Chapter Text
“Get ready!” Ekko’s voice sprang them into action. Firelights leapt into position as Jinx twisted the controls, the entire airship following her command. Within moments the Hexgates were in view, and with it the army of Noxian vessels in the harbor. He didn’t even need to check his watch. “Thirty-four seconds!”
Thirty-four seconds before Sevika and everyone she could find charged headfirst into an army of Noxian soldiers, their only hope of survival placed entirely in Jinx’s hands.
“Ten!” Jinx closed her eyes. This was it, her finale fight.
“Nine” Whether Jinx died with a Noxian blade in her chest, or transformed into one of those metal creatures Topside swore where once human didn’t matter. It changed nothing.
“Eight!” Whether they won or lost was irrelevant.
“Seven!” She painted bunny ears on the balloon, similar to the ones Isha found in a ditch one evening and proclaimed worthy of her adoration.
“Six!” Everything Jinx had ever placed sentimental value in was here, every trinket from Powder’s life, every memory forged with Isha. All of it here, ready to follow her to her grave.
“Five!” How many of the firelights knew that this would only end in death? Probably most.
“Four!” Ekko didn’t. The boy savior could who conjure confidence out of nothing, an endless well of strength and bravery that somehow found her undeserving of his hatred despite how much she had craved it.
“Three!” Time travel. It was fitting that the boy who she had loved since she was a little girl, the one who she hurt, broke, and was broken by because neither one knew how to help the other, invented a way to rewrite the past.
“Two!” Except he couldn't, because a few seconds wasn’t enough to go back and undo all the hate and pain they inflicted on each other that even now tried to tear them apart.
“One!” It felt like the universe itself was mocking her, punishing her for the wasted years hating him. Punishing her by dangling the power to undo any mistake, any misspoken word, any action that should have never been taken. Punishing Jinx by giving him the power to rewrite history, undo any death he saw, and only letting him help when her daughter was already gone. He didn’t tell her he couldn’t save her, didn’t need to. If he could have saved Jinx’s little girl, he would have. ‘ Four seconds’ T hat was all he admitted when she theorized his new machines power.
The red line on the machine's dial felt like temptation incarnate.
“Now!” This was Isha’s funeral. A memorial to everything she was; the good, the bad and every imperfection Jinx clung to.
Jinx watched as smoke machines around the city ignited, colored smoke bombs made for one purpose. Making something no one could miss. The music blasted out of the stereo, loud enough to damage her ears. Her war machine flew directly above the Noxian army, and defeated Piltovers, because of course those weaklings had already lost. Ekko let out a shout and the Firelights behind him dove into battle, following him even if it was to their death.
‘Loyalty.’
Ekko and Silco may have been more similar than either would ever have imagined. Perhaps in a different world they would have seen eye to eye, allied in the shared desire to free Zaun
and bounded in the undeserved love they gave to Jinx.
But that world wasn’t hers. Silco was dead and his daughter found herself unable to fulfill his dreams.
There would be no fancy funeral for Jinx. No casket to bury and no corpse for a doctor to violate again.
No. This was her funeral. Explosives and neon colors painting her skin, the fan blades that Isha and Jinx called ‘home’, her final canvas. Like mother, like daughter. Jinx would be put to rest like her child, filled with enough noise and vibrant explosions to drown out any fear and doubt that dared control them.
“I hope you're watching Isha. Care to cheer me on one last time?”
Part of her wanted to die. The memories of Vi, Ekko and Isha smiling at her, all tainted by the memory of what she would never have again. “I’m trying real hard Isha, and you know, I think I final wrapped my noggin around something; think you’d be pretty proud of me for figuring it out.”
Her eyes caught a familiar head of red hair deep in the towers. She spun the controls till her new gatling gun was pointing right above Vi’s head, the design a mismatched creation of what was left of Pow-Pow and Fishbones. Shattered and broken parts stitched together into something new. “Vi and Ekko don’t want me to live for them, or for Zaun, or for your memory.” She pulled the trigger as the gatling gun sprang to life. “They want me to live... for me.”
“I just don’t know if I can.”
