minutes or even an hour, and how their mother would always turn incredibly nervous whenever it happened. She would frantically hide them away until the wounds vanished.

"I... I need a bandage!" Dante blurted out, his voice cracking with anxiety. "I'll go get one!"

Before anyone could say a single word or offer to help, Dante spun on his heel and rushed down the back room, plunging into the dark room of the shop. The moment the door slammed shut and he was completely alone in the shadows, Dante hoisted his hand up into the dim light of the green window. He stared at his palm.

The deep cut was already closing.

Dante swallowed hard, his breath catching in his throat. He watched, utterly paralyzed, as the edges of his torn skin literally pulled themselves back together. The bleeding stopped instantly. Within five seconds, the open wound had shrunk into a thin, faint red line.

He had always known he healed quicker than normal, but this? This was completely different, faster. 

"That’s new," Dante whispered to the empty room, his heart pounding in his ears.

A moment later, the faint red line faded entirely into his flesh, disappearing completely. It left absolutely nothing behind, palm was perfectly smooth, as if never got cut. 

Dante stood in the damp quiet for a long moment, staring at his skin, before forcing himself to snap out of it. He quickly grabbed a  cloth from a crate and began wrapping it tightly around his healthy hand. He didn't need the bandage, but everyone was expecting to see an injury. Explaining a magically disappearing cut to a room full of undercity residents sounded like a spectacular way to get hunted down.

He grabbed an identical replacement component from a storage bin, took a deep breath, and marched back to the door.

"Found another one," Dante announced casually, holding up the fresh gadget as he stepped back into the shop. "The other one was just... rusted through. Defective."

Powder's face instantly lit up with relief, her bright blue eyes shining. "Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were seriously hurt."

Dante walked over and carefully handed the component over to her, making sure his grip was incredibly light. "Nah. Took more damage than I did."

Powder cradled the gadget in her hands, absolutely delighted by the interlocking gears. 

She tilted her head to the side, looking up at him curiously. "What’s your name anyway? Ekko never told me."

Dante froze. The answer should have been completely effortless. He had been living in the Lanes and answering to a fake identity for months now. Yet, for a fraction of a second, his guard dropped, and his mother's beautiful face flashed vividly in his mind: Forget your past. Start a new life.

"D—" the syllable slipped out of his mouth before he could stop it. 

He caught himself instantly. "T-Tony."

The stumble was incredibly small, barely noticeable hitch in his speech. 

Powder, entirely oblivious to the tension, gave a bright nod. "Nice to meet you, Tony! I'm Powder."

Dante let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, offering a small, awkward smile. "Nice to meet you too, Powder."

She held up the shiny component, her blue braids bouncing. "And thanks for not breaking this one."

Vi let out a loud snort, leaning against a display case. "Yeah, Tony. Try to keep your muscles under control."

Ekko burst out laughing, pointing a finger at him. "Vegetables, right? Too much broccoli!"

Even Vander chuckled quietly into his beard, shaking his head.

Dante groaned dramatically, crossing his arms over his chest as the shop filled with warmth. But as he looked around at the smiling faces, he realized something profound. For the first time in a very, very long time... the sound of people laughing didn't make his chest ache with loneliness.

⸻

The weeks following Powder’s birthday settled into a rhythm that was strangely, wonderfully comfortable.

At first, Powder only dropped by Benzo’s junk shop on occasion, usually trailing behind Vi. Then, she started showing up once a week. Then, every few days. Eventually, her presence became so constant that nobody even questioned it anymore.

Benzo noticed things, it was a fundamental requirement of running a pawnshop in the Lanes. And after a month of watching the kids interact, he noticed something very specific.

The moment Powder walked through the front door, Tony would immediately stop whatever he was doing. Every single time. Without fail.

If he was mid-sentence sorting a bin of scrap? Stopped. If he was carrying a fifty-pound iron crate? Stopped. If he was actively getting chewed out by Benzo for breaking another valve? Still stopped.

The boy would snap his head up so quickly it was almost a miracle he didn't give himself whiplash. Benzo had seen enough kids over the years to recognize exactly what was happening. It was a loyalty that ran deep, even if the boy didn't have the words to describe it.

One afternoon, Benzo stood behind the counter, rubbing his temples as he watched the three of them cluster near the scrap bins.

"Hey, Powder," Ekko said, leaning over a half-disassembled clockwork device. "Check this out. I re-wired the ignition sparker. It actually throws a blue flame now."

"Whoa, really?" Powder leaned in close. "Let me see! Does it get hot enough to melt solder?"

Dante, who had been completely frozen for three minutes while holding a gear, stepped forward. "I can help with the heavy lifting if you want to see it closer. Or... or I can find more parts. If you need things found. I'm really good at finding stuff."

Ekko slowly looked up. "Tony, we're trying to adjust a fuel line, not build a fortress out of scrap iron. You're blocking the light."

"I'm not blocking the light," Dante muttered, his face turning a light shade of pink as he carefully set the giant gear down with an unnecessarily loud thud. 

He turned to Powder. "But that sparker looks great. You’re really good at the wiring part. Way better than Ekko."

"Hey!" Ekko snapped. "I did the fuel manifold!"

Powder blinked, a small smile breaking across her face as she looked between them. "Thanks, Tony! Vi helped me find the copper leads this morning. I wanted it to look perfect for our next project. Do you think it needs a pressure gauge?"

"Definitely," Dante said, nodding enthusiastically. "A big one. It'll look cooler."

Behind the counter, Benzo briefly considered banging his head against the solid wood. They were just kids, but the dynamics were already so clear. Thankfully, the situation was mostly just awkward, bumbling conversations and a lot of staring, predominantly from Dante, who somehow never realized he was doing it.

When Powder talked, Dante listened like she was explaining the secrets of the world. When Powder laughed, Dante would instantly beam with a massive, goofy smile. The second Powder left the shop to go back to Vander’s, Dante’s mood would noticeably dip, his energy for chores vanishing for the rest of the day.

Even Vander noticed it eventually. One evening, the leader of the Lanes walked into the shop, took one look at Dante staring blankly at a spot on the floor where Powder had been standing an hour prior, and let out a deep rumble of amusement.

"The boy's loyal, Benzo," Vander chuckled, leaning against the counter. "Like a stray that’s finally found a pack."

Only Dante remained completely in the dark about how obvious his attachment was.

Despite the awkwardness, their friendship grew naturally. Powder loved to talk, and Dante loved to listen. It was a perfect match. She would sit and tell him animated stories about life in the Lanes, about Vi, and about the massive, chaotic inventions she dreamed of building one day.

"I'm gonna build something so big, Tony," Powder said one afternoon, her eyes shining with ambition. "Something that makes a massive bang, so the enforcers think twice about coming down our street."

Dante leaned against the wall, keeping his tone gentle. "If you build it, I'll carry it for you. No matter how heavy it is."

Powder grinned brightly. "Deal! And if it blows up by accident, you have to run fast enough to carry me away too."

"I can run fast," Dante said softly. "I won't leave you behind."

