Chapter Text
Vi knew the hextech crystal was powerful, she had witnessed firsthand the power of the atlas gauntlets as well as the less refined version of the crystal. She was also aware of the fact that her sister was a veritable prodigy when it came to making bombs. Still, no amount of knowledge or understanding could have possibly prepared her for what happened to the council tower.
She watched the neon blue exhaust from Powder’s rocket as it screamed across the moonlit sky. She watched as its hateful payload struck home, smashing through the highest window of the council tower.
She barely had time to throw her arm over Caitlyn’s eyes as night became day.
To say that the council building was destroyed would be an understatement.
The uppermost third of the building had simply stopped existing, replaced by a brilliant blue ball of light, so bright that, even through her closed eyelids, she could see it clearly. Instinctively, she pulled Caitlyn down, pushing them both against the nearest wall and shielding her with her own body.
Less than a second later, the pressure wave found them. It was like a giant had decided to kick the house with all its might, the house shook so violently that Vi thought it might get ripped from its foundation. What was left of the glass windows was immediately blown in, frame and all, creating a hurricane of shattered glass and wooden fragments. Vi grit her teeth in pain as the cascade washed over them, fragments of glass embedding themselves into her back.
Once the room had calmed down and her ears had stopped ringing, Vi dared to open her eyes. Below her, Caitlyn was struggling to free herself. The first thing she noticed was Caitlyn’s face, her cheeks and forehead were an angry sunburnt red, skin already starting to peel away from deeper splotches. Vi was sure she didn’t look much better.
Vi was careful not to cut herself on the shards of glass that surrounded them as she extricated herself from Caitlyn. Wincing as the glass shards that had made a home in her back fell to the floor, she rose to her feet, and offered her hand. Caitlyn seemed to still be dazed by the explosion, but after a few moments, she took Vi’s outstretched hand and rose to wrap her left arm around Vi’s broad shoulders. Together, they limped around the corner to get a better view of Piltover.
When she looked over the river into the city, her breath left her and her stomach churned. For the first time in her life, Vi turned to her left and vomited at the sight of such immense bloodshed.
“No,” Caitlyn's voice came out strangled and weak next to Vi, she covered her mouth with her free hand, as tears streamed down the sides of her face.
The easiest thing to notice was the lights. The massive mushroom-shaped cloud that grew out of the corpse of the council building blotted out the moon completely, and the artificial glow of Piltover’s lamps and light bulbs had been replaced with the orange dancing shadows of multiple infernos. Everything that could catch fire in Piltover was now alight. The city sparkled as the flickering lights of each fire reflected off the millions of shards of glass that littered every available surface.
Vi realized, faintly, that she and Caitlyn had now sunk to their knees, resting on each other for support.
The damage to the council building itself was immense. It stood a full 50 meters shorter than it had at the beginning of the night, and what remained was laced with lightning bolt scorch marks that spiderwebbed down its length to the streets below.
None of the nearby buildings were safe either. Every major structure in Piltover was scorched and at least partially, if not fully, collapsed. The brass dome that housed Piltover’s hexgate had been torn from the top of its tower and now lay, half-submerged in the river surrounding the tower.
The undercity hadn’t fared much better, more wood there. The fires had sprung up across the bridges, but Vi watched, helpless, as they raced further and further into the undercity.
************
Jinx’s head shattered the surface of the river water. She hadn’t been expecting the explosion to be so strong. She never really had the chance to stress test the hexcore properly, what with only having one and all. But apparently, the new and improved hextech was much too stable. So stable, in fact, that it could run at least a thousand times as many feedback cycles as the unstable stuff she was used to.
When she first saw the flash, she was sure it would kill her; it gave her a burn like a dropped solder, only everywhere. Then the blast hit her. It threw her like a scorned lifeless doll, head first down towards the ocean behind her.
You’ll die when you hit the water. Vi’s voice ghosted over her ears. Of course she didn’t care. She moved on.
Yeah, hit anything hard enough and it’ll feel like bricks. It surprised Jinx that she didn’t care either.
Well then do something about it. Jinx’ eyes shot open. This voice was new. Silco. I didn't die just so you could kill yourself seconds later.
Instantly, she was hyperaware, the black glass of the river had been shattered by the pressure wave. But, it wasn’t enough, there was still too much surface tension.
Reaching down, Jinx winced as she scrabbled for one of her bombs, doing the mental math as her fingers wrapped around the metal cylinder. As she raced towards the murky abyss below her she held the pin between her teeth, and with all her might, threw.
There was a faint pop as the bomb exploded below the surface of the water.
She crashed into a churning white mass of bubbles, as oxygen tried to escape the clutches of the harbor.
She was dimly aware that her right arm wasn’t moving right, it was sluggish, and there was no leverage. Probably broken. The adrenaline and whatever the shimmer did to her body weren’t letting her feel it though. It would hurt later.
