"Ah~ Ekko, slow down!"
Heimerdinger's voice came from behind, followed closely by Ekko, who shot out of the interdimensional rift on his hoverboard like a missile, performing a perfect aerial spin before landing directly in front of Cipher.
"Cipher, it's been a few days since we last met. Are you alright? I hope you're not still mad at me."
Heimerdinger jumped off the hoverboard, stumbling slightly before regaining his composure. He clasped his hands behind his back and approached with his characteristic warm smile.
"Professor, it hasn't been a few days, it's been five years. Five whole years since we last saw each other." Cipher held up five fingers with an exasperated expression, emphasizing the significant passage of time.
This was a common occurrence with Yordles, whose extraordinarily long lifespans made them remarkably insensitive to the passage of time that seemed so significant to humans. Basically, what felt like yesterday to Heimerdinger could easily represent years of human experience.
"Has it really been that long? I could've sworn it felt like only a few days," Heimerdinger said with genuine surprise. He paused thoughtfully, then began counting on his furry fingers. Finally, he clasped his hands over his rounded belly and continued smiling.
"Where's my gift?"
Once the initial greetings had concluded, Ekko stretched out his hand toward Cipher with obvious expectation.
"Nope. Beat it, brat."
Cipher rolled his eyes and waved Ekko away like he was shooing away a particularly persistent fly. It had been this same kid who had eavesdropped on sensitive dimensional travel discussions years ago, which had ultimately led to Cipher making the difficult decision to send all his siblings to the DC world for extended training, forbidding them from returning to Zaun for five entire years for their own safety.
"Such a cheapskate! Are you really going to hold that ancient history against me forever? It was Vi who told me to eavesdrop in the first place! She's the real mastermind behind the whole operation. She even gets to eat swamp frogs while I get nothing, I strongly protest this unfair treatment! It's been five years since I've been back to my own home. You absolutely have to give me a proper welcome gift."
Ekko raised his hand dramatically toward the sky, wearing the pouty expression of someone who had been gravely wronged by the universe. His posture and facial expression perfectly captured the attitude of a cold, high-achieving student who wasn't getting his way despite clearly deserving better treatment.
The kid from their early days had grown into a tall, strong young man with impressive technical skills. With the help of his self-invented hoverboard, he was incredibly agile and could outmaneuver almost anyone in aerial combat. He had long since stopped fearing Vi's intimidation tactics.
In fact, he had grown confident enough that he now wanted to challenge her for the unofficial leadership position among the siblings.
"Ekko, are you itching for a beating again? Those little gadgets you invented can't even serve as a proper warm-up exercise for me. If you really want to get your butt thoroughly kicked, just keep talking."
Vi suddenly lifted her head from her large bowl of food, speaking somewhat unclearly due to the substantial amount of marinated frog meat she was still enthusiastically chewing.
Yeah, it really had been her fault originally. As she had grown older and presumably wiser, she had come to realize how completely wrong it had been to encourage Ekko to eavesdrop on sensitive family discussions all those years ago. But so much time had passed since then, and no serious trouble had ultimately come from that childhood mistake. She had already acknowledged her error and apologized multiple times over the years.
Besides, family relationships were supposed to be built on mutual encouragement, understanding, and forgiveness of past mistakes. Everyone made poor decisions sometimes, especially when they were young and didn't fully understand the consequences of their actions. That's why, from her current perspective, Ekko bringing up that history now just meant he was asking for a physical demonstration of why challenging her authority was still a bad idea, her iron fists remained the most effective solution to... well, nearly everything that came her way.
She fixed him with what she intended to be an intimidating death stare. But her mouth was still completely stuffed with sauce-covered frog meat, causing her cheeks to puff out. Her lips and the area around her mouth were thoroughly smeared with dipping sauce.
She didn't look threatening at all, more like a walking comedy routine, a completely unintentional punchline to a joke about tough people with terrible table manners.
Ekko fought desperately to hold back his laughter, recognizing that actually laughing at her appearance would probably result in immediate and painful retaliation. He deliberately turned his head to avoid looking directly at her ridiculous sauce-covered face, afraid he would break into uncontrollable laughter on the spot.
"Here, this one's yours."
Cipher was also struggling to contain his amusement at Vi's undignified appearance, but his years of leadership had given him excellent acting skills. At that particular moment, he managed to look like a completely emotionless machine. He reached into his motorcycle's storage compartment and pulled out another wrapped portion of swamp frogs, handing it to Ekko.
"Wait, really? You're actually giving me swamp frogs? I'm not Vi, why would I love this stuff?"
Ekko twisted his head in disbelief, clearly not having expected Cipher to offer him the same food that Vi was so enthusiastically devouring. Other than Vi, who had always been that strange and completely unpicky eater who would consume almost anything, who else in their family would actually enjoy this rather acquired taste?
"When you were little, you used to beg and plead just to get an extra bite of this stuff, and now that you've made something of yourself, you think you're suddenly too sophisticated for swamp frogs?"
"Fine, fine, I want it! Don't take it away!"
Cipher's expression darkened, and he made an exaggerated show of beginning to snatch the wrapped delicacy back from Ekko's reach.
He wasn't entirely joking about the value of what he was offering, these particular chilled swamp frogs had become significantly harder to obtain than premium deep-sea lobster in recent years, due to Zaun's comprehensive environmental restoration programs.
The species was now practically endangered due to the success of their pollution cleanup initiatives, in a few more years, the mutated swamp frogs might become completely extinct. Future generations wouldn't be able to taste them even if they desperately wanted to experience this unique culinary tradition.
