Kai'Sa had been in Singed's laboratory before.
The place had not become more pleasant since her last visit, but the smell, the tools, the glass, and the strange fluids mattered less than the people standing around the worktables. Singed, Viktor, and Jinx had already listened to her account of Shurima. She had told them about Xerath, about the city he had taken hostage, about the refugees, about Jax, Karma, and Yi fighting him while she and Taliyah helped as many people escape as they could.
Then they had told her what had happened in the Freljord.
The Watchers. Logan. Ahri. The Void.
Kai'Sa had heard the words calmly. At least, she thought she had. But the carapace had not been calm.
It had shifted the moment they spoke of the Watchers. It did not fully move, not enough for others to see clearly, but Kai'Sa felt it under every part of her skin. A tightening. A low vibration. A feeling like something deep inside the suit had recognized a sound from far away.
Now she stood beside the main table while Viktor checked a row of readings and Singed prepared another set of samples. Jinx sat on the edge of a table with a tool in one hand, her eyes unusually focused.
Kai'Sa looked at them and said, "The Xer'Sai in Shurima were acting strangely."
Viktor looked up. "Strangely how?"
"They were frenzied," Kai'Sa said. "Not hunting. Not moving in a pattern. Some attacked people, some attacked stone, some attacked each other. They did not seem directed."
Jinx's fingers stopped moving around the tool.
Singed remained still, but Kai'Sa could tell he was listening closely.
"Bel'Veth should be able to keep many of them under control," Kai'Sa continued. "Not all. Never all. But enough that this should not have happened so suddenly."
"And your suit?" Viktor asked.
Kai'Sa lowered her gaze to her arm.
The carapace pulsed faintly. Purple light moved along the surface, then faded.
"It has been more agitated," she said. "Stronger too. My weapons responded faster. My body reacted faster. It felt like the carapace was full of vibrations, all the time."
"That supports the theory," Singed said.
Jinx finally spoke. "Which theory?"
"That Void creatures may not be separate in the way we understand separation," Singed said. "They may be limbs, cells, nerves, or organs belonging to one greater body. Even if some have developed awareness, instinct, or individual purpose, they still belong to the same whole."
Viktor's expression grew more serious. "So when the Watchers were affected in the Freljord…"
"The entire body felt it," Singed said. "Or enough of it did."
Kai'Sa did not like hearing it put so simply.
A single body.
That was too close to how it had felt. The Xer'Sai had not been confused because of a local disturbance. Her carapace had not grown restless because of the battle in Shurima alone. Something had moved through the Void as a whole, and everything connected to it had answered.
Jinx stared at Kai'Sa for several seconds.
Then, without smiling, she asked, "So the cockroach vibrates through your whole body?"
Kai'Sa blinked.
The question was strange, but Jinx's tone was not playful.
"Yes," Kai'Sa said.
Jinx tilted her head. "Including down there?"
Viktor closed his eyes and let out a tired, embarrassed sigh.
Singed looked entirely indifferent.
Kai'Sa stared at Jinx. For a moment, she wondered if she had misunderstood. Then she realized she had not.
"Yes," she answered seriously. "Including there."
Jinx nodded slowly, as if this was important data. "Huh."
Viktor rubbed his forehead.
Kai'Sa decided not to ask what Jinx intended to do with that information.
Singed moved on first. "We need to understand the interface. Not the outer shell alone. A suit can be built. Armor can be reinforced. But the Void does not only attack the body. It adapts, invades, and rewrites."
Viktor placed a metal frame on the table. It was not a full suit yet. It looked like a spine, ribs, and a collar made of dark metal, Hextech channels, and narrow pieces of pale petricite. Several small containers were attached to it through thin tubes. Inside them were different materials: Xer'Sai extract, refined Shimmer, a faint blue Hextech charge, and a gray-white solution made from treated petricite dust.
"We are not trying to create another version of your carapace," Viktor said to Kai'Sa. "Not exactly. That would be too dangerous."
"And too slow," Jinx added.
"We need a temporary defensive system," Viktor continued. "Something that can bond lightly, adapt to corruption, and protect the wearer long enough to enter hostile space."
"The Xer'Sai extract provides the Void-reactive tissue," Singed said. "Shimmer keeps it alive and responsive. Hextech gives it structure and command signals. Petricite limits magical contamination and prevents uncontrolled growth."
Kai'Sa looked at the frame. "And if the Void tissue adapts around the petricite?"
"It will try," Singed said.
"That's why the petricite isn't a wall," Jinx said. "It's a leash."
Viktor nodded. "A flexible restraint. If we make it too rigid, the whole system fails. If we make it too weak, it may become more dangerous than the corruption it is meant to resist."
Kai'Sa understood enough.
They wanted to build something that behaved like her carapace, without allowing it to become what her carapace was.
That was a thin line.
