Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Act I

Powder knows she’s dreaming.

Static in the air. A piercing resonance. Carefully cultivated crystals that remind her of the marbles she used to play with Mom. Honestly, past that, she doesn’t remember much. Everything had happened so quickly.

But her mind is brilliant, and it fills in the gaps. It turns that hazy, smoke-filled shock into technicolor detail.

There’s sounds coming outside, in the hallway. 

Mylo jams a chair under the handle.

“Powder, we got to go.”

The doorknob moves. Someone curses under their breath. Fear and panic and thrill light in her veins–it’s fire to fuse to powder. Her friends are all scrambling to get the last of their haul, tossing in every scrap that looks like it could be worth something. 

The person behind the door is growing more frantic. Powder doesn’t hear what they say, only her own blood pounding in her ears. She hurries to leave, corralling the last of the crystals into her bag. 

One crystal (later, in the trials, the motherfucker had called it magic) tumbles out of her hands. Thud. She remembers thinking: such pretty things shouldn’t be so heavy. 

The crystal rolls. Hits the wall. Distantly, a door slams open. 

Hands shove her out of the way.

“Pow– ”

“What– ”

BOOM .

Blinding light. Something slams into her. Everything goes dark.

Her memory skips forward. The next thing she remembers is dust and debris, everywhere. Ringing in her ears. Smoke. Someone is coughing. The smell of ozone and damp earth and ancient stone hits her like a wave. It’s all consuming, almost indecent, the way that something so shiny and polished could feel... raw . She’s pinned underneath something heavy, and there’s red everywhere, and it kind of looks like–

The details creep in: a jacket stained with axle grease, and a bandaged hand over her eyes, and the taste of copper on her tongue, and cutting through it all is this chill that something here is unnatural, something is so very wrong, and–

Powder knows she’s dreaming.

It’s the job, which is what everyone’s been calling it these last few years. It’s mostly due to a lack of a better way to say “the incident” or “Zaun’s media moment” or (and maybe this is the real gut-punch they all avoid saying) “your sister’s…you know...” 

Everything happens in flashes. Everything happens in slow motion. It’s Powder’s careful cultivation of this moment. She’s brilliant, and she’s Zaun’s most talented engineer, architect, revolutionary, you name it. Her mind tinkers with the memory, perfecting it, iterating, giving each detail a treatment and control group. But no matter which way she cuts it, there’s one constant–

Vi, completely still. Vi, who, every morning, painstakingly slicks her hair back because she wants to look more like Vander. Vi, with eyes the same pale-blue-it-was-almost-gray shade as their mother’s. Vi, who refused to teach her how to throw a punch because “ that’s what me, Mylo, and Claggor are for, dummy.” Her stupid, protective, fiercely heroic sister. Dead.

Powder knows she’s dreaming. She replays it from the beginning.

Ekko’s acting…odd. 

She could chalk it up to nerves that the big day is coming, but hell, some behavior is too out of character to ignore, even for her. And after growing up in a place like The Last Drop, where every sort of shitstain from the undercity eventually crawls their way to, Powder’s seen her fair share of odd .

Like hugging Benzo. That’s fine, not a very common occurrence, but maybe he was feeling extra sentimental. The sudden waterworks? Sweet, sure. Admittedly, a little embarrassing for all of them.

His sudden chumminess with Heimerdinger is…certainly new too. It’s explainable–they’re all scientists of course–but the yordle had been with them for years now. So, it’s weirdly timed, sure. Maybe Ekko had a research question.

But not remembering how Vi died? Genuinely surprised to hear that she had died, when Powder remembers how inconsolable they both were in the months after? Odd. Like, really fucking odd.

She has half a mind to get Ekko checked for selective amnesia, or at least delayed PTSD. It’s not uncommon for Zaun residents to experience side effects from the Gray, even years later. There will always be something separating the Topsiders from the Undercity, and it could be as simple and wretched as dormant illnesses, atrophied limbs, or minds that have reached new points of breakage. 

Powder hopes desperately none of these are the case with her Ekko, but he’s starting to feel more and more like a stranger with each passing moment. Every touch is met with a flinch. She leans in, and he gets this shininess to his eyes that is equal parts terror, disbelief, and hope. None of it makes sense.

That is, until he shows her shards from that fucking crystal. And everything feels like it starts sliding again.

She’s not quite sure yet if it’s the pieces sliding together, or if it’s the feeling of everything slipping from her fingers. It doesn’t make any sense. Powder wants to ask him: Where’s the sudden interest coming from? Are you trying to replicate the incident that, in one instance, ruined our family and saved Zaun? Why are you digging up old graves? What could possibly move you to revisit the lab of that madman who believed in magic?

On the other hand, a small part of her feels vindicated. I was right, she wants to scream from the underbelly of Uncle Silco’s lab to the top of Piltover’s towers. You all moved away too quickly. See? There was something we buried with her. And it makes every rerun of that damned memory feel worth it. 

Ekko talks about a dream of a different life, but he speaks with the sorrow and cadence of an oft-told story. Honestly, everything slotted together at that moment. All the strange notes, the technical conversations with Heimerdinger, even Ekko’s memories that were equal parts fictitious and missing. It’s Occam’s Razor. Parsimony. The simplest answer from all these disparate, nonsensical facts.

That’s for her to put together later though. Right now, she’s staring at the mural of Vi, and there’s a buzzing between her eyes. Powder knows her sister, who loomed so large in life, died so terribly young. By all counts, and she’s tried to avoid the math every time the anniversary comes by, Powder has already lived a decade longer than her sister has. It doesn’t quite set in until moments like now, staring up at this older version of her sister.

The hair is longer, a deeper red. There’s a tattoo under her left eye. Her sister finally grew into her features–the aquiline nose, intense eyes, perpetual scowl. Janna, this…this is more than she could have ever hoped for. Vi looks like she’s still hunting for her next fight. She never looks like that in Powder’s memories anymore.

It fills her with a dangerous, impossible ache. How can she grieve, when this glimpse is more than she could have ever hoped for?

She repeats to herself, like a mantra, like a prayer, taking a leap forward means leaving a few things behind .

There’s moments that are pure light, though. 

Like this: Ekko and Powder on the steps overlooking Piltover. She’s done her hair just the way she likes it for formal events, with the pink streak peeking out from underneath. The evening has been a whirlwind of breakthroughs and festivities. Warmth bubbles up within her when she thinks about everything they’ve built, about the Zaun they’ve pieced together through blisters and bedrock.

He asks her, “Can we just…pretend like it’s the first time?” 

Again. Occam’s Razor. Another odd request added to the idea forming in the back of Powder’s mind. It doesn’t matter just yet though, because her Ekko (and well…technically speaking maybe not her Ekko) is there, heartbroken and hopeful.

Hand on his cheek. Powder draws from her memories, and the ghost of the same tenderness will always remain between them. It was an easy ask, anyway. Every kiss will always feel like their first. Together, they are always inventing something new.

Later, she tells herself the same thing while sneaking into the lab behind Ekko. It’s been weeks of overhearing him and Heimerdinger talk about time, space, and “getting back.” Janna, do they think she’s an idiot? 

Today though, something is different. Namely, there’s a big, fat thing in the middle of her lab. It pulses irregularly, an otherworldly orb that webs. She knows that whatever this thing is, it’s reality breaking. Every fiber of her being wants to recoil, rejecting this perversion. 

Time slows. Four seconds. Ekko shouts. Something is wrong. There’s no time to think. Heimerdinger jumps out of the singularity, and, in his place–

Powder takes the leap.

(It almost feels like Vi’s hands pushing her forward, away from the crystals, careening towards some terrible and unreal future where she isn’t there.)

Chapter Text

If there’s one thing about Vi, it's that she rolls with the punches.

Which, in a literal sense, actually isn’t quite true. When Vi goes down in a fight, she goes down hard, and it’s this  whole messy, ugly business of broken bones and spurting blood and splotchy bruises. Figuratively though, well – from being orphaned to orphaned again to prison to pitfighting to all out war – she does what she can. 

Day in, day out, everything and everyone around her always changes. Vi will be solid enough, unchanging, for them to all come home to. (“You have a good heart ,” but no matter how hard she fights or holds on, it is never enough to make them stay. When the world falls to pieces, it will always be her fault.)

During what they’re all tentatively calling the “Reunification,” Vi does what she does best. She rolls with the punches, and she develops a routine.

Every morning, Vi wakes in a cold sweat. She waits for the sunrise in bed, until her chest stops heaving. It is the one moment of silence she affords herself, when even memories feel unreal and hazy, before everything, all the pain and hurt and suffering, comes crashing all around her. 

Then: the rest of the day falls into place. This is the easy part; purpose, to Vi, is a constant thrum of protect the family, you don’t get to be selfish . As long as she keeps moving and indulges in her most familiar vice– pain, pain, pain –the hours will slip by.

With no hexgate, no fancy hextech, they have to rebuild the cities brick by brick. Vi is familiar with this: raw labor, strength as its own language, sweat dripping between her shoulder blades. 

No, she thinks. There is no time to mourn . And just like that, another day passes.

This morning is one of the rare good ones, the blue dawn suffusing through Cait’s curtains. Her lover’s sleeping profile is made for these in-between hours, long hair gleaming a dark blue-black, pale skin luminous in the dim light. A scar crosses over her left eye as a shiny, silvery streak.

Small wonder that Cait lost her left eye, not the one she uses for her sniper scope. Small wonder that they’re both alive. Vi doesn’t understand how any of this is fair. Everyone has come out of the war dead or permanently changed. Meanwhile, Vi’s still here, unscathed, with none of the damage she deserves. 

She reaches out, softly tracing the edge of Cait’s scar with her knuckles. 

Cait stirs, stretches, still sleep-warm and languid. Half conscious, she reaches and takes Vi’s hand in her’s.

“Good morning, Violet.” she says, sighing.

And oh. The way Cait says her name in full never fails to make Vi’s heart jump a little bit out of nostalgia, surprise, genuine wonder. She also draws it out, almost a drawl, with every syllable just a little more crisp than it needs to be. Vi-o-let . Savoring the sound, holding onto the letters with a mouthwatering grace. It’s hot. It’s also been a long, long time since she felt like someone say her name–Vander’s first gift to her–like it actually matters.

And Vi tells herself that that piece of happiness makes it all worth it. It’s enough. It has to be. She doesn’t deserve more than this.

At the end of the day, “Reunification” is really just a fancy name slapped over a haphazard process. 

On paper, Vi is leading a rebuilding effort that is simultaneously healing Piltover and Zaun’s shared traumas and bridging old hurts. They drum it up to be this big media moment, a symbolic representation of wounds smoothed over, forgiveness abound, shared trauma. In practice, Vi spends most of her time breaking up fights, holding back her own temper, and snarking at Sevika.

Lately, it’s been the third option that makes Vi want to tear her goddamn hair out.

She slams the rebuilding plans onto the table. There’s red ink crossing out entire pages. For the last few weeks, Sevika has declined every blueprint plan that would connect Piltover and Zaun. Proposal after proposal, each one is sent back to the architects with a swathe of corrections that, when cross referenced, can never be satisfied.

“Can you, for once in your life, not be such a bitch ? You do realize that none of this is possible, right? It’s like you’re purposely wasting everyone’s time.” 

Sevika snorts. “I stopped listening to Vander when you were still a shitty little anklebiter. You think I’m going to start taking orders from you now?”

“News flash! We’re on the same side, asshole.”

“Sorry if I don't completely trust your judgement. Aren’t you busy keeping Commander Kiramman’s bed warm?”

“Yuuup," Vi says, popping the 'p' at the end. "Every night. Why? Riding off Silco’s coattails not enough for you?”

“Please,” Sevika spits next to Vi’s shoe. “You wouldn’t get it. Piltie-sympathizer through and through.”

Vi waves the blueprints in front of her face. “Then explain it to me. What’s wrong with the proposals? It’s everything we had always asked for, and then some.”

“Like I can trust the Topsiders to carry through because of a sheet of paper? No. I need assurances. And until I get them, I’m not approving jack shit.”

“You know trust goes both ways right?”

“Don’t talk to me about trust, Vi.” Sevika scoffs. Her eyes narrow. “You know, I watched the two of you grow up. I never would have expected that Jinx would turn out to be the loyal one.”

Vi recoils. Inhale. Exhale.

Cait’s relying on her to make sure that the open borders with Zaun goes off without a hitch. C’mon, Vi. Peace. World fucking peace. Try again.

“Sevika,” Vi says, tone as measured as she can. Inhale. Exhale. Peace . 

She slams her hands on the table. The blueprint papers go flying around them. Vi grabs at the older woman’s collar.

“Keep my sister’s name out of your goddamn mouth.”

Sevika scoffs. “Don’t make me laugh. You didn’t claim her for years. Silco picked up the pieces because you abandoned her."

"No, he manipulated her when Marcus tossed me into a jail cell. Not the same thing."

"Honestly, I should be thanking you," Sevika says. Mechanical fingers reach up to grab onto Vi's wrist, tight enough to bruise. "Jinx became the symbol none of us could have dreamed of becoming.”

“And she died for it.” Fabric crinkles under Vi’s fingers. She needs to hold it together. She wants to punch Sevika in the teeth.

Sevika wrenches herself out of Vi’s grasp. “Vander died for it. Silco died for it. The girl knew what she had to do.”

“You can’t honestly believe that. Zaun meant everything to everyone.” Vi shakes her head. Her hands are trembling. She curls them into fists. “But not to us. Not after Mom. It was always each other first.”

There’s a beat of silence. Just outside in the hallway, the idle chatter of the other Councilors filters through. Something about Mel, a child's toy, and bribery. There's immediate laughter. It's all so inane, while Vi and Sevika are still trapped in Zaun, in the dream, even all the way up here.

Sevika must feel it too because she curses softly under her breath. Her shoulders slump. From one breath to the next, the fight goes out of both of them, like a candle flame pinched between two fingers.

“...you’re not wrong. That’s how she was with Isha too. Nothing about Zaun ever really seemed to interest her very much.” She barks out a laugh. It's probably meant to come out bitter, but to Vi, it just sounds sad. “What the hell are we doing, Vi? Blueprints and shit. That was always more their thing than our's.

"Now, it's not just Topside and the Undercity. It's gods. Noxus. Continental conspiracies. We're so out of our depth here." Sevika gestures at the paper scattered around them. "All we know is the fight."

She glances at Vi and says, "How the hell are we the only ones left?”

Vi looks up, heavenward. Open skylights reveal a clear, cloudless day. It reminds her of the first time they all snuck out to the rooftops of Piltover, just a bunch of dumb kids hauling each other up the city pipes. Powder's laughter bouncing from rafter to rafter, climbing up the vents of Zaun, intermingling with that first, miraculous intake of clean air.

Inhale. Exhale. 

“...I don’t know. I'm not sure if we'll ever deserve it.” Vi says. She shrugs. "We just have to be the ones to see it through.”

The room dims as a giant shadow crosses over them, blanketing the Piltover towers for just a moment - it's a blimp, flying overhead. Light floods the room in swathes of afternoon sun as it passes by.

By the time Vi looks down again, with a concession on her tongue, Sevika is straightening up from a crouch. Her back is turned towards Vi, and she walks out of the room without another word. The doors slam closed behind her, but not before Vi catches a glimpse of white paper clutched in a mechanical hand. 

The next day, a blueprint plan is approved. They're cleared to open the borders.

(There's Vander's voice, in the back of Vi's mind, saying over and over and over again, When people look up to you, you don’t get to be selfish.)

You have a good heart.

Mom’s unseeing eyes. Vander’s last breath sputters out from beneath her. An explosion of blue light. Despair mixes with the dust coating her tongue. Someone’s arm in the rubble and oh, gods, its Mylo–its Claggor–

Protect the family.

Loris with an arrow sticking out from his neck. Flashes of blue haired corpses on the battlefield. That first sight of Cait after : a frightful spill of blood down her left cheek. Isha, wide eyed and so terribly young, running towards a blue oblivion.

Always with you, sis.

Her sister slipping from her grasp turns into a young Powder reaching for her hand turns into Jinx holding an empty flare and “things changed when you left.” 

The nightmare cycles back again to Mom’s unseeing eyes. 

Vi wakes up screaming.

She can’t seem to breathe. Wave after wave of sobs. There’s not enough air. Vi draws in these great gulps of breath, and there isn’t enough fucking air . She pounds her fists against her chest, and the dull pain grounds her. Knuckles to sternum. An ache that reverberates through her bones. 

Vi has a routine for a reason. There is no time to mourn, because it would all catch up to her at once, and Vi would be mourning, drowning, until the day she dies.

Cait’s hands are cupping her face, catching the tears with her thumbs. Vi clutches onto her wrists like a lifeline, and she wails.

The rest of the day is a bust.

It’s another rough day.

Despite the slow-going strides she’s made with Sevika, there’s still some wounds that can never be fully smoothed over. And rightfully so–there’s a preciousness with the dream of Zaun. It’s only right that Sevika is so cautious and possessive. They cannot let it be tainted by carelessness.

They’ve also been at each other’s throats all morning. Vi threw a chair. Sevika upended a table. The other Councilors tittered nervously around them, until Vi stormed off to the training room.

Worst of all, when Vi wakes, there’s a note on her bed stand from Cait. In loopy, nearly illegible handwriting it says something along the lines of “following a lead,” and “it was imperative that I chase it down immediately,” and “I trust you. I love you. Please don’t burn down the city while I’m gone. Or really, the rest of the city that isn’t already rubble.” A crudely drawn cupcake is hastily sketched at the bottom of the paper, where a corner is starting to curl. The paper crumples under Vi’s grip.

I would have gone with her, she thinks. Why didn’t she wake me?

That is all to say, Vi is already in no mood for talking when Ekko approaches her.

“Listen…Vi–”

Vi inhales through her teeth. Throws another punch. The punching bag’s chain rattles from the force.

“Really not the time, man.”

“You know how I had that whole time schtick going?” Ekko continues on, instead of shutting up when Vi glares at him “Back during the final battle?”

“Hard to miss.” Another punch. The bag is starting to look deflated.

“Yeah…well there was a lot of other backstory to it. Like, Heimerdinger and I didn’t enter the timeline at the same point in time, and I think that’s what–” He blanches at the mention of the Piltover founder. “Oh Janna. Shit. Did I ever mention Heimerdinger is dead?”

What. “What?”

“Yeah he’s–anyway–okay, not the point, but also so very much the point. Anyways, this…other timeline. It was like everything we ever wanted as kids. A fully independent Zaun, Benzo alive– Vander alive. Like the past decade we lived here was just a dream.”

Vi groans. Raises an eyebrow. “Are you just trying piss me off right now? I don't want to hear about how great it must have been there.” She shakes her head. “We can’t change anything now.”

“Okay, well, Heimerdinger…he didn’t make it back. He…” Ekko closes his eyes. “He sacrificed himself. We couldn’t have come back without him jumping out from the singularity. It changed everything. And I think in his place, I-I might have brought something back instead.”

“Listen…Ekko,” Vi starts. The punching bag is still swinging from her last punch, so she reaches to steady it. She taps her foot. Shit, she’s so bad at this comforting stuff. Where’s Cait with all the right words when you need her? “I’m so sorry–”

Someone’s head peeks into the training room. Blue hair, pink streak.

A voice, which is so entirely Mom’s rasp and cadence and confidence, cuts through everything else.

“Ekko,” the stranger says, exasperated. “How long do you expect me to wait outside while you–oh. Oh.”

Time slows.

Vi recognizes the exact moment realization flits across that familiar face. She catalogs the features: the same scrunched nose, the same pinch between those brows when she’s either tinkering with a new project or on the verge of tears.

A memory: hands on Mom’s stomach, feeling the first kicks. Dark hair tickling her cheek. A lullaby that still rises in every memory, dream, nightmare, haunting, that Vi is sometimes half-convinced she conjured it entirely on her own–

Dear friend across the river…

Vi thinks, I don’t actually remember what it was like, not being a sister.

She drops her gloves to the mat.

“Powder?”

Chapter Text

If she had to choose, Powder’s favorite memory is the first time Vi took her Topside. Your first real lungful of clean air isn’t something you forget easily. In that moment, everything dilates, the world opens up before you, because all that came before you has unravelled. This is what her lungs were meant to feel, all the time? This is what they were made for?

That isn’t why it’s Powder’s favorite memory though. It also wasn’t because seeing the sky widen from a narrow slit between buildings into a blue horizon felt like experiencing a miracle. Nor was it because of the novelty of Piltover fashion, the sweeping architecture, the streets limned with gold light. 

This is Powder’s favorite memory because she knew that same day, her older sister had, all on her own, found a vent that went straight to the top of Piltover. She would have had to climb it herself, painstakingly check it for every risk or trap or danger. Vet the surrounding areas for Enforcer patrols.

And, when she finally made it to the top, her older sister must have marveled at that clean air and impossible sky–blue oblivion as far as the eye could see. And rather than bask, or linger, or keep it to herself, as the rest of them would have—Vi had immediately turned her back on heaven. She chose to descend all the way back down through the smog and smoke to the Undercity, just so she could share that same feeling with the rest of them.

(Their moment in the sun had been short lived, ending when Mylo had accidentally kicked over a paint bucket. The day after, when they gathered enough courage to try again, Enforcers had already sealed the vent.

Vi had been pissed for a week. But when Mylo finally worked up the will to ask how upset she was with him, Vi had shook her head and said, “No. I should have checked beforehand for fall risks. It was on me.”)

Powder returns to that memory often. On the bad days, it feels like rewinding a music box with the notes out of tune.

Goodness does not come naturally to Powder. Greatness, sure. She knows that Silco never could have designed the aqueducts that brought the Undercity freshwater, nor could Vander have navigated the tricky legal traps in the Piltover contracts. However, everything she has built since, all the strides and concessions and sacrifices they made to achieve the dream of Zaun, sprung from that well of goodness in Vi, something that came as easy to her as breathing.

Powder has been trying to repay that debt ever since. 

She might get a chance now.

“Powder?”

The hair is longer than in the mural–it’s also, for some bizarre reason, streaked with black dye– and she definitely looks worse for wear. There’s more bandages, more bruises than she’s ever seen on her sister (which is saying something given Vi’s penchant for violence), and by Janna, has her sister packed on the muscle.

Still, though, the eyes are Mom’s eyes, that same pale-blue-almost-gray. Her lips wobble the same way they did when she was younger and about to cry (and isn’t that a weird feeling, remembering her big sister as just a kid). 

Powder’s favorite memory unspools within her; she rewinds it like a music box; it feels like Ekko using the singularity to turn back time. It’s push and pull, the concepts are diametrically opposed. Time has skipped forward because Vi is taller and older and alive ; time has started to slip backwards because Powder feels like she’s a decade younger, blindly following her sister on the rooftops of Piltover. She sees Mom and Vander in everything Vi is now, and she knows Vi is in everything Powder has ever been. It’s all colliding in on itself. It’s all recursive.

