Chapter Text
[insert what happened in episodes 1, 2, and 3 until 36:50 here]
Not even the intense heat from the raging flames behind could give the slightest comfort to the slaughtered heart and soul of little Powder; her sister had left her alone, wounded her both mentally and physically. The raindrops and claps of thunder drowned her desperate tears and screams. She was just trying to help, so why did Vi do that to her?
What now? Where to go? Powder was asking herself.
When she looked up with the slightest hope that the steps she heard were from her sister, she saw a sinister man instead. He had a menacing black eye and a dagger bathed in blood. That was Silco. She recognized him from earlier when he had given orders to the thugs.
That's it, she thought. Now, it was her time to die.
Silco slowly walked towards her, firmly holding the dagger as the few surviving thugs began to show up.
But she didn't want to die there; she quickly grabbed her bag and plush bunny and ran past Silco and the thugs the fastest and farthest she could.
"Bring her back," Silco ordered the two thugs closest to him . "Vander's legacy must be purged from Zaun's birth," he said as he was looking at the dead body of the man that he once considered like a brother.
Powder heard that and began to run the fastest she could. Instead of following the tunnel Vi had gotten in, she took a turn.
Hidden inside the tunnel, Vi heard that, too, as she saw her sister and the thugs passing nearby. But when she got up to go after them, someone apprehended her.
Fortunately, the thugs were tired and barely keeping up with Powder, but she kept going nonstop without looking behind.
Whoever was trying to contain Vi was using a tissue bathed with chloroform against her face in an attempt to put her down unconscious. The stench of the chemical product was burning her nose and throat, but swiftly, she was able to elbow the person behind her as she was starting to get light-headed.
She turned around to prepare to fight and saw an enforcer, but it wasn't any enforcer; it was Sheriff Grayson's second-in-command, Marcus.
Vi didn't have time to understand what he was doing there, so she immediately started a fight. Marcus tried to defend himself with his metal club, but Vi was stronger, and after just a few punches in his face and stomach were enough to throw him to the ground.
She left that alley in a sprint and looked to where she saw Powder run away; far away, she spotted Silco and another huge tatted thug who was carrying a wounded woman.
She got possessed by a sudden blood-thirsty wish to kill Silco when she recalled everything he did to her family.
Vi's raging, fast-paced steps called Silco's and the thug's attention. The moment he turned back to look at what it was, he was surprised by Vi's fist coming against his face, which threw him to the ground.
Vi grabbed Silco by his throat with both hands, not leaving a breach for him to get up. She was even drooling out of so much anger. But her blinding rage didn't let her notice that Silco was armed; she was about to demand where her sister was when she was assaulted by Silco's knife, slicing up her right eye.
She screamed in pain, letting go of Silco’s throat to clasp her hand over her eye. The tatted lackey, with the wounded woman still in his arms, resorted to using his feet to get rid of Vi. With one quick kick to her stomach, Vi was sent crashing into the cold water below.
"Well… she will be a problem later," Silco said, slightly concerned as he recovered his composure.
Vi's body wanted to shut her down at that moment; the fatigue and pain were too much. The recent wound in her face was burning violently with the salt water from the sea.
But she couldn't end there; she fought with her leftover strength against the heavy and cold waters until she reached a beach. She got far away from the explosion site, but the light of the fire was still illuminating her. She attempted to get up, but this time, the fatigue won, and she blacked out of tiredness in the sand.
Meanwhile, Powder was still running. She wasn't even paying attention to where she was passing by. The thugs had given up on chasing her, but she didn't notice. Her panic was so extreme that she couldn’t even feel her legs tired from pain and stress.
She could only tell that her legs would crumble apart when she decided to stop. She could feel the sores and blisters that had formed on her feet and burst and bleed through her socks, but that didn't stop her from running.
She ran and ran until she realized that her body was about to stop herself; she got inside the first tight alley she could find to hide. It took just a few minutes until she passed out while she was hugging the little plush bunny to attempt to have some comfort.
Next morning.
The sun was starting to rise on the horizon, and the clouds from the previous rainy night were still dissipating. The morning began with serene pink, purple, and blue colors painting the sky. The air was crisp and carried the faint scent of salt from the nearby sea and the sound of waves crashing against the shore near the destroyed old cannery building. Ekko was circling the surroundings, looking for his friends. No one was anywhere to be found.
On the verge of losing all hope that someone survived, he finally spotted Vi lying down in the sand; her clothes were still wet, and her body was getting covered in sand.
To his relief, she was breathing, but the wound on her face, a result of the fierce battle she had fought the previous night, was looking as if an infection was starting to spread out. He shook her to wake her up; she woke up in a blast, shouting her sister's name. But the painful stinging of the slice in her face sent her weeping in pain back to lay down on the ground.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't find her yet…" Ekko said, sounding disheartened.
"She… ran off," Vi managed to say between breaths, her voice filled with unwavering determination. " She must be hiding. I have to find her!"
But as she tried to get up, the pain from the fight last night was making her body stiff and heavy; she could barely stand up without support.
"No, you need medical aid. I will go look for her in the meantime," Ekko firmly told her in an attempt to calm her nerves.
Vi wanted to go with him, but surely her body's stress would make the search slower and more complex. She agreed with that plan and went with him to look for some help for herself.