Jinx jumped down from the table and picked up a strange handheld device. It was long, narrow, and built from several different parts that did not seem like they should fit together. A Hextech crystal sat in the center. A needle-thin light moved from its tip when Jinx activated it.
"Now we scan you," Jinx said.
Kai'Sa looked at the device. "What does it do?"
"Reads the squishy person parts, the scary bug parts, and the part where both are being weird together."
Viktor cleared his throat. "It maps the relationship between organic tissue, Void carapace, and neural response."
"That too," Jinx said.
Kai'Sa did not move.
She did not enjoy being studied. She had allowed it before because there had been reasons. There were reasons now too. Logan and Ahri were in the Void. If this helped reach them, then discomfort meant nothing.
"Begin," she said.
Jinx moved closer and pressed the device near Kai'Sa's forearm.
The scanner hummed.
A thin line of light passed over human skin first, then over the edge where the carapace covered her. Kai'Sa felt a faint sting, but nothing worse. Jinx moved slowly, which surprised her. She scanned the arm from wrist to shoulder, then repeated the process on the other side.
"Skin response is boring," Jinx said. "Carapace response is less boring."
"Try not to damage it," Viktor said.
"I'm not damaging it."
"You said that last time about the resonator."
"The resonator was badly designed."
"You designed it."
"Exactly. I know what went wrong."
Kai'Sa stayed still while Jinx continued.
The device passed over her shoulders, her back, her ribs, and the places where the carapace fused most closely with her body. Each time the light touched those points, Kai'Sa felt a deeper vibration. Not pain, but awareness. The suit knew it was being observed.
Singed watched the readings.
"It responds faster near the spine," he said.
Viktor adjusted the display. "And along the major nerve paths."
Jinx crouched to scan Kai'Sa's legs.
Kai'Sa's discomfort grew when the device moved over the back of her thighs and then over her backside. She forced herself to stay calm. She had fought underground monsters in the dark. She had crawled through Void tunnels with blood in her mouth. She would not be defeated by Jinx being Jinx.
Then Jinx stopped.
Kai'Sa looked over her shoulder.
Jinx was staring.
"What?" Kai'Sa asked.
Jinx reached out and slapped her butt once.
Kai'Sa went completely still.
Viktor almost dropped the tablet.
"It's for science," Jinx said.
Singed did not react.
Kai'Sa slowly turned her head further. "Was that necessary?"
Jinx ignored the question and narrowed her eyes. "Did you ask the cockroach to make this bigger?"
Kai'Sa stared at her.
Jinx was still not joking.
That made the moment worse.
"No," Kai'Sa said after a pause. "I did not ask it to do that."
Jinx looked thoughtful.
Kai'Sa did not like that look.
"So it did that by itself?"
"I do not know if it did anything."
"But if it can shape around the body…" Jinx murmured, looking at the prototype frame on the table. "Maybe the replica could add a little relief in a few places."
Viktor covered his face with one hand.
Kai'Sa wondered if she should answer seriously. Part of her wanted to explain that the carapace had adapted to survival needs, not vanity. Another part of her felt that any detailed answer would only make Jinx more interested.
So she said nothing.
Instead, she thought of Shurima.
She should have been there. The refugees still needed protection. Xerath had escaped. The Xer'Sai had been frenzied. The desert was not safe, and Taliyah was still there with the people they had rescued. Kai'Sa trusted her, but trust did not remove danger. If Xerath fought Jax, Karma, and Yi again near those refugees, even the edge of that battle could destroy lives.
She hoped Taliyah would not be caught in it.
The scanner passed higher again.
Jinx finished the lower readings, then moved to Kai'Sa's neck.
Singed stepped closer. "The head remains."
Kai'Sa looked at him.
"This part may be painful," he said. "That is why we left it for last."
Viktor's voice softened slightly. "We need to see how the carapace connects to your nervous system when the helmet forms."
Kai'Sa took a slow breath.
She did not like covering her head unless she needed to. The helmet was useful, but it reminded her of dark tunnels, of breathing through something that was not quite her own, of the years when the line between survival and becoming something else had been very thin.
Still, she nodded.
The carapace moved.
It climbed over her neck, jaw, and skull. The living plates closed around her face, sealing into place. Her senses shifted. Sound sharpened. Light changed. She felt the room through vibrations as much as through sight.
Jinx did not make a joke this time.
She raised the scanner and ran it along the back of Kai'Sa's head.
Pain struck immediately.
Kai'Sa's fingers twitched. She forced herself not to move.
The scanner hummed louder.
"Stop?" Viktor asked.
"No," Kai'Sa said through the helmet.
Jinx continued, slower now.
The pain was not cutting or burning. It was deeper than that. It felt like someone pressing against the place where thought met flesh. The carapace tightened around her head in response, and the shoulder pods shifted behind her.
Singed looked at the readings with interest. "There."
