Inside the room, Silco remained noncommittal. He brought his hand out from under the table and rested it on the surface. Tapping his gaunt chin with three fingers, he stared at Leo without a word.
"Silco... I mean, Uncle. Do you really think you can lead Zaun to true independence and autonomy?" Leo began by asking him a question.
Silco was silent, his eyes locked with Leo's. Seeing the sincere expression on Leo's face, Silco reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose and finally spoke.
"Let me be honest with you, Leo. I don't know if I can make Zaun truly independent either. But compared to leaving Zaun in Vander's hands, I believe my odds of success are much higher."
The gap between the top and bottom cities was now like the chasm between heaven and earth; there was simply no comparison. And now, with the Hexgates connecting the entire world, Piltover had officially become the jewel of global trade. Ships came and went endlessly. In the past, Piltover would hire large numbers of workers from Zaun, but recently, many Zaunites had lost their jobs. The fabulously wealthy factory owners had adopted assembly lines, replacing manual labor. The tax revenue from the visiting merchants alone already surpassed the entire income of Zaun.
The disparity grew wider by the day. Sometimes, even Silco couldn't help but feel the future was bleak, but he continued to push forward with unwavering resolve.
He had no path of retreat. If he backed down now, he would truly become the sinner of Zaun. He knew this better than anyone.
He even knew that after he died, regardless of success or failure, future generations would never erect a statue for him. In the hearts of the people of Zaun, he would never be respected like Vander was. But so what?
"Shimmer is our only trump card. With it, we can at least make the Topside wary of us, and in doing so, gain a right to be heard. Without Shimmer, we don't even have the right to sit at the negotiating table with the people of Piltover."
"But you must have heard the whispers outside, Silco. People are afraid of you. They're forming their own secret organizations to resist you. You say this is all for Zaun's good, but haven't your actions just thrown Zaun into greater chaos?"
"It's nothing more than petty squabbling," Silco said dismissively. He picked up his glass from the table and downed it in one go. Setting the cup down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said in a low voice, "They've forgotten the past. They've forgotten who brought them to where they are today. Vander doesn't get all the credit for that; I had a hand in it too."
"But they've all forgotten. In their minds, Vander is this city's great hero, and I'm the traitor. In truth, none of that matters, because I don't care what others think of me. In fact, it's better if they fear me." Silco looked at Leo calmly and continued, "Friendliness doesn't earn you dignity, Leo. But fear can."
Leo felt a headache coming on.
Silco wasn't an idealist; he was a realist. In his mind, the current chaos and infighting in Zaun were acceptable, even deliberately encouraged, to achieve his ultimate goal.
If Zaun wasn't in turmoil, if it wasn't making a scene, why would Piltover ever pay attention to it?
If you looked up Silco on the forums, you'd see it right away. Some said he was a man truly working for Zaun's benefit, while others called him nothing but a drug lord. Opinions on him were completely polarized.
But in the animated series, Silco did, in fact, use Shimmer to trade for "autonomy" from Piltover. Although it seemed flimsy and unreliable to Leo—Piltover could flip the table at any time—Silco was undeniably the only person to have achieved this in the hundreds of years since Zaun and Piltover had split.
He had, in his own way, won back a measure of dignity for Zaun.
Because of this, Leo suddenly realized that gently persuading Silco to give up and cooperate with him was going to be an incredibly difficult task.
Perhaps, other than Jinx, no one could make Silco change his mind.
So, Leo took a deep breath and said to Silco, "But have you ever considered that what you're doing now is exactly the same as what the Piltovans did to us?"
"You allow low-quality Shimmer products to flow into the black market, letting ordinary people get their hands on it, causing countless families to fall apart. Have you ever thought about them? You talk about resisting Piltover, but what you're doing now is no different from what they did to us."
"In fact, looking at it now, the wastewater they dumped is less destructive than the damage you've caused! Yes, Zaun has gotten richer over the years, but where did all that money and power go? It all flowed into the damn hands of the gangs and the chem-barons! The lives of you higher-ups have improved, but what about the ordinary people at the bottom? You say Vander made a lot of mistakes, but when he was in charge, everyone could live a decent life. Back then, we had to hide from the Pilties, we had to watch them swagger around our turf, but at least we weren't at each other's throats over a single silver coin, and we certainly weren't killing people we knew over a vial of some drug."
Silco fell silent. He poured himself another drink and downed it in a single gulp. He then placed the glass back on the table and closed his eyes.
After a long moment, he said hollowly, "It's all a necessary sacrifice..."
"Sacrifice? So what gives you the right to make them sacrifice for your cause?"
"If I don't do this, would their lives get any better?"
"They wouldn't be worse than they are now, at least," Leo stated with certainty.
Leo knew better than anyone how harmful Shimmer was. In his memories, in the few short years after Silco took power, all the people he once knew in the Lanes had changed completely.
Some were dead, some had gone mad, some had disappeared without a trace, and the rest, like Marlsen, had no choice but to join gangs to survive, turning around to hurt those closest to them.
"Stop it. Start by shutting down half of the Shimmer factories. You can let your doctor continue his research on Shimmer, but you can no longer sell it. What you do with it privately among your own people is none of my business. But if I see Shimmer circulating in the black market again, I will destroy every single one of your factories. I won't leave a single one standing."
As Leo spoke, he reached out and grabbed a decorative object from Silco's desk. It was a solid iron piece, weighing a good fifteen pounds, shaped like the head of a massive beast. Looking at Silco, Leo began to squeeze the iron object with both hands.
The beast's head began to warp and change shape in his grasp, finally compressing into an iron ball no bigger than his fist. Leo's face was expressionless, but the veins on his bare forearms bulged as he wrenched the iron ball with all his might.
CRACK—
The iron ball split apart. Leo looked at Silco, placed the two halves on the table, and said, "I've discovered that you and I can't work together. Our principles are too different. Therefore, this is no longer a request for cooperation. It is a one-sided threat."
Silco leaned back in his chair, his gaze fixed on the two halves of the iron ball on his desk, the corner of his mouth twitching.
You probably couldn't even dent that thing with an explosive, and yet... Leo had reshaped it with his bare hands, and then broken it in two.
This... was something his Shimmer-augmented soldiers were completely incapable of doing.
He took a deep breath, and the way he looked at Leo changed.
There was no fear in his eyes, only a question, filled with—How in the world did you do that?
"Well, that's all for now."
Leo finished speaking and looked at Silco, seeing that he was still staring at the broken iron.
Leo looked at him and said:
"Silco."
"Zaun won't become independent in your hands. It will rise in mine."
"We'll see."
Taking Isha with him, Leo left the Last Drop.
This place, so familiar and yet so strange to him now.
After Leo and Isha had gone, Silco stared at the iron chunks on his desk. He reached out, picked them up, and stroked the fractured edges, his expression somewhat strained.
"Fine then," Silco muttered to himself. "...We'll see."