In return, Dante shared little pieces of himself. Never the important parts, but enough to feel less alone. 

But other days served as brutal reminders of where they lived. Enforcer raids, harassment, and the constant weight of Piltover’s authority. Every time Dante saw the uniforms, his stomach twisted with hatred. He hated that when his manor burned, nobody came.

Eventually, the question he had been avoiding became impossible to ignore: What happened afterward? Did anyone care?

One freezing evening, Dante slipped away to Piltover’s cemetery, entering it, he found the Redgrave family plot. Three markers.

Eva Redgrave.
Dante Redgrave. 
Vergil Redgrave.

Dante stared, his mind rejecting the stone. Piltover believed they were both dead. He stumbled forward, pressing his fingers against the cold marble.

"Vergil..." he whispered.

Every ounce of hope that his brother had survived shattered. There was a grave.

Dante was nine years old and had lost everything. He gripped the stone, and the grief he’d buried finally crashed down.
"I didn’t even get to say goodbye..."

He lowered his forehead against the stone and let himself mourn. A boy who just wanted to go home, even though home no longer existed.

Something fundamentally shifted inside him after his trip to the cemetery.

It didn't happen all at once, and it wasn't noticeable enough for anyone around him to immediately notice. But the shift was there. Before his visit, Tony had simply been focused on surviving. Now, he was actively grieving.

As it turned out, those were two entirely different things.

He still showed up for his shifts at Benzo’s junk shop. He still exchanged sarcastic banter with Ekko. He still spent his evenings at the Last Drop, and he still listened intently whenever Powder spoke. From the outside looking in, his routine remained perfectly intact.

Inside, however, the haunting image of those three gravestones refused to release its grip on his mind. Every time he closed his eyes at night, he saw the names etched into the cold stone. Every morning the moment he woke up, the memory of his family's official erasure rushed back to greet him.

Eventually, the weight of that grief drove Tony to do something he never would have considered before. He started stealing. He didn't steal from total strangers, and he didn't steal from the local market merchants. He stole directly from Benzo. 

Well... sort of.

The very first item he took was a complete accident. At least, that was the convenient lie he used to comfort his conscience. It was a tiny gear sitting entirely forgotten at the bottom of a dusty drawer. A few days prior, Powder had offhandedly mentioned needing a component just like it for a new project she was brainstorming. Benzo hadn't touched that drawer in months, maybe even years.

So, Tony quietly pocketed it.

When he slipped it to her later that evening, the sheer, bright radiance of the smile that broke across Powder's face made his internal guilt vanish almost instantly. And that was the real problem. The instant erasure of his guilt made the second item come much easier. He pocketed a strange little coiled spring mechanism. The third theft was an old glass lens, followed soon after by a miniature pressure gauge.

None of the items were inherently valuable. Most of the pieces had been buried beneath literal mountains of neglected junk. Half the time, Benzo probably didn't even remember owning them in the first place. Tony continuously convinced himself that it didn't matter.

And technically, most of the time, it didn't. Until one frantic afternoon.

"Where the hell did that thing go?" Benzo’s gruff voice came from the back of the shop.

Tony’s heart leaping into his throat.

Ekko looked up from a pile of wires. "What thing, Benzo?"

"The little pressure gauge," the older man grumbled, rummaging through a crate. "The one with the cracked glass. I could've sworn it was sitting right here on the counter yesterday."

Tony slowly looked away, focusing entirely on a random iron bolt on the floor, trying to look as perfectly blank and innocent as humanly possible. "I dunno. Haven't seen it."

Benzo narrowed his eyes. "Huh. Strange."

He continued searching, shifting a few heavy boxes around, he dug his hand into a completely different pile of scrap and pulled out a duplicate item. "Oh. Never mind, found it buried under this casing."

"Told you it was probably just misplaced," Ekko muttered, going back to his wires.

Tony quietly resumed breathing, letting out a slow exhale.

The secret gifts continued. Whenever he and Ekko made their usual trip over to the Last Drop, Tony almost always had some strange mechanical oddity tucked away safely in his oversized coat pocket. They were never expensive or visually impressive; they were just interesting, tactile things. Useful things. The exact kind of unique objects Powder loved to fiddle with.

At first, Powder accepted the trinkets without giving it much thought. But as the weeks rolled on, she began to notice a very distinct pattern.

"You keep bringing me stuff, Tony," she said one evening, holding up a dial he had just handed her.

Tony shrugged, leaning his elbows on the wooden table. "You like stuff."

"Well, yeah, I do," she admitted.

"See?" Tony offered a simple nod. "Logic checks out."

Powder blinked, considered his words. The bizarre reasoning somehow worked perfectly for her. Most of the time, anyway.

A few nights later, she sat at a corner table in the Last Drop, completely absorbed in tinkering with a tiny, complex mechanical spinner Tony had gifted her earlier that afternoon. 

“Where do you even find all of this anyway? Ekko says Benzo keeps the good scrap locked up." 

Tony's eyes immediately darted upward toward the water-stained ceiling. Then he stared intensely at the floor. Then he focused on a random crack in the distant wall. 

He looked absolutely anywhere except directly at her. "Around."

Powder squinted her eyes, leaning across the table. "That’s not a real answer."

"It is down here," Tony replied smoothly, refusing to break his gaze from the wall.

Ekko, who was sitting a few feet away, let out a loud, pained groan. "Wow. That was easily the most awful deflection I've ever heard in my life."

Tony looked instantly offended, turning his head to glare at him. "Hey, I thought it was pretty good. Short and mysterious."

"It really wasn't," Ekko deadpanned.

"It absolutely was!"

Powder let out a bright laugh at their bickering. Hearing the sound, Tony’s defenses instantly melted away, replaced by a soft, unbothered smile. And just like that, the conversation naturally moved on to something else.

Neither of the kids realized that Benzo was standing entirely across the bar, watching the entire exchange unfold. The old shopkeeper slowly took a sip from his glass, swallowed heavily, and let out a sigh.

Vander, who was standing right beside him reviewing the bar's ledger, noticed the sudden drop in his friend's mood. "What's eating at you, Benzo?"

Benzo subtly tilted his chin toward the corner table. Vander followed the gesture, his gaze landing on the kids. At that exact moment, Tony was enthusiastically using his hands to explain a mechanical concept to Powder, entirely misjudging his own spatial awareness and accidentally knocking over his own wooden chair with a loud clatter. Ekko immediately started loudly mocking him, while Powder buried her face in her hands, laughing hysterically.

Vander watched the chaotic scene for several seconds before a knowing smirk spread across his face. "Oh. I see."

"Yeah," Benzo muttered, taking another sip.

"Is it really that obvious?"

"It is painfully, brutally obvious," Benzo grumbled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "The boy turns into a total idiot the second she breathes in his direction. But that's not even the real issue."

Vander chuckled into his drink. "Then what is?"

"He keeps stealing junk from my shop," Benzo stated flatly.

That piece of information made Vander blink in genuine surprise. 

He lowered his glass, turning his head. "What? Tony's lifting from you?"

