Chapter Text
Jinx fires on Piltover, knowing that doing so will change everything. Good. It’s about time things change. It’s about time Piltover suffers a fraction of the pain they’ve rained down onto Zaun. Jinx is no stranger to ending worlds, but usually her destruction is constrained to her own life and the lives of the people she loves most.
It’s about time she ended someone else’s world like how she’d already destroyed her own—at least three times.
The first time Jinx saw the world end was the day Vi walked away from her. Everything had been red then, too, the same as the day she’d lost her parents. She didn’t remember that day very well, but she knew Vi had cried and Vander had found them. She knew the heavy, red smoke that filled the air smelled like blood and death.
The day Vi abandoned her, on the other hand, is etched into her brain. Every detail has carved itself into her memory so it can replay when she’s asleep or sad or thinks the wrong thought. It’s always there, waiting for the chance to turn her inside-out all over again.
Powder died when Vi left, even though Jinx didn’t realize till later. Powder never could’ve survived without Vi. She was weak. If Vi was gone—dead or disappeared—so was Powder.
Jinx had only survived that by the skin of her teeth. With Silco’s guidance and Vi still showing up to murmur in her ear when things got bad, she’d rebuilt her life. Until Vi came back and shattered it.
The second time Jinx’s world ended was on the same damn bridge she’d lost her parents on. She’d blown up half a dozen enforcers and gotten the hextech crystal for Silco, but it still wasn’t enough. She wasn’t enough.
Vi had walked away from her then, too. Vi had chosen some stupid topside enforcer over Jinx, her own sister! She’d promised not to leave again, and then she’d left.
Jinx, once again, had nothing. She’d lost Silco’s trust after stringing up Sevika and stabbing Silco with his own medical device. He didn’t trust anyone with that, but he’d trusted her . And she’d betrayed him. Maybe she could make it right, but not if she lost the hextech gemstone and disappointed him all over again. Losing it would just be more proof of her ineptness.
SilcoAndJinx had become Silco and Jinx.
ViAndPowder had become ViAndCaitlyn and Jinx.
Always the odd one out.
And then there was Ekko. The last remnant of the childhood she’d tried to bury. The boy savior who’d gotten in her way time and time again, always causing trouble for her and Silco.
He’d pulled out his pocket watch and, for just a moment, they’d been kids again, playing a game Jinx knew. A game she was good at.
For a moment, Jinx was Powder, and The Boy Savior was Ekko. They were EkkoAndPowder again and everything was almost okay.
A club slamming into Jinx’s face shattered that notion. The metal caps on the knuckles of Ekko’s gloves hit her again and again as she struggled and tried to break free. With her former best friend pummeling her face, it had sunk in, again, that truly everyone hated her.
So she’d blown up her own world. Or, at least, she’d tried to. It almost worked. Until she woke up on an operating table with pink-tinged vision and drugs racing in her veins.
The third time was mere moments ago, still fresh in Jinx’s mind. The click of a gun. Panicking, firing indiscriminately. Jinx couldn’t say if she’d been trying to protect Vi or herself or if she’d just reacted to the sound without any real intention to do so. It had all happened so fast, the details blurring together.
Everything had slowed the moment she realized who she’d shot. It’s a fresh wound the ache like a chasm in her chest, trying to tear her apart.
Silco had used his last words to comfort his killer, to reassure her of his love for her. She’d gotten everything so wrong again. She’d killed her family, again.
Mylo was right all along.
No name could ever suit her better than Jinx.
Shimmer-infused tears trail her cheeks, burning her skin, as the world explodes around her in a flash of blinding light. Everything stops existing for a moment, burned to nothingness by the explosion.
When it clears, Jinx is herself again, alone again. She watches the hextech bullet carve a blue streak across the red sky, arcing toward the heart of Piltover.
It’s about time they faced the violence they’d so long ignored in favor of tending to their comfy little lives. It’s time for Piltover to experience their world ending.
Except, like all of those times before, the world doesn’t truly end. Everything is different, colored by new pain and deep emptiness, but, somehow, the world keeps turning. Somehow, Jinx is still alive.
It’s bullshit.
She lowers her weapon and wonders what the hell comes next. What happens after the end of the world?