Children of Zaun had no constants. Not parents, not clean water, not fresh air, and most definitely not food. Vi was no different. Her mother’s eyes, wide and empty, so impossibly still that Vi had refused to believe it was real. But no matter how much she lied to herself she knew it was true. Her parents were dead.
-And on a bridge covered in ash, fear became her first companion.
When her day was shit and all she wanted was to curl up next to Powder or mess around with Mylo, it was fear that made her move. Fear that hardened her fist, fear that coursed underneath her hands with every punch, fear so potent and encompassing that she didn’t know where it stopped, and hate began. Fear made her strong, strong enough to fight anything in her way. Fear that someday someone would come and take her baby sister away like her parents. Fear that her little brothers’ lives would be snuffed out by Piltover closing a door too hard. Fear that she would watch everyone she loved die.
And that fear came true.
Powder said that she died that day, that Vi made Jinx that day. Vi thought, maybe, she died with her. The girl that used her fear like a bellow pumping oxygen into the furnace of her heart died screaming, and with her, so did fear. Surrounded by damp walls with nothing but the knowledge that her brothers were stains of red underneath ruble, and her father died in her arms; that her baby sister was murdered thinking Vi blamed anyone other than herself for their deaths.
Her deepest fear could never have imagined a more horrific ending.
The furnace in her chest grew cold, atrophied like muscle, as even the desire for revenge, of plunging her hands into Silco’s skull and smushing his brain matter like worms wouldn’t ignite it again.
And then an enforcer showed her a drawing that only Powder could have made-
-and the furnace was enkindled!
But... It wouldn’t blaze. The fear didn’t burn, it just hurt. When Vi saw Powder again it was more beautiful than anything she could have dreamed of. Her baby sister alive and in her arms again, and no matter what she had done Vi would never let her go. Vi would never let her go because the fear of losing her again would be all the strength she needed.
So why? Why wasn’t that fear enough?
Why was the strength to fight not coming? Why was it so easy to leave her? Why couldn’t she find the strength to go back on the damn bridge with Ekko and show him that Powder was still there.
Deep inside her she knew why. Vi gave up.
Vi let go of the hope that her sister was still alive. All those years mourning her, thinking her body was rotting with Vander’s had broken her. Even when Caitlyn showed her the proof, even when she held her baby sister in her arms she still refused to hope. It was too dangerous to hope, the risk of it all being a lie too high and the fall if it wasn’t true, too great. Vi told herself the Powder was alive, that this Jinx was Silco’s twisted attempts at controlling Powder’s brilliance. She wanted to believe it so fucking much, wanted to punch and scream at anyone who would stop her from saving Powder, from letting Jinx take her sister from her.
And then two parents died. One a father who gave his blood, sweat, and tears in his home’s name, yet poisoned it all the same; a man who killed his brother for the same weakness they both died to, a man who sacrificed his life’s purpose for his daughter. The other, a mother who swore to help those she could see in need, yet was blind to an entire nation’s suffering, a mother who was never forced to choose.
Powder was dead. All that remained was Jinx.
Vi felt mocked at the Kiramman funeral. Mocked that this woman had statues erected in her honor, mocked that people would remember her for years to come, mocked that Vi’s parents lay buried in a ditch, her brothers in rubble, and her father dying not even human enough to be worth digging a grave for.
And Vi felt like a monster for feeling so.
She felt caged again, like she was still in Stillwater, yet this time it wasn’t metal bars and solid rock holding her down. This time it was broken oaths, violated codes and failed commitments that kept her barred. No stone walls to stop her, just her own shortcomings and limitations to wall her in.
Caitlyn asked Vi to throw away her past, throw her sister away, throw away the rage she had for enforcers, and throw away the memories of how Vi’s parents were murdered.
So, she did. Vi abandoned everything she used to protect. She walked through her home wearing the symbol that murdered parents and beat their starving orphans. She gassed the streets she once played games in with other kids. Those other kids were now either long dead or choking on fumes as they ran. The arcade that Powder painstakingly helped fix was coated in deadly gases as Vi lead enforcers through the hidden coves Powder once hid from people wearing that same symbol.