"Little things," Benzo explained, gesturing with his fingers. "Gears. Springs. You know how it is."

Vander frowned slightly. "You run a pawn shop, Benzo. Your eyes are everywhere. If he's stealing, why haven't you put a stop to it? Why haven't you broken the habit?"

Benzo’s gaze drifting back across the crowded room to look at the white-haired boy. Tony was laughing, the specific kind of pure, joyful expression.

Benzo let out a soft, defeated sigh, a small smile touching his own lips beneath his mutton chops. "Because it's just junk, Vander. It's just old metal."

Vander stared at his old friend for a moment, his expression softening with deep respect. 

He reached out and lightly nudged Benzo’s shoulder. "You soft old fool."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," Benzo muttered, turning back to the bar counter.

Neither man said another word on the matter. Across the room, Tony reached into his coat pocket and slid another strange gadget he had "found" across the table toward Powder.

Powder's eyes immediately lit up with excitement as she grabbed it. Ekko instantly started loudly complaining about favoritism, and Tony immediately held his hands up, putting on a perfect, theatrical face of unbothered innocence.

And for that brief, fleeting moment, despite the grief he carried in his chest, despite the tragic graves he had visited in the upper city, and despite every single piece of his past he had lost to the flames, Dante felt something remarkably close to real happiness again. Even if that happiness came at the direct expense of Benzo’s mysteriously disappearing inventory.

FOUR YEARS LATER:
The Last Drop was loud that evening, but it wasn't because of the regular patrons, it was because Vi, Mylo, and Claggor were preparing for a job. One important enough that Vander wasn’t supposed to know a single detail.

Tony sat on one of the barstools, idly spinning a screwdriver between his fingers while pretending to be completely absorbed in a loose screw on the counter. 

Across the room, twelve-year-old Powder followed Vi around like a lost, desperate puppy.

“Come on,” Powder pleaded, tugging at her sister's sleeve.

“No,” Vi replied flatly, not looking up.

“Vi.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No, Powder.”

Powder groaned dramatically, throwing her hands in the air. Vi continued stuffing supplies, ropes, and lockpicks into a  bag.

“I’m serious,” Vi said, her tone hardening.

“So am I!” Powder countered, crossing her arms tightly. “I’m ready. You know I am.”

Mylo immediately snorted. “No, you’re not.”

Powder shot him a glare powerful enough to kill a grown man on the spot. Unfortunately for her, Mylo survived it completely unscathed. 

“Why do you get to go?” She demanded, stepping toward him.

“Because I’m older,” Mylo crossed his arms.

“By two years!”

“That’s a lot when you’re twelve, kiddo.”

“It really isn't.”

Claggor wisely remained silent, adjusting his goggles. 

Tony kept his mouth shut too, mostly because he had watched this exact argument play out enough times to know it always ended poorly.

“Vi,” Powder tried again, her voice cracking slightly.

“No.”

“Vi.”

“No.”

“Vi.”

“No!” Vi finally stopped packing, releasing a heavy breath as she turned to look at her little sister. 

The initial irritation vanished from her expression, replaced by a profound, exhaustion-laced sigh. “Powder.”

Powder immediately knew she’d lost. That specific, gentle tone from Vi always meant the discussion was entirely over.

“You stay here,” Vi said softly.

Powder’s shoulders instantly dropped. “But—”

“Stay.”

The absolute finality in Vi’s voice officially ended the argument. At least outwardly.

Powder lowered her gaze, staring down at her boots. She quietly turned on her heel and headed toward the back door, disappearing down the steps into the dark basement, the space Vander had converted years ago to serve as a shared bedroom for the four adoptive kids.

Tony watched her disappear, his thumb tracing the handle of the screwdriver. He glanced over at Vi, who let defensive sigh.

“She’ll get over it,” Vi muttered, hoisting the heavy bag over her shoulder.

Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn't. Tony knew exactly what it felt like to be left behind in the dark, to watch the people you loved walk away into danger while you were forced to stay put. That specific brand of isolation lingered in a kid's chest far longer than adults ever realized.

Tony slipped off the barstool. 

“Where’re you going?” Ekko asked, looking up from a nearby table where he was tinkering with a pocket watch.

Tony shrugged. “Somewhere.”

Without another word, he slid through the back door and descended into the basement.

The underground room was infinitely quieter than the tavern above. Only a single, flickering lamp illuminated the space, throwing long, heavy shadows across the walls. Powder lay completely sprawled out across the floorboards, her face buried deeply into the sleeve of her shirt. She didn’t even notice Tony enter.

He hesitated near the bottom of the stairs, his boots coming to a halt as he noticed a small, mangled piece of metal sitting right beside his foot. It was a mechanical monkey, one of Powder’s countless unfinished, failed projects. Its head was entirely missing, and one arm hung loose by a single frayed copper wire. The thing looked completely ridiculous.

Tony smiled faintly despite himself. Then, he looked back over at Powder. Her small shoulders were shaking slightly against the floor.

The smile instantly vanished from his face. He knew that shaking. He knew those silent, suffocating tears.

Instead of forcing her to talk immediately, he quietly walked over to the coffee table, picking up a small  box he had left there earlier, and settled it onto his lap. Inside the box were salvaged brass scrap, broken clockwork gears, and spools of copper wire. They were the unique, interesting pieces he had lifted from Benzo’s shop over the last month. Originally, he had planned to give them to her one by one over the winter.

Instead, looking at her shaking shoulders, he decided to give her all of it right now.

Tony stood up, walked across the floorboards, and gently crouched down in the floor right beside her. The sound of him finally made her slowly tilt her face up to look at him. Her eyes were red, puffy, and shining with unshed tears. She was trying very hard not to cry, trying desperately to look much tougher and older than she actually was.

“I’m too old to be crying,” Powder mumbled, her voice thick as she violently tugged at her sleeve, trying to brush the moisture from her cheeks.

“No, you’re not. You just became twelve,” Tony said gently, keeping his voice low so it wouldn't echo up the stairs. 

He shifted the weight of the box and offered it directly to her. “Besides, this is everything I could find for you lately. Scraps, odds and ends... thought maybe it could cheer you up.”

Powder blinked up at him, sniffling softly as she sat up, squinting through her tears at the assortment resting inside the container. “You… did all this for me?”

Tony shrugged, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips to mask his own earnestness. “I know you’re upset Vi didn’t take you on that  job with Mylo and Claggor. But hey, you’re ready, Powder. Next time, she’ll see it. I promise.”

Powder’s lips quivered slightly, the crushing weight in her expression shifting as a small smile began to form at the corners of her mouth. “You... you really think so, Tony?”

“Of course,” Tony said without hesitation, locking his blue eyes with hers. “You’re scrappy, and you're smart. Way smarter than Mylo, that's for sure. And if anyone down here underestimates you, they’re gonna regret it real soon.”

Powder reached out, taking the box from his hands and hugging it tightly against her chest, as if she were shielding a spark of hope she hadn’t dared to feel in a long time.