It doesn’t fucking matter. Powder’s mind is thinking through theorems and physics and time-space continuum, while her body has already crashed into Vi’s, grasping at her arms. Unbelieving. For once, the science works, yes, because she’s travelled dimensions so maybe the atoms aren’t quite the same, so theoretically, this isn’t really her sister–but the heart, oh the heart comprehends existence differently.

“How did you–”

“You’re–”

“No you –”

“You died ,” they say, at once. There’s a stunned silence. Ekko winces.

“Yeah…about that…” He clears his throat. “Okay. So. You know how I was saying there was another timeline? Where everything was different, and I mean everything. And then y’know, my time thing, and–and Heimerdinger’s sacrifice.” He pauses. “Well, I might have brought back a stray?”

He gestures at Powder with both hands, like he’s presenting a science project. Powder stares at his hands, bewildered. 

That’s what he goes with? Powder hasn’t seen her dead sister in a decade; she’s been whisked away to this post-apocalyptic nightmare, and her alternate universe boyfriend can’t even say her name ?

She looks down at her sister, and–

Her mind stalls to a stop.

Looks down ?

In her timeline, Powder has long since grown taller than her dead older sister. The marks on their bunker wall for Vi stopped somewhere at her shoulder. But it’s different here, having her alive. It cements something. Her older sister, who is massive by all other counts of presence and muscle and intensity, is an inch shorter than Powder. 

Vander had predicted once, when he was in one of those rare wistful moods, if Vi had been given the same nutrient boosters, the same sunlight, she would have been as tall as Claggor. “She got your Pa’s broad shoulders, and Connol was tall, mind you. She would have been a bruiser for sure.”

Vi must be coming to the same realization because she glances to the top of Powder’s head, and her brows furrow, and she opens her mouth, and–

Fuck it. It’s all way too much. Powder buries her face in her hands and bursts into tears.

There’s a pause. Then, all at once, Vi’s gathering her in her arms, hissing “ Ekko! ” (“What! What’d I say?”), and it’s everything Powder has ever wanted. Vi-alive.

But it's also Vi, clearly still caught in the jaws of their upbringing, still in the same nightmare of poverty and violence and oppression they grew up in. Bandages, bruises, blood everywhere. And Powder fixes things, she's spent the last decade trying to make things right. It's cruel that the universe can't even give this version of Vi an inkling of that. What was it all for? Why is her sister still in this fight?

Everything here feels so wrong (why is Piltover full of rubble? Where is everyone? Every atom in her is screaming that she doesn’t belong here).

She’s not getting enough air. Someone, far away, is telling her to “breathe, Pow, c’mon. ”

Powder blacks out.

The first time Powder wakes up, she’s caught in the throes of a familiar nightmare.  

Static in the air. A piercing resonance.  

There’s too much. Time theories are rattling in her mind against dreams of Vi’s corpse, and everything is coated in a terrible, cruel technicolor haze. Where is she? When is she?

She squeezes her eyes shut. Her cheeks are wet. A decade of exhaustion is crashing around her.

There’s a hand in her hair, and a familiar hum. It feels nice. Warm.

“Mom?” Powder mumbles. A sharp intake of breath, somewhere to her right. The hand pauses. 

“Go back to sleep, Powder.” 

“...mkay.”

The voice is familiar (Powder is brilliant. She knows she’s dreaming. There’s no one else that voice could belong to). 

There’s nothing to do, but keep dreaming. Maybe that voice will return. It’s never said something new before. She wants to replay it from the beginning.

Powder sinks back into sleep, like a stone in water, like bodies in a Zaunite funeral.

The second time that Powder wakes, reality rushes in at once.

She rattles the facts off in her mind: Ekko was acting weird. All the weird notes and the singularity . She’s in an alternate timeline. There was a war here, at the very least. Her sister’s alive. Her sister–

The facts, Powder. Stick to the facts. Look around you.  

She’s alone.

She’s in a four poster bed softer than a cloud. Her hand smooths the bedsheet, and it glides over the material like butter.

The room is…certainly not any space in The Last Drop, even if this is a different universe. There’s some things that could never change, never be washed out, and the smell of Zaunite beer is one of them. 

In fact, it’s distinctly Piltover architecture. Classic beams support either side of the room, latticed with ornate, gold detail. There’s a skylight above–a privilege that says this is definitely Piltover–showing a night sky littered with stars, of all things. Not only that, it’s clearly accommodations for someone important, like an ambassador at the very least. 

Is Vi a Zaunite ambassador? She couldn’t really see her sister in a diplomacy role, but well, that wouldn’t be the craziest thing that’s happened today.

There’s voices in the hall. Powder tiptoes over, and presses her ear against the door.

“...don’t get it, Vi. You never do.”

“It should have been me, Ekko.” Vi’s voice is resigned. “Fuck , I think this proves it more than anything else, doesn’t it? It’s not even that I always choose wrong–just me existing makes everything go wrong. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“Don’t you dare say that,” and Ekko’s voice is firm, but Powder can hear it waver at the end of the sentence. “I miss all of them just as much as you do. You know I do. But that’s so unfair.”

“It’s true.”

“For a decade, we thought you were dead. None of us knew you were in Stillwater. And everything still went to shit anyway. How on earth is any of this on you?”

“You told me in that timeline, everyone else was alive. Even I can do the math.” She scoffs. “It’s not just Vander, Benzo, or our friends. It’s this entire war.”

“That’s a lot to put on yourself..”

“Ekko, please.” Her sister’s voice trembles. “My death would have prevented hextech. There is no world where that isn’t objectively for the better.”

“Okay. So, somehow, you’ve managed to convince yourself that a battle–which literally by the way, transcended our plane of reality –is all on you? Are you even hearing yourself? Do you really think any of us would agree with that?”

“You’re not listening to me–”

“No, you listen. All this shit is above us. I had to use time travel to even give Jayce a chance. Time. Travel. And we still don’t know what the hell he did to make things right! It could have been anything. 

“Hell, I’m the reason you all even went to Jayce’s apartment in the first place. Would you blame me for that? Put all that on me?”

A sigh. “No, I wouldn’t. But that still–”

Ekko groans in frustration. “I feel like I’m talking to a wall.”

“You just don’t want to admit that I’m right. The math is all there. There are literally no upsides.” The sound of a soft thud against the wall. “Shit. Zaun would have been independent ten years earlier without me. I was the jinx this whole time, huh?”

”Very funny.”

“You know I’m right.”

“Okay. Fine. Even if there was a right answer, how about this–I’ve tried to get through to Jinx for years. You don’t know the half of it. Countless Firelight operations and solo missions for someone who didn’t want to hear it.

“And the first person to wake her from that dream in a decade was you. And maybe it all went sideways anyway, but Jinx held onto that flare all those years for a reason. It didn’t undo anything, and we still have all this damage, but it still meant something. You don’t get to say that it doesn’t.

“We all went through so much shit, but that’s our shit to carry. Not your’s.”

He huffs out an aggravated sigh. “And Vi, honestly speaking, I feel like I only just got you back. You can’t say all of that and think I would just agree. We’re family too.” 

Silence. Powder holds her breath, not daring to move.

Then, a shuddering breath.

“...who let you go and grow up so much?”

“You were in Stillwater for a long time.”

When Ekko speaks again, his voice is quiet.

“...I don’t think I’ve seen you cry since Vander died.”

“Shut up, and just c’mere, Little Man.”

There’s a rustle of movement, and the sound of someone trying to hold back tears, muffled by fabric. 

Powder retreats back to the bed. She shouldn’t be hearing this. 

Third time’s the charm. This time, Powder wakes when the sky has only just started to lighten. It’s a blue hour. The skylight above is blank, cloudless.

Vi is snoring softly to the right of her, curled up in a chair in what is possibly the most uncomfortable position Powder has ever seen someone sleep in. Her eyebrows are bunched together, anguished even when asleep,

Powder holds her breath. Reaches out. She still can’t quite believe it. People never just come back, not like this. Her hand cups the cheek with that tattoo, and it feels bizarre to pantomime what Vi used to do to her when she was upset. Still, strange though it may be, it settles something in Powder that she thought healed long ago.

Gods. She has so many scars. Some are faint, criss crossing each other up her arms, through tattoos. There’s one on her lip, and another through her eyebrow. There’s signs of a still-healing wound on her abdomen, where Vi has instinctually favored one side over the other. Janna, Is there a universe where her sister doesn’t need to fight?

Her sister must be exhausted. She barely stirs as Powder tries to haul her out of the chair. In fact, she doesn’t budge at all.

(What the hell has Vi been eating? Pure metal? Vander’s mining gauntlets?)

“Upsie daisies, Vi. Let’s get you to bed.”

Her sister mumbles something nonsensical, but Powder manages to hear the tail end of something rhyming with “bait.” Hate? Whatever. Vi is half-asleep still, but conscious enough for Powder to coax her into the bed, tuck her under the blankets, and lounge on the newly empty seat.

You died , Vi had said, earlier. Huh. So no matter what, it’s always one of them. Some sort of cursed universal constant? Powder rests her head back on the chair.

The door creaks open a crack. Powder rolls her head to look towards the sound.

“Morning,” Ekko whispers, sheepish. “Thought I heard one of you wake up.”

“Didn’t sleep?” Powder whispers back. It’s a familiar sight: her lover, with his hair mussed to one side, bags under his eyes, mind tinkering through a concept or worrying about a million details.

“I still can’t believe you’re both here.”

“Neither can I.” The blue hour makes everything hazy. It makes her want to be brave, ask the questions that would disintegrate in the afternoon sun. “...I take it your Powder wasn’t always around?” 

“It’s…complicated.”

Powder smiles, and wiggles two fingers near her forehead. “More complicated than us right now? Don’t think it gets much more complicated than being seduced again by your own dimension travelling boyfriend.”

He huffs out a soft laugh, but there’s a shine to his eyes. “Sorry about that. It’s just…something we never got, here.”

“I’m not her, Ekko.” Powder says, trying to keep her voice gentle.

“I know. But, you’re one version of her that we used to know. I’ve missed you,” he says, then nods to Vi’s sleeping form. “We both did.”

She takes one more look at Vi. The scars, the bruises, a still-healing wound. All the damage that Vi just takes on, wounds on top of wounds.

The sun has started to rise, and Piltover gold shimmers in the light. It shines, even where it peeks out from beneath the rubble.

“I’m gonna need you to catch me up to speed on this timeline," Powder says, rising from the chair. She pauses, considering. "Also, whose house is this?"

Chapter Text

Act II

When the grief was at its worst, the shooting competition with Grayson would rise, wraithlike, through the fog of Caitlyn’s mind like the Gray. The pop of a champagne bottle overlaps the sharp sound of a bullet piercing its target. There’s the feeling of simultaneous thrill and befuddled insecurity because Caitlyn believes in things like decisive, earned victories. 

Why would Grayson hold her shot? It doesn’t make sense. First to shoot, last to die. You aim, fire, and win. It doesn’t count otherwise.

(In the prison, Jinx had said, "She can't accept what you and I know. There are no happy endings.” )

Caitlyn Kiramman has always seen the world as a construct of straight lines and clear delineations, the feeling of aiming down sights. Everything in her world is a matter of principle and focus; it can all be broken down into three constituent pieces: Caitlyn, her weapon, and the target. It’s her, a rifle, and Jinx. It’s Commander, the Gray, and Zaun. The rest of the world can fall to the wayside, until Caitlyn Kiramman gets what she wants, which will always, always boil down to a perfect, uninterrupted shot. 

Life had felt so uncomplicated when she was just “the Kiramman girl” at the academy, ready to prove herself. The enforcer badge had once felt like grand accomplishment in the face of her parents’ ire and every mocking “Princess” by the others. Solving a case and reading a crime scene were sterile, straightforward endeavors–after all, if the facts align, a criminal is a criminal. 

Right and wrong were partitioned in her mind like a scalpel through flesh, the lines emboldened by a single-minded clarity and the devotion to do the right thing. She’s a decorated officer for these very reasons. She’s obsessive and paranoid and deeply afraid for these very reasons.

(Vi saying, “You expect everyone to give you what you want.” There’s an easy answer to that: of course. Caitlyn always knows the next step, and it comes to her as easy as breathing. But it’s all gone wrong. Somewhere, the answers have slipped away from her fingers. Suddenly, it feels a lot like Vi snatching the barrel of her rifle mid-air. Unbridled rage because she had the shot. Her mother in a casket and Ambessa in her ear and Vi in the rubble of an undercity church, while Caitlyn holds her head high and climbs up, up, up. It’s the terrified eyes of a young, Zaunite girl.

She doesn’t know what she wants anymore.)

In the coming weeks after the war, Grayson’s low voice haunts her waking days, rasping, “Begs the question, young Kiramman. What are you shooting for?”

Healing is a long, arduous journey. Navigating the world with one eye becomes an entire overhaul of Caitlyn’s everyday life–even the simplest acts are now unbalanced, tilted, imperfect. It irks her to no end.

“You need to rest.” Vi says, when she finds Caitlyn doubled over on the staircase with one palm pressed against the eyepatch, the other clinging to the railing for support. “Piltover can wait.”

“There’s more work to be done.” Caitlyn resists the urge to completely sag into Vi’s side as the shorter woman loops one arm over her shoulder and takes on most of her weight. It’s a near thing. “We cannot allow ourselves to become vulnerable to malactors.”

“We just won a war. I think you can give yourself a break.” Vi’s voice is terribly soft. The hand at her side is steadfast, as all things are when it comes to Vi and holding on. Caitlyn doesn’t understand how, after years of being hardened by a world that wants to break her, Vi is able to still be so gentle. 

It’s maddening–that capacity for forgiveness, for goodness. She slides off six years in Stillwater like it’s nothing. Prison brawls, warden beatings, a cold and bloody solitude, yet Vi’s default is still an unadulterated, all-consuming trust. Jinx and Caitlyn think in binaries and betrayal. How could they have forced her to choose, knowing that it would hurt her the most?

“How?” she says instead and clings to the lapel of Vi’s jacket. Her whole body is trembling. “How do you bear it all?”

Vi’s hand tightens at her side. She doesn’t answer.

“Promise me that you’ll tell me if it’s ever too much,” Cait presses, when the silence has stretched too long. She places her hand over Vi’s, pretending it could be enough. There’s no telling what could be going on her mind right now, what calculations of guilt and punishment. “Violet.”

They’ve made it to her bedroom door. House Kiramman sits empty besides the two of them. Her father had been among the first groups to evacuate Piltover, at Caitlyn’s insistence. She doesn’t know if he could ever stand to return, when there are so many ghosts here.

“Don’t worry about it, Cupcake,” Vi says. She offers her an easy, exhausted smile. “I’m fine.”

You’re not , Caitlyn wants to say. You can’t talk to me about Jinx. I see the guilt in your eyes when you see my mother’s portrait. You cannot grieve properly. But loss is loss, Vi, and this house is haunting you. 

For the first time in a long time, the right thing to do is clear: Caitlyn should tell Vi to leave. It’s only fair. She knows that Vi would never be able to properly heal, if she believes she needs to be strong for Caitlyn. But every time Caitlyn tries, her throat seems to close up. She can’t get the words out. When she thinks of Jinx, Caitlyn’s thoughts still ricochet between her mother’s corpse, mad laughter, and that broken girl in a cell. Selfishly, a small part of her still wants Vi to choose between the two of them.

Caitlyn knows turning a blind eye (and isn’t that a joke in itself) to Vi’s grief is a form of cowardice. When Jinx was imprisoned, she knew that loving Vi meant giving her a choice. So much of Vi's life has been at the whim of others. In understanding this, Caitlyn has to believe that her love for Vi overshadows her own bone-deep, familiar need to prove herself.

Even so, she still cannot bear the idea of being alone in this house full of ghosts. Days pass into weeks. Cowardice, Caitlyn realizes, pressing a kiss into Vi's cheek, is sweet, intoxicating, and damning.

They don’t speak on the days Vi returns home with her hands shoved in her pockets. Caitlyn doesn’t ask to see, because she doesn't want to overstep. She doesn’t want to admit to herself that there’s an element of cowardice to it too. If she doesn’t see the new scabs on Vi’s knuckles, she can’t confirm the hurt either.

Caitlyn has long suspected that Vi is punishing herself, that maybe she’s been doing so long before they even met. The suspicion begins in that first prison cell, the elevator numbers ticking higher and higher as the floors sink past her. It heightens when the warden follows behind her, hitting every cell bar with a metal pipe, chuckling.

At that moment, she hadn’t thought much of it. Things were moving so fast. Caitlyn was still riding that high of using Jayce’s Councilor status, feeling the selfish thrill of doing an unselfish action, of “ I’m doing the right thing,” and there was an Undercity conspiracy at her fingertips. This pink haired inmate with the bloodied knuckles, who rolled her shoulders in preparation for another “chat” with the warden, was the least of her worries. 

Now, with the world healing, and the fact she shares her bed with that same inmate-turned-friend-turned-lover, she tries to put the pieces together. Never begrudge Caitlyn Kiramman when there’s a chance to solve an enigma, trace patterns back to their origin. In the same way that she envisions bullet shells returning to barrels, Caitlyn maps out the litany of Vi’s wounds, past and present, trying to understand who took the first shot.

She catalogs the old ones first: the small scar on her upper lip, the ridges of long-healed burns, the slight slant of her nose from countless breaks. Vi doesn’t complain about it often, but Caitlyn knows that every now and then, her lower back also aches something terrible, like something large had fallen on her, and she never quite healed from it. 

There’s newer ones, too. Deeper, hidden. Caitlyn’s seen the medical scans, even if Vi refuses to acknowledge them, calling it “privileged Piltie bullshit.” The numbers swim in Caitlyn’s vision; a doctor saying, hushed, “a concerning amount of abdominal tears and internal injuries.” It’s rare, but sometimes, when Vi thinks Caitlyn isn’t looking, she’ll grip her bad shoulder, close her eyes, and wait through a wave of pain.

Honestly, she shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be the one at Vi’s side. Vi deserves better than coming home to someone who has only added to the damage. Caitlyn doesn’t know what to do with what Vi gives so freely–an unadulterated, incandescent forgiveness.

Everything has gone sideways. Her mother is still dead. Jayce is dead. Jinx is dead. None of it mattered at all, in the end, did it? Caitlyn has lost herself over and over again. She understands, with a vicious and devastating certainty, how Jinx had lost her mind to her grief, to her hatred. 

Hating you, I’ve hated myself . If their places had been reversed, had the chess pieces of Piltover and Zaun and Hextech been rearranged, would it have been Caitlyn in that prison cell? 

At night, Caitlyn thumbs at the scar Vi’s lips, places her palm against the phantom wound at her side. Lips against the spot where she had struck Vi herself. She tries to replace every harsh touch, all the damage, with the memory of something softer.

Caitlyn could spend the rest of her life repenting. She could spend every waking moment loving Vi. It would still not be enough.

There’s been a thread of inconsistencies in the merchant record books. 

Reports of stolen materials, strange ones at that. An old steering wheel. Sheets upon sheets of fabric over the course of a few weeks. An abundance of Zaunite apple crates. The most obvious and egregious robbery is a key to the Piltover docks, from before the Hexgates, when foreign crews needed to park their blimps and rest after weeks of travel.

Given the state of the world, it’s expected that there will be things that slip between the cracks. There’s higher priorities to be taken care of. Who cares about such strange, disparate, useless items?

Even so, Caitlyn Kiramman is not a woman who lets the details slip past her. She’s a decorated officer for these very reasons. She’s obsessive and paranoid and deeply afraid for these very reasons.

And, more interestingly, there’s talk of a wraith in the Undercity. Janna , they say, a ghost shrouded in blue oblivion, moving faster than wind. A harsh, violent blur of violet red. Blessings in her wake: construction machines suddenly put back together overnight, children's toys dropped on doorsteps.

The Kiramman Key had blueprints of the Hexgate. The top of a familiar monkey bomb at the scene. Rumors of a pink streak launching into the sky, the same night when they found Vi, alone, wailing into a blue void. And Caitlyn suspects, sure. She’s a detective, even after all this time. But in this instance, even if the outcome is unlikely, even if it would change everything, she knows. 

Of course, reason shows that these are three separate instances. Patterns itch at the back of Caitlyn’s mind, half-formed ideas, but there must be a level of vigor to investigations, not just blind instinct. The Enforcer protocol demands proof, not postulations.

But this isn’t just reading clues. This is understanding someone who loves Vi as they all do–guiltily, like someone undeserving, like a sinner. It’s about performing the same calculus, placing their heart on a scale against Vi’s, and knowing they’ll always come short. 

(Will they ever stop burdening her, regardless of what they choose? Can the two of them ever undo all the damage? Staying and leaving. All of it feels hard. All of it feels like the wrong answer.)

Time is of the essence. From the looks of it, Jinx would have everything she would need to leave now. There’s no room for confirmation or contingencies. There’s not even time to tell Vi, or prepare her for hope or crushing disappointment. 

Caitlyn pens a hastily worded note and grabs her rifle.

Later, after hunting down the exact dock, she looks up. Even if it’s dressed in just plain white, without any of the typical graffiti additions, she recognizes it to the bone as Jinx’s handiwork. Caitlyn hadn’t spent the last year obsessively observing every trinket, every weapon, that came out of that girl’s hands for nothing.

She’s too late to prevent the blimp from leaving. It’s already left, gliding westward.

Think, Kiramman. Think.

There, the Councilroom–where so many things started and ended. It’s been rebuilt again, of course, one of the first reconstruction efforts prioritized by Piltover. The path is familiar. Caitlyn has followed in her mother’s footsteps for years, clinging to her robes.

The blimp, at the speed it's going at, will be right next to the windows. She just might make it.

Caitlyn Kiramman seizes the lead. She climbs past rubble, leaps over crumbling buildings, clambers up the staircase like a wild animal. It’s a poor imitation of Vi navigating through Zaun, body twisting through crevices, railings shaking under her weight. Her mother would have hated the sight, and Caitlyn allows herself a breathy laugh at the thought.

She reaches the Councilroom. Gods, she’s been avoiding this room. The ghost of Cassandra Kiramman’s body gives Caitlyn a moment of pause, before she has to shake the thought away. 

The blimp moves into her line of sight. Caitlyn breathes. Even with one eye, it feels the same as aiming down sights. The world collapses around her, and there is only one thing on her mind: the shot. She runs.