And then it was over.
Jinx was beneath her and Vi was going to be the one to kill her. Metallic hands poised to crush her skull any moment. But that moment never came. The barrel of a gun was shoved in her face as a child stood between her and what was once her sister. Pure hate in those small eyes, hate that Vi new so damn well because she was that little girl once, forced to watch as enforcers killed someone she loved. But beneath all that hate was bone crushing, all-encompassing fear. Fear that takes your body by control and forces it to move because the outcome if you don't cannot happen, fear so deep and crushing that you pretend its hate.
It made her sick. Made her want to keel over and vomit.
And Caitlyn didn’t fucking care . The only thing keeping that child alive was Vi’s gauntlets stopping the bullet. It was wrong and twisted and made her want to die because she had given everything to Caitlyn and now Vi was tossed aside, abandoned like Powder was all those years ago.
Jinx was right to hate Vi. It didn’t matter that Vi had tried to come back, the hurt from betrayal still fucking burned!
The months after was a blur of broken noses and torn hands, drinking anything strong enough to drown out her guilt. After a while the thrill of winning didn’t even help. That was when she started losing. The sting of a punch to her face was rejuvenating, made her feal alive again like nothing else. She got good at drawing the fights out, indulging in each punch her opponent landed, relishing in the feeling of pain that proved she was still alive.
Hope was the mind killer. It sneaks into your soul eating you out from the inside, decaying everything it touches, and before you know it's even there it has already rotted you away. Hope was dangerous and Vi knew that more than anyone.
Vi hoped that Powder was still alive, and it caused Caitlyn's mother to die. Vi hoped that Caitlyn would never change, and it ended with her gassing her home a child almost murdered in cold blood.
No, hope was a cancer that could never be allowed in her heart again.
-And all of Vi’s defenses crumbled when Jinx uttered Vander’s name. It was impossible and nothing more than Jinx’s fucked up mind playing tricks, because that beast could not be her father.
Then Powder screamed for Vi to believe her, and hope had already long snuck into Vi’s heart.
Maybe this time it was true. Maybe this time her mind wasn’t lying and Jinx was really her sister. Maybe Vander could be saved, changed back into the man he used to be by this miracle healer. Maybe Jinx and Vi could actually find redemption, be sisters one more time.
Hope was the mind killer. It burrows into your soul tearing you apart from the inside, leaving nothing but rot in its wake, and before you know it's even there you’ve lost everything.
This time it took Isha and Vander. Vi should have known that Jinx hadn’t changed. How foolish to think that a couple days of happiness was proof that Jinx was normal again. Or maybe she was, and the kid's death was a catalyst for her mind’s demons to take hold.
Jinx was wrong. Vi didn't deserve happiness, didn’t deserve Caitlyn's love. She didn’t deserve it, yet she craved it all the same. Even with Caitlyn moaning into her ear, a soft ‘I love you’ spoken like a prayer, she couldn't shake the feeling that the world would have been better if Vi had died with Vander all those years ago. The feeling churned unnaturally in her gut. Jinx told Vi that she didn’t need to feel guilty for being happy, that she didn't need to chase after Jinx any longer, that Vi didn’t need to choose whose side she was on.
Jinx gave her freedom.
-It tasted like rot in her mouth.
Blood splashed into the air, as the Noxian soldier's skull became a smear on the ground. A hulking mass of shimmer and flesh took their place, no doubt the doctor's newest creation. They were strong and resilient and Vi was fucking tired and didn’t even know why she was defending the tower anymore because Loris wasn’t getting up.
Then Vi started hearing music faintly. At first Vi had thought she had finally lost it, that maybe Jinx’s insanity was genetic and Vi was finally experiencing it. Because only an insane person would start playing dance music during a war. Unless...
One of the Noxian foot soldiers before her must have seen something that unnerved him because he took a hesitant step back. Most likely the feral grin that split her face. A large humming sound came from behind Vi and a slight turn of her head gave a split second to take in the three things she saw.