Tony giggled softly, rocking back on his heels. “And hey… look at the bright side. You’ll always have me around to help. No matter what happens.”

Powder’s smile finally widened, breaking through the grief completely. It was a real, brilliant smile, bright enough to entirely chase away the heavy ache lingering in her chest.

“So,” Tony said, nudging the corner of the box with his index finger, “what kinda crazy gadget are you gonna make out of this pile?” 

He leaned in closer, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “Tell me what you need, and I’ll try to get the matching parts for you from the shop. Just... nothing too massive. Last time Benzo caught me sneaking heavy scrap out, he nearly boxed my ears off. Then he went and told Vander, and we both know how that lecture ends.”

Powder sat up completely, her eyes already sparkling with a dozen ideas. “Can I get actual nuts and bolts next time?”

Tony blinked, caught off guard. “Actual… like, actual building stuff? Not just salvaged scrap?”

She nodded eagerly, her blue braids swinging. “Yeah! Real ones. The kind that hold heavy things together without snapping.”

Tony let out a low, impressed whistle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Alright. Heavy-duty hardware. How many are we talking?”

“A hundred,” Powder said, flashing a grin that was far too confident for someone her size.

Tony burst out laughing, shaking his head. “A hundred? Yeah, okay, calm down. I’m gonna have to sneak into Ekko's private stash and ask Little Man about that. You know he’s got most of the good factory-grade pieces locked away.”

Powder scrunched up her nose, crossing her legs. “But he’s always using them on those stupid clocks! Tick-tock this, tick-tock that. It's so boring.”

“So what, you want me to actively steal from Little Man now?” Tony teased, raising an eyebrow at her.

Powder giggled, leaning even closer, lowering her voice like she was revealing a state secret. “It’s not technically stealing if it’s for something really cool.”

Tony snorted loudly, a grin spreading across his face. “Wow. That is easily the worst logic I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

She tilted her head to the side, her blue eyes locked onto his, a smirk playing on her lips. “You still gonna do it though?”

Tony paused, putting on a grand, dramatic face of deep contemplation. 

He stared at the ceiling, sighed theatrically, and finally looked back down at her. “Yeah… yeah, fine. I’ll figure something out and raid his drawer.”

Powder’s eyes completely lit up, her joy bouncing off the basement walls. “Really?!”

“Really,” Tony said softly, his smirk fading into something steady and protective. “But only because I know that one day, you’re gonna build something so incredible it's gonna scare the absolute hell outta everyone who ever dared to doubt you.”

Powder hugged her knees, tucking her chin over her arms as she smiled quietly to herself, staring at the glittering inside her new box. “I’m gonna make something that actually works this time.”

Tony watched her for a silent moment longer than he safely meant to, the image of her bright hair and determined smile grounding him in the dark room.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, his voice barely more than a breath. “I know you will.”

⸻

The day had started slowly, and Benzo had left the shop that morning to handle some business elsewhere, leaving the store in the care of two thirteen-year-old boys. It was a decision that would probably horrify any reasonable adult.

“Listen to me, both of you,” Benzo had said, pointing a finger at them right before leaving. “Don’t touch anything expensive. Don’t try to 'fix' anything that isn't broken. And if anyone shady walks in, you call the shop next door.” 

He shifted his gaze, specifically locking eyes with Dante. “That means you, Tony.”

“I know, Benzo. Trust me,” Dante had replied, putting on his best face of absolute innocence. “I’m just going to organize the iron pipes.”

“You really don’t know,” Benzo grumbled, adjusting his heavy leather straps. “The last time you organized, you snapped a pressure valve in half because you got bored. I'm watching you, kid.”

Then, Benzo had walked out, the bell chiming behind him.

Several hours later, Ekko sat comfortably behind the counter, completely absorbed in tinkering with a clock mechanism, his fingers moving with practiced precision. Dante, on the other hand, was merely pretending to organize the inventory. Mostly, he was just spinning around on a chair, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling.

“You’re going to break the bearings on that chair,” Ekko muttered without looking up from his gears.

“I’m testing its integrity,” Dante replied, kicking his leg out to spin himself faster. “It’s a very important mechanical process.”

“It’s a very annoying process,” Ekko shot back, tapping a small brass pin into place. “Go find something heavy to carry.”

Suddenly, the bell rang, making both boys looked up instantly, and their bodies completely froze.

The newcomer looked completely and utterly out of place in the undercity. Everything about him practically screamed Piltover. He wore immaculately clean, tailored clothes, highly polished shoes, and a pristine Academy uniform without a single smudge of grease on it. The man couldn’t have been older than his late twenties. He had smooth tan skin, short brown hair, broad shoulders, and the kind of perfectly straight posture people only developed after years of expensive education and absolutely zero street fights.

Dante frowned, slowing his chair to a stop. Ekko frowned too, his brow furrowing as he lowered his tools.

The stranger paused in the doorway, he looked around the dusty, cluttered junk shop, clearing his throat before smiling awkwardly. “Uh... hello there.”

Neither boy answered immediately. In the Lanes, people from Piltover almost never came down voluntarily, especially not dressed like a walking target.

Ekko cleared his throat and leaned over the counter. “Need something, mister? We mostly deal in scrap and refurbished parts.”

“Possibly... yes,” the man said, his eyes darting eagerly toward the rows of overflowing shelves. “I’m looking for some specific... high-grade industrial components. If you have them.”

The man began wandering through the shelves. Dante stood up from his chair, keeping his distance but tracking the stranger's movements closely. He immediately noticed something strange: the guy wasn’t browsing randomly like a tourist. He knew exactly what he was looking for.

Every few minutes, the stranger would stop, adjust a pair of round spectacles, and inspect an obscure mechanical component with intense scrutiny. Then, he would place it into a wire basket.

“Fascinating...” the man muttered to himself, scribbling something down in his notebook. “The alloy blend on these stabilizer teeth is remarkably dense. It could handle the friction...”

Dante watched him slide a specialized gear into the basket. Then, a heavy pressure regulator. Soon after, the man reached and pulled out several restricted mechanical components that Benzo normally kept locked away behind glass.

The man’s eyes landed on a reinforced iron shelf near the back of the shop. Dante followed his gaze.

Blue crystals.

They weren’t particularly large, but they were valuable. They were fancy, blue, orb-like crystals stored securely inside heavy, protective glass containers. Even Dante knew those weren’t ordinary undercity scrap.

The stranger’s face practically lit up, his eyes widening with pure, unadulterated excitement. “Oh! Oh, incredible!”

He immediately walked over, carefully picking up one of the glass containers. He turned it over in his hands, his breath catching. “The stabilizing casing is crude, but the energy signature... it’s exactly what I require.”

He eagerly grabbed another. Then a third.

Ekko’s eyebrows climbed straight toward his hairline as he watched from the counter. Dante’s did too. The guy looked like someone who had spent his entire life reading dusty library books and had suddenly discovered a magical candy store.