"Okay okay okay! I was just kidding around. I haven't had authentic swamp frogs in ages, I've actually been craving it like crazy."
Better to accept the gift than risk losing it entirely due to false pride. Ekko quickly snatched the chilled frogs back from Cipher's threatening grasp, stepped confidently onto his hovering board, and prepared for immediate departure.
"I'm going to do a quick survey of Zaun first, haven't seen how the place has changed in ages. I'll meet up with everyone later at The Last Drop!"
His voice echoed across the distance as he accelerated rapidly into the sky, and within just a few heartbeats, he had completely disappeared from sight beyond the urban skyline.
"Did you remember to remind him that Zaun's airspace is now heavily restricted? The automated defense drones aren't exactly programmed to be friendly to unidentified aircraft."
Heimerdinger was momentarily stunned as he stared off in the direction Ekko had flown, suddenly remembering that Zaun was no longer the simple undercity it had been during their early days. The city now possessed a sophisticated anti-aircraft defense system that didn't take kindly to unauthorized aerial vehicles.
"Ekko didn't give me a chance to warn him. He just zipped off into the sky before I could even open my mouth to react."
Cipher gave a helpless chuckle, shaking his head. Ekko had always been energetic, one moment he was right in front of you, and the next moment he had vanished without a trace.
"Don't worry too much, Professor. The air-defense system has threat-recognition capabilities built into its core programming. Given Ekko's minimal threat level and the fact that he's obviously not carrying any weapons or hostile intent, at most, the drones will fire non-lethal paralysis rounds."
Viktor emerged from the interdimensional rift, leaning heavily on an ornate cane. His right leg had been extensively mechanically modified, allowing him to walk with near-normal mobility despite his underlying health condition. More notably, he now possessed an additional mechanical arm mounted on his back that was capable of firing precisely controlled high-energy beam weapons.
That mechanical appendage wasn't just a weapon, it was actually his personal robotic assistant.
All engineers who had completed advanced training in Qurac had learned to create their own specialized robotic assistants to aid with their increasingly complex work. Each assistant was completely unique, designed according to the engineer's personal preferences and the specific materials available to them. For example, Powder's assistant was a small, highly maneuverable monkey-like drone that could analyze explosive compounds in real-time and suggest optimal detonation patterns for maximum effectiveness. It could also bang on drums, though only Powder knew what would happen when it did.
Viktor felt confident that Ekko would be perfectly safe because he had personally designed and implemented Zaun's comprehensive national defense system, and its central control AI, ARIA.
He knew from extensive testing that ARIA, the Adaptive Response Intelligence Assistant he had painstakingly developed using Revenant's own learning protocols and decision-making patterns, was programmed with strict non-lethal engagement parameters and threat assessment capabilities. The system would never seriously harm someone as obviously harmless as Ekko, especially when it could easily identify him as a family member through biometric scanning.
"You're absolutely right. ARIA is very well-programmed and has excellent judgment. She definitely won't hurt Ekko."
Heimerdinger nodded in complete agreement.
When Viktor had first successfully created ARIA in Zaun's underground laboratories, he had been genuinely amazed by the extraordinary results himself. He had immediately brought the AI core to meet with all the top scientists and technicians of Zaun, seeking their input and analysis of what he had accidentally achieved.
He had even arranged for consultations with Dr. Baiul during one of their regular dimensional exchanges, hoping her extensive knowledge of both human and Thanagarian cybernetics might help explain the unexpected breakthrough. But even Dr. Baiul, despite her impressive expertise and access to advanced alien technology, couldn't fully understand how ARIA had achieved such remarkably decision-making capabilities and autonomous learning functions, especially since the system didn't contain any of the standard neural network architectures that typically powered such advanced AI systems.
Viktor himself couldn't completely explain the phenomenon from a technical standpoint. His original intent in building ARIA had been simply to create an adaptive defense system that could respond to threats with the same efficiency and unpredictability that Revenant had demonstrated during their terrifying confrontation, but without any of the murderous intent or psychological instability.
During the development process, he had carefully combined fundamental Hextech principles, advanced medical technology salvaged from the Apex dimension, and Thanagarian computational systems that had been shared with them by the refugees. The power source was an innovative hybrid system that drew energy from both specially modified Hexcores and refined shimmer compounds.
But the most puzzling aspect was that when he had followed exactly the same blueprints and technical specifications to build additional AI systems for various applications throughout Zaun, they turned out to be highly competent but ultimately conventional artificial intelligences, none of them achieved anything approaching ARIA's remarkable level of autonomous decision-making, creative problem-solving, or adaptive learning capabilities.
Because ARIA was a truly adaptive AI system with unprecedented learning capabilities, its computational capacity was extraordinarily powerful, easily surpassing anything they had previously developed. Standard cybersecurity measures like firewalls and network defenses were essentially meaningless against its Revenant-inspired infiltration protocols and adaptive hacking abilities.
The system even possessed Revenant-like capabilities to commandeer and control the processing power of other computer systems throughout the city, though he had built in comprehensive ethical constraints and strict behavioral limitations to prevent the kind of malicious, and destructive behavior.
That's precisely why, after numerous scientists and technical experts, including several specialists from Qurac and even some of the Thanagarian refugees, had conducted extensive testing and analysis to confirm that ARIA posed absolutely no threat to human life or civil liberties, they had unanimously agreed to honor the AI's own formally submitted request: To become Zaun's central guardian system.