The first was the giant airship flying past her, the hum of the propeller blades drowning out any other sound. The second thing she registered, which should have been her first, was the giant gatling gun aimed right at her! The third and final thing she saw before Vi dropped to the floor taking the enforcers on her flank with her, was the person on the airship swinging their entire body mass to maneuver the unruly gun. Vi didn’t get a good look at them, didn’t need one to know who it was.
Bullets thundered into the crowd of Noxians, tearing through steel plate and thickened leather, eviscerating them into a red mist. The soldier's fueled by shimmer had it slightly better, able to block some of the bullets’ force with metal gauntlets, but some still struck true, taking chunks of flesh with each mark.
As soon as it started it ended, the barrage and airship flying past the balcony Vi had held as a last defense and out of sight. The moment gunfire wasn’t raining down, streaks of green light took their place. It took a half second for Vi to realize the streaks were people; Firelights. The feeling that bubbled up was one of both relief and pride. Relief that the undercity had been able to put aside the decades of mistreatment and help. Pride that Ekko, little Ekko who never could throw a punch, had created such a group.
Vi looked over to one of the enforcers, one whose name she didn’t even remember, and met his eyes, before glancing over to where Loris lay slumped over on the Hex-Cannon. The enforcer darted forward, a silent plea for help that he had absolute faith Vi would answer to.
And answer she did.
The Atlas Gauntlets slammed into the disoriented soldiers, the metal chest piece denting under the force. A shimmer infused creature threw its weight onto her, but a quick burst of force from the gauntlets had her spinning past its slam, her left arm locking onto the back of its breastplate as her body flew into the air, her free hand poised for just a moment as the hydraulics overclocked and- the gauntlet smashed into its skull bringing it into the ground with such force it popped like a grape!
Vi had lost the Atlas Gauntlets when Ambessa invaded Victor's commune, something Jayce was less than thrilled about. He took an old prototype of the gauntlets as the skeleton and remade them. While the raw force was less than what she was used to, the revamped placement of the Hextech gemstone allowed for sudden burst of gravitational manipulation that made up for it.
A Noxian soldier leapt forward and Vi sidestepped the spear, ramming her fist into their sternum with a quick dab. Again and again, they attacked, and again and again Vi retaliated with twice the lethality. The remaining Noxians seemed hesitant to come forward over the wall of their dead comrades, the threat of Vi’s hands and the Firelight’s sweeping attacks keeping them at bay.
A sound akin to the creek of a metal joint had her turn her face toward the enforcer on the cannon next to her.
A creature of silver and porcelain with a face of splattered gold stood by him, pale cracked arms seeping dried gold lifting him into the air. Vi didn’t even know when it appeared. She turned around toward the balcony to help him when a figure appeared from below, a face blotting out the sun.
Dull gray skin adorned in cobwebs of silver and gold fused into skin, protrusions erupting from it like thorns. A golden array of metallic fur covered its face, blood red eyes that softly glowed like heated metal as bulking arms that glistened with a reflective shine stretched open, golden scar tissue snaking across its chest. The most horrifying part was that she knew that face.
Vi didn’t even have a chance to open her mouth before the creature, her father, her Vander, was shielding himself from a barrage of bullets.
“VI!” Jinx was yelling from somewhere but Vi couldn’t bring herself to look away from the thing that was once her father. The bullets seemed to do nothing more than scratch him, yet apparently, they posed enough of a nuisance. A twitch was all the warning Vi had before he was gone, the cracked tower wall high above her holding him for just a second before he disappeared again. The airship Jinx was on rocketed off course, almost tilting a full ninety-degrees from the impact.
A green streak in the corner of her eye had her leaping off the tower balcony, not a moment too late as she felt fingerprints graze her neck. She landed, or more apply was caught, by a firelight. ‘Ekko,’ Her brain informed, but the pure joy at seeing him alive didn’t have time to register. Vi leapt into the air, the gauntlets in her hands activating as the magic inside them pulsed and propelled her forward. Vander stood over Powder; his face completely voided of expression as he reached a clawed hand toward her.
The full force of her gauntlet rammed into him, knocking the airship level again by the sheer amount of strength behind it.
