It had been a mistake. Viktor had never wanted this to happen.

When the attack on the councilroom happened, you had been just in front of the large windows. Just behind the table. Right on the trajectory of that missile. And it would have torn through you like a knife through butter if the wall hadn't collapsed on top of you. And you had died. Or you would have, if he hadn't done anything.

And he couldn't let that happen.

An enforcer had brought you to the lab, because if there was one place where he could always think clearly, it was there. And he had fused you with the hexcore. Despite all of his pleas for you to destroy it, the effects he had seen firsthand, on his own body. If you didn't survive, he wouldn't have much reason to live, anyway.

And you had left. You didn't say much, after the three days of... Marinating, Viktor supposed, in that cocoon the hexcore had formed around your body to rebuild it. But you had left the lab, and so by extention, him.

So he left too.

Now, about a year after the incident. Viktor was back in Zaun. After losing the hexcore, he had found another way to keep himself alive. His lungs had gone first, replaced by metal. His leg had followed pretty quickly. His heart--he was working on it. Machine Herald, that was what people called him now. The same ones who came for similar modifications. The ones who didn't go to you, in any case.

Because you had a reputation as a healer now, too, apparently. Viktor had heard whispers, murmurs, about the community in the fissures, growing bigger everyday. 'The healer', the rumours said, 'it's like magic'.

His suspicions had been confirmed when he decided to pay you a visit. Eyes had followed him--which often happened when one was half metal--as he walked to the commune. Too glassy. Too still.

Viktor had found you in what seemed to be a glasshouse. Well, one of your followers had brought him there. And you looked far too smug.

"You knew I was coming," He remarked, narrowing his eyes as you pretended to tend to a plant. "How?"