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"Ladies and Gentlemen, fine people of the undercity! Who among you is brave enough to go against my Sister? Come on, if you win you will be able to take a few Bronze Washers! Anyone? How about you?" Powder was great at getting people excited, at getting their attention, and even making them feel like they actually had a chance against Vi when they didn't. It all had begun as a game in the alleys, Vi sitting on top of a box with a wooden board atop an old chem barrel and another box on the other side, an impromptu arm wrestling tournament began among them even exchanging candy and old trinkets they considered toys. Powder began clapping and shouting alongside everyone and when she had seen money start to exchange hands she had brought out an old pot and told people to get it filled.
"Me? No no, the girl actually looks like she could lift me up."
"Oh, come on, just for fun. A Washer each, pretty please?"
The thin man in wiry glasses squeezed his hands nervously, looking around, there were a lot of people buying stuff in the neighboring stalls and passing by on their way to get a drink. Most of them made the effort to look away but others simply snickered at him before getting back to their business.
"Alright, alright, but just one."
"Good luck old man." Vi slammed her arm on the wooden board, palm open to welcome Huck.
The body of the miner hits the floor, hands wrapping around his stomach and groaning loudly, he is easily twice Vi's size but by now she is used to that. Her short stint at Stillwater is visible in the new tattoos she sports and her nasty hook.
"Come on, is that all you got people? I would have thought The Moles would be more — I don't know — fierce? Moly? You are letting a teenager kick your —" Vi tunes out Jinx's voice with a scoff, spiting a clot of blood on the floor, that is a lie but that's what the game is about.
We are a long way from the dirty alleys, ain't we, kid?
Tell me about it. She thinks back at the voice with a touch of bitterness in her tone.
"Alright I may be inflating the truth a bit to fit, but come on, she is nineteen, and barely 5'7". Yeah sure, she just got out of Stillwater and got all those kickass tattoos to brag about it for her but —" Jinx makes a show of grabbing her chin and pacing back and forth, Vi on her part only wants to end this, she is tired, every muscle in her body is screaming at her and she just wants to stop. "— sis, you are not making it easy for me, come on. Tell them why they should be doing a line to have a go against you."
Vi takes a step forward, opening her mouth —
"Again, come on, man! Let me get a few of my Washers back, please!" Vi thought she was a bad actress, everyone thought it but, she at least knew how to play desperate and whiney. Had enough experience of the first while begging when she was smaller and had seen Mylo do enough of the latter to barely get the right tone without overselling it.
"Sorry kid, I have to leave while I'm still ahead, but good luck with what's left of the afternoon." That had been a nice touch from Huck, now people were going to want to have a go before it was too late and they lost their opportunity to robe a pair of kids blind. When he left through the alley with his small win of the day, everyone that had been following the matches in interest stood to approach. And Powder, always the smart one of the two, knew when an opportunity presented itself. She raised the pot for people to throw in their bet.
"Let's sweeten the pot, people! Keep throwing money at it and we play against whoever sits at that box until the sun is covered by the sign —" She pointed at the sign on the roof, then at the pot. "—the last bet is the one that matters, so keep them coming and we might get a good bounty out of it."
"There isn't one, I'm gonna make them eat dirt one way or another," Vi says, face completely blank and staring ahead, not even deigning to look at the bunch of miners and gangbanger wannabes making them fight for them. That’s why Vi isn't taking this seriously, not when a miner steps inside the makeshift ring at least, when a Mole comes in she punches them until their eyes are closed shut from swelling and it hurts to breathe.
"You are a class act, sis, always thinking about others first." Jinx walks up to Vi moving her fingers over her shoulder as if it were a person while leaning her head against the other one. "Aren't you enjoying it?" She whispers in her ear.
She knows, how the fuck does she know? Vi can almost see the voice foaming over, the guards most have reported her incidents to Markus, and Markus most have reported back to Silco, and —
I got it, child, don't need to walk me all the way through it.
A shudder runs down Vi's back, when Jinx laughs on her ear, that soft, sweet laugh she makes before something awful follows. Turning with a dizzying speed, Jinx claps her hands increasing the volume of her laugh until it echoes around and she produces two things from the bag she brought with her, a vial of shimmer and a pair of the new shimmer powered gauntlets Vi is being secretly dying to take out for a test drive. Vi licks her lips, thinking about them snug against her hands and wrist, the feeling of flesh against the rough metal scrapping her prey and herself.
FOCUS! The voice shouts at the same time she hears the sounds of chains and a door cell being rattled on the back of her mind. The beast Stillwater woke up had been tightly chained deep inside her, and somehow Jinx knew about it, seems to have the key to the cell somehow.
"Last chance, I'll let you choose one of these to fight, the other will go to my dear sister. If you win we will leave and tell Silco we have dealt with you, will be free of charge for the next six months. But if my Sis wins, you have to pay double over for the next three. You can't tell that isn't a sweet, sweet pot?"
"The pot is bigger than ever, ladies and gentlemen! Place your last bets, who will be closing this arm wrestling tournament? Who?"
"I'll get everything." Pushing people out of the way a guy with dirty blond hair stepped into the alley and sat with a cocky grin, looking at Vi as if she were nothing but a five-year-old trying to play with the big kids. "Unless you are afraid, pipsqueak?"