The stranger continued collecting components, moving from shelf to shelf like a whirlwind. Until his wire basket was completely overflowing with heavy, premium parts. Eventually, he lugged the heavy basket back to the front counter, setting it down with a loud grunt. 

He wiped sweat from his forehead and smiled brightly at Ekko. “I believe this covers everything on my primary list. What is the total, young man?”

Ekko stared at the massive pile of premium inventory. Then he stared at the pristine topside man. Then he looked back at the pile, the total value spinning around in his head as he crunched the numbers. A slow, mischievous grin slowly appeared on Ekko's face.

Dante recognized that grin instantly. It was Ekko’s 'bad idea' grin.

“Well...” Ekko began, leaning his elbows on the counter and casually multiplying the actual price in his head. Then he multiplied it again, just to see what would happen. 

“Seeing as these are imported stabilizer parts... and those blue crystals are extremely rare... that’ll be... a lot.”

The Piltover man didn’t even flinch, he nodded immediately, reaching into his coat. “Quite reasonable, considering the rarity.”

Neither boy expected that answer. 

Ekko blinked, completely caught off guard. “Uh...” 

Desperate to test the limits of this guy's pocketbook, Ekko cleared his throat and named an even higher, completely absurd number. “Plus the undercity luxury tax. So... it's actually this much.”

The stranger nodded again, entirely unfazed. “Perfect. Innovation requires sacrifice.”

Dante and Ekko stared as the man reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a heavy pouch. He untied the drawstring, and the sound of the coins jingling inside made Dante’s eyes widen.

Gold. Actual gold. Not copper scraps. Not loose silver coins. Bright, polished gold.

The stranger casually counted out the golden coins onto the wooden counter without even looking concerned. There was no haggling. There were no complaints about the price. There was no bargaining or asking for a discount. Nothing. He simply paid exactly what the thirteen-year-old kid asked for.

“There you go,” the man said, carefully packing the heavy components into a durable canvas sack. 

He offered a polite nod to both boys. “Thank you for your assistance. This will advance the research immensely.”

“Yeah... sure thing, mister,” Ekko stammered, staring blankly at the pile of gold on the wood. “Come back anytime.”

“Perhaps I will,” the man said cheerfully. 

He hoisted the heavy sack over his broad shoulder, turned, and left the shop. The brass bell jingled merrily behind him.

A stunned silence filled the room.

Both boys stood completely motionless, staring at the pile of gold resting on the counter. Then they looked at each other. Then they looked back at the gold.

Dante slowly reached out a finger and poked one of the coins, rolling it across the wood just to make sure it wasn't a hallucination. It felt solid. It felt real.

A slow smirk spread across Dante's lips. “Jackpot.”

Ekko nodded slowly, his voice breathless. “Yeah... jackpot. Benzo is going to lose his mind.”

There was enough money sitting on that counter to buy more food than either of them had seen in weeks. Maybe even months. The sheer, ridiculous amount of wealth felt completely out of place in a pawnshop.

Dante’s eyes drifted toward the front window, tracking the direction the stranger had gone. His relaxed expression vanished, replaced by a sharp, calculating look.

Ekko immediately noticed the shift, his eyes narrowing. “What? What are you looking like that for?”

Dante looked back at him, his face perfectly smooth and devoid of suspicion, which, for him, made it infinitely more suspicious. “Nothing. I just... think I need some fresh air.”

Ekko crossed his arms. “No, you don’t.”

“I kinda do,” Dante insisted, taking a step toward the door. “The fumes in here are getting thick.”

“You never need air, Tony. You literally sleep in a basement surrounded by rusty iron,” Ekko pointed out, leaning over the counter to block his path. “What are you doing?”

Dante glanced toward the door, then toward the gold, and then toward the door again. A wide grin slowly spread across his face, the exact kind of grin that usually ended with somebody loudly yelling, somebody running for their life, or both.

Ekko leveled an accusing finger at him. “You have an idea. A really bad, dangerous idea.”

“No, I don't,” Dante lied smoothly.

“You absolutely have an idea! I can see it in your eyes!”

“Maybe a little one,” Dante conceded, stepping backward toward the exit. “Just a tiny thought.”

“Tony, Benzo explicitly said—”

“Take care of the shop, Little Man,” Dante interrupted, his hand wrapping around the handle of the front door.

“Why? Where are you going?” Ekko demanded.

Dante’s grin widened, his eyes flashing with a spark of excitement. “I think we just met the richest, most oblivious idiot in the history of Piltover.”

Ekko blinked, his mind racing to catch up, the realization finally dawned on him. “You’re going to follow him?”

“Yeah,” Dante said, leaning against the doorframe. “Think about it. That guy walked into the undercity carrying enough gold to fund an entire building, and he didn't even look around to see who was watching. He's a walking target.”

Ekko frowned, looking at the gold on the counter. “He definitely doesn't know how to handle himself down here.”

“Exactly,” Dante said, his tone turning a bit more serious. “And judging by those high-grade materials and those blue crystals he just bought... whatever crazy science experiment he’s working on topside isn’t finished. Not even close. Which means he’s going to need more supplies. More components. More rare parts.”

Dante pushed the door open, the foggy air of the Lanes rushing into the shop.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Tony!” Ekko called out after him, leaning over the counter. “If you get jumped by a street gang, I’m telling Benzo it was your fault!”

Dante paused, looked back over his shoulder with a sharp, confident smirk. “Hey... relax. You know me.”

“That’s exactly why I’m worried,” Ekko answered.

Dante let out a genuine laugh, then turned and disappeared into the neon-lit fog of the street. He left Ekko alone with the glittering pile of gold, and with a rapidly growing suspicion that whatever "Tony" was planning next was inevitably going to become a problem.

Dante didn't trail too close, nor did he lag too far behind. He kept a perfect, practiced distance, just enough to keep that pristine topsider in his sights.

The man walked with intense, frantic purpose, clutching the sack filled with expensive regulators and those glowing blue crystals. For someone who looked so incredibly educated, he seemed remarkably oblivious to the world around him. He didn't check his surroundings, he didn't look over his shoulder, and he didn't realize how much attention he was drawing to himself.

Eventually, the stranger reached the lifts that connected the undercity to the upper levels of the Lanes. Dante stopped in the shadows, his brow furrowing. Zaunites used the transit lifts all the time for labor shifts, but there was a massive difference between riding a lift for work and being allowed to wander freely through Piltover proper. A thirteen-year-old undercity stray wandering around the Academy District would immediately draw questions. Questions led straight to enforcers. And Dante truly, deeply hated enforcers.

So, he chose the route he knew best: the incredibly stupid, dangerous one.

The gears groaned, and the industrial lift began its long ascent. Dante didn't hesitate. He burst into a dead sprint, leaped off the edge of the platform, and launched himself into the open air. His fingers instantly caught the rusted edge of a support beam. His boots slammed against the narrow steel maintenance framework, and without breaking momentum, he began to climb. He moved fast. The wind rushed violently past his face as he scaled the massive structure, moving hand over hand, executing jumps from pipe to pipe. His body handled the extreme exertion effortlessly, his muscles absorbing the impact without a single hint of fatigue.