Not even a scratch. The blows that had once been able to split that face in half with a single punch didn’t even seem to faze him. Vander’s hand twitched and Vi took a gamble, a prediction on where she needed to block the slash that moved faster than she could ever dream of reacting to. Her instincts screamed; the same scream that saved her every time she raised her fists. In another life she might have listened to it, heeded the voice that had kept her alive her entire life.
But Vi finally realized something.
Her instinct couldn't be trusted. They told her to fight, so she fought until it was her baby sister who felt the blow. They told her to hate, so she hated until staring into Jinx’s eyes she chose not to. They told her to never hope again, so she never hoped again until Jinx’s plea in a cave filled with fluorescent plants and dead fathers made her choose too. In another life Vi might have listened and brought her hand up to block the slash, but Vi didn’t listen this time.
Against every instinct she had, Vi spun her body downward as the non-robotic arm of her father she hadn’t even realized was coming, snapped to where her neck was a millisecond ago. She rolled away colliding into something soft. Soft arms curled around her for a fraction of a second before Jinx flung her away just as Vander’s claws racked into the spot they had just been, Jinx on the other side, she herself having only narrowly avoided being caught while saving Vi.
Vi’s fist slammed into Vander’s arm, this time actually pushing it away enough so the claws trying to slice through Jinx’s throat missed by a hair. It dawned on her at that moment how close the Hexgates actually were, and how fast the airship was moving.
She lost focus of Vander for too long; ducking the moment that realization came was the only reason her head wasn’t slashed off. Jinx slammed into him the moment after, both colliding with the airship's main support for the balloon. How the lithe and petite Jinx managed to take the massive creature to the ground was beyond her understanding. Vander recovered first as massive claws speed toward Jinx, her shoulder still against the main structure.
“JINX!”
Vi screeched as the golden claws barreled toward Jinx’s exposed midriff. Jinx’s body moved faster than she should have ever been capable, almost completely twisting away from them.
Almost.
One golden claw slammed into her, the rest missing and impaling into the metal behind her.
Jinx screamed as blood erupted from the wound. Vander wrenched his claw out as Jinx stumbled back, her balance failing as the entire airship tilted, careening backwards. Vi leapt forward just as Jinx tripped, her body hitting the railing and-
-the world erupted into chaos. Vi brought her arms up the block the onset of stone and metal that billowed into her as the airship collided with the Hexgate. Vi’s vision blurred and ink filled more space than sight, but she refused to black out.
The assault of debris came to a stop as Vi’s body came to a standstill. She was curled up on her back on the floor of a chamber in the hollow Hexgate, every inch of her burning in pain. With a deep breath she stood up; first a stumble, then a full step.
The entire inside of the hollow Hexgate was covered in debris, from the remains of Jinx’s airship to pieces of clockwork. With batted breath Vi looked around, praying to see Jinx’s familiar blue hair. The only sign of life was the white hair of Ekko’s collapsed form covered in ruble a good stone throws away. That and...
Vi turned around and stared upward at the creature on top of the remains of the airship. “Dad?” He didn’t respond. Not even a single muscle on his face moved. Vi took one last sweep for the sign of blue hair.
Steam escaped the Atlas Gauntlets as Vi reset the hydraulics. She took a deep breath indulging in the burning sensation that filled her lungs, relishing the proof that after everything, she was still alive.
Vander just stared at her, unmoving and unflinching-
-His massive claws missed gauging out her eyes by an inch. Vi bent low on reflex, her life saved by years of Vander yelling at her to not block with her face, a cruelly ironic savior. She punched upward as Vander’s head sprang back, the blow only grazing his cheek. In the same motion Vander swung his other hand batting her away like a fly, the blow only slightly softened by Vi’s other arm guarding it. Yet even when blocked she went flying, crashing into the walls of the tower. For a second they just stared at one another.
Vander’s body twitched.
Vi sidestepped before she even saw him move, a mass of gold and pale gray slammed into the wall next to her, the moment after impact had him turning with an inhuman speed, claws already searching her out.
The razor-sharp claws came crashing down in a direct arc to her skull.
Vi’s punch struck first.
