~Evening - Backroom Tinkering Shop~
Sparks flew while Atlas welded together two fractured pipes on an oxygen filtration system. The backroom left to him was nothing but a worktable, tools, and a pile of junk under a Chemtech pale-white light.
Chross, a Chembaron on Silco's council, needed repair work done on a handful of systems after a few kids busted them up during their escape from his mines.
But his mind was distracted. He paused for the tenth time and sighed, lifting the welding mask to inspect his work and brush away slag.
How do I even go about dating her if I said yes? Atlas pondered, opening the panel to check the circuitry. Some of it was damaged, replacements and soldering would be needed.
When Atlas entered Runeterra, he was the exact same age as this world's boy. Just a normal school kid with no experience thrust into an unforgiving world.
Sure, there was the TV show to reference, but that's like saying he had incredible powers after watching Chuck Norris push the earth down.
There was no real correlation or experience besides the macro knowledge of events inside a frightened mind.
What saved him was the mind-meld he experienced with this world's Atlas. Without it, he would've known nothing other than maybe math. That might have been the only useful crossover outside of cooking but with magic and strange technology existing here, even those had limits.
But several years had passed. He had been smart enough to stay alive until he turned eighteen. Jinx, as far as he knew, turned eighteen a few months after him and now the fated Progress Day was less than a month away.
Sliding the circuits out, he opened his window to vent the workshop before turning on the soldering iron.
If we keep quiet for a bit and let any rumors die down, maybe we can date quietly, Atlas thought, beaming on the inside. Her large blue eyes and soft lips up close remained imprinted in his mind even now.
A monkey energetically banging its cymbals together.
Do it. Do it!
That was his mind and body currently. He forced himself to quiet the part of his brain behaving like a motivational speaker and, clearing his throat, readjusted himself and kept working until loud banging echoed through his home.
Atlas's head snapped around and he quietly stood up as angry shouts, accompanied by crashing objects, echoed from the front of his home.
"You little shit! Where are you?!"
"Think you could get away with touching the boss's daughter?"
Ah fuck, I knew it! Atlas gulped. Window!
Atlas immediately darted toward it but paused after placing one foot on the ledge, groaning as he looked back at Chross's equipment. If those were damaged, well, it was another death sentence under different circumstances.
He could feel his body trembling and he forced himself to remove his foot from the ledge.
His heart was pounding, his legs shaking, yet he had measures against intruders. He closed the window, put on a scratched gas-mask he kept and opened a valve on a canister used for maintenance work, and the room flooded with thick green gas. It was a method he'd used multiple times already to deal with break-ins outside of just using the good old metal pipe.
But those break-ins weren't professional thugs so just in case, he positioned another gas canister on the table and stood in front of it to hide it.
The door burst open and two thugs, bulky and intimidating with iron pipes already raised, rushed in. Atlas, initially confident after picking up a pipe from the pile of junk, felt his confidence deflate internally upon seeing them wearing gas masks too.
The two thugs exchanged glances with each other after seeing the gas and burst out into mocking laughter.
"Hah! This works with rookies!"
"We've done this enough times to know some basic precautions," the smaller, stockier one sneered.
"Word got around that you and Jinx were getting a little too cozy with each other so," the taller one said before slamming his pipe into the window, shattering it and causing the gas to quickly dissipate into the cool evening air. "Silco didn't like that."
They laughed again and stepped forward, prompting Atlas to back up nervously and raise his weapon in the air threateningly.
"Fuck you guys!"
Their laughter dissipated and the taller, more talkative man bobbed his weapon at Atlas in lazy circles, taunting him.
"Now look, drop that pipe and we'll break only one hand."
"Silco wants us to take care of you more permanently," the shorter one laughed, tapping the pipe rhythmically on his palm. "We can say you got away."
"Nothing even happened! She left!" Atlas shouted angrily, his hand trembling visibly.
The tall one shrugged indifferently. "Doesn't matter. What matters is the impression it left on people watching. Someone is touching his daughter and getting away with it. And that someone is you."
"That and Silco's a bit..." the shorter one muttered and the tall one glared back at him. "What? He is."
During this moment, Atlas turned and swung down, snapping the cap off the cannister lid and it shot out like a rocket. A loud metallic crack echoed after it impacted the tall thug's chest. He collapsed unconscious to the floor with blood leaking out around his mask and immediately Atlas charged forward, the pipe swinging down and cracking the second thug's collarbone.
The thug shouted in pain, falling to one knee.
Smirking through his mask, Atlas lifted his pipe up. "Guess I'm a little smarter than you fucks!"
Crack
A muffled sound emerged from the thug's mouth and Atlas saw him swallow something. Immediately his eyes turned an unnatural purple and Atlas swung, but the thug caught his wrist in a vice-like grip.
"AGH!"
With a fury burning in his eyes, the thug turned and flung Atlas by his wrist out the window. His body bounced off the shards of glass and he wheezed when he felt sharp, piercing pains enter his back.
"You little...shit..." the thug gasped for air, his body hunched over with fatigue and a heavy sweat as he stumbled toward the window. One hand weakly clutched his weapon, the other gingerly rested on his collarbone.
"You're fucking dead!"
Atlas gasped in pain on the ground. His wrist hurt and white flashes burned in his vision. He rolled gingerly off his back to his side, careful not to impale himself on any more glass when he saw the thug collapse on the edge of the window with half his body hanging out as the pain from a broken collarbone finally overtook him.
Unfortunately, Atlas too was running on adrenaline and he could feel the rush beginning to fade. His limbs were turning heavy and numb, knowing the two were dealt with as he rolled off the glass onto his stomach.
"Shit..."
------
~Silco's Office - The Last Drop~
"What do you mean I can't see Atlas anymore?!" Jinx complained loudly, her voice sharp with anger. "He's literally right down the street! Are you really going to stop me?"
Taking a slow sip of his liquor, Silco sighed softly with irritation while seated in his velvet chair, staring back up at her dangling her legs off the rafters.
"We are nearing a pivotal point in our history, Jinx," Silco said assertively. "I need you to stay focused and I've asked you repeatedly to hold off on any relationship until we have finally achieved independence."
Lowering his gaze, Silco shifted his papers covered with maps and plans and coldly finished, "You've continued to ignore my wishes. Now it has become an order."
Jinx scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Come on, you're being overly dramatic. I can visit Atlas and save your vision of Zaun. It's like a..."
"No." Silco's cold voice cut through, his expression tightening. He didn't need to look up to know Jinx looked somewhat hurt before he quietly continued. "I knew a lady like you once. She was... part of the reason Vander and I parted ways... after she died."
A heavy silence fell upon the office before Silco sighed again.
"You won't be seeing Atlas anymore. I've already ordered men to relocate him out of sight of you."
Before he even finished, Jinx was already dropping down and angrily shrieked, "You did what?! What about my feelings!"
"He's not gone forever," Silco answered without flinching. "But if he stays gone, that is his choice."
His hand wandered to Jinx's cheek and his tone became soft and endearing as her troubled expression flickered.
"But what if he decides not to come back?" Jinx whispered fearfully, clutching her hands to her chest.
"It would be unfortunate," Silco replied with an almost gentle voice, "but that is often the price for success. Don't get your hopes up Jinx. It happens more often than you think to people like us."