(Grayson’s voice. What are you shooting for? She still doesn’t have an easy answer, no taste of a decisive, uncomplicated victory. But while her mind keeps going back to her mother’s ghost, it also resurrects memories of her imposing presence, the rare sound of her laughter. It’s Jayce on the trial, eyes downcast with guilt and resignation, but alight with determined conviction. Vi in that cell, twice-over, muscles coiled in preparation for punishment–yet hopeful, always hopeful, that this time will be different.

It’s Jinx, saying, "I didn't know your mom was there. It probably wouldn't have made a difference, but I didn't know."

They may never undo all the damage. Nothing matters. Everything matters.)

Arms outstretched, Caitlyn takes the leap. 

Chapter Text

Of the two of sisters, Vi has always been the one most similar to Vander. It doesn't take a genius to see it. Brawler fists, bruise-dark scowls, bleeding hearts. They both had a stomach, or really the better word is appetite, for pain.

In his rare weak moments, when Jinx would line up a needle to his eye, Silco would whisper that he saw the exact moment Vander choose death. His hulking, monstrous form had stormed through the burning cannery, spitting Shimmer and rage. Silco, the murderer of his two boys, in sight. Silco described the heat of the fire, his own shiver of dread at Vander’s anger, knowing to his bone that this was the end of the line. Death by the hands of his brother. A fitting end, at the very least.

Then, before Silco could blink, the monster had turned its back on their long time feud. Discarded it, really, like a child's toy. Vander didn’t go after the brother he built Zaun for, the same brother he drowned. Vander chose Vi. It was a final act of betrayal in the long, long story of their brotherhood. Before he knew it, everything that their hatred had built up to, all that pain and anger, Vander’s brutal and brave and beast-like soul, dissipated into a blue night sky, with only two girls left to inherit it all.

Silco had said, “That wasn’t how it was supposed to end.”

They’re always the ones left behind. That fateful night, he had said to Jinx, “Everyone betrays us.” Was it really because of absent honor, or was it just the old pain, the abandonment, speaking?

What did Isha think, when she jammed those crystals into the gun, aiming it skywards? What did Vi think before shielding Jinx from the blast? That split second decision, that instinct–to choose love over vengeance, over survival–is an impulse of goodness that neither Jinx nor Silco ever quite mastered. 

Jinx had thought she managed to accomplish it, in the end. Metallic claws at her waist, Vi straining to pull two monsters up. At that moment, it all clicked. Jinx fixes things. She knows when things fit together perfectly. Letting go. Sacrifice. It would clean every sin between the two of them, every mistake that befell their family. Vi could finally be rid of the last thing tethering her to this wretched past. The calculus worked–one sister for the other. 

(Was that a decision Jinx made out of love or guilt? Did it matter then? Does it matter now?)

Jinx rolls a bullet between her fingers as she stares down at Caitlyn Kiramman. Last thing she expected was a one-eyed, long-limbed Piltie enforcer to tumble from the skies, but, here we are. Well. At least this is a familiar dynamic between the two of them. Criminal and detective. Hunter and hunted. There is always one of them at the end of the barrel.

Jinx contemplates. Her finger kisses the trigger. It is her most intimate lover.

Pow. A bullet between the eyes. The she-devil who stole her sister, slumping over, dead.

No. No, that isn’t right. It should be Pow-Pow, in Vi’s voice, still sweet and youthful, bouncing in her mind. That only brings more incongruences. Vi’s young hand in hers, on the bridge their parents died on. Vi, older, in enforcer gear. It’s the rest of the world that’s gone topsy-turvy. Gone Topside.

Get a hold of yourself, Jinx thinks. The voice isn’t hers though. It’s Silco’s, exasperated. The edges of her vision flicker.

Jinx’s mind skips through possibilities, like Vander’s jukebox claw rifling through records. Even on her good days, the thoughts don’t always come linearly. Aren’t always lucid. She still can’t quite decipher if her time with Isha was a moment of clarity, or if it dulled everything that made her real. 

Thinking about it hurts too much. Jinx is rather tired of hurting. Jinx wouldn’t have let Isha in close enough for it to hurt so much. The girl known as Powder wouldn’t have been able to become Zaun’s revolutionary. She’s become something in between. Walking a line. If there’s no body, is it a ghost?

(It’s strange. The night of Ekko’s sudden arrival, she never pulled the pin from the bomb. But her dreams lately have been filled with unbearable heat. An impending certainty that the end is near.  The sensation of her skin burning, peeling away, stripped to bone. It shouldn’t be so familiar, death, yet she can’t shake the impression that her atoms recognize what dying feels like.)

“Sheesh lady,” she says, instead of murdering her sister’s girlfriend. See? The picture of sanity. “Can’t a girl just want to get some me-time without someone jumping on her blimp?”

“Vi thinks you’re dead.”

“Yeah, no shit.” She raises an eyebrow. The gun dangles between her fingers. “Kinda the point of running away?”

“I told you, didn’t I? No amount of good deeds can undo our crimes.”

“Pfft.” She rolls her eyes. Her head follows through with the movement, lolling. The weight still doesn’t feel right, without her braids. “You’re talking to the wrong sister. What part of stealing a blimp screams good deed? ”

“As loathe as I am to admit it, we’re the same. You and I.” Caitlyn says, and her voice is brittle and bitter. “Always hurting, and always bringing everything else down as collateral. Worst of all, somehow, Vi won’t give up on us. We’re poison, and we can’t help it.”

Jinx blows over the gun's opening. Hears the wind whistle. “Why do you think I want to leave? The hurt is just going to continue.”

“Why do you think I stay ?” Caitlyn counters. “Because it’s the hardest thing to do, and also the easiest. We think Vi deserves better, but knowing that, we still manage to make the wrong choice.”

“Making her choose between us is a little cruel. Dontcha think?”

“Taking away her choices is worse." Caitlyn pauses, assessing. Gathering strength. She straightens her shoulders. "Do you have any idea how long she was in Stillwater for? What years in those dungeons does to someone? No light, full solitude. Vi has never had much say in anything, but we can give her this.”

A bark of laughter rips from Jinx's throat. “So it’s a ‘we’ now? Sorry to burst your perfect little bubble, boss. I’m not exactly what you call a team player.”

Piltover’s Commander huffs and blows a hair out of her face. Like a teenage girl. It's dumb, but Jinx find herself taken aback by the movement. “Trust me, I’m not thrilled to be here of my own free will. Every part of me is itching to tear out your throat.”

“Janna. And they call me violent."

"As if that would be undeserved."

"Can’t you just take your little happiness”—here, Jinx wiggles her fingers in Cait’s direction—“and leave it at that? If she knew I was alive, she would follow me to the ends of the earth,” Jinx says. She slides the bullet into the chamber of her pistol. “We have too much between us. We’ve lost too much. I’m tired of it. Aren’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Caitlyn shakes her head. “Vi is still in this fight because of the two of us. Or, more accurately, I fear she’s been fighting for the last decade. She thinks if she takes the hits for us that everything will be set straight.”

“Yeah," Jinx concedes. "Sounds like Vi. Sis has always been too dumb to know what was good for her.”

“Gods, you’re so ungrateful,” Caitlyn spits. Sighs. Reels herself in. Jinx wonders how much more she has to push or pull before the last strand of her control pops like a taut violin string. “She knew how much anger I held against you, and she still chose you. She chose both of us. Even if that makes us hate her too. Even if all we know how to do is hurt her.”

Jinx grabs hold of Kiramman's rifle. She places her forehead against the barrel. Keeping her voice low, mockingly serious, she says,  “Offer still stands, by the way. You could kill me now.”

Caitlyn rips the rifle from Jinx’s hands. She holds it close, but doesn’t aim it at her either. “I’m not interested in games, Jinx.”

“You could put me down like a dog,” Jinx goads, giggling at the end. “Kinda like how the rest of you Enforcers killed our parents. Vi ever talk about that? Is that pillowtalk for you? Ever think of what that kind of mental torture must do to my sis when she’s in your bed?”

Shimmer surges through her. Jinx flits past the Commander and presses the pistol into her temple, on the side with the eyepatch. A pink nail taps at the trigger.

“Or is the eyepatch enough of a guilt reminder for you two? I bet you both get off on that.”

Caitlyn Kiramman’s eye flashes with a brief, terrible fury. Jinx wants to stoke that fire, force her hand, prove that this Topsider will dissolve into violence the way they all do when faced with fissurefolk poison. 

Kill me, Jinx thinks. Kill me, kill me, kill me. I can't seem to die. Vi would never even find out.

It doesn’t happen. The other woman takes a deliberate breath through her nose. Releases it.

The flames settle, and rather than push Jinx away or curse her, she says, “You’re shaking.”

She’s right. Jinx’s whole body is trembling. Dropping her arm, she steps away.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Jinx.” Her remaining eye is steady and unflinching. She doesn't shy. Caitlyn must have been a fearless child too. No wonder Vi likes her.

“Then what are you even doing here?” Jinx snaps. Turning her back towards the other woman, she points off the ledge. “I'm done with this conversation. Get off my blimp, Piltie. Exit’s that way.”

There’s a pause. A disbelieving scoff as Jinx refuses to say more. The sound of movement, of ropes being undone. 

“I had the shot, you know.” Rather than threatening, the Kiramman’s voice sounds defeated. “I had it. Every single time. And Vi still stepped between us. She will always be the reason. I hope you know the weight that choice carries.” 

I know. Jinx seethes. Janna, I know.

Jinx doesn’t know how long she stands there, waiting for–something. Anything. Caitlyn Kimmerman’s bullet to the back of her head, execution style. Hands pushing her off the ledge. Whatever it takes until it’s just her and the open sky and wind rushing past her. It could have been hours. It could have been minutes.

Either way, by the time she turns, Jinx is disappointed to find that she’s completely alone. One of her parachutes is gone.

For once, her mind is completely devoid of voices. There’s just the usual thing left–that buzzing behind her eyes. Locusts. Static. Walking that line between the ghosts and the living.

Alone, Jinx screams.

For the first time, Jinx dreams of Stillwater. 

It’s certainly not the worst of her memories, so she glides through the prison without a second thought. In her dream, the prison is empty. The elevator flips through the numbers, reaching a floor of sub-forty levels below the surface.

Jinx knows she’s dreaming. She moves in a haze. The vacant cells blur into visions of Vander tearing through Enforcer flesh. Isha in Sevika’s arms, crying out. Shimmer pumps through her, and it makes every nerve alight with pain, pain that keeps her moving faster than her body should allow. Her limbs ache. Transcends. Ghosts have no contours to their existence.

She has to move fast. Faster than her own dream. If she lingers too long, the memories will turn into something worse. 

(Isha, turning a pistol upwards. Her little finger gun to imitate Jinx. Vander, so close to returning to them, lost again. Streams of magma leaking from every orifice. Silco's face between her palms, with his mouth slack, body riddled with holes.

Her mother’s dead face–) 

Another empty cell. Only, no, actually. It’s not empty. There’s a streak of pink. A body. It’s a child.

“I’ve spent so many nights in that shitty prison on that freezing floor, hungry, bloody, counting the hours. The only thing, the only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you.”

Jinx knows she’s dreaming. Still, she approaches the body. Morbid curiosity or the damning need to confirm what Jinx already knows. It’s not moving. The limbs are rigid. Her heart sinks. She reaches out a trembling hand, shaking the body’s shoulder, pink hair over her fingertips and–

She wakes in a cold sweat. The sheets around her are completely twisted. Jinx is sandwiched between two horizons: a dark sky above and roiling sea below. They’re squeezing her into oblivion. Panting, she scrambles out of the blankets. Spits up sick over the side of the blimp.

This high up, the wind–Janna’s blessing–howls.

(You’re never gonna give up on me, are you?)

Jinx has her map open. 

It’s one of her good days. Everything aligns with absolute clarity, like she had been experiencing time all out of order and now it’s finally sorted itself. Jinx exhales slowly. 

This is only a supply run, she tells herself. Closes her eyes. Normal. Routine.

Jinx turns, reaching for her bag, and–

There’s a girl sauntering through the deck, whistling. Nimble fingers idly flip through Jinx’s blueprints. 

In a pink flash, Jinx has her pinned to the floor. She levels her pistol at a pair of violet blue eyes. 

(Ekko, that last night before the battle, had told Jinx something strange. She had taken it as the ravings of panic before war, fiction to cope with all that they had lost. He described a world where nothing went wrong, where she still went by Powder.)

A whistle. “So you’re the infamous Jinx, huh?” The girl is taller than Jinx is, less lithe, but her voice is just as raspy. Fissure smog has that effect on ya, if you breathe it in young enough. “I can’t say I really knew what to expect.”

“Heard that one before. You gonna make fun of my pants too?” Jinx’s eyes flick up for a second before returning to the girl’s face. Space buns. Fucking space buns. “Sorry to disappoint, toots. To be honest, can’t say I’m a fan of the whole quirky vibe you have going on here.”

An impish grin spreads on a familiar face. They’re mirror reflections, but there’s too many inconsistencies. Incongruences. The cheeks are fuller, and the eyes are the wrong color. Delicately, a finger guides the pistol out of her face. The girl appraises Jinx with a calculating, measured gaze that sends a chill down her spine.

“Have a little problem, actually.” She wiggles two fingers–Mom’s salute–at Jinx. The tips of her fingers are translucent. “Seems like my atoms aren’t too happy about both of us being here. I’ve been skipping in and out of existence all of today, actually. Only made sense that you were still out here somewhere. A feeling took me straight to you, like a compass.”

Jinx snorts. “You tryna stay here? Hate to break it to ya, but this is the world where we fucked everything up.” She pauses, considering. Well. Vi might like a sister back in some capacity. Is this what the Piltie was trying to get to earlier? “Or are you offering to kill me, take my place?”

“What? Janna– no . What the fuck. No, I need your help. I’m trying to get back.”

“You’re looking for help in the wrong place, Powder .” She tries to imitate the same droll, casual ire that the fortune cookie herald had said her name with. “Ekko’s the one with all the time shit.” Jinx swings the pistol back at her counterpart’s face. “Suggest ya scram, buns, before I make sure there’s two dead sisters in your universe.”

“That's really not funny.”

“Wrong! I’m a riot.”

“Y’know, your Ekko, or honestly either of our Ekko's, wouldn’t have figured it all out without me in the first place.” Powder smiles. It’s eerie, seeing a familiar glint in her eyes, and while it isn’t quite the same insanity, Jinx recognizes an element of glittering genius–madness –immediately. Janna. Is being unhinged something ingrained in her in every universe? “So I’m not here for science help. Mmm emotional help might be the better way to say it? Not that either of us are great at that shit either–I can tell from one look at ya.”

“You’re kinda chatty.” Jinx wrinkles her nose. “Mom and Dad are also dead in your world too, right? No one in your universe ever taught you the grand ol’ lesson to shut the fuck up when there’s a gun in your face?”

“Funnily enough, never needed to learn that particular lesson. That’s one similarity though, between our universes–our parents dying on that bridge.” Powder hums, then muses, “Do you hear their voices? I never did.”

No, Jinx thinks. She has long since forgotten what her parents sounded like. She had been too young. It was always Vi who would whisper stories to her at night, half remembered memories of their mother and father’s bravery. Their love. It makes sense then, that even in her fragmented mind, it’s Vi’s voice that is her oldest ghost and her oldest friend.

Vi’s young voice in her mind goes: “You know, Powder, what makes you different makes you–” 

“– strong .” Powder finishes. Her head cocks to the side. .Jinx hadn’t noticed it earlier, but there’s a pink streak in one of the buns. “Vi, right? That one’s familiar.” 

Jinx’s mind stalls. “Did you hear that too?”

“No, but I can guess.” Powder shrugs. Jinx stares at Vi’s necklace–Fuck, that's Mom’s necklace–on her throat.“I used to get that quote from her all the time. In the early years she was gone, when the hallucinations were the worst, I’d relish in it. If I could, I’d replay the sound of her voice on repeat, to the point of resentment.”

“The...the hallucinations still came? In your world too?” Jinx says, trying for caution, but her voice just comes out small. 

“Oh. Oh.” Powder starts, and her tone is genuinely surprised. “Did you think you were alone in this? We’ve been seeing flickers since the bridge. We’ve always processed differently from everyone else, and in a…very different way, Vi left me too. From the sounds of it, I just had more support. Less tragedy. And I still used to see her ghost everywhere.”

“Lucky you, then. You can see her in the flesh now. Why not stay?”

“I know I’m lucky. And it’s–I’m grateful for it. Trust me. I am really, really fucking grateful. But I’m not the version of Powder she needs.”

Jinx rolls her eyes. She tightens her jaw, lets the Shimmer flare. Static. Locusts. A heat buzzes behind her eyes, and she knows her irises flash violet red. She sneers. “Dunno if you can’t tell just by the aesthetic differences between us, missy, but I’m not exactly Powder anymore either.”

“Semantics. I was drawn to looking for you either way.” Powder sits up, completely disregarding Jinx’s words and stance over her. Gaze softening, she casts the most annoyingly pretentious, knowing glance at Jinx, and says, “Can you really leave everything behind?”

“Breaking the cycle is the only way to make things right. It’s the only way either of us gets a shot at happiness–we–I–” Jinx closes her eyes. “Look. I’m crazy, but I’m not stupid. Clearly, there’s no universe where we can exist together, without things going wrong. It’s too painful.”

Powder raises an eyebrow. She gestures at the space around them. Above, the fabric is already starting to wrinkle as the blimp deflates. 

They’re in the loading dock, overlooking a blue dawn. Jinx has been back in Piltover for hours, actually. Not knowing what to do. Where to go. Poring over every map, looking for every excuse. After Kiramman’s little visit, nothing seemed like the right thing to do anymore.

Voice unbearably soft, Powder asks, “Then why did you fly back?” 

Chapter Text

As the youngest of the Undercity group, Powder and Ekko were a de facto pair growing up. Both small for their age, quick with their hands, possessing an artistic flair for the dramatic. Friendship at that age had felt like an easy, natural thing. One conversation between Vander and Benzo, with their two youngest peeking around their legs, and by the end of the discussion, Ekko was showing off the intricacies of clockwork mechanics. Powder had oohed and ahhed at all the right moments. She was Ekko's first friend, and it had changed everything.

Then, he met the big kids . They were so cool! The big kids went on so many adventures and heists, and their stories were full of badass punches, bloody noses, kicks to the groin. It sucked that they didn’t trust Ekko and Powder to follow along all the time, but Ekko knew it was only a matter of time before he was one of the big kids too.

His favorite big kid was Vi though. Mylo and Claggor were cool, sure (and he loved it when Claggor would go Hey, hey, hey, Little Man ), but when they weren’t following Vi’s lead, they vastly preferred hanging out with each other. 

Vi, on the other hand, did take the time to be a caretaker when she could, holding down the fort during the few times that Vander and Benzo ventured out of the Undercity to buy new wares. She’d teach him new moves, ruffled his hair, and in a rare display of vulnerability when the boys weren’t around, would kiss both him and Powder on the head goodnight. 

Powder took it in stride, part of her daily routine. Ekko never got used to it. It always brought stars to his eyes, experiencing so much softness from someone who could look so mean when she wanted to.

Then, Vi would slink off after putting them to bed, shutting the door behind her, and it would just be Ekko and Powder, giggling in the dark, until the candles went out.

(On the one and only occasion that Powder and Ekko swore to stay up and follow Vi out on one of her nightly escapades– “You think she’s a vigilante or something?” “ Duh! Of course Vi is a hero!”–they ended up spying on Vi making out with one of the neighborhood girls. Horrifying. Gross. Powder and Ekko never spoke of it again.)

After Benzo died, after tragedy and tragedy, after the Undercity seemed to be coming apart at the seams, and a madman was turning the streets into a Shimmer flooded hell– 

Powder had turned into Jinx seemingly overnight. Vi was, in all likelihood, dead. It was the only explanation; how else would her beloved sister be under the care of Silco ? Vander and Vi would sooner have both crawled out of their graves before letting a mad man, a dead man, take Powder under his wing. 

To the rest of Zaun, the death of an entire family wasn’t immediately obvious. It was noteworthy that Vander was missing–the Hound of the Undercity was a fixture in the community. He wouldn’t just disappear. The rest, though? Four sump rats under his care? Ekko had knocked someone in the teeth for saying “Obviously they stole the loot and ran away. One look at them and you could smell the dirt on those kids.” 

Shimmer ravaged the city. All of Vander’s hard earned peace and order crumbled around them. Utter chaos. Ekko had miraculously found the only safe haven in all of Zaun–a tree of all things!–and piece by piece, he was building something better underneath the rot.

Then, like a haunting, he had caught glimpses of Powder’s presence at The Last Drop. Stray doodles on the walls. Gears and nails tumbling out from the ceiling. 

Fear rose up in him like bile–what is Silco doing to her? Why hasn’t she reached out? Hope roared in the cockles of his heart–she’s alive, Janna’s blessing she’s alive, Powder is–

“Boss,” one of the Firelights had said. “There’s rumors of a new weapon under Silco. Not Shimmer. A wraith. Chembarons have been calling it Jinx. ”

“She’s gone,” Ekko would tell himself at night, in Benzo’s empty shop. He would repeat that to himself, over and over again, when the shop was gutted and emptied by looters, when lost kids with a familiar haunted expression began to trickle into the Firelights’ haven, when he painstakingly painted a memorial of everyone lost to the Undercity’s violence. He chanted it like a mantra, building resilience around his heart, so he could believe it was true. 

It didn’t matter. Ekko’s heart still lurched, petrified from something in between fear and hope, when he saw a flash of blue hair on a mission.

How did it all come to this? When did everything go wrong?

The day that Jinx had lit the flare, Ekko knew something had changed. 

He had expected the usual should-be-dead girl. Instead, he got–

“Vi?” he hissed, disbelieving. He signed to the other Firelight. “We’re taking her and the Topsider in.”

A decade had passed. Gods, so much had changed. Everything that built their little lives together had been buried in rubble a decade ago. But, as he watched Vi tank a punch to the face, the particular way her pink hair bounced as she bobbed and weaved, that specific uppercut. Maybe some things do stay the same.

It had been a long, long while since he was last able to say something like that.

When the world starts completely going sideways, and the tree is suddenly rotting, and goddamn time travel is now on the table, Ekko takes it in stride. He’s focused. It doesn’t matter if everything else comes apart–because it already has, once before. They were able to make it past it, and by Janna’s blessing, Ekko will ensure that he gets the rest of his people through another calamity. By the skin of his teeth, if he has to.

He does, however, allow himself one dance. One kiss. Ekko ignores a sting of jealousy at his alternate self, and he tells himself this is enough .

Jinx and Ekko, the night before the battle. She’s mostly lucid the entire time, but quiet. They get ready together in placid silence. When he gathers the courage, Ekko tells her a bit of the alternate timeline. He’s cautious to not oversell it. Even now, with all the bad blood between them, he doubts Jinx wants to hear much about a world where her sister is dead.