By the time the mechanical lift groaned to a halt at the upper platforms, Dante was already waiting. He landed with grace atop a support beam directly overhead, peering down through. Still unseen. Still following.

The topside stranger stepped off the platform and immediately began crossing the Bridge of Progress. Dante paused, crouching on his steel perch as his expression darkened significantly.

The bridge always did that to him. Every single time he saw the grand crossing. He could still smell the suffocating ash. The night his entire world had fractured.

Dante violently shook his head, pushing the intrusive memories back into the dark corners of his mind. He dropped down from the beam, swinging himself entirely beneath the underbelly of the bridge.

The massive stone and steel structure stretched across the rushing river. Dante navigated the underside easily, his fingers gripping the rivets as the upper city expanded beautifully before his eyes.

Eventually, he climbed up a drainage pipe on the topside cliff, slipping over a railing unnoticed. The stranger was still walking, completely unaware of his tail. Dante tracked him from above, leaping across opulent tiled rooftops, navigating stone balconies, and slipping along narrow maintenance ledges, anything that kept his shadow out of the light.

Piltover hadn't changed a bit since he was eight years old. The wealthy citizens still strolled along the avenues like they personally owned every stone beneath their feet. Because, in reality, they did. Academicians hurried between lectures clutching heavy books, merchants sold wildly overpriced topside luxuries, and enforcers stood at strict attention on every street corner. This was the exact same city that had buried his past. The exact same city that firmly believed Dante Redgrave was nothing but ash. A bitter, burning knot of resentment settled deep in his stomach.

Suddenly, the stranger turned a corner, officially entering the Academy District. Dante’s curiosity instantly spiked.

The district was breathtakingly beautiful with stark white stone, soaring towers, and elegant, sweeping architecture. It was the exact kind of place Eva used to occasionally bring him and Vergil when they were very young. 

The man eventually came to a stop in front of one of the high-end student residences, a multi-story building overlooking a pristine view of the city center. Dante crouched low atop a nearby stone archway, his eyes tracking the man as he pushed the front doors and stepped inside.

Dante waited for ten seconds, slipped down and followed him through.

The security of the wealthy topside building was laughably bad, or perhaps Dante was simply unique at moving like a ghost. Either way, nobody stopped him, and nobody noticed a stray kid in the shadows. He slipped through an open, unlocked service entrance and quietly, rapidly scaled several flights of stairs.

The grand building grew quieter and noticeably more expensive the higher he climbed. The polished furniture lining the hallways probably cost more than Benzo’s entire pawnshop inventory combined.

As Dante rounded a corner on the top floor, the sudden sound of voices echoed down the hall, causing him to instantly melt into a doorway. A uniform-clad building worker carrying a tray of supplies was approaching Dante’s target.

"Good evening, Mr. Talis," the worker said politely, bowing her head.

The man visibly cringed at the greeting, waving his hand frantically. "Oh, please... please don’t call me that."

The worker blinked, looking thoroughly confused. "Sir?"

The stranger let out an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. "Mr. Talis was my father. And... well, he’s been gone for a number of years now. Just call me Jayce."

"My mistake, Jayce," the worker replied apologetically, bowing again before moving past him down the hall.

Jayce, Dante thought, storing the name away in his mind. Jayce Talis. Useful information. Very useful.

Once the worker departed down the lift, Jayce continued down the long hallway. Dante trailed him from a safe distance, stepping silently from shadow to shadow. Eventually, the man stopped at the very last apartment door at the end of the corridor, the penthouse apartment. The absolute nicest, most expensive unit on the top floor.

Jayce unlocked the door with a key and stepped inside. A moment later, bright, warm light illuminated the interior through the frosted glass windows.

Dante remained perfectly hidden around the corner of the hallway, his mind racing as he began connecting the pieces of the puzzle. High-end, restricted industrial equipment. Rare, volatile crystals. An elite Academy student. A penthouse apartment. And most importantly of all, someone who clearly possessed absolutely zero street smarts and had no concept of how dangerous the undercity could be.

Then, a much better, infinitely more exciting thought occurred to him.

Powder.

She was completely obsessed with complex inventions. She loved machinery, she loved tinkering with tech, and she loved trying to figure out how things worked. But Vi and Mylo were constantly breathing down her neck, claiming she wasn't strong enough for real jobs, that she wasn't useful and that she lacked the experience to go topside. Dante frowned fiercely at the memory of her crying on the floor. It wasn't true. Powder was brilliant, brighter than any of them realized.

If someone were to theoretically inform the crew about this specific Academy student... about his wealthy apartment... and about the mountains of highly expensive, unlocked machinery hidden right inside his penthouse...

That sounded exactly like the kind of target Vi and the others were constantly scouring the upper city for.

A wide, mischievous grin spread across Dante's face. This was absolutely perfect. He could sneak back down to the Lanes, tell Powder about the apartment, and let her take credit for finding the score. Powder could present the target to Vi, the crew would pull off a massive heist, and Vi would finally see how much her little sister could contribute. They might even let her come along on the actual run.

For a thirteen-year-old boy with a massive crush he didn't even realize he had, the logic seemed completely flawless. It was a perfect, foolproof plan with absolutely zero potential for things to go wrong.

Dante quietly turned around, slipping back toward the service stairs to make his way back down to Lanes, his mind already racing with exactly how he was going to explain the layout to Powder.

⸻

By the time Dante pushed his way back into Benzo’s shop, the sun was already dipping.

By all logical rules of human biology, his legs should have been completely exhausted. He had sprinted across half of the Lanes, scaled a massive elevator shaft, snuck through the highly guarded boundaries of Piltover, and tracked a complete stranger across an entire academic district before turning around and making the exact same way back. Yet, as he wiped a stray streak of sweat from his forehead, his body felt perfectly fine.

The bell jingled sharply as he closed the door behind him. Ekko, who was still hunched over the counter with a magnifying lens flipped over his eye, looked up instantly.

"There you are," Ekko dropped a tiny gear into a metal tin. "Benzo's going to be back in an hour. Where the hell did you go?"

Dante’s face broke into a confident grin. "Told you it'd be worth it, Little Man."

That sentence alone made Ekko’s protective instincts kick into overdrive. 

He narrowed his eyes, sliding off his stool. "What did you do, Tony?"

Dante dropped heavily into the chair, kicking his boots up onto a nearby crate. "What I did was follow the richest, most oblivious idiot."

Ekko let out a long, heavy groan, rubbing his face with his hands. "You actually followed him? Topside? Are you out of your mind?"

"Obviously I followed him," Dante scoffed, crossing his arms. "The guy practically had a giant neon sign over his head saying 'Please rob me.'"

"Tony," Ekko stepped out from behind the counter. "That is completely insane. If you got caught—"

"But I didn't," Dante interrupted smoothly, leaning forward with an energized spark in his eyes. "And it worked."

Ekko absolutely hated when that was Dante's answer, mostly because against all logic, it usually was the answer. "Fine. What happened?"

