Viktor

Skinny Tin Machine Herald (by Jinx)

• The Machinist • The Herald • Metal fortune cookie (by Jinx)

Human (Chemically, Magically Altered; Hextech Hybrid)

32 years old

Zaun

• Zaun • Piltover (formerly) • Zaun, City of Peace (currently)

• The University of Piltover (formerly, graduated) • Cecil B. Heimerdinger † (mentor) • Jayce Talis † (partner)

• Student (formerly, graduated) • Scientist (formerly) • Engineer (formerly) • Research assistant (formerly) • Cult leader (currently)

Male

Straight

• Amber (naturally) • Pale silver (after being imbued with the Hexcore)

• Brown (naturally) • Brown with blond highlights

• Pale/anemic (formerly) • Dark metal (his body, except his face)

Viktor, the future Machine Herald, is a research assistant who decides to throw in his lot with Jayce and his Hextech theory.

Viktor was born in the Undercity and grew up there until he was discovered by Counsellor Heimerdinger, who he later became assistant.

As a child, Viktor was left out due to his disability. Born with a malformed leg and needing a cane to walk, his mobility issues inhibited him from playing with other children. Despite his loneliness, he was incredibly intelligent. He fostered an engineering talent, even creating a working model steamboat he completes and tests within a flashback at the start of Episode Six. In this episode, he meets Sky for the first time as a child, watching him as he toyed with the boat.

After placing the boat in a stream to test-run it, the current of the water pulls it downstream faster than he can keep up with. Demonstrating recklessness even as a child, Viktor chooses to follow the stream down into a dark, cave-like room - where he finds it in the hands of Singed, a scientist who is attempting to preserve the life of a mutated

Waverider named Rio.

Praising Viktor for the quality of his invention, Singed allows Viktor to assist him in caring for Rio, feeding her what appears to be an early, raw variant of Shimmer.

After finding Rio in contorted in pain and hooked up to a series of machines, Viktor is horrified. Singed claims, "The mutation must survive," - but Viktor is unaccepting of his ethos and runs away.

How Heimerdinger discovers Viktor is unclear. Still, somewhere in his late teens, Heimerdinger encounters him and takes him under his wing, allowing him to study at the University of Piltover. Viktor goes on to become his assistant as Dean of the Academy.

While investigating on Heimerdinger's behalf, Viktor first meets Jayce Talis, a fellow scientist whose illegal research is interrupted and exposed by a robbery. Viktor risks stealing Jayce's notebook from Heimerdinger's office and seeks Jayce out to discuss its contents with him. After successfully talking a suicidal Talis off the edge of his destroyed apartment, he reassures Jayce.

Jayce and Viktor begin working in what is presumably Viktor's office, discovering that the gemstones Jayce acquired can only operate under a much higher frequency. Jayce expresses a desire to explain his discovery to the council, to which Viktor retaliates they have an absence of proof. After realizing his equipment will be destroyed the following day, Jayce is devastated - leading Viktor to suggest breaking into Heimerdinger's lab to retrieve it.

Once they arrive at the lab, Viktor and Jayce are caught by Mel Medarda, who, after being convinced by Jayce's speech, allows them one night to prove they are risk-worthy. Viktor displays a mild disgust or irritation at Jayce's attraction to Mel, hinting at his disinterest in romance.

When we see him again in Act II, Viktor lives in the shadow of Jayce, who is getting far more credit for their invention of Hextech. Viktor looks sickly, and after he collapses at his desk, it is revealed that he is terminally ill. His diagnosis only spurs his drive to continue in his research, dedicating himself to discovering the workings of the arcane.

Spurred on by Mel Medarda's influence, Jayce considers using their technology to create weapons to defend Piltover, to which Viktor is violently opposed.

In a bid to prolong his longevity, he seeks out the doctor, who gives him a vial of a shimmer variant, which he takes in conjunction with exposure to the Hexcore. His bad leg is healed, and he is able to walk for the first time. However, the effects are temporary, and he turns to the Hexcore again. This time, his assistant Sky Young is vaporized accidentally, filling Viktor with guilt.

He stops interfering with the Hexcore, asking Jayce to destroy it.

Viktor is a driven and innovative scientist with an altruistic passion. Due to his disability, Viktor's childhood was spent isolated and separate from other children. This led to strong introversion in his personality - as well as a relative lack of understanding of social cues - when discussing Jayce's notes on Hextech with the previously suicidal Jayce Talis.

Throughout series one, Viktor becomes increasingly ambitious in his endeavors - from stealing Jayce's notes to breaking into a lab to experimenting on himself. There is also a hint of narcissism in this side of his personality - he speaks dejectedly to Professor Heimerdinger of a failure in securing his "legacy". He confesses he fears that his contributions will be "short-lived".

Viktor's physical stature strongly reflects his health. His hair is longer and less well-kept, he has more prominent and shadowy eyebrows, and his skin is so pale that it almost takes on a blue tinge in some lighting. Due to a significant loss of weight, his clothes appear more crumpled, swapping his burgundy shirt for a brown pinstripe one often rolled up to the elbows, an off-white and grey waistcoat with longer tails and an angular pattern across the front. He also now uses a crutch instead of a cane, impeding his gait and giving him a hunched posture.

Viktor is an idealistic, altruistic, genuis introvert with a passion for science and its ability to improve lives for the better. He found a worthy outlet of this dream by pledging his support to Jayce's dream of using the Hextech. Viktor would sometimes quarrel with Jayce when he feels he's being led astray or distracted from their shared dream of using the hextech.

Viktor is very bold in his pursuit of scientific discoveries and often is willing to do dangerous experimentation to figure it out or go against the ethos of the scientific community to accomplish his goals. To Viktor's credit, he has faith in himself and the genius to back it up. Part of the reason he is so hasty is because of his short lifespan, and his dread that he will be unable to accomplish his goals before he expires.

As an introvert, Viktor is very shy and generally doesn't approach strangers for socializing. Even as a child, he was a loner and as a student of the Piltover Academy, he was an outsider who relied on his genius and grit to make something of himself. He often defers to Jayce to act as their spokesperson for public speaking events while he supports him from behind the scenes. Due to Viktor's inability to be a public figure, Viktor is often overshadowed by Jayce as a founding father of hextech. Viktor seems content to devote all his time on developing hextech, with socializing and other extracurricular activities being seen as a distraction. Viktor sometimes becomes so immersed in his work that he becomes a reclusive workaholic.

When he became a Herald, he prefers less talk. He rarely speaks and express emotions. He's often silent when someone's talking to him. When a commotion happened, he always remains calm and composed.