Vander once told her that sometimes if an opponent was too fast then you had to read their body; the way the muscle twitched before explosive strength, the slight tensing before a punch. In all her years of fighting only two people were too fast for her to catch. Jinx and now Vander. Jinx was impossible to read, every movement carrying a thousand tiny meaningless twitches and unnecessary stutters. Her muscle mass was too low to see the slight flex before a movement. But this Vander before her was all muscle and no unnecessary movement. Each attack was perfectly executed, and perfectly predictable.
Vi saw the way his body prepared to dash forward, and she took another gamble. The moment she saw him move she was already halfway out of the way, her entire body twisting as every circuit, rune, and hydraulic in her gauntlet was overclocked past the limit. Runes burned into her skin, steam ruptured from every chamber and the pressure of the hydraulics burst apart. Before Vander’s claw could come down, her entire body pivoted, her left arm snapping forward like the crack of a rifle.
The entire force of the gauntlet slammed into Vander's chest as blue light erupted outward. The sound was deafening as Vander’s body became a bullet, his three-ton mass becoming meaningless as he collided into the far walls of the Hexgate. The body became weightless for a moment as he bounced through broken metal and stone, tearing through it with ease before hitting the walls, the sheer magnitude of the kinetic energy shattering them like glass as Vander’s body rocketed out of the tower.
Vi sunk to her knees gasping for air, the gauntlet in her left hand releasing with a hiss as it fell to the ground. Her hand was seared and bloody, yet she could barely feel it at all, just as strange numbness.
That didn’t matter.
“Jinx!” She sobbed out her name. “Ekko!”
Jinx had to be here, so why wasn’t she answering. Why was she making Vi worry. Jinx had to be okay, she just had to be.
“JINX!” The sound of stone being unsettled had her turning around toward the newly made hole.
Vander stood there. Unmoving and emotionless.
The only proof of their fight being the texture of cracked glass on his chest from where she hit him, but even that was being filled in with liquid gold.
Vi couldn’t get up. She gave her everything with that punch and it did nothing. She gave everything but her everything was never enough. She couldn’t win, and even if she could, Jinx would be long... Her sister wouldn't be there waiting for her. There was no point even trying. She couldn’t even hurt him. The feeling of being able to at least damage him that she felt in the old mines completely absent.
Vi couldn’t stop what was left of her father from killing her.
She didn’t even try to move as he walked toward her, slowly, as if begging her to get up and fight one more time. Vi looked up, the act taking all the willpower she could bare to muster. Cold unfeeling eyes bent down to her limp body as a golden hand snaked around her neck. Vi wasn’t afraid anymore, she had no more fear left in her heart as she looked up at Vander’s face.
Her eyes rolled in her skull; the iris turning a dull gold that expanded like a crack throughout her eye.
Oh.
The world dissolved into light. Pale and bright, forgotten and adorned, forsaken and loved. Everything dissolved to nothing. In her eyes the cosmos stretched into infinity, a brilliant tapestry of colors glistening before her. Her soul itself was just a blimp of color in its presence, a dot of light drowned in pure brilliance. Everything she was, every dream, every fear, every ache, every sorrow, every joy, every grief she had ever known all burned away under its glory.
And then ‘she’ was no more. There was no body, there never was, nothing but specks of golden light, each more precious than anything life itself had ever been beholden to. The tapestry bent and twisted till it tore open and-
Oh... It was perfect. Beyond all things, a universe enveloped in splendor, forged to be seen in this moment. No ecstasy could ever compare to the indescribable true nature of the world. Blind eyes made whole, failed souls remade, under a sight that all were unworthy to see, a universe of living stardust that mattered more than anything ever could-
“Take care of Powder...”
A seared and bloody hand reached forward, shaking and full of tremors as it slipped into the Atlas Gauntlet.
Fear was her oldest friend. It lived in her bone marrow and slept in her soul. The constant fear that everything she loved would be taken away. It made her strong, forged her flesh into steel, molten rock from her blood, and a heart into diamond. It burrowed into her long ago and refused to leave. Fear was her drive, her reason, her cause. It made her stand up when the hope for a better future never came true and it lifted her up when her body gave up.