When they’re helping each other put on armor, Ekko convinces himself there’s fleeting, lingering touches. Something in him aches terribly, that this is the most they can salvage, when the alternate timeline got so, so much more.

But, like Jinx though, he doesn’t want to think too deeply about a world where Vi is dead. If he lets himself put his older sister like that on a scale, against the weight of so many others, he doesn’t think he could forgive himself. It wasn’t a thing to put one-to-one, anyway. 

Anyways. It’s the last time he sees Jinx alive.

By the time Ekko is done catching Powder up to speed, his throat feels raw. There’s afternoon light streaming into Caitlyn Kiramman’s rooms. It says something, that even with the rubble and smoke outside, the air inside of the Kiramman mansion still feels clean. Ekko tries not to let himself feel too bitter about that.

“I think she’s alive,” Powder announces after a moment, one painted-blue fingernail absently tracing circles into the chair arm. Ekko follows the movements, recognizing the same loops and spikes as when he would doodle the singularity.  She doesn’t address any of the tragedy or fallout, but he knows she’s processing it all, can see it tinkering at the back of her mind even as the rest of her focuses on time travel. “Call it a hunch.”

Ekko raises an eyebrow. “Bold claim for a hunch.”

Powder shrugs. Reaches for a Zaunite apple, and bites into it. Tears the meat out with her teeth, juice dripping out of the corner of her mouth. Drops the body of the fruit onto the floor carelessly. 

Ekko watches it tumble, half eaten, onto Caitlyn’s fine rug, clearly sewn from the snowy white pelt of an animal the Kiramman shot herself. The apple rolls around, creating a crescent blue juice stain. 

“Yeah. I dunno, it’s like I can feel I don’t belong here.” Looking down, she sighs. Nods. “Yeah definitely don’t belong here. Don’t panic.” She holds up her hand, wiggles. The tops of her fingernails are translucent. “See?”

He blanches. “Powder!”

“Ekko!” She laughs. “Hey, I just Ekko-ed you. Get it. Echo?” It sounds like she’s repeating an old joke. Ekko hasn’t heard it from her before.

He grabs her wrist, inspecting the fingers closer. “Shit,” he swears. He looks back up at her. “Does it hurt?”

“No, Boy Wonder. It doesn’t.” Powder smiles at him, but pulls her hand out from his grasp. She flexes her fingers experimentally. “I suspect it’s the natural magic properties of Arcane trying to right itself. There’s no Z-Drive to take me back anymore. The singularity ate itself, and in my universe, hextech doesn’t exist yet. Hence–” She wiggles her fingers. 

“Don’t tell me you’re about to just completely drop out of the universe.” Fuck. Ekko wouldn’t even know how to begin processing that kind of grief. How do you grieve someone who only exists in your memories, if their atoms don’t even belong in this universe?

She giggles. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’d fuck up the fabric of space-time even more. No, from what you described about both your experience with time travel versus Jayce's, it sounds like it's just the Arcane calling me home.” Powder draws herself back in the chair, still examining her fingernails. Cocks her head, birdlike, and for a second, that motion is pure Jinx to Ekko. He shivers. “But also something just doesn’t add up. Theoretically, I’d inhabit the existing Powder–or I guess Jinx is what you all call her–here. Maybe it has something to do with the Shimmer changes to her body? The properties of the drug interfering with this universe’s naturally occuring particles?” She grabs a notepad.

 Ekko offers, “Or the obvious answer. That she’s…you know. Dead.”

“No.” Powder shakes her head, and begins to sketch out the singularity again. Quickly following it are doodles of stick figures emerging from its web. “In that case, I’d theoretically be fine to exist in this universe for however long I want to. See, Jayce was able to exist in his own body, despite travelling to a universe where that Jayce was already dead. We can reasonably assume that dead bodies have no impact on time traveling vagrants like me-self. They’re missing something.”

“Jayce’s dead body was also a special case though,” Ekko argues. “If he was Evolved, wouldn’t that mean magic interfered with that body too?”

“Mmm…true. But it’s also the same magic make-up. Arcane on arcane. If anything, that’d be all the more reason why Jayce’s consciousness actually should have ended up in the dead body. But he didn’t

“On the other hand,” she continues. “ You were able to exist physically in the confines of the singularity for a moment before you travelled back here, even though my Ekko is alive. I saw it.” 

She looks up, spreads her hands so they’re shoulder width apart, and she points both of her index fingers up, before pulling them together, side by side. “So, for at least a moment, you and my Ekko existed in the same physical dimension, despite being two different physical instances. It didn’t adjust too many things because it was so brief, and because the singularity housed you.”

Ekko furrows his brows, considering. “Okay. I see what you mean. So if Jinx were dead, this sense of wrongness wouldn’t happen at all because of how the magic self-corrects. And we know it is possible for two alive souls to be in the same dimension for some variable amount of time, as long as enough change to the body–or in this case, magic–is involved.”

“Exactly.” Powder taps her pencil against the chair. “So. Occam’s Razor. What’s the simplest explanation? If Jinx were alive in a typical sense, my consciousness should have taken over her body. If she were dead, my atoms wouldn’t be itching to leave so fast. The only variable between her versus you and Jayce is Shimmer. I wonder if Shimmer is what’s keeping her alive? From what you described, it’s drawn from magical beasts, likely has its own Arcane repelling abilities, and is regenerative. Could even be that the regeneration factor is constantly keeping her on a loop between alive and dead.”

“It’s a shit drug.” Ekko chokes out a laugh. He’s seen the deformed corpses in Zaun’s underbelly. All the half-formed beasts that the Noxians had brought to the war. He doesn’t want to think that Jinx had been subjected to it. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Even so, reasonably speaking, she’s still out there. It’s not impossible. In fact, it’s more than probable. I can almost feel every particle in me, being drawn to something–someone–out there. It’s like reaching to like. I’m sure of it.”

Ekko's mind is still reeling from the theory. Jinx is alive. He doesn't know what to think. He refuses to believe it's real, because what would that even mean if it did?

“I don’t know…still sounds like a lot to go off on a hunch, Powder.”

Powder ignores him. She bites her lip, musing softly to herself. “I…I wonder if that means this Vi would be fine in my universe since my Vi is dead. At least, scientifically speaking..” She pauses. “Actually, no. Sorry. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole.”

“Hey now. Don’t take our Vi.” Ekko tries to joke, but it’s weak. “I just got her back.”

“Hell yeah, Little Man,” Vi mumbles face down from her spot in the bed, the pillow muffling her voice. 

Ekko and Powder quiet. Hold their breath. Vi’s breathing goes back to being even and heavy with sleep.

Silently, they look at each other. Powder’s lip quivers. Ekko breathes through his nose, Then, as demurely as they can without waking Vi, they double over with silent laughter. 

It’s nice. Ekko could half convince himself that his chest aches out of nostalgia.

“I’ve missed this,” he says, before realizing it. He stiffens. Looks away. His eyes ache. 

Powder is kind enough to not remind him that she’s a different version of a girl he used to love. She says nothing, and silence descends over the room like Zaunite smog.

Caitlyn Kiramman and Ekko have a very polite, nearly curt, relationship. He doesn’t turn his nose up at her; she doesn’t belittle him. As paltry as that level of interaction sounds, it’s still more of a relationship than he would ever have expected with a Topsider.

That isn’t to say he doesn’t respect her. Caitlyn has her faults, but she’s given her seat on the Council to Sevika. She’s offered Ekko a room at the Kiramman mansion during the peace talks (and the temptation to say Kirammansion is unfortunately a hard one to kick), and he’s taken her up on the offer. He never stays long, but the option is appreciated.

(Besides, and Ekko would never say this aloud, she’s kind of intimidating. Only Vi would look at this dark haired, six-foot-one Commander, with those harsh and elegant Kiramman facial features, and coo “ Cupcake ” at her. Ekko has long since resigned himself into just believing Vi’s type is weird .)

In any case, this all means that these last few weeks, Ekko has made more trips to Piltover than he ever imagined he would–leading surviving Firelights through the Reunification efforts, showing up where it mattered. It still feels wrong to stand shoulder to shoulder with Sevika of all people, especially after she had thrown her lot with the man that murdered Benzo. But Zaun needs to present a unified image, now more than ever, with the stakes so high and the cities in a perilous peace. He and Vi had taken the blow to their own hurt and grief, in the hopes this could be a path for healing.

Otherwise, what was it all even for? Where would their pain go?

This also means that Ekko has seen Caitlyn Kiramman more than he would ever want to. More than once, he’s had to awkwardly wait in front of her and Vi’s shared bedroom while Vi takes her sweet time getting ready. On occasion, Caitlyn tries to offer him tea (also what is it with Topsiders and tea?), and the two make off-beat, halting conversations about Zaun versus Piltover delicacies. It’s always uncomfortable for both of them, but, well, they try. Pretense is the least they can do for Vi, who hasn’t had anywhere to call home since The Last Drop was taken over by Silco.

With Caitlyn returning from her own solo-detective journey, it’s unfortunately just her and Ekko in the mansion again. Powder went off to do who knows what, and Vi had slunk off with a dark expression across her face. Even Tobias Kimmerman had long since left Piltover to visit family in Ionia.

Ekko is fully prepared to not say a word to the Commander. So when he passes her in the Kiramman hallway, and he gives his usual reluctant nod of respect, he nearly jumps out of his skin when she reaches out. Grabs his forearm. He cranes his neck up.

“Ekko,” she says, and there’s a tremor hidden in the lilt of her voice. She’s looking away. Something’s wrong. Caitlyn Kiramann is never one to shy. “I need a favor.” 

“Yeah?” He raises an eyebrow and glances at the grip she has on his arm. Sensing his discomfort, she lets go. “I’m not usually in a position to be doing favors for Enforcers.” Ekko crosses his arms. “But I’ll hear you out. Shoot.”

There’s a sigh. Her shoulders straighten. An eye locks squarely with his. Resolved, she continues, “Forgive me if this is an…insensitive ask. I didn’t know who else to turn to with this, but–” Here, she breathes in deeply. Exhales. “– Jinx is alive ,” she says in a rush, harsh like a confession. “I’ve confirmed it myself.”

Ekko’s stomach drops. Theory is one thing, but spoken from Caitlyn Kiramman’s mouth, the words turn from a half-dream into reality. 

Fear or hope or–he cuts himself off. Focus. 

He says, automatically, “Powder suspected the same thing.”

“Excellent, well, it’s true. The issue is, she’s content with leaving everything from her past behind.” Caitlyn continues, blowing a hair out of her face as if she didn’t just turn Ekko’s world inside out. Her brows furrow. “She seems to have it in her mind that it would be better to remove herself from the narrative entirely, rather than stay and face the consequences. That, somehow, this decision would hurt Vi less.

“It makes me furious. Confused. Part of me believes we need to repent for all that we’ve done wrong. Another part understands her just as well. I know for a fact that Vi would never let her past go if she knew her sister was still out there,” Caitlyn shudders and closes her eye. “But it wouldn’t be fair to withhold the information either. I just can’t tell what’s going to cause Vi the least pain.”

“So you came to me for an answer,” Ekko says. His mind is still stalling at “ Jinx is alive. ” Gods. How is he supposed to feel right now? He tastes bile at the back of his throat. He feels nauseous and lightheaded all at once.

Ekko swallows. Tries to not keep his voice steady. “If you ask me, there’s never a world where Vi wouldn’t suffer for the sake of hope. It’s kind of her thing.”

“Precisely why I’m so conflicted about this.” Caitlyn puts her back to the wall and slides to the floor, sinking to her haunches. “I know loving Vi means giving her the choice, and I stand by it. I cannot lose her trust again. But then, I don’t know if that’s fair to Jinx. If that’s her way of loving Vi, and I take that away from her, isn’t that just as terrible? To both of them? It’s like either way, Vi wouldn’t be able to find peace, and either way, it’d be my fault.”

“That’s a heavy load to put on anybody.”

“I just can’t afford to choose wrong again. Not with her.” Her voice thickens, and Ekko has the mortifying realization that he’s about to watch Caitlyn Kiramman cry in front of him. “Jinx and I–we’ve already inflicted so much pain. On each other, between our people, and Vi’s been caught in the crossfire for all of it.” She inhales quickly. Leans back to stare at the ceiling. Her eye is dry, but her voice still wavers. “It feels like she’s been fighting for so long. I don’t know how much more she can take.”

“Hey,” Ekko says, and he squats down next to her. Cautiously puts a hand on his shoulder. Gods, this is awkward. “If there’s one thing I’d put my money on, it’s Vi in a fight…But I get what you mean. I don’t see a world where Vi would give up on her sister if she knew she was out there. ” 

Ekko clears his throat and looks away. His thoughts are full of blue hair and gears and betrayal after betrayal.“There’s also just so much shit between all of us. You barely experienced what living under Silco’s rule was like. He united the chembarons, sure, but Shimmer introduced a level of fear and chaos that made the streets uninhabitable. Even if Silco loved Jinx in his own way, there’s no coming out of that unscathed. I’m not surprised she would want to distance herself from all the history.”

“But Vi loves her–”

He cuts her off, “You have to realize that Vi still doesn’t know Jinx very well. Don’t get me wrong. Yes, Vi loves her. She’s willing to give everything up for even the memory of Powder– that’s how much family means to her. But if I’m being honest, I don’t think Jinx is ready to accept that kind of love right now. It’s hard, being loved in a way you can’t accept.”

“So I–what–just wait then, even though I know this? Until Jinx is ready? Where’s the fairness in that?”

“Things haven’t ever been fair for us,” Ekko says dryly. “But you asked for my opinion, and that’s what I’m going with. Even though Jinx and I were able to work together during the battle…it wasn’t the same as before. How could it be?” He screws his eyes shut. His chest is so tight. “Hearing that she died still killed a part of me. I loved Powder so much that if I could go back in time far enough to prevent her from going to Silco, I would.”

Gods. He misses her so much, but he’s been mourning Powder for a long time. Jinx is alive . But he knows her to his core. It’s not enough to live a half-existence, fettered by all the trauma. She would never stand for it.

“The other Powder…that universe,” Caitlyn starts softly. She puts her hand over Ekko’s and squeezes. “You’re a great man for giving that up, Ekko. You saved us all with that decision. I don't know if I would have had the strength.”

“It was the right thing to do. If I lost that focus, then everything would have fallen apart in front of me.” He breathes, allows the tight vice around his heart to loosen. “And that’s how I know this is the right thing to do too. Give them time, Caitlyn. She’s not Powder anymore, but I don’t think she’s fully Jinx either. She’ll come to Vi when she’s ready”

“Besides,” Ekko muses. “Telling Vi wouldn’t be giving her a choice anyway–with her, there’s really only ever one answer.”

“And what’s that?” Caitlyn asks. One corner of her mouth lifts, like she knows the answer, but wants to hear it anyway.

Ekko gives her a lopsided grin, and says teasingly, with all the goddamn sap he can muster:

 “ Loooove. But you already get enough of that from her, don’t you, Piltie?”

The delivery is awfully exaggerated and terrible. Ekko would never hear the end of it if one of the Firelights heard him, or if, gods forbid, Powder from the other dimension heard him. But no. It’s only him and Vi’s girlfriend on the floor of the Kirammansion hallway.

There’s a saga of so much loss and confusion and pain stretching in every direction, into oblivion–between Piltover and Zaun, Vander and Silco, Jinx and Vi. What was it all for? What did all that senseless violence and pain amount to?

There would never be a satisfactory answer. Maybe all of that extraordinary pain was just to create impossible, mundane moments like this: the leader of the Firelights and the Enforcer Commander squatting on the floor of an empty mansion, talking about the two women they love. 

Ekko thinks this is the first time he’s heard Caitlyn Kiramman laugh. He huffs out a laugh at the thought.  The funniest thing is the absurdity of the situation.  It almost feels like they shouldn’t be the ones talking to each other, that they’re poor placeholders for the ghosts that left them here. It feels like filling shoes too large for the both of them, but having to anyway, because no one else can.

(It feels a lot like rewinding time, to when it was just a young Ekko and Powder in an empty house. It feels like giggling in the dark until the candles went out, waiting for the adults to come home.)

Chapter Text

Act III

By the time Powder returns from paying Jinx a visit (wherein her counterpart had resolutely denied any intentions of revealing her survival. Whatever. Getting off the blimp is a start.), the sun had already set. The moon, luminous and limned with starlight, is a beacon in the Piltover sky, shooting through even the last vestiges of smoke.

Still shadowed between buildings, Powder catches sight of Vi on her way out. Her sister is hunched over, hands stuffed into the pockets of a leather jacket, and there’s black paint streaked across her cheeks, dyed in her hair.

“Interesting look, sis.” She goes, stepping into the light. Vi doesn’t flinch from the sudden noise, but her shoulders tense. “Kinda…oily. You going for Uncle Silco’s look?”

Vi gives a half hearted smile. “Har-har. Very funny. Already got called oil slick by Caitlyn. I’ll see you later tonight, okay?” She pauses. Her nose scrunches. “I’d also prefer if you don’t call him ‘Uncle Silco.’ Sounds like things may have been different in your universe, but he and I? We didn’t really get along here.” She rolls her shoulders and continues on.

“Where ya headed?” Powder asks, catching up and falling in step with her sister. “It’s late.”

“Fights don’t start until nightfall.”

“Fights?”

Powder follows Vi past wreckage, memorials, littered graves–over the very bridge their parents died on. She follows her, clambering past broken pipes, avoiding sparking electricity lines. The descent feels imperceptible at first, given the fact it’s now dirty everywhere and not just Zaun, but the difference between new damage and old damage becomes more and more obvious the further they go. Gilded debris turns into long-rusted metal sheets.  If there’s one thing about Vi, she hasn’t lost any of the nimbleness she had in her youth.

Fights ends up being a shitty, barely functioning underground ring. The ceiling is cracked and drips with fluid from Topside. Dust shakes out from the crevices as the audience roars in anticipation. 

Strung across the room, in pulsing neon lettering: Rematch between The Jaws of Death and The Hound.

“You meant pit fighting? ” Powder hisses into Vi’s ear, nimbly dodging stray cans, the acrid smell of Zaunite beer arcing over them. She’s never been happier to have a visual distinction from Jinx–the braid had done most of the heavy lifting for imagery–or the mob would have shifted to an entirely different sort. 

“Yup,” her sister says. As usual, she pops the ‘p’ at the end. She begins wrapping her hands, gauze overlapping each other over her knuckles. Tucks the ends, like Vander had taught them.

“ Why? ”

The black paint brings out the whites of her eyes, the stark gray-blue of her pupils. It gives Vi a sort of fierce, piercing look. A corner of her mouth lifts, and it’s the only thing that breaks through the severe and gaunt image. “They don’t have hobbies where you’re from, Pow?”

Her sister turns and lets the jacket fall, addressing the crowd. They grow even louder, jeering and throwing food down as soon as she’s left only in bandages and ripped jeans. 

Vi puts on a show: flexing her arms, tattoos rippling across her back. She leans in, nose nearly touching the first row of the audience. Hands slap her on the shoulders, there’s fist bumps and howling and cash fluttering down the stands. There’s fangirls –young Zaunite teenagers who reach out, fingertips brushing the paint on Vi’s face. She bares her teeth at them, white against onyx lips, and they squeal.

It dawns on Powder, Vi is a regular here.

Vi raises an arm, and the crowd goes rabid.

“Some hobby,” Powder mutters, slinking to the side. She clings to the shadows. It’s still Zaun, obviously. She isn’t daunted. But there’s a level of polish to her that makes her suddenly aware that this isn’t her Zaun. It isn’t the one she dedicated the last decade to scrubbing out the corruption, filth, dirt of the past as best she can. Here, there’s been added years of suffering and Shimmer, and it shows in the infrastructure. Down to the bedrock.

The energy, on the other hand, is more frenzied. Freed from the control of both Piltover and the Chembarons, the Zaunites here are exuberant, electric, ebullient by a buoyed sense of camaraderie. The war is over, everyone is dead, the Undercity is drowning in its own damage, but there will always be blood spilled and coins turned between hands here.

Rolling her neck, Vi feeds off that energy and steps into the ring.

Across the ring from her is a colossus of a man, with a labyrinth of gear tattoos etched across his massive chest. A large brass metal jaw is wired to his face, and he has to reach up and unhinge it to spit somewhere between Vi’s feet.

“What? Miss me that much, baby?” Vi coos. There’s a spark in her here that Powder hasn’t seen Topside yet. Vi has always had a natural charisma and presence. The Undercity had known her as Vander’s protege, but even the youngest kids, ignorant of the Hound’s status, would turn starry-eyed in front of her sister. 

Vi’s sharp edges, her magnetism, was buried by the peacekeeping and grief and guilt above. But here? In this ditch below even the lowest levels of Zaun’s underbelly? Confidence bleeds through every orifice. 

She smiles, with her chin lifted so she’s looking at him from down her nose, and taunts, “My girlfriend’s kinda into the spit thing though.”

His face contorts. Before Powder can hear the response, a bell dings. There’s immediate uproar in the crowd. Green and red cards fly into the air, but there is an overwhelming sea of crimson.

Vi reels back, and deals a devastating uppercut to his jaw. There’s the unmistakable sound of something creaking as his head whips back. The jaw holds.

He raises both arms, fingers interlaced, and slams it down against Vi’s back.  Normally, it’s the kind of thing that Vi would roll with, but the hit is closer to her bad shoulder than expected. It’s hard enough for her to stagger, momentarily, and he uses the opportunity to sock her across the face.

Her head whips to the side. Blood flies in a splattered trajectory across the white ring floor. One thumb pressed against her nose, she grunts, forcefully huffing out of her nostril, and a glob of dark blood shoots out.

When she turns, there’s a vicious, terrible sort of joy that has spread across her face.

“I missed you too, sweetheart,” she says. 

In one punch, with deadly accuracy honed towards the hinges themselves, Vi knocks his jaw clean off. It soars in the air, enmeshed with threads of flesh, and the skin–flesh–strips of tendon–rips from her opponent’s face. There’s a row of brass teeth embedded in the metal. 

Her opponent rushes to stop the bleeding. He clamps a hand over his lower jaw. Blood pours from between his fingers in a viscous, crimson flood. His real teeth sink into the flesh of his hand to deepen the pressure, staunch the flow.

The pain overtakes him, and in the next moment, his eyes roll to the back of his head. He topples, and the whole ring shakes from the impact. Powder can't look away from the exposed flesh, the man's tongue lolling freely over a loose, cavernous jaw.

Vi bends over, and screams in victory.