Ekko was reluctant to know the answer, but he asked anyway, "Where are… the others?"
Vi couldn't respond with words; she began to cry and sob, remembering all the images she saw of her dead friends and foster father. Ekko, who had grown close to Vi and her friends during their time together, didn't need more details; Vi's reaction to the question was enough. He, too, began to mourn with her as he was helping her leave that place.
Meanwhile…
Powder was sleeping in the alley when she was suddenly awoken by heavy machinery passing above her. That sound almost startled her to death, so she got up in a blast, still tightly holding the plush in her arms.
Her legs were in such extreme pain that she could barely stand up; she fell the moment she stood up. She didn't remember ever feeling such pain like this in her life; it was making it hard to breathe.
She wanted to scream, to cry out loud, but she didn't know where she was; it was too risky. She then sat down and began to cry silently as she was trying to massage her legs and feet in an attempt to diminish the pain.
She stood like that for nearly an hour, but even so, the pain wasn't going away. But she couldn't stay there; she looked around and noticed that everything was oddly bright. The place had a strong smell of hot iron and steam, utterly different from what she was used to in the lanes.
The movement in the streets was starting to pick up, and she could hear more and more people walking near the alley. She got up slowly, careful not to worsen the pain, and cautiously walked to one of the exits. She saw how different the architecture and the people were; it didn't look like Undercity.
She was still a bit dizzy from the fatigue and couldn't recognize the place yet. She then decided to climb up the stairs at the alley to have a higher view of the place from the top of the building.
She had a lot of difficulty due to the pain; she could feel her socks starting to get damp with the blood inside her shoes. She took a while but got there, and then she finally realized where she was: she was in Topcity. She was near a bridge but indeed ran a distance like never before, which would explain the pain.
She sat down in a moment of stasis, paralyzed by the realization of where she was, staring at the Undercity in the distance.
The images of last night slowly began to take over her mind; it was like a vivid nightmare, but no, that happened; she disobeyed Vi and created a bomb that took the lives of Vander, Mylo, Claggor, and possibly many thugs from Silco.
She was just trying to help, but she made a choice that possibly ruined everyone's lives at Undercity now that their pacifist leader was gone.
She jinxed it .
She then finally took notice of the pain in her left cheek from the punch Vi gave to her. Maybe her sister was right in doing that, she thought. Vi had always been the one to keep her in line, and maybe this time, she had a point.
She jinxed everything.
How could she come back now after that? After what she had done? The weight of her actions bore down on her, filling her with self-doubt and uncertainty.
But what if she jinxes everything again? The fear of repeating her past mistakes gnawed at her.
She couldn't come back, she told herself. She couldn't come back empty-handed with only an apology. A sense of isolation and helplessness engulfed her.
Another thing that came to her head was the blue stones she took, especially the one that exploded the apartment they were robbing and called the Enforcers' attention. All that mess with the Enforcers started because she messed up. She had made a choice, and it had led to disastrous consequences.
That was another moment where she jinxed everything.
The guilt slowly consumed every inch of her being as she stared in disbelief at the plush bunny. She couldn't shake the feeling that everything she could think of that led to that situation had something she messed up in the middle. Her mind was a whirlwind of self-doubt and regret.
Maybe Vi was right.
She was a Jinx.
Jinx.
That's who she became.
She couldn't hold it anymore; the guilt had consumed her entirely, and the mental pain was unbearable. She screamed. She screamed the loudest and longest she could until she became breathless and her throat dry.
Her painful scream echoed through the area of Piltover, scaring everyone close by; even those who were on the other side of the bridge could hear it.
She then lay down in a fetal position, tightly hugging the bunny, and began to cry heavily while rocking back and forth.
"I'm a Jinx… I'm a Jinx… I'm a Jinx," she kept repeating to herself for long minutes.
She had lost everything and accepted that was her life now: be a Jinx, a problem.
Undercity - same time
Vi and Ekko were going to the Last Drop. Vi's steps were firmer now, less reliant on Ekko's support, but the pain in her eye still occasionally sent her reeling. Ekko, ever the resourceful one, used Vi's arms' tissues to shield the wound on her face.
As they neared their destination, the air crackled with the sound of a violent conflict. The Last Drop was a battleground, with Silco's forces pushing back Vander's outnumbered allies. The scene was a chaotic dance of bodies, a symphony of shouts and clashes.
They couldn't get closer, and it was too risky. "Vi… we gotta get out of here…" Ekko said nervously, pulling Vi by the arm to the opposite direction of the bar.
Vi was solid, frozen in place. That image of Silco taking over The Last Drop was like a million stabs in her heart; that was her home, her safe place, and it was being destroyed by the same people Vander was trying to protect from the Enforcers.
She longed to unleash her fury on those responsible, but she was powerless. All she could do was silently weep in the face of the chaos.
"Vi! Let's go!" Ekko called her again, afraid that someone would see them.
With a broken and heavy heart, she turned away and followed Ekko. They had to hide somewhere; the last place Ekko could think of was Benzo's shop.
Vi couldn't deny it any longer. Her life, as she knew it, was gone forever. The weight of this realization bore down on her heart like a leaden burden.
To be continued…