Vi had a chance to be finally free from fear. No more chains of fear to hold her, to keep her down. Nothing. Her lover was gone, her father was gone, her brothers was gone, her sister, her Powder, was gone. She had no one to be fearful for. No family to protect, no more blooded hands and broken bones. The sting of loss would never find her again, the weight of never being enough would finally be lifted, her shoulders that never had the strength to carry that weight could finally rest.
Golden glossy eyes focused.
The fear of losing someone was the price she paid to love them. It was a price she willingly paid.
A roar, inhuman and distorted by rage and sorrow teared itself free from Vi’s throat, the metal gauntlets responding in kind. Vi couldn’t win. But when the fuck did that matter? Winning never mattered, all that mattered was that she fought. Vander looked at her in confusion before metal hands snapped onto his face.
Vi’s hand was small, but the gauntlets were anything but. A symbiosis of metal and magic curling around Vander’s face. He could have skewered her right there, but perhaps he was unable to understand why she was still moving.
She couldn’t hurt him; she just wasn’t strong enough. But the Atlas Gauntlets were not made for punching. They were mining tools designed for one purpose, and one purpose alone.
Crushing.
A guttural wail escaped Vi’s lips as blood vessels burst and ligaments tore. Her hands refused to relent, steam rushing outwards from the Hextech as metal hydraulics strained under the magic’s command. Metal bent and outer casings snapped yet she still crushed. Her vision blurred and laughter bubbled out of her. Her vocal cords tore as she screamed, something raw and human, a moniker of an imperfect girl with more regrets than she could ever count, yet a will unyielding and unburdened by the guilt they brought.
Steel fingers dug into metal eyes, silver blood that looked like tears seeping through cracks of metal flesh until-
SNAP!
Silver and grey chrome flung into the air, bits of gold coating Vi’s face before a gush of red overlay it, her entire body soaking in the gore. The grip around her arm let go as Vi looked up.
Where Vander’s face had been was nothing more than a bleeding mess, the front half completely unrecognizable.
For a few silent moments Vi's breath was the only movement in the tower.
Then the flesh began to bubble.
In pure horror Vi watched as a face regrew out from the mess. It looked like a wolf with an elongated snout, the resemblance of her father no more, the regrown eyes darting to meet Vi’s as it snarled and opened its mouth to roar.
But it never did. Cold porcelain metal enveloped the face, and the red fury in its eyes dissipated into apathy as it stared down at her.
Vi wanted to break down and sob.
Hope was the mind killer. It hides in your soul feasting on you, dead dreams and tarnished ambition all it leaves behind, and before you know it's even there its already stolen your mind, built up a gallery of the impossible ‘what could have been’ and ‘what might be’ so inviting that you willing discard all common sense.
And then hope rips it all away, leaving you alone and empty till you're fat enough for the parasite to come back. You crave it like an addiction, fully aware that in the end you’ll be discarded when it has its fill.
“Vander!”
Vi looked away from Vander to the new voice as hope snuck into her soul once more.
A blue haired girl stood atop the mountain of rubble, a beacon of light in her heart.
Jinx stood there, the light that seeped through enveloping her like a goddess, Janna herself standing in defiance for Zaun. Dried blood coating her entire chest, the wound seemingly already scared over. Simply trousers painted in a rainbow of colors, an X sprayed across her shirt with a myriad colors adorning her skin. Her twin braids were gone, a small almost invisible ponytail in their steed. Her blue bang was dyed in pink, green and neon blue, her body itself a canvas to show the world the chaotic beauty in her mind that even Vi had once mistaken as only violence.
A soft smile was on her face, gentle and sad, full of more love than Vi could ever remember, a calmness and serenity that Jinx never had. The streaks of dried tears were like makeup on her face, clear and gentle, traces of the purple streaks she used to always have completely absent.
Scarred and broken, torn and cut, shattered and remade. Jinx’s very soul was in ashes, yet unable to burn anymore. A mind beyond repair yet still worthy of being loved all the same. An inner beauty that only was visible through the cracks and broken parts of her, the grief and pain forging her into something new.
The beauty in imperfection, made real.
-And the fear in Vi’s soul burned.