Dante leaned across the gap between them, his voice dropping into a dramatic whisper. "I tracked him all the way back to his actual apartment."

Ekko blinked, his jaw slackening slightly. "What?"

"Oh yeah," Dante beamed, pointing a finger directly toward the ceiling. "All the way up to the shiny part."

"Piltover?"

"Yep. The student residences. Top floor penthouse.”

"What are you guys talking about?" a quiet, familiar voice cut through the shop.

Both boys snapped their heads toward the entrance. Neither of them had noticed the brass bell jingling a second time. Powder stood by the door, a bag of salvaged machine parts clutched tightly in her hands. She looked back and forth between them with heavy suspicion.

Ekko immediately pointed a finger right at Dante. "Tony just followed a topside Piltover citizen all the way to his bedroom!"

Powder blinked her large blue eyes, her nose scrunching up in confusion. "What?"

Dante scrambled out of his chair, waving his hands frantically to kill the narrative. "No, no, hold on! Stop! It sounds way worse when you frame it like that!"

"How else am I supposed to say it?" Ekko shot back, crossing his arms. "You tracked a guy to his house!"

"It was reconnaissance," Dante corrected, puffing out his chest.

"It was stalking."

"It was tactical stalking," Dante insisted, completely unbothered.

Powder walked deeper into the shop, setting her bag of parts down on the counter. She looked confused, then deeply concerned, and finally curious.

"What actually happened, Tony?" She asked. 

Dante gestured with his hand, welcoming her into the circle. "Come here. Listen to this."

Powder moved closer, leaning against the wooden counter. Dante launched into the entire narrative, his hands animating every single detail of the journey. He described the strange Academy student who didn't know how to haggle, the high-grade industrial components he bought, the rare blue crystals locked in glass casings, and the massive, unlocked leather pouch of pure gold he casually threw around. He detailed the climb up the lift, navigating the underbelly of the Bridge of Progress, and trailing the man through the avenues of the Academy District right up to the penthouse apartment.

"And his name is Jayce Talis," Dante finished, leaning back with a triumphant smirk. "He lives right at the top. Alone. With mountains of expensive tech just sitting on his workbenches."

Powder listened to every word in absolute silence, her bright blue eyes widening more and more with every sentence. When he finally finished speaking, a heavy quiet settled over the room, broken only by the hum of the neon lights outside.

Powder was the first to break the silence, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "That’s a lot of stuff."

"It is," Dante nodded.

"A really, really big score."

"Yep. Biggest one I've ever seen."

She glanced nervously toward Ekko, then back toward Dante, before lowering her gaze to the floorboards. Her mind was visibly racing, connecting the layout of the upper city to the harsh realities of her own life. 

A sudden flash of realization hit her face. "Oh."

Dante smiled warmly, leaning in. "See? You get it."

Powder bit her lower lip, her fingers nervously twisting the fabric of her sleeve. "You... you think I should tell Vi about this."

"I do," Dante said firmly.

Ekko let out a defeated sigh. "I hate that I actually agree with him, but yeah. It's a massive lead."

Dante pointed a victorious finger at him. "Exactly! See? Even Little Man agrees."

"I still think you’re completely reckless and insane," Ekko deadpanned, glaring at him.

"Hey, that’s an entirely unrelated issue," Dante smirked, waving his hand dismissively.

Powder looked incredibly uncertain, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Her knuckles turned white against her sleeve. "Vi... Vi probably won’t even listen to me. And Mylo thinks I'm a jinx."

"She will listen," Dante countered, his voice instantly softening. "Powder, look at me."

She slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

"You wanted a real chance, right?" Dante asked gently. "You wanted Vi to finally see that you’re ready to help?"

Powder went completely quiet, her chest rising and falling with a shallow breath.

"You wanted to show Mylo and Claggor that you're smart enough to find the real targets," he continued, taking a step closer to her. "This is it. This is helping."

The words hit her harder than Dante even realized. Because they were entirely true. Every single painful conversation she had overheard, every intense argument, every time Vi gently told her she had to stay behind for her own safety, and every time Mylo loudly mocked her. This single piece of information could change absolutely everything for her.

Dante offered her a genuine, supportive smile. "And hey, you don’t even have to do the heavy lifting or run the job. You just have to walk up to Vi and hand her the score." 

He shrugged casually. "Tell her you got a solid tip from your good friend Tony. That’s it."

"That’s really it?" Powder whispered, a fragile hope beginning to crack through her defense.

"That's it," Ekko nodded reluctantly, walking over to stand beside them. "As much as I hate admitting that Tony's crazy stunt paid off... it’s a perfectly clean lead. The guy doesn't know the streets, and he has a fortune sitting in a student dorm."

Powder blinked, looking between the two boys. "Really, Ekko?"

Ekko sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, yes. It's an incredible target."

Dante immediately threw his arms out in a victorious pose, while Ekko just rolled his eyes hard enough to strain them. Powder stood quietly in the center of the shop, thinking through the plan one final time. 

A small, definitive nod escaped her. "I'll tell her," she said, a little more steel entering her voice as she lifted her chin. "I'll go and tell Vi right now."

"There you go," Dante grinned.

"And I'll tell Mylo and Claggor too," she added, her face breaking into a real, bright smile. "They won't be able to say I'm not part of the crew after this."

"Good. Go get 'em," Dante said, relief washing over his chest.

POWDER:
The Last Drop was quiet that evening. Most of the crowd remained upstairs, buried in their drinks, shouting over one another, or pretending not to listen to Vander recount the exact same street war stories for the hundredth time.

Downstairs was a completely different world. The cramped basement belonged entirely to the kids. 

Vi sat heavily on the worn couch, her body tensing as she let out a sharp hiss. "Ow. Watch it."

"Well, that’s exactly what happens when you just let people punch you straight in the face, Vi," Mylo shot back. 

He carefully tried to press a cloth against the bruise rapidly forming along her jaw.

Vi immediately slapped his hand away with a smack. "I wasn't 'letting' him punch me, Mylo. It was a trade."

"You literally took a full-force hook to the chin," Mylo deadpanned, holding the cloth up.

"And I punched him twice as hard right after!" Vi shot back, wincing as she shifted her jaw. "He went down. I didn't."

"That’s not the point," Mylo muttered.

Claggor sat nearby, doing his absolute best to bite back a laugh. The stocky boy was holding an opened first-aid kit while Vi glared daggers at everyone else in the room. Apparently, she had gotten into a brutal street fight with some wannabes. Apparently, she had won. Apparently, she had also used her face to absorb a lot of the impacts.

Suddenly, a soft throat cleared near the wooden staircase.

Everyone in the room looked up instantly. Powder stood at the very bottom step, her small hands clasped nervously behind her back, her shoulders squared as she tried very hard to look completely confident.

Vi’s eyes locked onto her little sister, and she immediately noticed the stiffness in her posture. "What?"

Powder blinked, trying to look innocent. "What do you mean, 'what'?"

"That look," Vi said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees.

"What look? I don't have a look."