Now she had to get to shore. It took ages of exhausting, determined kicks to get her back to the nearest pier. Reaching out her left arm, she dug her nails into the soft rotting wood of the planks. She tried to pull herself up, but Pow Pow and Sharkbones kept dragging her down. She didn’t wanna ditch either of her guns, but she didn’t have the energy left to drag herself up. Each finger was slowly being pried away from her hold by the weight of the metal on her.
She felt someone’s grip wrap around her wrist, and suddenly she was being pulled up, guns and all.
Oh, well, it could have been worse. She thought to herself as she stared into the face of a very disgruntled Ekko.
Ekko was flanked by two of his masked goons, as well as an orange yordle wearing a blue cloak that was far too prissy to not be topside junk. He seemed… familiar. The poor thing couldn’t seem to decide if it was furious or terrified.
“How long’ve you guys been tracking me?” She slurred out, slumping forward, the exhaustion of the day catching up with her.
Ekko dogged her falling body like it was toxic and let her crash face-first onto the wooden dock.
“Jinx, for your sake, give us a good reason why we shouldn’t kill you now.” Oh, he was definitely mad.
“Wait? This is Jinx?” the yordle piped up.
“Ye-p” she said, putting extra emphasis on the p, “stands for Jinx.”
“T-Then we can not kill her, she must be tried before the council.”
“Don’t know if you saw the fireworks Scruffy, but there ain’t a council anymore.” Jinx giggled out, rolling onto her back.
“JINX, my question!” Ekko barked out, silencing them both.
“Well that’s easy, someone’s gotta save Zaun, and you can’t do it without my help.”
“What the hell is Zaun?” Ekko asked, his grip on her wrist tightening like a vice.
“Zaun’s a free undercity, one where people like us don’t gotta live day to day in Piltie trash.” She said back, determination flowing back into her voice. A ghost of a voice whispered along her ear. “And it’ll be either you or that bitch Sevika running it, though I guess you could always turn it back over to the chem barons.”
“And you’re gonna let me? This seems an awful lot like an idea Silco put in your head.”
“SILCO’S!” she began, but paused, “Silco’s gone.”
“So what? Vi finally-”
Jinx cut Ekko off before he could finish that sentence.
“Everything around us is wood and scrap, once the fires get across the bridges the undercity’s gonna go up like a tinderbox.”
“Undercity’s already burning, do better,” Ekko replied
“Come on little man, you know it’ll get worse, you gotta blow the bridges before this gets out of hand.”
For a moment Ekko unfocused before snapping his gaze back to Jinx.
“You got enough powder for that?”
“I’m Jinx.”
Only now did Ekko bend to pick her up from her place on the ground. Slinging her over a shoulder with all the grace of a sack of potatoes.
Once everyone was situated on a hoverboard, Jinx guided them to her hideout.
It was a short trip by air, and they were high enough to fully appreciate the scale of the damage done to Piltover. The city was in ruins, almost everything near ground zero was a flat indistinguishable mess of rubble. Occasionally screams would waft up to them from the hot updrafts created by the fires that stormed, relentless, through the city.
“You did this?” it was the yordle again, the incredulity in his voice plain.
“Someone had to,” Jinx was resigned to this, her new inventions were always too destructive for their own good.
“It saddens me that you believe that.”
The rest of the ride passed in awkward silence.
Once they landed, Jinx skipped over to her workbench and grabbed an oily rag. Carefully, she wrapped it around her ruined arm, trying to form a makeshift sling for the broken limb; it was hard to tie knots with only one hand.
Gesturing to a collection of pancake-shaped devices she turned to Ekko. “Have your firelights take those to the bridges, either top or bottom of the arch should be enough to collapse ‘em.”
Ekko relayed her orders, and his men started moving immediately.
“And what of the citizens of Piltover who would use the bridge to flee?” the yordle spoke up again.
Jinx was tempted to tell them all to burn for all she cared, annoyed by her rag’s refusal to cooperate. Instead, she said, “Get guys on boats, or more floaty-boards. Ferry em across.”
Ekko nodded.
“Kneel,” the high-pitched voice of the yordle cut through Jinx’s thoughts.
To her surprise, she obeyed. He was deft in his work, finding a suitable piece of wood and splinting her forearm, before completing the sling with the rag. It confused Jinx.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Someone must,” he parroted.
Jinx said nothing, but looked at the yordle as if he were an alien.
“Alright, I got more firelights prepping boats, and some more are on their way here to take the rest of the charges.” It was Ekko’s turn to interrupt.
“We need to get to the hexgate,” Jinx said, standing back up.
“The hexgate?” Ekko and the yordle said in unison.
“Yeah, knowing the Pilties, they’ll try to fish the big thing out of the river. Problem is, all that magical feedback from the rocket’s gonna have the thing primed to blow. Next time someone tries to send goods with it they’ll be able to see the flash from Noxus,” Jinx answered.
"And why, pray tell, hasn't it gone off yet?" Asked the yordle.