When they were young, and their parents were still around, everyone knew Vi would follow in Vander’s footsteps. She took to fighting and leadership with a natural ease. She was honest in a way that was always effortlessly good . That goodness protected Powder from a seedy Undercity in a way not even Vander could have predicted. Even when Zaun was at its worst, when Uncle Silco had dared to show his face again, and the world was this terrible mix of guilt, anger, oppression–it was the memory of Vi that allowed Powder to bite her tongue and breathe. It allowed her the grace to listen, for once, because the pain was blinding otherwise.

Her sister had always been strong and honest and good because she knew she had something to protect, something to live for.

Powder watches her sister in the ring, basking in the crowd’s roars, blood dripping from her nose and knuckles, and feels sick to her stomach. 

“How was that?” Vi asks, after another rematch. 

It was like the Undercity was just crawling with her past opponents, given the rate of requests that started up after Jaw-Guy. Fight after fight, but they all ended the same–with Vi’s shoulder’s heaving as she looked down at her opponent. A sort of gleeful delirium brought upon by the pain would heighten with every punch thrown, every punch taken.

Her bandages are filthy. Dried blood crusts across her knuckles, and follows in a spill of rusty-brown over her chin. She’s favoring her good shoulder. There’s an exhausted gleam to her eyes, as if she’s used every ounce of energy she had left and was thrilled for it.

Damage , Powder thinks. Her mind skips through images of the debris they passed along the way. New damage and old damage.  

Except this time, it isn’t the contrast between Piltover and Zaun. It’s all housed in Vi, scattered across her skin, penetrating past muscle and into marrow.

“Can we go back now?” Powder says quietly, and she tries to not feel guilty when hurt flashes across Vi’s face. “I think I want to go home.”

It’s like a weight has settled back across her shoulders as she dons the jacket again. “Yeah, Powder,” Vi says. She clears her throat. “We can go home.” 

She takes Powder up-up-up, winding through the crowd, past the smoking debris, cutting across cobblestoned streets. It changes from guttering flames and blinking fluorescents back to warm, steady lamplight. The dawn has already started to creep in. Powder’s breath emerges in the still-dark cold as puffs of warm air.

Vi’s hand never leaves Powder’s, but she also does not turn back even once. They return, not to home, at least not to Powder, but back to the Kimmerman mansion in silence.

Powder was nine when she caught the lung-blight. 

The Zaun smog can do that to you, laced with something from long, long ago that forced all of them to the Undercity in the first place. She doesn’t remember that time, really, just a feverish blur of Mom’s hand on her forehead, medicine forced down her throat, feeling damp everywhere, all the time. In the aftermath, when Powder’s fever broke and she woke to a crowd of relieved, exhausted faces, it felt like there was a shift in the air.

The rest of them didn’t talk about it much. They didn’t have to. Vander and Vi became overly cautious about her health enough in the meantime, and she hasn’t gotten that sick since. 

Vi did though. For someone with surprising resistance to pain and rarely down for long when it comes to physical injuries, her immune system was always wrecked by the smallest of strains. Never lung blight, for some miraculous reason, but the little things–the daily colds–used to come to her in constant waves.

(Powder suspects it had much to do with Vi, saying, “No Pow. You stay inside. Storm’s heavy–Claggor and I will go lift the haul.”

Or, 

“Smog’s bad today. I’ll go to Benzo’s for you. Can you describe what the Whisker gear you need looks like?”

Or,

“Oh shit. It’s chilly out – you take my jacket, Pow-Pow. Nah, don’t worry about me. Didn’t you hear from Vander? Idiots don’t catch colds.”)

It’s little surprise to Powder, then, that this trend has continued past Vi’s adolescence and into adulthood. The morning after Vi’s pitfighting extravaganza, Powder wakes next to her sister shivering miserably under the covers.

At first, Powder had assumed it was a guest room when she first woke up in the Kiramman mansion. She hadn’t even known it was a Councilor’s home then, just that there were hints of familiarity–a dirty jacket strewn on the back of a chair, rolls of bandages on the nightstand. She’s been staying in the same room since with Vi, and there’s an unbearable familiarity to it all. Vi never let Powder stay close when she fell ill, for fear that Powder would catch the same sickness, but sometimes, when the fever was on the verge of breaking, she would call for her anyway. And Powder would come to her sister’s bedside and lay there, hand pressed against her sister’s cheek, and try to will the worst of the illness away. Just two sisters again, with Vander’s warm and watchful presence never too far.

Now though, it’s Vi’s girlfriend–not just an Enforcer, but the fucking Commander – brushing a hand across her sister’s forehead. Powder has half a mind to slap the hand away.

Her relationship with Enforcers has always been tenuous at best. During the infamous Talis v. Piltover trial, it was an Enforcer, Deputy Sheriff Marcus, who was the principal witness that ensured a scientific madman was imprisoned. It was one thing for the council to sneer and scoff at three dirty Zaunite children, it was another to question the straitlaced Deputy Sheriff, infamous for a strict prejudice against the Undercity while maintaining a blind eye to undue violence.

(“Councilors,” the Deputy Sheriff had said, eyes downcast, in another universe, years ago. “I have no love for the Undercity. I have spent my life ensuring every petty criminal is shipped off to Stillwater post haste. Believe me when I say I wish I could pin the blame elsewhere.

“But a child is dead today because of our oversight. As Enforcers, as Piltover, we have failed. I have always been proud to be a citizen of the City of Progress, and I have worked under the pretense that the Undercity, a place infested with criminals, should be grateful to be in such close proximity to us. But this tragedy happened on our soil Topside, due to the negligence of a man sponsored by our very own Councilor Kiramman. There is nothing to be grateful for here.

“My…my own wife is currently pregnant. I cannot imagine losing a child to a city’s carelessness. It made me realize how much we have failed Violet, whose only crime was being a victim of our ongoing conflict.

“We cannot let Jayce Talis go unpunished, nor can we afford to continue ignoring the very real tension between our two cities.”)

Still. One testimony would never be enough to make up for the loss of Powder’s parents, or every other cruelty she had seen at the hand of Piltover’s justice system. But for the sake of Zaun, she has had to get on the good side of no small number of Enforcers, all who were sent by Piltover as a sign of good faith. It had all been a messy, violent time period wherein Zaunites had felt it was Topside encroaching on Undercity dealings, and Uncle Silco himself had come skulking out from the smog to lash out at Vander for his stupidity–trading Zaunite independence for increased surveillance. 

They made it work. Powder made it work. She has no love for Enforcers, but she understands, now more than ever, the concessions needed for peace. Biting your tongue, parsing through intentionally difficult legal jargon, playing nice – all in the effort to dance in a political game that Piltover had always had the upper hand in. 

And Powder knows this is a different dimension, knows the war that brought everyone here is an entirely different circumstance. She knows this is not her Vi. 

Regardless, she sees an Enforcer reaching for her sister, and fear surges through her. Her vision flickers at the edges. Blood calling for blood.

Powder slaps the hand away.

Don’t touch her, she seethes internally. An animal instinct rises in her, like a beast’s hackles raised. Don’t you dare hurt her.

Tension balloons in the roam, muffling every sound to Powder. She’s overwhelmed. She resists the urge to hold her hands over her ears and scream. 

Finally, Vi says, “Powder. A word?”

The sentence comes out strangled. Vi is breathing heavily through her mouth, and there’s sweat glistening over her brow, and the room has fallen silent. Caitlyn Kiramman stands awkwardly poised over her sister, hand still half reached out. 

She glances towards Vi wordlessly. An exchange passes silently between them. Her sister nods, and the Topsider leaves the room, a tentative hand placed on Powder’s shoulders. Irrationally, it makes Powder even more annoyed.

“What?” she snaps, once the door closes softly behind her.

Vi stares at her for a second, before sighing. Scoots over on the bed, peels back the covers. She pats the empty space.

She feels like she’s a little kid again, about to be scolded by her big sister who seemingly always knows better. Every part of her wants to sit next to Vi and let herself be coddled into agreeing, let herself be fussed over a tantrum as if she were five again.

But Powder hasn’t had a big sister in a decade. It’s this fact that she clings to. Picking at the skin by her thumb nail, she has to will herself to not cave. 

Powder is not a little kid anymore. She’s Zaun’s genius. She’s been the pencil behind every single one of their contracts and blueprints. The Undercity’s voice when Vander and Silco’s reputations carried too much baggage for a finicky Council obsessed with history and precedence. 

No. She won’t go to Vi, like the placid and easy child she once was. Vi wouldn’t understand what this all means to her, how every second of appeasing Piltover had felt like a brand burned into Powder’s bones. The shame of playing nice, defanging herself, all for an ounce of respect. And here, with what seems like even worse circumstances for Zaun, her sister was imprisoned in Stillwater and is still willingly dating an Enforcer?

How can she reconcile this great miracle, her sister being alive, with the fact that so many things here had gone so terribly anyway? How can she forgive Vi for something that wasn’t her fault in the place: her absence in the hardest times of Powder’s life?

Her hand jerks and the hangnail peels away. The pain grounds her. She doesn’t know what she feels more–grief or anger or gratitude–but it all spirals into a sickening nausea.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Vi says slowly, giving up on trying to get her to come closer. Her fever-bright eyes are steady. “That was rude, Powder.”

“What’s rude is that you didn’t tell me your little girlfriend was the Commander .” Powder spits. “C’mon Vi. I’ve seen your type. I know you have a soft spot for every motherfucking stray out there–but an Enforcer is not a stray. I could understand literally anyone else.”

 “Caitlyn’s been by my side since I’ve been out of prison.” Vi defends, and for a moment, Powder is beyond livid that her sister thinks a Commander needs protecting from her. “Actually, more accurately, she’s the reason I’m out of prison in the first place.”

“And who put you there?” Powder demands. “Who killed our parents? On top of that, she’s the Councilor’s kid. You know who testified for Jayce Talis? A Caitlyn Kiramman . We could have lost the entire case because of her.”

“It’s not the same, Powder. She’s not the same as your Caitlyn.”

“No shit. That doesn’t change how I feel though.”

“Why’re you actually so worked up for?” Vi demands. She makes a gesture and winces–her bad shoulder acting up again. “What? Was it the pit fighting last night, was that it? There’s no way this is all just because of Cait.”

“No. Yes. I don’t know!” Powder throws her hands up in frustration. She can’t look Vi in the eye for this. She starts pacing. “It’s everything! How could you love someone who is everything Topside represents? How could you be so careless with yourself? Your Enforcer girlfriend can’t seem to look you in the eye when you’re hurting yourself–and don’t you dare say it’s because of the pitfighting.

“You don’t seem to appreciate the fact that you’re alive, and it pisses me off.”

“And what good would that do?” Vi demands. “Am I just supposed to be grateful I’m alive?” She snorts. “Fat amount of good that’s been for anyone.”

Powder reels back. Her vision flickers. Mind skipping through images of her dead sister’s body. “ What? ”

“Don’t play dumb. Everyone else is alive in your universe, Powder. You’ve always been better at the numbers than me. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You act like that makes everything okay.” 

“Doesn’t it?” Vi sighs. She slumps against the bed frame and leans her head against it, eyes raised. “If I had known the trouble it’d be for me to be alive, I would have fixed that issue ages ago.”

Powder’s blood runs cold. “You don’t mean that.”

“Everyone I love dies.” Vi says faintly, staring at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. “Everyone. I had to lose you and Vander twice . And you’re saying there’s a world where none of that happens?”

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Powder snarls. She stands, fisting her hands in her hair. Blue strands tumble from the buns. “You would never let me say that if I was in your shoes.”

“That’s because it’s not your responsibility.”

“Fuck responsibility! Vander said all that shit about being a leader to you as a kid when it was about kid shit . Parkouring across Zaun stuff–not for all this! You aren’t responsible for all our lives, Vi.”

“But–”

“You aren’t,” Powder cuts her off. “Do you know how many of us wished it was us instead of you? Do you? Mylo, Claggor, Vander, me –it was a fucking hole in all our lives that none of us could fill. We tried to be there for each other, but there was always something missing.”

“...are you happy though?” Vi asks. She’s still looking at the ceiling.

“I am,” Powder says. And she’s surprised to hear the conviction in her own voice. She doubles down. “I am! But you know what would make me happier? Not feeling like your voice is at the fringe of everything I do, not feeling like I could never lean on you ever again

“It’s been so hard, Vi. We do it all for you, but it is also so devastating all the time. I’m happy because we built our lives from the darkest period of my life. But even after all these years, I’d still give it all up in a heartbeat if that meant you could have been there to see it all with me.

“I jumped after Ekko knowing there might be no return to all that I built just to get a glimpse of you–and I’m so glad I did.” Powder’s bottom lip quivers. “But it still fucking sucks that you died in my world, and you can’t even be happy in your’s.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you,” Vi says. Her voice is hoarse. 

Powder groans in frustration. She can’t do this right now. It was never about help, or lost apologies, or what should or shouldn’t have happened. Powder didn’t come here to find another sister, she just wanted to see what could have been.  

She just…she just wanted to see her sister, not just alive, but happy in all the ways she deserves to be. Instead, she finds a Vi drowning in self imposed guilt, barely alive in the ways that matter, and the people who supposedly care about her most are being too delicate, stepping around the hurt rather than treating it.

The dam breaks. It’s all too much, and Powder–she knows he doesn’t have enough time in this universe to fix it all. She fixes things, and it’s ruining her to know that she can’t do anything for Vi here.

“You were gone,” Powder sobs, and it’s like she’s back in the Talis workshop, cradling her dead sister’s body, inconsolable. Her cheeks are wet. Saliva fills her mouth. “You were gone. You left me. ”

Vi’s gathering Powder in her arms now, shushing her. “Hey, hey no need for all that. Powder, c’mon, I’m right here.”

“But you aren’t. You’re dead. The Enforcers wouldn’t let us put your body in the river because it was evidence. And in this universe where you’re alive, you’re still suffering. It’s not fair. It’s so fucking unfair.”

She adds, sniffling, “ And you’re dating an Enforcer.”

Vi huffs out a breath, and says, haltingly, “...is it a bad time to say that I had a brief stint as an Enforcer too?”

Powder cries harder.

Vi raises Powder’s head so their eyes meet. Powder blue on violet blue. The blue of a crystal that took everything away from both of them, in two separate timelines.

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” and there’s a grief that flashes in Vi’s eyes that Powder cannot quite decipher. “I’m so sorry, Powder. Nothing is going to change the fact that the Vi you knew died. But I don’t think there is a world where your Vi would have survived if it had been you who got caught in the blast instead.

“You’re going to hate that I’m saying this, but I’m not going to back down– it will always be worth it for you. I’ve lost Jinx already too. This is more than I ever thought I could get. And I am so, so proud of you.”

Powder clings to her sister’s hand. They’re at an impasse, neither willing to back down when putting each other’s lives on the scale. The two of them could argue until nightfall, and it still wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change the fact that they’re both grieving each other, or that the guilt of being the one left behind will haunt them forever. When it comes down to it, beyond the pale math of all other lives in the balance, is there an objective truth behind what outcome is best? Or is there no such feeble thing as truth or the right answer, if they’re all to sink into Zaun’s waters one day anyway?

Occam’s Razor. Maybe the simplest answer, as it always is for Powder, is best. She holds her sister’s feverish palms between her hands and says, with as much conviction as she can, “I’m glad you’re alive, Vi.” 

She resists the urge to spit out the truth, Jinx is alive. Jinx isn’t ready. There’s too many wounds, still, with her past, with all that had gone wrong within and around her. Powder so badly wants to give this salvation to Vi, one less reason to punish herself, but maybe it’s not enough for things to just be fixed without any of the hard work.

All that pain, it always goes somewhere, and Powder is beginning to understand how Vi hasn’t allowed any of her wounds to heal. They’ve only festered beneath the bandages, used to refocus herself in the dull moments, in the long stretch of time she spent in Stillwater. And seeing her now, seeing Powder and knowing all that could have been, must only be hurting her more.

Vi needs to let go of Jinx. Maybe that takes Powder learning how to let Vi go first, too.

“I’ve never seen Vi get sick before,” Caitlyn says softly. She’s in the hallway, back leaned up against the wall just next to the bedroom door. Powder is slowly closing the door behind her.

Powder resists the urge to roll her eyes, and rubs at them instead. She sniffs. “You must not know her well then. Her pain tolerance is strong, but her immune system has always been weak. Must be all the stress of the last few weeks finally getting to her now that she’s resting.”

“Is she, though?” Caitlyn’s head snaps up but then she quickly looks away. “I fear she’s still in this fight.”

“Then do something about it,” Powder snaps.

Caitlyn jolts. It’s practically imperceptible, but Powder has had her fair share of observing Councilors and people in authority for tells. She scoffs, and says, “For just a moment, you sounded like her .”

“Ah, Jinx hm? She mentioned your little visit.”

“You’ve seen her?” Caitlyn asks, and this time she does make eye contact with Powder. Her gaze is heavy, deliberate, and Powder wonders if the effect is heightened by the intentionality of a single eye.

“Yeah. I won’t tell you more than that though. No idea if it means she’s staying or not. Dimension counterpart confidentiality and etcetera.”

Caitlyn nods. “Fine. That’s more than I expected from her anyway.” 

They slip into a tense silence. It’s clear that Caitlyn doesn’t know how to talk to Powder any more than Powder has interest in talking to her.

In her universe, Caitlyn Kiramman was caught in the same blast that had killed her sister. Apparently, the girl herself had gotten away with terrible burns, unable to even show up for the trial due to treatment, but she had been adamant towards sending her mother with a written testimony. Powder remembers her blood boiling upon hearing the letter, pleading for mercy towards Jayce Talis. The words of a Councilor’s daughter are not taken lightly. Jayce had gotten exile rather than execution. The rest of the letter, filled with an apologetic righteousness for how Vi’s life was unfairly caught in the crossfire, urging her mother to also practice a fair and just mercy towards the Zaunite thieves, hadn’t mattered to Powder at all.

A few years down the road, Councilor Kiramman had given up her seat on the Council to Zaun. Cassandra Kiramman, infamous for her strict viewpoints against the Undercity, who had graced the trials with a menacing and intense focus due to her daughter’s injuries, was the last person any of them had anticipated vouching for Zaun’s independence. But it happened. And it changed everything, because it came from this imperious voice that had held the weight of not just generational wealth, but ancestral power.

It had never made much sense then. Powder never questioned it much, chalking it up to a misplaced sense of guilt. But, looking at the woman next to Powder now, she has to wonder if there was always something more to it all along. That Vi harbored a love so deep, it transcended dimensions, and while she may not be the fuse, she will always somehow be the reason.

It’s odd then, putting a face to the name. Powder had seen glances of Cassandra Kiramman every now and then. After all, giving up a Councilor’s seat required extensive meetings concerning the transfer of power, all that political knowledge. She remembers a straight, regal nose. Hints of Ionian ancestry in her eyes. A clipped, professional tone. These same facets can be found in the Caitlyn Kiramman in front of her.

The translucent tips of Powder’s hand have now spread to her palms. She sighs. There are other things to do beyond waiting it out in the hallway with Vi’s girlfriend, trying to prove a point. There’s no way to fix it all, but by the gods, she’ll try.

“She prefers apple and cinnamon tea, not chamomile, when she’s not feeling well.” Powder offers, hushed. She’s never told anyone else this before. Not the other boys, not even Vander. It had always been their mother’s drink for the two of them when they were sick, and over the years, preparing it for each other in secret had turned into a bit of a game. It was always their secret.

Now, though, it’s an olive branch. Someone, something will always have to give first in order for there to be change. Caitlyn startles at the broken silence.

Powder continues, “Vi pushes people away easily when she’s sick, but she’s always really clingy when her fever’s about to break.” She crouches in front of the Kiramman and looks at her with a level gaze. “So don’t let her push you away.”

Caitlyn blinks in surprise, but she gathers herself quickly. “Of course,” she says, forcefully, as if in a rush. “I’ve pushed her away too many times myself. There’s a lot I have to make up for, but Vi is worth it.”

Powder nods. “For what it’s worth, it’s nice to meet you in person. Never really got to meet any of Vi’s girlfriends when she was younger because she was too busy taking care of the rest of us. And, well.” She says, wryly, “You can imagine why I didn’t have much reason to talk to you in my universe.”

“Believe me, I have my own reservations against you too. Though, I know that’s more towards Jinx than it is towards you.” She swallows. “It’s strange, you know, seeing her expressions and mannerisms flit across your face. I cannot seem to make sense of it sometimes.” 

Caitlyn offers a small, shy smile, and it’s an oddly girlish gesture on an imposing presence. “It doesn’t matter, in the end, though, does it? If it’s for Vi, I’m willing to put up with quite a lot, as I’m sure you are as well, having to meet me. All this to say, it’s nice to meet you as well, Powder.”

Powder cocks her head, eyes flicking over Caitlyn Kiramman’s face. Something tinkers at the back of her mind. Mentions of a father sent away, an expansive and empty mansion, yet not one sighting of the household matron.

She doesn’t know if it’s kindness or cruelty that makes her say it. Powder says it anyway because it feels honest, another olive branch.

“You know,” she says, musing. “You look a lot like your mom. I think, in my universe, she must have learned a lot from you.” She stands to leave, hands in her pockets, and grins at the sight of Caitlyn’s surprised face. “Must be why Vi likes you so much. You’ve got a good heart.” 

Powder offers a mock salute, turns on her heel, and strides away before the Kiramman has a chance to respond. 

She opens the front door. Light spills into the mansion, over her face. It takes a second for her eyes to adjust from the darkness inside versus the noonday sun outside. She stands outside, closes her eyes, and just breathes. The sounds of the city surround her: sirens, sputtering engines, laughter.

Powder wonders if this is close to what her Vi experienced in her last moments: Piltover, gilded in a golden afternoon, and for a moment, a blinding and perfect white light.

Warmth.

Chapter Text

Their parents were still alive when Violet got into her first fight. 

Even at that age, it had been a spectacle, a memory that Violet embedded into muscle. The feeling of winding her arm back, shoulder twisting, the delicious impact of knuckles on flesh, followed by a body on pavement. There was a rush to it that she was chasing, seemingly forever now, of that first punch, the first stone thrown, in the long and messy sequence of everything that went wrong.

For the fight, she had brought everything she could do to the table, reaching into the recesses of her mind for old lessons with Vander. It was hardly as satisfying without the mining gauntlets, but there was a thrill to putting the lessons to the test. Sweat dribbled from Violet’s temple. 

She was eight years old. Powder was five. Someone had called Powder an unkind name, the insult now lost to time, but there was a sudden fire, a protective instinct, that kindled in Violet that day, one that she would never stop stoking for the rest of her life.

The tussle itself was brief: a few punches and kicks, before the opponent decided enough was enough and brought out a pocket knife. From there, everything had been pure instinct, thrashing attacks driven by fear, and it ended with the tip of the blade in Violet’s gut.