"You wish, Deckard, I have beaten adults bigger than you today." Vi opened her palm, grabbed one side of the wooden board, and waited for Deckard to do the same. He smirked, goading, and Vi gritted her teeth. It didn't matter, damn it, she knew it didn't matter who lost, that the other was going to get a good cut anyways but how she hated this guy sometimes. Even if she knew she could trust him to be true to his word. They shook on it, and down here that was all you had, losing it was as good as getting sentenced for life and being thrown in Stillwater.
Their palms gripped each other hard and Vi could feel it with the tension of his arm that he wasn't going to play fair nor make it easy on her, they were going to play for the bigger part of the bounty and hell if she was going to let him snatch the good part out of them. That pot is Pow-pow's doing.
The crowd cheered —
The miners look all at the floor, The Moles can go fuck themselves if they want to play one of Jinx's rigged games. Everyone knew by now, ever since the infamous wave of wrestling tournaments she had unleashed on the gullible idiots walking the market's narrow streets five years ago, their last summer with Vander.
On their part the wannabe gangbangers look among themselves until they bully someone into taking the spotlight. A redheaded woman with an eyepatch, she looks lean enough, and the scars in her face and arms show she has some experience fighting unarmed against knives. Vi hopes they just mean she is lucky and not skilled, her shoulder is aching and she can barely keep herself upright without swaying a bit. She hadn't had anything to eat yet, Jinx had only pushed her out of bed at midday telling her they had a job from Silco and it was time for her to start pulling her weight. Vi may be out of Stillwater but some part of her remains there, aching for simpler times.
Redhead takes the vial, and the voice inside Vi scoffs, the obvious choice tends to be the most dangerous with Jinx. When the woman takes it and she only gets a boost in size but no deformities, Vi knows it was luck at least that let her survive the knife fights. She quickly moves away to one side of the improvised ring they drew on the dirt for this fun outing, as Jinx called it when they left the Last Drop.
Vi groans, almost dropping her shoulders before remembering she still has a role to play in all this and walks to Jinx to raise her arms. She fits her with the gauntlets, pats her cheek, and then gets closer to whisper. "I know about the beast, show it to me and I promise never to ask about it again, please?" Vi's eyes open wide, then she grinds her teeth, looking at the floor without answering her sister. "I know it hurts and it's scary, but you will feel good and —" Jinx raises Vi's head, bumping their forehead together. "— trust me, Vi, that will shut them up."
LIES! IT'S HER FAULT THE BEAST IS THERE, IT'S HER FAULT WE ARE ALL ALONE NOW, IT'S —
"You done, kid? We don't have all day, it's not like you are sending your sister off to war." Vi takes the jab for what it's supposed to be, a piss poor attempt at getting her off-center.
Jinx already did that.
Vi's mind starts to wander, the rattling of the cage making her tremble in fear of what would happen, but before she gets a chance to go down the rabbit hole Jinx's voice stops her. The sound grounds Vi, but it's the feeling of her breath tickling the back of her neck that lets her focus on something else. "Give em' hell, Vi."
The switch is on, the door to the cell open and the key is lost, stolen by Jinx's words echoing in her head.
Give em' hell, shut them up, a growl echoes in her mind and she is just so damn tired. The voice says nothing and Vi does what she is best at, she lunges forward, right hook at the ready, and punches the redhead on the side just as she hits her on the head from above and going down. Pain blossoms, making her eyesight go blurry and she loves it.
The crowd cheered and booed, divided into two, by whoever had bet on Deckard and Vi respectively. At first, it had been pretty close, neither of them giving an inch, but as the sun began coming down to hide behind the sign, Vi's exhaustion began to show. Deckard pushed her hand farther and farther from the middle, they were wrestling on Vi's side now, her hand almost grazing the board it was practically Deckard win by now. Sweat was running down the side of her face and even getting in her eyes but damn she wasn't going to give up without a fight, and just when she thought her arm would finally give she could see the change in Deckard’s posture, this was the last of his reserves, used in a last-ditch effort to get her to tap out. And the ache in Vi's muscle didn't disappear but at least dulled enough to let her push one last time until she heard Deckard’s hand hit the board and get a roaring thunder of applause.
They both stayed there for at least fifteen minutes, panting with their arms limp on their sides while they glared at each other in a new match where whoever blinked first would lose.
This one Vi lost when Powder put the pot over her head while giving Deckard his part in all this. Vi saw him count the coins, bite at one, and then node, standing with a grunt. "It was nice doing business with you both, Pipsqueaks," and then was off.
Vi stoop on wobbly legs looking at Powder with a big smile, which she answered with a toothless one of her own.
"What?" She asked when Vi had knocked her on the head.
"Good job Pow-pow."
"Good job Sis, The Moles will think it twice before trying to one-up Silco in his game." Jinx walks with her arms crossed behind her head, a big smile on her face, and a relaxed posture. Vi groans, following close behind, the opposite of her sister. Shoulders dropped down, eyes half-lidded and arms hanging limp. The gauntlets are weighting for them down, and whoever walks in their way won’t be missing the blood splattered on her face and knuckles despite how dark it has become.
The beast is purring, following Jinx happily despite the thick chain around its neck, and the voice mutters lowly, bitter, but letting Vi enjoy the sweet, sweet silence she is earned spilling blood and sweat.