Jinx shrugged with her good shoulder. "Blast must've fried the circuits with some arcane feedback mumbo-jumbo. Point is, someone’s gotta get the hexcores out of the gate before someone does something stupid."
Ekko paused for a moment, “Yeah. Yeah, alright, let's go.”
“Gimme some time to pack first little man; yoinked a couple of hextech books from the academy on progress day, stuff could help.”
“Fine, get your shit together.”
It took Jinx all of 10 minutes to throw her valuables, mainly books and guns, into a pack and sling it over her shoulder.
“Lead the way little man,” she said through a vicious smile.
The hoverboard struggled to lift the combined weight of their party, but with a bit of effort, Ekko was able to get it to slowly putter off the ground.
The board’s perseverance eventually came to fruition when, not 15 minutes later, they were back at the docks.
“We’re taking a boat from here,” Ekko said, hopping gracefully off the board when it was less than a foot off the ground. Jinx and stumbled off behind him, arm pinwheeling, trying their best not to fall on their respective faces.
Finding a rowboat wasn’t hard, stealing it was even easier, but it was the rowing that became problematic. With one arm out of commission, Jinx had no shot of keeping pace with Ekko. Even so, they sat next to each other on the bench of the rowboat, and each took hand of an oar to begin their long journey.
The problem with quiet rides is they open you up to background noise. The screams of the city were louder now. She could see the topsiders, most of them were still just walking around in a stupor, as if their mind thought they’d died. It reminded her of a time when she was younger.
When she was Powder.
It’s kinda funny, Mylo leaned on Ekko’s shoulder, I mean isn’t that basically what you and Vi went through when you were kids.
“Shut up!” she shouted, her voice coming out hoarse and thick.
All eyes in the boat snapped to her.
She needed to think about something else.
“Hey furball, I never actually caught your name.” She said, turning halfway in her seat to face the creature at the head of the boat.
“I am Heimerdinger,” Heimerdinger answered, meeting her gaze.
“Woah, like councilman Heimerdinger?” Jinx asked, eyes sparkling.
“Just Heimerdinger now, I was removed from the council.”
“Makes sense why you’re here now. Know a lot about hextech?” Jinx asked.
“I am not as proficient as Viktor or Jayce, but I am well enough versed in the technology, they’re my students after all.”
Jinx regretted the correction as soon as it left her lips. “Were”
Heimerdinger’s stare turned ice cold in an instant. “I think you have mistaken my assistance for friendship Jinx. After we’re through with this we will be returning you to Piltover for trial.”
Next to her, Ekko let out a huff of air, “It’s more than you deserve, for what you did.”
Jinx redoubled the strength of her pulls, she wanted off this boat as soon as possible. The last 10 minutes of the ride were a pure agony of silence.
They got lucky with the placement of the bronze dome, the hexcores still hung above water. And so, they got to work. There were 50 hexcores in total, each needing to be disconnected safely from the circuit.
It took a lot of work and even more time. Jinx squabbled endlessly with Mylo, Claggor, and the rest of them, but with enough time and perseverance, a gray bag with 50 hexcores sat lopsided between them.
The sun was starting to peek through the cracks in the dome, lighting the entire room in a dim brown hue.
“Nice job guys, we saved Zaun… and Piltover too I guess,” Jinx said, skipping over to the nearest crack in the bronze dome.
The fires in the city must’ve gone out overnight, now only three massive smoke plumes rose from the desecrated rock garden that was once Piltover. Airships cluttered the sky, all sent to Piltover on various trade routes across Runeterra. Most seemed to have stopped and were trying to touch down to provide aid to the city.
“We saved Piltover from a disaster you caused, you don’t get to play the good guy here. Stop acting like you turned over a new leaf,” Ekko’s voice cut through Jinx’ thoughts.
“Heh, yeah. You’re right about that. I’m no hero,” Jinx flicked around, her shock-blaster flying into her hand. Ekko dodged, because of course he would, but Jinx wasn’t aiming for Ekko. The shot whizzed through the air he’d just occupied and slammed into the chest of the yordle behind him.
Heimerdinger was lifted off his paws, fur puffed up with static electricity, as the force of the blast sent him careening into the opposite wall of the dome. With a resounding thunk, he fell to the ground in an unconscious heap.
“Heimerdinger!” Immediately Ekko whipped around to check on his partner. He only took his eyes off Jinx for a moment, but with her shimmer mutated DNA, a moment was all she needed.
When he turned back to face her, she was practically on top of him. He let out a shocked gasp and a futile swing in her direction. It was a desperate move to create some space between them, too little, too late.
She pushed herself out of the way of the strike with one foot, using her dodge to build momentum. Ekko didn’t see the heel of her boot till it crashed into the side of his head.
Jinx walked back to the boat, and threw her newly acquired hexcores into her bag. She paused. Eventually, she reached into the duffel and pulled out the book she’d stolen from Jayce. She laid it next to Heimerdinger, along with two of her grenades, before turning sharply on her heels and jumping back first into the boat, allowing it to carry her downstream, and back to Piltover.