It wasn’t a deep wound, but it was enough to frighten all of them. The opponent, still young and unaccustomed to violence, ran off, rambling apologies, the small weapon immediately tumbling out of their hands. Violet stared at the sluggish stream of blood that flowed from the injury, numb. Her hands had come away, swathed in red. She had never seen her own blood like that before.

Later, in the safety of The Last Drop, after patching up the wound, Ma and Vander would scold the both of them for reckless behavior. There would be a long, boring lecture about picking your battles, never engaging in scuffles deep in the Undercity, only using your fists when there were no other options left. Something about how fast things can escalate when you’re careless. 

At that moment, though, it had just been the two of them. Violet and Powder. Violet was eight years old, but she already knew this was what she was always meant to be: Powder’s older sister.. She did not even remember what it was like, not being a sister.

Pressing a hand against the wound, Powder had sobbed, “Violet! Don't leave me, please, I need—”

Wait.

No. 

That can’t be right. That’s still too early.

Had Powder already said that, way back then, during that playground fight? Had she repeated it, on that fateful night at the cannery? Or had she said something entirely different?

Vi doesn’t remember. It all feels so scrambled. When did everything go so wrong? How is she still here? How can she still be Powder's older sister, when Jinx slipped from her hands, falling into a blue oblivion?

(Who threw the first punch? That, at least, has a clear answer. It must have been Vi, fifteen, striking her sister across the face. That single act of careless, callous violence had set off everything else.

Since then, there’s been an all-consuming fire surrounding the two of them, burning inside her, licking at her heels until she has nowhere left to run.)

516 was a known troublemaker. 

At the time, 516 had been the youngest ever to be admitted to Stillwater–a special exception according to the Warden–and record holder for the longest time kept in solitary confinement. To the other prisoners, she was brutality incarnate. One misspoken word, one inappropriate leer too many, and you could anticipate there would be a bloody, pulpy puddle in the mess hall by next morning. 

You don’t fuck with 516 because she was an animal, a rabid dog, gnashing teeth at your throat before you could get another word in edgewise. 516’s youth sharpened her with a desperation and wildness that the other prisoners could not imitate. She had an irrepressible rage, a well of regret, and, most dangerously, some half-baked belief that she would leave Stillwater. Hope.

There were rumors too, amongst the older fissurefolk prisoners, that she would claim to be Vander’s protegé, as if the Hound of the Underground they knew would go soft enough to take in a kid. With every beating, every lump of loose bones and skin on the floor, those claims died down.

Years went by, and the brawls with 516 only got more savage. Long stints in solitary confinement. Wounds and scars stacking on top of each other.

516’s reputation preceded her. After so long, it did not need to be attached to ancestry or reputation from the outside world, because who were they kidding? Who they were out there was as good as dead. Here, there was no Topside or Undercity to separate them. Only Stillwater. Here, they were all just nameless criminals left to rot.

516, to the prison guards, was a fumbling, Shimmer-filled felon who couldn’t be bothered to follow the rules. She was a problem, an old tenant of violence, and became increasingly less fun and more taxing to exact punishment towards. 

Early on, she would struggle, cry out, plead innocence. It would be entertaining, at the very least, to let her try fighting back batons with fists. Nowadays, it’s  become much more dull. 516 just went through the same motions as any other of the Zaun addicts craving a Shimmer fix.

For instance, rather than shout or cry out, 516 started to stay silent throughout every beating, bluntly housing the pain. Barely grunting or reactionary. It was all protocol by this point anyway; the warden made sure to remind her guards in rotation how 516 must be dealt with swiftly. There was still something chilling about enacting violence on a body, and being met with only the ghost of a presence, emptiness in the eyes.

Her beatings also ended the same as all Shimmer victims: wheezing about “powder” as blood and spit slipped past scarred lips, pooling beneath a twitching mouth.

It was all a wrong assumption, of course. 516 would never touch the stuff. She figured it out the vicious cycle soon enough: the more she reacted, the more punishments, the more sick entertainment she would provide for the warden. In order to survive Stillwater, it was best to lay low and roll with the punches when you can.

Additionally, 516, like all Stillwater residents, did not have a name. Better to abandon any indication of your past, lest you wallow in that pain forever. She had no interest in getting to know the other prisoners anyway. Most of them were beyond salvation, having committed acts so vile or sinister that 516’s skin crawled when she passed their cells.

Maybe none of this even mattered. Everyone knew that despite all of the rules of prison, there was always one truth: no one leaves Stillwater. The currency of the prison was a familiar one–a constant bid for power. Respect. Bribes made, deals struck, favors exchanged. Prisoners shed their hopes of an outside world, slid off former identities, and operated within the microcosm of Stillwater’s ecosystem. 

Life went on. You do not get a name; you do not get decency; you do not ever get out —but life went on.

There were two tools on either side of 516’s sink: a needle and a crude knife. This was the fourth anniversary. She had done much to earn these two items, between caching in favors, tentatively trading goods, or pummeling where she couldn’t persuade. 

There were two ways 516 had in mind to celebrate her fourth year. She hadn’t settled on one yet.

516 stared into the mirror, at powder-blue eyes made more pale and fierce by the rings of bruises around them. Her most recent beating had left her with a dislocated shoulder, a dragging leg, and oozing wounds down her back. Everything hurt. Nothing mattered. 

The knife glinted in the meager light. It could barely even be called a knife, really, more a whittled down piece of metal turned into shiv. Sharp enough to do irreparable damage. It would be quick.

516 closed her eyes. Seared behind her eyelids are flickers of dead bodies–Mom’s gaping mouth, Mylo and Claggor’s limbs, a limp and monstrous Vander, the phantom of her sister in Silco’s arms. Was there anything to return to? No one knew she was here. No one was alive to care. 516 would spend the rest of her life on these cold floors. In her mind, Stillwater stretched into a ceaseless eternity of gray cells, red blood, purple bruises, white bone. She would meet an end, the same way that all Stillwater prisoners do, as a bloated corpse in black water.

Then: the taste of iron at the back of her throat. Liquid leaked over her lips. A viscous, red splotch landed in the cracked, yellow sink. 516 looked up again.

Oh. The guard had also broken her nose. It had been a while since she had gotten a nosebleed. 516 always tried her best to avoid those, but, well. It’s always been common knowledge that she blocks with her face.

The nosebleed instantly brought her to a familiar waking nightmare: gripping her sister’s face in her hands, a trickle of red, crimson against white bandages. An immediate and incandescent cocktail of grief-anger-despair-regret that blossomed inside her, immolating from the inside. 

It reminded 516 of walking away, finally turning around, resigned, expecting to see her sister kneeling in the rubble, but being met with the sight of a slim back, crooked fingers reaching for Powder, and—

Protect the family .

You don’t get to be selfish.

You have a good heart.

Glass fell around 516’s feet. A hundred shards–a hundred blue eyes stared back at her, unblinking, like being cast beneath an angel’s judgement. The bandages around her knuckles were torn, the wounds reopened, as lines of red wept down the length of her fingers.

516 cursed under her breath. Everything hurt. Nothing mattered. She cannot seem to do anything right. Four years had passed like this. She must decide today, commit and cling to something. Anything. Even if it meant choosing death.

But it was her most familiar ghost, Powder’s voice, that rang through her head, crying, “Please don’t leave me.”

Hands still slick with blood, 516 reached and—

There was a restless sort of chatter in the mess hall. Gossip. The guards shuffled, knowing something was different that day. Change was never good for Stillwater. It usually meant two things: either a new inmate, or the death of one. It meant the worst case scenario: the businesses and underhanded dealings that operated in the prison would be delayed. 

No new inmates today. It must be death, then.

One of the guards, still green and not yet understanding that being stationed at Stillwater meant a permanent placement at the bottom of the barrel, thought herself brave enough to interrogate the prisoners herself. 

They immediately laughed in her face when she inquired, thrilled by her paltry attempt to draw upon memories of Sheriff Grayson, that imposing and regal presence. They spat at her feet.

No matter. She banged her baton against their table, nodding in satisfaction as it made a few of them jump.

The guard had enough of an answer anyway, based on the way they would give judgmental, sidelong stares to only one of the other inmates. 

Pink hair, light eyes, short in stature, well-muscled. She sat alone at a table in the far corner, the rest of the Stillwater having given her a wide berth. 516. 

No one quite kept tally on each prisoner’s stay in Stillwater, after all, it’s not like any of them leave anyway. Not many live past their first year. The inmates chattered behind their hands, and rumor had it 516 just passed the four year mark in this hellhole.

It seemed impossible. The warden would give every new guard the same warnings. Don’t believe anything 516 says. Don’t offer her information about the outside world. Don’t let her make friends or collude with the other prisoners. And above all else, don’t be afraid to use violence. She can take it.

What reason did 516 have to stay, alive despite it all?

Stupidly, one hand already hovering over her baton, the guard walked over to 516.

516 did not look up to acknowledge her presence. Her mouth was still full. She had been in the process of shoveling the lunch slop. There were old, rusty-brown blood stains splattered all over the back of her knuckles. The guard was confident that if 516 were to open her hands, the palms would be in no better shape–filled with open wounds, sores, blisters. 

“What?” 516 asked, still chewing. “You need something?”

The guard took a deep breath, rallying her courage. She said, “Feels like the prisoners are restless, and it has something to do with you. You didn’t kill one of the other prisoners or something, did you?”

516 looked up at her, eyebrow quirked. She swallowed hard, deliberately. Slowly scanned the guard, up and down and back up again. Grinned. The scar on her lip stretched with the movement. She huffed out a disbelieving scoff. “I can tell you’re new around here.” 

It was then the guard saw the reason for all the chatter. Two letters, the skin around them still pink and raw, were inked below 516’s left eye.

She opened her mouth, intending to say, “self modifications are out of code in Stillwater,” but closed it immediately. 516’s hands had tightened around her fork. A muscle in her jaw clenched. Her eyes were piercing, hungry. 

Intimidated, the guard slowly nodded her head. “Yes,” she said, attempting to keep her voice clipped and curt. “I’m new.”

Looking up through her lashes, 516 placed her chin on her palm and tilted her head. For someone who just surpassed their four year anniversary in Stillwater, her voice was surprisingly amused, almost warm.

“I’m Vi.”

Shivering, gasping, Vi dredges herself out of a haze of memories. 

Reality settles around her. Sweat-slick sheets. A hazy light streams through Cait’s curtains. Her mouth is dry. It must be dusk, only a few hours since she last spoke to other-dimension Powder.

Vi’s breathing hard, feeling both too hot and too cold at the same time. Her throat is scratchy, and she can’t breathe properly, and there’s a relentless pounding in her skull. Fuck. The fever had hit seemingly out of nowhere, and she hates it.

It’s been a while since she’s gotten this sick. For as rough and unhygienic as Stillwater was, the amount of time Vi found herself in solitary confinement also meant she was also exposed to less of her usual reasons for sickness (the weather, Zaun smog, contagions festering in the Undercity alleyways). 

Even after being freed, when she first started pit fighting, she had poisoned her body enough in other ways that normal illnesses seemed to fly under the radar of everything else. She supposes it makes some sort of cruel, twisted sense that she’s only become this feverish now that Powder is here. It feels like another crude joke from the universe, where Vi will always be the punchline.

Cait’s room shines with thin strands of gold filament. It glows especially in this last hour before nightfall, highlighting the threads in her sheets, magnificently illuminating lines in her wallpaper. The room is too much. There’s too many pillars—too Piltover . Too many fine and precious things that are clearly part of her lover’s everyday life. She can’t stay here.

Vi stumbles out of bed, catching herself on the walls. She drags herself, chest heaving, to the doorway. Every movement feels like it swims through her. 

She’s in the hallway, now. Then, after painstaking progress, the kitchen. The mansion is seemingly empty. Where did everyone go? She’s dripping with sweat now from the exertion, and sits down heavily on a chair. Vi slumps over the dining table, cheek pressed against the wood. Its surface is cool to the touch, a balm against her hot skin.

Amber liquid winks in the dim light. 

There, on an elegant cart in the corner of the room, Tobias Kimmerman’s collection of whiskey stares back at her.

Shakily, Vi stands, reaches for a bottle, and—

Huh, Vi thinks, and even her thoughts seem to come to her slowly, sticky, as if she’s moving through an Undercity river. She doesn't completely remember how she got here, only that she was posessed by a single minded objective to retrace her steps, find where it all went wrong. Nausea swirls inside her. Where did home go?

She’s at The Last Drop, or, perhaps more accurately, where it should have been. The sign had fallen. The ceiling had collapsed. There wasn’t even a trace of the grimy, disgraceful headquarters that Silco had transformed the bar into. Only a burnt husk remained.

This deep in the Undercity, Vi is alone. 

Since the war, the denizens of Zaun didn’t come this far down anyway, opting to linger closer to Piltover. It feels like a tenuous agreement, with Zaunites daring to be as close as they can, testing the limits of the peace. Besides, what was once the shadiest parts of Zaun (her first home, the home where Ma would measure their heights and sing lullabies) is now a graveyard. Viktor’s artificial faux-haven left a mess of empty dolls, once bodies, and the explosion (young, brave, impossible Isha—) turned it all to scorched earth.

All to say, the lowest parts of the Undercity are now a ghost town. It makes sense. It’s unlucky being next to so much death.

Vi falls to her knees. Curls in on herself. Forehead to the ground. She’s drunk, feverish, worse for wear. Lucidity ebbs and flows. 

Nothing can ever go right. Everybody dies. She’s spent her entire life trying to protect her family, or even just Powder, and she’s lost everyone for it. It’s all burning to the ground around her.

She’s a jinx. She should leave.

It’s unlucky being next to so much death. 

“One foot in front of the other.” Vi repeats in her mind, like a mantra. It’s a slow going process, winding her way back up from Zaun. Her mind still feels addled, by ailment and alcohol, and she presses a hand against her stomach.

When Vi finally manages to return back to the mansion, the lights in the foyer are on. 

Weird. Cait never waits up for her. They have - a working system. Vi gets a few punches in; Cait looks away from the damage. She knows it’s disgusting. The senseless violence, mind-numbing adrenaline. Shame pools in her gut at the thought of Cait having to see it all—the dirty bandages, ugly bruises, messy and broken bones—and she’s grateful that her lover looks the other way.

Vi knows it’s something they should talk about, knows Cait wants to prod, but she isn’t quite ready.

She ambles up the steps, each step shakier than the next. Her hands grip the railings.

Her stomach hurts. 

The door opens. Cait—

“Holy shit. Vi. Where have you been? ” and oh. It’s her little-dimension sister. It's Tall Powder. 

“Out.” Vi manages a grunt, attempting to shoulder past Powder.

Powder shoulders her right back with a sneer, blocking her way. “Bullshit. You can’t just walk out and expect–” She sniffs. Recoils. Eyes squinting, she looks Vi up and down. “Are you…are you wasted right now?”

“I—”

A wave of nausea. Vi pushes past Powder. Beelines to the guest bathroom where–

She’s retches into the toilet, barely making it—

“What– Janna’s tits . Vi. Our dad is a bartender .”

Another wave of nausea, and—

“You gotta be joking.”

Dimly, she’s aware her little sister from another dimension is here, scolding and swearing at her. The cadence of the speech, down to its pedantic asides, sounds like it could have been said by Vander. Hell, in her universe Powder probably did hear this exact spiel from him. 

Being lectured by her little sister fills Vi with a complicated mix of longing, jealousy, and mortification. She doesn’t particularly want to parse through each emotion.

Regardless, it all feels impossibly backwards, and Vi elects to focus on the task at hand: emptying her guts out. Another wave of nausea, spill of vomit, and she moans into the toilet bowl.

Fuck. She misses Vander. She misses her brothers. She wants to be five years old, young enough to still go to sleep curled at her Ma’s back, holding Powder’s small hands in her’s.

There’s hands on her back, now, shushing her. “Shit. Shit. Okay. No-no-no– Vi, don’t cry. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow.” There’s a hand carding through her sweaty hair. Nails scraping at her scalp. It feels nice.

“Caitlyn,” Powder yells over her shoulder. Vi’s stomach drops, and she lurches forward again more. She braces her hand against the toilet bowl. No , she wants to say. Don’t let her see this. She’ll be so disappointed.  

Powder shouts again, “Your idiot girlfriend is getting vomit all over the bathroom mats.” Vi throws up again. “Hey, does my apple stain on the rug get a pass now?”

“She’s what?” Cait’s voice echoes through the halls, all elegant lilt and outrage.

Everything begins to darken at the edges. Vi begins to nod off, and elects to keep her face flush against the toilet seat, the porcelain cool enough to be a comfort. There’s the sound of hurried steps, a pause, harsh whispers above her.

Vi’s head lolls. For a moment, she lets herself sink, sink, sink…

She vaguely registers arms gathering her up.

“Up we go, darling. Come on.” Cait. Her sweet breath ghosts past to Vi’s left cheek. Fuck, Vi is too gross and sticky for Cait to be doing this for her. 

“Hush, Violet. Don’t worry.” 

Oh. Had she said that aloud?

“I think the alcohol fried any remaining brain cells she had left,” Ekko comments drily from her right. Another arm has joined Cait’s under her armpit, hauling her up. They’re shorter than Cait, but they smell like home–axle grease and acrid smoke–and Vi immediately sinks into their hold. “Yes. Vi. You’re speaking aloud.” 

There’s a new edge to the smell too now, something citrusy and salty from the green chemliquid the Firelights use. It cuts heavily through the memory of a young Ekko, who used to come into The Last Drop smelling like cinnamon candy, Benzo’s one indulgence.

They’ve lugged her out of the safety of the bathroom and into the hallway.

Ekko grunts. “Are you made of metal? Why’re you heavier than Scar?”

Powder chirps up from somewhere ahead, “Excellent question! I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

“Shut up,” she groans. The path is familiar. They’re dragging her towards Cait’s room. The movement tugs at the wound in Vi’s side. She pants, the pain near blinding. “Fuck. That hurts .”

They all freeze in the hallway. For a moment, Vi thought she had fallen asleep, but it was just a fast silence that had settled around them.

“Violet, darling,” Cait says slowly, softly, as if she’s speaking to a wild animal. “Where does it hurt?”

“Stomach,” she bites out.

There’s a flurry of movement. In the blink of an eye, Powder is bent over in front of her, unzipping Vi’s jacket. A sudden urgency and tension fills the air.

“Vi. Where, on Janna’s great winds, did you get a stab wound? ” Powder’s voice breaks the silence, dripping with outrage and disbelief. “Gods. You must have been out for less than an hour!”

Vi grunts. “Undercity.” She does not elaborate further.

Cait swears under her breath. “I’ll go get the medical kit. You two get her to bed. Powder, take over my side.” There’s a shift in balance.

Through the slits of her eyes, Vi is able to see her dark blue hair bouncing down the hall. 

Before long, she is distantly aware that she’s being set down onto a bed, ever so gently. There’s another frenzy of whispers in front of her. She has the vague awareness that it's Powder and Ekko arguing. Something along the lines of “well you can’t tell her now ” followed by a hissed, “I can’t exactly time my atoms leaving this reality, either, now can I?”

Vi closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Cait’s back, her fine featured face filled with a concern and care that Vi doesn’t deserve. There’s pressure against her wound, gentle prodding.

“It’s shallow,” Cait mutters to herself, leaning closer to inspect the wound. She announces to the rest of the room, “It didn’t hit anything important. Honestly, knowing Vi, she probably scared them off before there was too much damage.”

Vi feels miserable anyway. Her head pounds. There’s sweat everywhere. She just wants to pull Cait closer, kiss her lips, chase away the crease between her brows. Why is Cait so worried?

“How romantic,” Ekko says dryly from elsewhere in the room, trying for levity and a measured nonchalance. He’s hovering behind Cait’s shoulder though, trying to get a better glimpse of the wound. Powder isn’t much further away. She’s gripping her upper arm with one hand, but Vi can’t seem to get a good line of sight as to why. Was she injured?

Before she can think too hard on it, Cait smoothes her hair back. Presses her lips against Vi’s forehead.

“Sleep, love. We’re here.”

And Vi listens. She sleeps.

Vi is floating.

Her dream is…odd. It is not a nightmare, or a crushed fantasy, as her dreams often are. It’s just that. Odd. Nothing like any other she’s had before. 

She dreams that Powder is carding a hand through her hair. That’s not the strange part though, it’s that, on her opposite side, there’s another Powder also toying with her fingers, running a feather-light touch over her knuckles. Her bandages are unwrapped, in the dream, and that would raise alarm bells in Vi’s mind any other day. But if it’s Powder, it’s okay.

How can there be two Powders? Her vision is blurry, and she hasn’t the energy to do much more than squint, but there’s two identical blobs of blue on either side of her. But what does Vi know? She’s floating, only half aware, and for once, the pain isn’t giving any clarity.

The two blobs are having a conversation over her, not paying Vi any specific attention. Vi is starting to get quite sick of whispered arguments and conversations happening above her, treating her like she’s just a spectator.

Blob 1 says, “She’s an idiot. I can’t believe she would try to go home in her condition.”

“Hah! Coulda told ya that before all this.” Blob 2 goes from playing with her fingers to holding her hand.

“See why I think she needs you?”

The grip on her hand tightens. “Shut it, buns.”

“What do you even have against space buns? Own a mirror? Have you looked at how uneven your hair is right now?”

“You take that back, missy. It’s artistic.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night. The bangs are sick though, I’ll give you that.”

“...they’re like Silco’s.” The voice is cautious and quiet, like a confession.

“Yeah. I know...Silco wasn't this whole ordeal, where I come from, by the way.”

"Oh. That's new, I guess. Can't imagine him being normal, you know?"

"Are any of us normal?"

There’s a sharp bark of laughter. "Touché."

A comfortable silence falls around them. Vi wishes all her dreams were this strange, this peaceful. Her eyes slip close again.

Then, quietly, one of the Powders says, “...I don’t think I’m ready to tell her. It’ll change everything.”

A snort. “The big bad revolutionary of Zaun–a coward ?”

“You betcha. Heroes don’t live for very long, you know? And what if I were actually dead? Then what?”

“That’s the difference, though. You’re not.” A hand cups Vi’s cheek, thumb absentmindedly sweeping under her eye, across the tattoo of her name. “Of course, when terrible things do happen, we have to move past them.”

“I could fill a fucking bucket with all the terrible things.” A sigh. “Come one, come all! Look at the most motherfucking unfortunate family in Zaun. Janna, she’ll never forgive me for doing this to her.”

“Isn’t that the point though? Confronting the ugly that we do to each other. Besides, you know she can’t hold anything against the people she loves.”