"The specific look that means you’ve got something you're hiding," Vi smirked.

Mylo leveled a finger at Powder. “Oh, she’s definitely got the look. That's the 'I know a secret' face."

Claggor nodded in agreement, adjusting his thick goggles. "Yep. Definitely got the look."

Powder let out a dramatic groan, her shoulders slumping. "I hate literally all of you."

Vi’s smirk widened into a warm grin. "Love you too, sis. Now come on, spill it. What is it?"

Powder took a deep breath to quiet her mind, letting out a slow exhale, and finally spoke the words she had been practicing the entire walk over from Benzo's. "I got a tip. A real one."

The playful atmosphere in the basement instantly vanished. The room went completely quiet.

Vi raised an eyebrow, her expression turning serious. "A tip?"

Powder nodded quickly. "A really, really good one. Topside."

Now, she had the absolute, attention of every single person in the room. 

"Alright," Vi said, her voice dropping into a focused, low tone. "Let’s hear it, Pow-Pow."

Powder didn't waste a single second, immediately catching them up with everything.

Mylo blinked his eyes, completely dumbfounded. Claggor just stared. Vi remained perfectly still, processing the sheer scope of the target.

"Are you completely serious right now, Powder?" She finally asked, her voice hushed.

Powder nodded vigorously. "One hundred percent. Tony followed him all the way to his front door. He verified the location."

Mylo let out a low whistle, looking slightly horrified. "That’s completely insane. Sneaking into the Academy District? Following a topsider?"

"Yeah," Powder said, her chin lifting. "But it worked. He didn't get caught."

"That's still actually insane," Mylo muttered, shaking his head.

Claggor rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The Academy District? A top-floor student penthouse?"

"Yep," Powder nodded.

"And you're sure about the expensive equipment?" Claggor pressed. "Not just books and papers?"

"Tony said it looked like a literal factory store."

"A rich, completely clueless Piltover student..." Claggor murmured.

The basement fell quiet once again as everyone began internalizing the exact same realization.

Vi sat forward on the couch, a slow, predatory grin spreading across her face. “Oh.”

Powder recognized that grin instantly. It was the dangerous one. The specific expression Vi only made right before they were about to pull off a heist. 

"Yeah," Powder smiled back.

Vi stood up from the couch, her injuries completely forgotten. "Powder, that is absolutely huge. That's the exact kind of score we've been hunting for all month."

Mylo blinked. "Wait, seriously? Vi, you're actually considering this? It's topside!"

"Seriously," Vi said, a surge of adrenaline cutting through her exhaustion. 

She began pacing, her mind instantly shifting into tactical planning mode. "Think about it. Academy students have real coin."

Claggor nodded, his eyes shining behind his goggles. "Tons of coin. And the scrap value alone on is worth a fortune down here."

"Exactly," Vi said, spinning around. "We hit the apartment. We slip in, bag anything light and valuable, and we get out before the enforcers even realize someone crossed the bridge." 

She pointed a finger toward the ceiling. "Then we bring the haul down here and pawn it. We sell the raw parts to the black market. We strip the premium tech."

Vi let out a sharp chuckle. "And Benzo buys the stuff we bring him anyway."

Powder felt her heart rhythm violently accelerate against her ribs. It was actually happening. Vi wasn't dismissing her lead. She wasn't laughing it off, she wasn't ignoring the details, and most importantly of all, she wasn't telling her to go sit in the corner because she was too small. She was actively building a mission around her words.

Vi walked over and rested a hand on Powder’s shoulder. "You did damn good, Pow-Pow."

Those five simple words hit Powder’s chest harder and deeper than she ever could have prepared for. 

Her voice caught in her throat. "You... you really think so?”

"Yeah. I do," Vi said softly, reaching out and playfully ruffled Powder’s bright blue hair.

Powder instantly snapped out of her shock, swatting Vi's hand away with a loud huff. "Stop doing that! I'm not a baby!"

"Nope," Vi chuckled, refusing to stop until she had entirely messed up the braids.

"Vi! Stop!"

"Never," Vi grinned.

Powder let out a theatrical groan, but the sheer joy breaking through her face was undeniable. Claggor and Mylo chuckled at the familiar routine.

Vi's expression turned entirely serious again, her hand resting steadily on Powder's shoulder. "You found this, Powder. Look at me."

Powder blinked, looking up into her older sister's gray eyes. "What?"

"The lead," Vi stated clearly, gesturing around the stone basement. "The entire opportunity. The biggest score our crew has ever had dropped in our laps." 

She leveled a direct, proud finger at her little sister. "You brought it to the table. You earned this."

Powder merely stared, utterly speechless. For once in her life, she had absolutely no idea what to say.

Mylo looked back and forth between the two sisters, his brow furrowing as a horrific realization clicked into his mind. "Wait. Hold on a second."

Everyone in the room turned their heads to look at him.

Mylo pointed an accusatory finger directly at Powder. "Vi... please tell me you're not thinking what I think you're thinking right now."

Vi’s face instantly broke into a massive, highly mischievous grin. Powder blinked, her heart leaping. Claggor let out a long, heavy, prophetic sigh, burying his face in his hands.

Mylo looked absolutely horrified. "No. No way. Absolutely not."

Vi crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her stance unwavering. "Yes."

"Vi, absolutely not!" Mylo yelled, stepping forward. "She’s twelve years old!"

"She’s almost thirteen," Vi corrected smoothly, not flinching.

"That is still twelve! That is firmly in the 'too small to run from enforcers' category!" Mylo argued dramatically, throwing his hands in the air.

Vi merely shrugged, her tone final and absolute. "She gave the tip, Mylo. And she’s ready."

The basement went into a dead, suffocating silence.

Powder’s eyes widened. Mylo’s jaw practically stomped the floor in sheer disbelief, and even Claggor looked genuinely surprised by the decree. Powder herself could barely internalize the reality of the words that had just left her sister's mouth.

"Wait..." Powder whispered, her voice trembling as she stared up at Vi. "Really? I... I get to go topside with you guys?"

Vi gave a firm, definitive nod, her eyes shining with pride. "You earned your spot on this run, Pow-Pow. You're coming with us."

Powder’s heart felt like it was going to violently explode right out of her chest with pure, unadulterated validation. 

Mylo let out a defeated groan, collapsing back onto a bench. "This is easily the most terrible, catastrophic idea we have ever had. We're all going to end up in Stillwater."

Vi’s smirk returned to her lips as she grabbed her gear bag. "Probably."

Powder couldn't stop the massive, radiant smile from completely taking over her face. After years of being forced to watch from the sidelines, after years of being left behind in the dark and told she was too weak or too clumsy, and after years of desperately wanting to prove she belonged to the family. 

Vi had finally spoken the exact words she had been waiting her entire life to hear. “You're ready.”

And completely across the undercity, entirely tucked away in the safety of Benzo’s shop, Dante was probably still proudly congratulating himself on what he firmly believed was an absolutely brilliant, helpful idea to cheer up a friend. 

He had no concept of the storm he had just conjured.