Viktor leaned closer. "That is not an exterior connection."
"No," Singed said. "It enters through the spinal pathway."
Kai'Sa listened, breathing carefully.
Jinx moved the scanner down the back of her neck.
Viktor adjusted the image. A rough map appeared, showing Kai'Sa's body, her spine, and thin branching lines that did not fully belong to her.
"The symbiote replicated human nerves," Viktor said.
"And connected them to hers," Singed added. "Through the spinal cord."
Kai'Sa's stomach tightened.
She had known the suit was inside her. Of course she had. She had lived with that truth every day. But seeing others understand it made the reality colder.
"It makes sense," Viktor said, though his voice was uneasy. "If control depended on the helmet's outer surface, then when the helmet was absent, she would lose command of the carapace."
"But she does not," Singed said. "Because the command pathway is internal."
Jinx lowered the scanner slightly. "So the cockroach built fake human nerves, plugged them into her real ones, and uses the spine as the main cable?"
"That is crude," Viktor said. "But yes."
Kai'Sa closed her eyes inside the helmet.
The carapace pulsed, aware.
Viktor was quiet for a moment before saying, "Then a replica would need at least a partial neural interface."
"No," Kai'Sa said at once.
Everyone looked at her.
She opened her eyes. "That is dangerous."
"Yes," Singed said.
His agreement did not comfort her.
"Dangerous enough to break the user's mind," she said. "The Void does not only speak with words. It presses with hunger, fear, instinct. My carapace is part of me, but it is not harmless."
Singed nodded. "The replica would be weaker. Less conscious. Less capable of pressure."
Viktor looked at the prototype with a troubled expression. "It would need restraints. Not only physical restraints. Mental ones."
"Petricite can dampen part of the influence," Singed said. "Hextech can regulate response. Shimmer keeps the tissue active but may increase aggression if overused."
Jinx tapped the scanner against her palm. "And if the little fake cockroach starts whispering?"
Kai'Sa looked at her. "Then the person wearing it needs a mind strong enough not to listen."
No one spoke for a moment.
Kai'Sa thought about the years she had spent in darkness. She had survived not because she was untouched, but because she had learned the shape of the hunger around her. She had given the carapace what it needed without giving it herself.
A bargain.
That was the simplest word.
"It feeds when I kill Void-spawn," she said. "That is part of why this works. I hunt what it wants to consume. It gives me strength to do it. We both benefit."
Viktor looked at her carefully. "A trade."
"Yes."
Singed's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then the prototype must include a substitute reward. A controlled feeding cycle."
Jinx snapped her fingers. "Xer'Sai extract in sealed doses."
"Too unstable alone," Viktor said.
"Mixed with Shimmer and filtered through Hextech pulses," Jinx said. "A little snack without letting it grow teeth."
Singed considered it. "Possible."
They worked for hours.
Kai'Sa did not understand every step, but she watched closely. Singed separated the Xer'Sai extract into layers, keeping only the tissue that responded to the Hextech signal without trying to spread. Viktor built a pulse rhythm that imitated command without full neural surrender. Jinx modified the frame, cutting and welding channels so the living tissue could move through it without touching the wearer directly.
Petricite dust was compressed into thin curved plates and set between the inner layer and the adaptive tissue. Too much, and the tissue went still. Too little, and it pushed against the restraints. They tested the balance again and again.
The first stable section formed around a forearm brace.
It looked ugly, but it worked.
The tissue reacted to a corruption sample, hardened, then retreated when the Hextech pulse changed. It tried to grow once. The petricite stopped it. It tried to reject the command signal twice. Viktor changed the rhythm. Jinx added a secondary pulse that shocked it just enough to make it obey.
By the time the full prototype was assembled, Kai'Sa could feel the carapace on her body watching it.
The suit was incomplete, rough, and dangerous. A frame for the spine and chest. Braces for the arms and legs. A collar that would connect near the base of the skull, though Viktor had reduced the neural contact as much as possible. Small sealed containers held feeding doses. The Hextech core sat at the center. Petricite lines surrounded it like a cage.
No one called it safe.
No one pretended it was finished.
But it was the first thing in the room that looked like a possible answer.
Viktor stepped back from the table. His face showed exhaustion and worry. "Someone has to test it."
"I'll do it."
Viktor turned sharply. "Jinx."
"What?" Jinx said. "You need someone reckless, right? I'm extremely qualified."
Kai'Sa studied her.
Jinx's voice was light, but her eyes were not. They were fixed on the prototype with a hard, bright determination. Fear was there too, buried deep, but it did not stop her.
"I'll test it," Jinx said again.
Kai'Sa understood then.
This was not only about reaching the Void.
This was about reaching Logan.
"When I find him," Jinx muttered, almost to herself, "I'll have a body that can compete with that bitch."
Singed said to Viktor, "She learns quickly. Faster than most people should."
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