“Why do you think I’m trying to leave?” Vi rather doesn’t want either of the Powder blobs to leave, actually. She thinks she’ll love Powder in every form, every dimension. Vi isn’t a scientist, but she thinks this is what a universal constant would feel like. The voice continues, “The past is hard enough for the both of us. She’ll never give up on me. This is the only way we can both stop hurting each other.”

“Maybe so. And? Why make things harder on each other when we don’t have to? It doesn’t have to be now, but I hope it’s something you consider for later.” Then, one of the Powders says, voice small, “Me being here hurts both of us too, I think. But I also don’t think you can love and grow without confronting pain head on.”

“Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

”So what?” There’s the sound of fabric ruffling. The hand resumes carding through Vi’s hair. “I’d give anything to take care of my Vi again.”

“You could stay, yanno?” There’s a note of tenuous hope to the words. “Between the two of us, I think we could circumvent the whole… body double issue. Wouldn’t that fix everything?”

“It’s tempting. But I…I have a whole life there. Back home. And I’m starting to realize I think this is one of the things I have to move past, in order to move forward.”

Vi has long since lost the thread of conversation, letting the words wash over her passively.

It’s definitely weird. There's two Powders swimming in Vi’s vision, but the image is beginning to sharpen into something clearer. The hair is different. So are the eyes. One has a fuller face than the other.

Why are you talking to yourself, Vi wants to ask. But she’s already sinking back into the darkness again. 

Before the darkness fully claims her, one of the Powders laughs hoarsely, and says, “Ekko got to you too huh? What was it that he said–””

“I can’t believe you’re about to quote Ekko –”

“–sounded so cheesy at the time, but–”

Simultaneous laughter. Then, barely audible, someone says, “Taking a leap forward means leaving a few things behind.”

“Stop being so fucking sentimental. I’ll hurl.” 

The two Powders dissolve into quiet, discordant giggles.

Vi sinks.

When Vi wakes–and properly wakes this time–the remnants of sickness still cling to her, manifesting as hair stuck to the back of her neck, cold sweat trickling down her back. But she’s feeling lighter, more lucid. Her fever must have broken.

She props herself up. Janna’s tits , her head is pounding. Vi looks down at the wraps around her stomach. Something herbal and antiseptic is smeared across her chest, and ointment has been applied to all her bruises. Her abdomen is sore, but the sharp pain is grounding, and it distracts her from everything else that feels terrible.

Shit. She’s going to have a lot to answer for.

Cait’s there, arms pillowed in front of her. She’s fallen asleep in an odd position, half slumped out of her chair and onto the mattress. Her spill of dark-black-blue hair is bundled into a ponytail over her shoulder; shoulders that rise and fall softly. Vi reaches out, and–

“She’s been there for two nights in a row, you know. Hasn’t slept a wink until now.” Vi retracts her hand. In the darkness, the figure that steps out has the same spindly, wraithlike carefulness as her little sister, and it’s so painfully familiar but–

It’s Powder. Other-dimension Powder. Her hair is down, the pink streak tucked behind her shoulder. 

“I thought…” Vi swallows. She tries again. “You looked–”

“Like Jinx?”

Vi doesn’t trust herself to speak. She nods.

“...you really miss her, don’t you?” Powder asks, voice catching.

Vi squeezes her eyes shut. Her sister in her grasp, the flickering hope that they could be a family again, all gone in one fall. She chokes out, “Like you can’t even imagine.”

Powder just offers a wane smile. She steps fully into a shaft of moonlight. “In that case…hate to make you lose another Powder, but well. Don’t freak out.” She raises her arm—or the lack of one, really—and Vi feels her heart drop into her stomach. 

Where there should be fingers, palm, elbow, is empty space, slowly disintegrating dust. The disappearance seems to be speeding up too, eating away at every particle. Only one arm has disintegrated, but it seems to be spreading fast from one side. Moonlight shines through the surface of her right cheek, rendered more and more translucent.

“Oh no, Powder.” Vi breathes out. She lurches forward and grabs Powder by her upper arm, where there is still flesh, pulling her forward. The parts of her that are still disappearing ebb and pulse the same way the singularity had. “Does it hurt?”

“No, no, no,” Powder says, rushing to reassure. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Ekko and I think it’s just the Arcane calling me home. Righting the universe again.”

“Shit. Shit.” Vi lets Powder go. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes instead, attempting to stop the stinging in her eyes, the lump in her throat. She swears, “Fuck. I thought we had more time.”

Powder stays silent, shrugging instead. Vi shakes her head. She’s had to lose a sister for the second-third-fourth time. Reconciliations turned into betrayals turned into death. She’s lost count of it all. Gods. Is the universe done laughing? Her voice is strained when she says, desperately, “I can’t say goodbye to you again. Not like this.”

She knew Powder would eventually have to return to the other dimension, her life full of people who loved her. She knew. There wasn’t a future where the two of them could stay. Vi was grateful enough as is that they’ve gotten this at all. 

Still. She wasn’t ready for it to be over so soon.

“It’ll be okay, Vi.” But Powder’s lower lip trembles, and her voice is shaky. She’s putting on a brave face for Vi. 

And, gods, Vi may be out of practice at being an older sibling, but she’ll be damned if she does nothing about her little sister crying. Nothing has been okay for either of them in a while. They’ve been stuck in this dance of grieving each other, grieving the what-could-have-beens, and there will just never be enough time.

Immediately, she wraps her arms around Powder’s shoulders. Vi squeezes her tightly to her chest, hand coming around to press Powder’s face into her shoulder. She tries to hold them both together, as if by holding fast enough, neither of them could break down or disintegrate any further.

Tentatively, a hand, the only one that’s left, comes up to grip the back of Vi’s shirt. Wetness seeps through the fabric. She’s not sure which of them is shaking more.

A mumble against her chest: “Please don’t leave me.” 

The words ring with familiarity. It brings back memories of Vi’s first fight. Overlapping that memory is another: a young Jinx in a burning alleyway.

At eight years old, a young Violet had shook her head, and placed her hand on that little cheek. At fifteen, that same hand had smacked Powder across the face. What had she said then, that first time? Why can’t she remember? 

Vi feels like it’s important, like it had defined something in both of them so long ago that it sank into their souls. Maybe it did. Maybe it started something that spiraled into the rest of their lives. 

Who cast the first stone, who threw the first punch? Nothing matters. Everything matters. Jinx is gone, but Vi is still here, and she will always be an older sister. 

Vi holds tight onto Powder and says, “Never. It’s you and me until the end, Pow-Pow.”

Whispering in the dark, hands clasped, squished together on only half the bed so as to not disturb Caitlyn–it makes Vi feel like they’re kids again, waiting out a storm or one of Powder’s nightmare together.

“What are Mylo and Claggor like now?” Vi whispers.

Powder snorts softly. “Well. Mylo has this absolutely horrendous lookin’ mustache. We’ve all been trying to tell him to shave it off. Says it makes him look distinguished. ”

Vi huffs out a laugh. “Sounds like something he’d do. Remember when he dug up that dusty old Piltie bow tie? Wore that shit for a week thinking it’d get him a date.”

“Oh gods, yes! And it was Vander saying that it was tacky before he finally took that shit off. We’re waiting on Vander saying something about the stache too, but he said something about it being a lesson Mylo has to learn on his own.”

“He’ll be a bachelor forever at this rate.”

“You’re telling me. I’m trying to set him up with Gert, but it’s going as well as you’d expect.” Powder waggles her eyebrows. “Claggor on the other hand has turned into quite the pick of the town.”

Vi raises an eyebrow. “No shot.”

“I’m completely serious.” Powder grins, and her sprinkle of freckles crease with the movement. And isn’t that something? That this Powder gets enough sun for her skin to freckle in the first place. “Like, super in demand. Really grew into his features. It helps that he helps around a lot too. Hard to resist a hunk helping to fix and lift anything and everything for ya. Works like a charm on both the ladies and gents.”

“Huh. Who woulda thought.” Measuredly, Vi breathes in through her nose, before asking, “How’s Vander?”

Powder doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “Oh gods. Think he and Silco have something weird going on—honestly, I think they might have had something with Mom back in the day–but I try not to think too deeply about that.”

“Janna’s Tits, Powder. I meant what is Vander up to generally speaking. I really don’t want to know anything about his love life, let alone with Silco of all people.” Vi gags a bit. “Or with Mom too. Gods. That just feels wrong.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Powder giggles. “But they keep saying Blisters and Bedrock to each other, and after so many times, you have to wonder if they’re talking about something else.” She pauses, hesitating. “He’s doing good, though. All things considered. Misses you a lot. We all do.”

“I miss everyone too. Everyday.” Vi exhales slowly. “And I’m going to miss you. You know, it was only the thought of getting back to you–or Jinx when she was still Powder, whatever–that kept me going at Stillwater. Those were some of the roughest times of my life.”

“I still can’t believe you were there for so long,” Powder mutters. “First thing I’m going to do to the Deputy Sheriff when I see him in my universe is punch him in the teeth. I don’t care if it’s technically not the same Marcus; it’s close enough.”

“Hah! Wish I could be there to see it.”

Powder stares at her. Blue eyebrows furrow. “Been meaning to ask, but have you talked to anyone else about your time at Stillwater?”

“No.” Vi shakes her head. “Didn’t really want to, at first, because it was all so fresh. But by the time those memories started to turn into nightmares, we had an all out war to deal with.”

“I really think you should.” Powder gives a slight nod with her chin towards Caitlyn. “Even if it’s to the Piltie Enforcer. I don’t know how I feel about her yet, to be honest, but I know she’s important to you. And I think it’d be good for you. Make you feel less alone, yanno? Memories can be easy to get lost in.”

“Speaking from personal experience?”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t elaborate, but there’s a haunted expression on Powder’s face. “I’m always going to miss you, Vi. But…but somehow, in your absence, I’ve still managed to build a life to return to. Brick by brick. It’s still the hardest thing in my life, though. Missing you. The hole gets smaller—”

This, Vi knows to the bone. She finishes the sentence, saying “—but you never fill it.”

What feels like ages ago, after the memorial, Vi had said the same to Caitlyn. Maybe Vander first told this to Vi and Powder even earlier, far back in the history of their every loss, and it stuck to the two of them like tar. It doesn’t take away how the words make Vi’s eyes sting.

Powder rolls her eyes. “Exactly. Way to steal my thunder, genius.”

Vi grins. “Can’t let you have all the fun and monologuing, Pow-Pow.”

“Very funny.” Powder’s eyes soften. Two gold ear cuffs glisten on her left ear, mirroring Vi’s silver ones, and the unexpected similarity across dimensions brings a small smile to her face. “But seriously, Vi. I can’t even begin to understand how it must feel to hear about my universe. You’ve lost a lot. I know that. I can’t promise that everything will be fine.” She shudders. “I just want to know that you’ll be okay.”

The disintegration has spread far enough that only half of Powder remains. Vi pretends that the part that’s gone–the part she can no longer see–is just pressed into the pillow and bed. It should be horrific, seeing her sister perish slowly before her eyes, but there’s an odd sort of peace to this. A closure. It’s a grace they’ve never been given by the universe before.

She thinks of Vander finding the courage to take in two girls, after he’d lost nearly everyone else. Ekko and the Firelights and building something new, impossible, and strong out of the damage. Powder, a world away, happy but grieving. She thinks of Jinx, and first punches, and all that went wrong between them, but beneath it all, love. Always love. She thinks of sacrifice and surviving, and how thin the line is between the two.

“I’ll be okay,” Vi says, voice hoarse. She cups Powder’s cheek, like they were kids again. “I’m not quite there yet, I know. But I’ll be okay.”

Vi holds Powder until the end. The Arcane’s reclamation only seemed to quicken the more they talked, until at last, she closed her eyes, and it collects her to the last particle in one fell sweep.

And just like that—like a sigh, like a breath, like wind—Powder is gone.

It’s the next morning now. Vi does not sleep, even after Powder’s side of the bed loses any inkling of lingering warmth.

Ekko had come into the room near dawn, seemingly sensing the change, and they had sat in silence for an hour. He had squeezed Vi’s shoulder in understanding, and she had held onto his hand wordlessly. She wonders how he was able to say goodbye to that perfect world, where he had found the strength. Ekko had always been the best of them.

He’s now asleep on one side of her, head pillowed in his arms at the edge of the bed, replacing Powder. Caitlyn, who had miraculously slept through everything, is still fast asleep on her other side, slumped in the chair. She must have been exhausted after taking care of Vi.

Through the stillness and the silence, Vi breathes. Grief fills her lungs like the Gray, simultaneously familiar and painful. It’s early enough that the sounds of Piltover stirring have yet to filter through the walls. The world feels too normal, too calm.

Vi opens and closes her fists. Her hands feel empty, but there’s nothing to hold. There’s not even an itch to punch something. All that remains is a hollow sort of peace, and maybe that’s what everyday will feel like for a long time. Vi will have to learn to be okay with that.

A whirl of wind whooshes past her. There and gone.

She blinks, and the curtains lift. Strands of hair are blown out of place. Papers ruffle around the room, curling gently at the edges. 

Then, before she can even look around, everything settles again. The room returns to stillness. Its windows are all closed. Where did the wind come from?

(There’s Caitlyn’s midnight musings, saying into Vi’s ear, “There’s talk of a wraith in the Undercity. Janna, they say, a ghost shrouded in blue oblivion, moving faster than wind. ” 

A ghost, a god. It makes her think of wind so sudden and brisk that Vi didn’t even realize the slap was coming until it whipped across her face.)

There’s something on her nightstand that wasn’t there before.

Vi stares. It’s her favorite stuffed animal, from so many years back, the bunny rabbit that had been left in the Undercity rafters. It’s worn, patchy, and frayed, but unmistakably her’s.

Gods, she could have sworn she gave it to Jinx, years ago, in a different lifetime. It was initially a gift from Mom, and while Vi never really understood her love for bunnies, it was a constant symbol in their household. That deep in the Undercity, where the only animal they could reasonably see was just rats, rabbits were an impossible, perfect hope.

There’s a blue dawn outside.

Caitlyn and Ekko are asleep.

It’s just Vi and the bunny.

The rabbit brings her back to, strangely, the moment when Powder was born. It had been like a light switch; everything that made Vi soft, a baby, transferred to her little sister in that moment. She had taken one look at that first tuft of blue hair, and it changed every atom of her being.

By dying, Jinx has rearranged those atoms all over again, and it leaves Vi feeling like she’s drifting, unmoored and scattered, across the cosmos, to other dimensions.

Maybe it’s those same reorganized atoms, volatile and heartbroken, that killed the other Vi, preventing any reality where she would have to live without her little sister. Or, maybe, it’s that same love which will always make the difference, be the reason, towards salvaging a life in the aftermath. 

Regardless, in the face of these grand emotions and the tightness in her chest, it feels silly, what Vi is about to do. It’s stupid. Childish.

It means nothing. It means everything

With no one watching, with no one needing protection anymore, Vi looks between the two people sleeping next to her again.

Ekko and Caitlyn on either side of her. A thought crystallizes in her, with bone-crushing, heart-rendering certainty: I love them so much.

She's years out of practice, and it feels like a relic from another time but—

Flashes of a past life: Ma sweeping her up in her arms; Vander’s hand on her back; Mylo and Claggor’s laughter ringing throughout their bunker; Powder squealing with joy whenever Vi came home from a haul.

Vi raises two fingers to her temple and wiggles them. 

For the first time in a long time, Vi feels like she's coming home.

Chapter Text

Vi hasn’t slept. She’s still in Cait’s bed, curled up, one hand fisted in the empty space Powder left. There’s familiar nightmares nipping at the dark fringes of her consciousness, memories turning in her mind like sunflowers seeking light. 

Inhale. Exhale. Each plume of breath is warm against the back of her hand. 

Blinking slowly, Vi empties her mind and stokes the warm, tight feeling in her chest. It’s much too soft an emotion to be called grief, not quite joy or melancholia, but it’s a tangled ball in her breastbone. 

There’s still that stuffed rabbit on the nightstand, untouched. Vi doesn’t dare try to hold it, for fear it would fall apart, the stuffing spilling over her hands, and she doesn’t think she could handle being responsible for another gutted creature in her arms.

Powder is long gone, and with her, the morning as well. Both Ekko and Cait had woken and left at some point, occasionally checking on her with quick, silent touches. For the better part of that day, they leave her alone.

The room is now darkening around the edges. In the fog of it all, a hand settles on Vi’s forehead.

“Your fever broke,” Cait says, plainly. She pauses. “Bad dream?”

Vi gives her head a slight shake. “No. Just thinking. Remembering.”

“It’s not often I find you this lost in thought.”

She shrugs one shoulder, apathetic.

“Ekko told me to let you sleep a bit longer. Said it was a long night.” Cait looks at Vi’s face searchingly. She asks, with a tender and cautious care, “Powder?”

“Gone. Overnight.”

“Oh, Violet.” Cait sits at the edge of the bed. The mattress dips. There’s a hand carding through her hair. She doesn’t say anything more, and Vi is grateful for it. 

Vi had said all she could throughout the night to Powder, everything she wanted Jinx to know, before the end. Now, exhaustion settles over her, making her feel wrung out and worn.

She does what she can. Vi presses her lips against the back of Cait’s hand. Warm lips against a warm hand. Her fingers curl around a familiar palm, newly calloused from Ambessa’s hand-to-hand training. There isn’t much Vi is certain about anymore, but she knows that in this moment, she’s glad that Cait is here.

Steps. They are a measured footfall, as if intentionally making themselves heard. Then, whispered, “She’s still asleep?”

“No,” Cait says, but her voice is low anyway. Her hand moves through Vi’s hair, scratching pleasantly at her scalp, cradling the base of her skull. “Just tired.”

Ekko squats in front of Vi. She blinks at him slowly, taking him in. Fresh white paint has been applied down his nose bridge in confident streaks, there’s multicolored paint splattered everywhere else. The shades are familiar. Vibrant pinks and blues. His eyes are weary, far too serious for his youth.

Man. He really had gone and grown up without her, huh?

“Stop it.” He gently flicks her forehead. “I don’t know what you’re thinking in that hard head of your’s, but I can tell it’s depressing.” Ekko’s eyes soften. “Just rest, okay? Been a tough week. We got you.”

Vi’s tired of going to sleep, knowing she’s warm and safe, then waking up feeling completely unbalanced and unmoored. Somewhere, in her dreams, amongst memories, it always goes awry. 

She closes her eyes anyway. 

“Did you get rid of the rest?” Cait murmurs.

There’s no answer, but Vi assumes Ekko nods because Cait speaks again. “Good. Thank you. I should have thrown away my father's collection long ago—gods know, he shouldn’t be drinking the stuff at his age anyway.”

Ekko snorts. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, Kiramman. How could you have predicted that she’d drink then go to the Undercity immediately after?” There’s a soft poke against Vi’s forehead. “Tough as nails, but her head’s probably full of them too, after taking so many hits.”

“Hey,” Vi protests, opening one eye.

“Am I wrong? I was kidding at first, but you should really stop blocking with your face.”

Cait stops stroking her hair and moves her hand to thumb at the scar on Vi’s lip. “He’s right, you know. Tactfully speaking, it’s inadvisable.” She traces Vi’s cheek. Fingertips hover over her face tattoo, where she knows there’s a new scar. “And I happen to have a vested personal interest in this face.”

Her voice has that calm, cheeky sound to it, the way it does whenever Cait’s making her own, private joke. Each syllable is crisp, and it makes Vi think of love in a jail cell, a half lilting you’re getting predictable.  

“Get a room.” Ekko wrinkles his nose. “Or, ah shit, I guess this is already your room, huh? Gods. You even have the Piltie agreeing with me now. Look what you’ve done to us, Vi.”

Miraculously, where Vi expects Cait to bristle, she chuckles instead.

“She’s always been convincing. But that’s to be expected of the notorious pit-fighter Hound, isn’t it?”

Ekko snorts. “No points for creativity though, ripped the name straight from Vander. Hey, you think that counts as plagiarism?”

“I hardly think the Undercity pit-fighting rings are enforcing copyright strikes.”

“True. She’s just uncreative then.”

Vi takes a moment to peek out at them from under her bangs, betrayed. She looks between the two people she has left. They make an odd duo.

Standing there, attempting to be Vi’s support, they still give each other an awkward berth apart. It’s not the easy, familiar camaraderie like being at The Last Drop, already knowing what her brothers were going to say next. It’s not silent, exasperated looks across the bar at Vander, when the other kids were being rowdy, and they would have a secret, shared understanding of responsibility. It’s not the language and dance of violence, thrown punches, stones thrown she had become so accustomed to at Stillwater.

The rhythms of Ekko and Cait’s conversations, their voices overlapping each other, the mishmash of accents, don’t quite match up—but the two of them are her’s. They’re trying.

She burrows deeper under the covers. Leans her forehead to press against Cait’s thigh. Ekko and Cait are still talking above her, voices a blur of light conversation.

Vi is warm. She’s safe here. Allowing the exhaustion to overtake her, Vi’s dreams gently lap against the shore of conscious thought, and she lets herself sink.

Numbly, Vi stares out at gray, brackish water. 

Waves collect, crest, crash against weathered rock. Stillwater cuts through the fog as a massive, brutal monument before her. It climbs up into the clouds, disappearing. She knows, from personal experience, how deep its floors go, sinking far below sea level. The sound of level numbers ticking up-up-up, even as the elevator plunges downward, is a familiar one.

Vi is well acquainted with the lowest Stillwater has to offer: sub-level forty. Often, lying on the cold floors in her cell, she would wonder how long it would take for the water to erode the stone fully, burst out from the cracks, transforming the structure from a prison into a watery tomb. There’s part of her that relished the idea of the elements forcibly changing the purpose of a human construct, natural calamity cleansing mortal cruelty.

In those daydreams, her limp body would be enveloped by a swell of waves, swept to sea, smothered by a god’s whim rather than the calculated, callous end Silco would have planned for her. This way, she would, at least, still receive a true Zaunite funeral.

But worst was not the morbid daydreams, but when the beatings left her half conscious. That’s when hallucinations would become hauntings, swirling in Vi’s vision, as horrible conjurations of the worst case scenario. Death, to Vi, could be a sort of peace, but the visual image of Powder, dead or tortured or suffocating in the fire – oh the terrible idea of that reality made Vi convinced she would become a vengeful spirit, a wraith, a ghost or a god, anything to punish Silco. 

She has to live. She has to get out. Powder awaits.

(It made her scared and disgusted of her own mind when she thought that death would be a comfort at all. How could she, even for a second, give up on Powder? How could she entertain that the daydreams and the hallucinations–Vi a corpse in black water, her sister’s little body a black, burnt husk–was a sick, poetic, reasonable end? Nothing about this situation was rational.)

The waves swirl. Sea foam lattices up her ankles like soap bubbles. Vi’s stomach churns. 

Water splashes in a soft, lapping pattern. Feet against wet tile. She turns, and–

Oh. Vi’s in the bath.

The water had flooded out of the tub, spilling over the porcelain. There’s a thin layer of water across the entire bathroom floor.

Cait’s at her side, kneeling, and her trousers are soaked to the thigh. Vi watches the wetness crawl up the fabric, darkening it. Tucking a hair behind her ear, on her bad side, Cait smiles. 

She isn’t wearing her eyepatch today, Vi notes. A shaky, dripping palm carefully cups Cait’s cheek, and her lover leans into the touch, fully trusting. Vi’s chest warms at how Cait isn’t afraid to let her see the scar. Only a handful of people are awarded this trust—Mel after the wound had just been inflicted, the doctors who dressed the wound, and Vi. For no other reason beyond just for the sake of it, because Caitlyn wanted her to see it.

She mulls over what Powder had said. Telling someone about Stillwater. Trust.

Vi thought that time had passed her; that it was already over the moment she escaped. However, it seems like, as with everything, the past is never quite over. It pulses with each heartbeat, filling their bodies, careening towards distant futures. Inescapable. 

Her scars from Stillwater will never leave her, just like how her parents, Mylo, Claggor, Vander, Jinx will always be part of the very fiber of her being. There’s no choosing what sticks, between the good and the bad, only the acceptance to grow around it, with it.

Cait is heartbreakingly gentle as she grips Vi by the forearms and pulls. Water sluices off her skin. Vi is naked, shivering, but Cait’s already there, wrapping a fluffy towel around her shoulders, patting her dry. It smells like her. Jasmine and iris, undercut by a sweet and woodsy willow bark. 

“Come to bed, Violet.” There’s a kiss against the underside of her jaw. Vi thinks of scars and trust, sacrifice and Stillwater. “The water’s gone cold.”

It’s a rough day again—

It’s a normal day—

It’s, it’s, it’s—

Like the litany of records in Vander’s old jukebox, the days following Powder’s departure are a ceaseless spin of waking, sleeping, working. She tells Cait everything. She throws herself into the Reunification efforts with increased vigor, imagining all the ways that the other dimension had worked through the kinks and old animosity. She tries to make up for the time she lost in Stillwater. 

There are meetings upon meetings, and though it goes against Vi’s every instinct, she suppresses the urge to bite back at slights by the Councilors, insults from Zaunites. In some ways, it’s almost similar to navigating Stillwater's power dynamics. Which is a grim comparison by most regards, but the difference lay here: the particularities of the prison guards versus inmates was a political dance that Vi intentionally spat on.  At Stillwater, she chose to disrespect how power was distributed, in order to keep her own integrity. 

She also just likes letting her fists do the talking. It’s cleaner. That isn’t to say Vi doesn’t know how to say the right things when she needs to.

(The right things sound something like: “Councilor Shoola! Mind if I bend your ear, really quick? Noticed your eye aid was bothering you during the meeting today. Lucky for you, Cait just got this great Ionian salve–here, I brought some. While I have ya, can we chat a bit more about resourcing to Zaun?”

And also: “Aw, Babette. C’mon! You know me! You know that I wouldn’t ask unless it was necessary. Please? I really need to hear any info you have about which Councilors are paying the most for services lately…No, ew, I know Sevika’s a regular. Anyone else?”

With some: “Sevika. Trust me here. I will get us the trade deal. All I’m asking is that for this meeting: just shut the fuck up. We just have to pretend we can agree on some things, sometimes, alright? I have some dirt on one of the disagreeing Councilors, anyway.”)

And it’s messy, complicated, twisted–but against all odds, it’s working . She’s found herself in a unique placement. No one in Zaun has access to the Kimmerman library and resources like Vi does. And no one in Piltover understands Zaun, what it means to forge those bonds through poverty and pain, better than Vi.

Just like donning the Enforcer badge, becoming a liaison between the cities goes against her every instinct. Vi has grown up believing in evening the odds, leveling the battlefields, and retribution. Dues are meant to be paid, hands forced, even if she has to pry it open with her own fingers. 

But politics like this, working in half truths and shadows? She’s no good at any of it, nor does she want to be. As a child, she never understood why Vander chose to complicate everything by involving Sheriff Grayson. Asking for respect had a clear, violent path forward. 

Now, though, faced with the aftermath of the war: Zaunite refugees, Piltover debris, victims and corpses everywhere, and a tenuous dream of another dimension’s peace…

It feels a bit like stepping into Vander’s shoes again. Vi wonders if this is what it felt like to him too, when he hung up his gauntlets and started deals with Sheriff Grayson. Maybe he also felt like he was selling his soul, compromising everything he believed in, as a temporary solution.

There’s no erasing all the pain inflicted between the two cities. There’s also nothing to be found in mutual destruction. How did the Powder in the other dimension manage to accomplish a miracle? How did she find it in herself to forgive everything that Piltover did wrong to Zaun, everything the Undercity did wrong to them?

It all makes Vi feel older than ever.

Regardless, she feels a renewed purpose, a satisfied exhaustion at the end of each day, but she knows it’s not enough. There’s no more time for pitfighting, and the strange duo of Cait and Ekko have ensured that all the alcohol in the Kimmerman dining room is far off the premises, but she feels a buzzing underneath her skin all of the time. 

On multiple occasions, when it’s all too much and she thinks how it should be Jinx or Vander in her place, Vi flexes her hands and balls them into fists. She increases the pressure, clenching hard enough for her fingernails to cut between the folds of her bandages, into her palms. It’s enough to draw blood.

Everything has led up to this moment and opportunity. It’s a shitty opportunity, that’s for sure, but Vi won't be the one to give it up. 

She steels herself. Vi unravels the bandages from her hands, using them to wipe at the blood. Stuffing the loose cloth into her pockets, she trudges onward. Her bare hands push through the doors, into the Council meeting room, where her citizens wait.

A few weeks later, Ekko tries to convince her to do the speech. On multiple levels, it feels fundamentally wrong.

“It should be you,” Vi urges. She’s pacing the base of the Firelight’s tree, and Ekko watches her go back and forth with vague amusement. “You’re the one that’s been here all this time, fighting for Zaun. You’ve done so much good work. All I managed to do is lose everyone’s trust by becoming one of them.”

“You underestimate how much people need a good show of faith,” Ekko shoots back. “Plus, I don’t think you realize how many of us down here thought you died with Vander, Mylo, and Claggor. You’re a living legend, Vi. Literally.”

She scoffs. “Real funny, Little Man.”

“I’m not kidding. Think about it the resurrected daughter of the Hound of the Underground and Jinx’s sister–you’re practically a myth down here already.” He grins cheekily, leaning against a railing. “Not to mention your pit-fighting career. I know you got fans. Face it, Vi. You’re a celebrity.”

“Oh, and you aren’t? Boy savior. ”

Ekko taps the mask hooked onto his waist. “You do realize that before the war, the Firelights were a rebel street gang, right? I never took this off on missions.” He shakes his head. “It was always about becoming a symbol. And symbols worked–I mean look at Jinx’s following. But I don’t think what we need right now is someone in masks.”

Vi pauses her pacing to give him an incredulous stare. “I don’t know if you noticed, but a former enforcer is also a really, really shitty follow up to a symbol.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” He tilts his chin towards the mural, a memorial to everyone they’ve lost. “You think the kids down here haven’t grown up hearing stories about you? Or that the older fissurefolk haven’t seen all the effort you’ve been putting into Reunification lately? You have a lot to own up for, but that doesn’t take away how it’ll mean a lot coming from you.”

“I’m not exactly good with my words, Ekko.” She raises her fists and shakes it. There’s new bandages, but the bruises and burst blood vessels still peek out from the top. “See?”

“I seem to recall that half the time, you lectured me more than Benzo did. But when it actually was Benzo lecturing me, you were the one giving me a pep talk through it.” He crosses his arms, daring her to challenge the memory. “I know you’re good with your words Vi, because I know when you have something to say, you’re more honest than anyone else.”

Growing more desperate, she scowls. “What about Sevika? She’s a Councilor now.”

Ekko winces. “Okay, we’ve reached the end times if you think Silco’s right-hand is going to be a better legacy pick for the speech over you. Piltover, old Chembaron followers, and Jinxsters might not have a problem with her because they were all part of Silco’s trade at some point.” He shakes his head. “But the families down here, ravaged by the Shimmer trade? All the shopkeepers? They remember when Sevika was the one collecting dues from each neighborhood.”

“Shit,” Vi swears.

“Shit,” Ekko agrees.

Just like that, Vi finds herself in front of Vander’s statue, addressing a crowd of Zaunites. 

It’s an unofficial holiday, the anniversary of the bridge revolt. The day her parents died. They don’t often celebrate it outwardly, in the streets, but everyone in the Undercity lost someone that night. Remembering them, amidst all this other chaos, is the least they can do now.

In the crowd, there’s familiar faces, people from her past or folks who she fought alongside on the front lines. There’s heartbreakingly young faces too, streaked with dirt or paint, and it reminds her so much of Ekko and Powder as kids.

Vi’s wearing Vander’s old mining jacket. Though it hangs off her shoulders, nearly swallowing her, the weight of it is comforting. In the pocket, she thumbs at the stupid, old Piltie bowtie that Mylo had stolen, so many years ago. Claggor’s goggles are looped around her neck. In smooth, practiced motions, Ekko helped braid the long part of Vi’s hair into a spill down her back.

It feels like she’s carrying her family with her, and that knowledge fills her with a new, precious strength. It’s different from the power she’s accustomed to, the feeling of dominating in the ring, or when she knew she had the upper hand in a junkyard fight. It’s a quiet self-assuredness, as gentle and steadfast as holding Powder’s hand in the night, be it at ten, fifteen, before death, across dimensions.

Vi taps the mic, and feedback rings around the room. She winces. Swallows. In the first row, Ekko nods to her encouragingly.

She doesn’t have a speech prepared. It seemed ingenuine to read off a piece of paper and recite tired lines about unity. Instead, Vi opens her mouth, and starts with the truth.

“Jinx was a hero.” Vi grips the podium with both hands. Her fingernails bite into the wood. Ekko painted them a dark violet, shrugging and saying he found it in one of Vander’s drawers, ages ago. “She was also my sister. Twelve years ago, we lost both of our parents on the bridge. 

“My parents died believing in a better future for the both of us. Vander died trying to make the world safe for us. My sister died protecting me,” Vi says, and for a moment, the words steal her breath away. She doesn’t think she’s said them aloud yet. It makes her dizzy. “I know we’ve all lost people, not only that night or during the war, but even in the times in between. Things have been hard, and we are all so tired.”

Vi thinks of another Powder, a timeline away, building a new life for the Undercity. It must have taken years to soothe generational hurts and find new compromises to age-old resentments. 

She knows that violence has always been an easy language for her to fall back–not because it came naturally to her, but because it was the most convenient path to force a change. It was also the easiest pain to self inflict, while still claiming it was for the better of everyone else. She can’t punch her way out of her own pain, or the collective hurt that the Undercity has faced.

Forgiveness, towards the world that wronged her, towards herself, is the hardest thing Vi has ever had to do. She draws on the strength of Powder’s memory, allowing herself the trembling hope that they could find the same peace here. 

The rest of her speech falls in place after, coming naturally. For the first time in a long time, it felt easy to talk about her parents. Vander, her brothers, Powder. Topics that usually clog her throat with grief, but now, they fill her sentences to the brim with gratitude. 

Vi keeps her speech short, trying to keep focus. It wasn’t about the Reunification efforts, or swallowing pride for the sake of peace. It was just about understanding that the loss, the hole, would always be there, but that they had to carry each other through it.

Her voice is hoarse by the end. Vi says, “We’re all here because of the sacrifices and love of the people before us. I think we owe it to them to carry it on. See it through.” 

The crowd is relatively tame when Vi steps off the stage, only a few scattered clumps of applause by the younger kids, the Firelights, and the few older folks who remembered Vi when she was younger.

Ekko is beaming from the first row, and he claps her on the shoulder as she steps off the podium. Firelights look to him for approval, and he nods. They scatter in quick streaks of green.

The rest of the audience disperses. Together, Ekko and Vi look up at Vander’s statue.

“Great job up there,” he offers.

Vi shakes her head. “I’m never doing that again.”

He laughs, but she’s completely serious. 

“In the other dimension, I got to see him, you know. Vander. Benzo, too.” Ekko pauses. “I think they would be proud of us, even though everything went wrong in this universe.”  

There’s this wave of grief that is constantly threatening to overtake her, hiding in the pulse of her blood, and Vi is doing all she can to keep her head above water. Vi thinks of the long road ahead, the years it took the other dimension to achieve stability, without a war to mess with things in between. 

Looking at her oldest living friend, who has built a life of his own from the rubble, Vi reminds herself of what it was all for, at the very start: wanting more for her little sister.

Ekko knocks his shoulder against Vi’s, and says, “I think Jinx would be proud of you today too.”

Vi exhales slowly. She chooses to believe him.

“Violet,” Cait whispers one night, when she finally crawls into bed. 

Vi makes a sleepy, lax reach towards her lover, pulling her waist close. Man, if Vi thinks she works late nights, it’s nothing compared to Caitlyn, who has tirelessly been flipping through diagrams on the Kiramman key, day in and day out, relentlessly hunting for something. Reunification solutions? 

Settling closer, Cait presses a kiss against her temple. “I have to talk to you.”

“Hm?” Vi manages. Absently, she thumbs at the dark silk slip, feeling the fabric bunch. Cait’s warmth seeps through. “Tomorrow? S’late now.”

A laugh ghosts across her shoulder, and it’s the most lovely, lightest feeling in the world. “Sorry, dear, but I cannot wait until morning.”

Vi cracks an eye open. Raises an eyebrow. There’s a quavering tightness around Cait’s lips, like she’s suppressing a smile. Leaning forward, Vi peppers sleepy kisses across her cheek, trailing to the corner of her mouth, trying to pull that toothy, beautiful grin into existence. “Ok. You have me. Spill.”

Cait swiftly stops the barrage of kisses in one motion, catching Vi’s mouth with her own. Legs slide over her waist, until she’s straddling Vi. Dark hair slips over a pale shoulder, falling against her cheek. Cait breaks away, and Vi resists the urge to chase after her. Their faces are still close to each other, intimate, and there are only hot breaths of air between them. 

“So…” Cait starts, then bites her lip. It’s so adorable, such an echo of how nervous Cait had been when they first met, that Vi cannot help but be endeared. “I’ve had a case that I’ve been meaning to share with you. Of course, I would have shared it earlier, but getting everyone off the island ended up becoming more a technical and logistical issue rather than a legal one.” 

Her lover pauses, reconsidering. Vi can practically see her mind at work, her detective instinct hunting for the perfect configuration of words and sentences. It comes out in a rambling rush anyway. “Though, I suppose it would have been prudent of me to share that process earlier as well, anyway, given that this is a highly personal injustice, so if—“

“Cait,” Vi says, exasperated. Fondness expands in her chest. “I love you, but it’s late. And I really want to just kiss you again right now anyway. What island? What’s the good news?”

Breathing out shakily, Cait grins, then says, “Well. To skip forward a bit–as of an hour ago, the terrible, archaic institution known as Stillwater has been blown to bits.”

Vi’s mind stutters to a stop. She manages to choke out, “Blown to bits? ”

“It’s been a project in the making for a while, actually. Even when we were…separated, I couldn’t in good conscience allow it to continue running as is.” Fury briefly crosses Cait’s face, and it lights those severe features into an expression so alive, liquid, livid. “Then, the previous warden had died, but can you believe my rage when I heard they continued the sub-forty cells despite my orders anyway? I had to shut it down again , though the upper floors were still operational for a while longer.

“So, we did get all the legal work done. Being a former Commander has its perks I suppose. We had moved all the prisoners as of tonight.” Cait’s grin grows. “I was going to share that progress with you anyway, and let you know the demolition date.”

“You said it was…” Blown to bits. Gods, Vi cannot quite wrap her head around it.

Cait nods, sensing what was unsaid. “Yes. It looks like someone got ahead of us anyway. It’s gone, Vi. Stillwater’s gone.”

Vi’s gapes for a few moments, stunned.

What is there to say? That place had been limbo for her. Countless, hungry nights waiting for an end, any end. A merciless rhythm of waves crashing against the shore, which, at some point, became a sound between hopeful and harrowing. Ceaseless cruelty, stolen time. Everything that had made Vi soft, a baby, dissipated when Powder was born, but Stillwater had stolen her hope, stolen her youth. 

And it was finally gone. Just like that.

Vander’s voice rings in her mind, the words that had sat in Vi’s mind like a stone while she rotted in Stillwater suddenly rush in all at once. Over the years, the words had twisted, turning comfort into a curse–

When people look up to you, you don't get to be selfish. 

You’ve got a good heart. Don’t ever lose it, no matter how the world tries to break you.

Take care of Powder.

Vi unravels. She gasps, hands clinging to Cait’s waist. 

Her first instinct is to think how she doesn’t deserve it. Vi has failed on every count. Even when she tried her best to be selfless, even as she tried her best to hold fast and tight to her world, it never mattered. Her family died. Jinx died. Everything she has ever known, loved, cherished, is always stripped from her hands. 

The worst case scenario has happened long ago, and she’s been scrambling for stability ever since. Stillwater had always served as a monument to that accumulating pain, Vi’s madness and melancholia, and it seemed a landmark that would always lurk in the corner of each window, at the end of roads, always visible. And now it’s gone.

There’s tears welling in her eyes, and a girl who loves her, and a community that she has crawled her way back to. Powder, across dimensions and time and tragedy, had asked her not to leave. How could she ever leave her sister, no matter when or what form she comes in? 

Vi chooses, over and over again, to stay. She’ll stay in this life she has built, this life that the world has dealt her with, that Stillwater tried to snuff out. By staying alive and holding onto the love that has always surrounded her, Vi will always keep the memory of her sister (young and holding Vi’s hand; older with Isha in her arms) safe and warm and alive. She owes Jinx that much.

Stillwater’s gone. With it, so is the last physical remnant of Vi’s past and everything that went wrong. She’s been looking for home all this time, digging through the wreckage and trying to salvage what’s left. But home, for Vi, was never really about the foundations of a house, the creaky floorboards, or a Piltover bedroom, was it? She’s been trying to find her way back, for a while.

Between Cait and Vi, words were never their strong suit. For them, apologies were dealt in soft, tender touches. Understandings bridged between them emerged as hands reaching for each other across the table. Trust had blossomed in unsaid confirmations, nestled in Undercity corridors, on the floor of a Piltover bunker cell, in Cait’s room. 

There’s so much she wants to say—thank you for believing me; thank you for seeing me; thank you for being someone I can come home to. Thank you for being alive, for staying here with me.

Vi surges forward, cups Caitlyn’s face, and pulls her into a long, deep kiss.

Below Jinx, Stillwater is blown into smithereens. 

“And that’s for both my sisters!” Jinx whoops from above. She whistles and cackles and aims finger guns at the explosions, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Boom! Bam! Pow!”

This high up, the wind whips her hair wildly. After having had her braids for so long, she can almost imagine how they would move in the air now, undulating below and around her, dangerously close to tangling with her entire navigational set up. 

Sometimes, Jinx misses the length and weight of her hair. The long hours detangling, washing, braiding them were a special, secret memory between her and Silco. Rare, timeless nights where the world and memories fell so far away, and the hypnotic, steady rhythm of fingers through her hair were all that mattered.

It’s hard to think of Silco and forget that for as much as he had raised her, he had been terrible to her. Her brothers died because of him. Vi was imprisoned because of him. Vander had been rendered a beast because of their feud, brotherhood, and Shimmer. Jinx sheared the parts of her that still made her Powder–the parts that made her hapless and useless, but also sweet and merciful–because of him. It was unforgivable.

Silco had been an imperfect and vile man. But in his own way, in perhaps the only way he knew how, he had loved Jinx when no one else could. He turned her into a weapon. He manipulated her. He braided her hair. Silco had been the only person to do the one thing Jinx always needed: he saw her and chose her.

She may be a rotten reflection of a rotten man, but for a while, all Jinx had was Silco. He had destroyed her family, wrecked Zaun in his pursuit for recognition, but he had also held her in a burning alley when no one else would. Loved her even when littered with bullet holes. 

He would have killed Vi, if given the chance. He tried to turn them against each other. He lied to her. Jinx needed to be the one to have killed him. Her ruthlessness comes from him; she cannot bear the similarities between them. Jinx loves him and has survived this long because of him. 

She wants to cling onto the ghost of Silco, because without her, who is there to mourn the father he had become?  If she cannot forgive Silco, does Jinx deserve to be forgiven at all too? They have wronged everyone they ever cared about.

The right answer lies somewhere in a chasm; irreconcilable between her identities as a young girl on the bridge versus the woman who later lay broken on it. Voices vie for her attention, demanding that answer. Loudest amongst them is, as always, Silco and Vi. The locusts swarm, and the static crescendos. It’s unbearably loud, and all Jinx wants to do is scream, and she is alone up here—

The wind howls. Janna’s blessing swallows all the other noise. The structures that make up Piltover and Zaun rapidly disappear from sight, blending into the horizon and becoming blurry. Blurry like Isha and glasses on Jinx’s life, but which is reality? Which is the dream?

With each nautical mile that passes, she feels another layer that made her Jinx lift and disappear like smoke. The contours of her existence blur, now, into something between blue oblivion and a pink annihilation. Whatever had brought that other-Powder to this dimension still quivers in her every atom, vibrating at an erratic, volatile frequency. But there’s a resonance that is being reached, like the feeling of a warm hand in another’s, like still water.

It didn’t matter if she lived in the Undercity or Topside—it would always be a constant, flickering existence as both ghost and body. She’s not really quite Powder, nor Jinx anymore, is she? 

There is a delicious, perfect silence beginning to settle in her mind. It reminds her of the quiet, wordless comprehension between her and Isha. She closes her eyes and breathes.

You never forget your first, real lungful of clean air. This wasn’t her first, nor second, or even third. But for the first time in a long time, it feels unburdened. 

In another life, she had raised a blue flare in hopes to be found, to be deconstructed and made whole again like one of her tinkered monkey bombs. In this life, she knows it is not so simple. She knows that there will be a time to return, when she’s ready, when it’s less painful. It is a journey beyond just breaking cycles, but also finding the courage to come full circle. 

Besides—she thinks, relishing in the expansive sea spread below her, smiling at the thought of Vi and interdimensional travel and sisterhood—you’re never going to give up on me. Are you?  

The future is bright, the sky filled with violet and pink streaks, and Jinx sails away from Piltover and Zaun and all that went wrong, looking for her own way back home.

One moment, she’s holding Vi’s hand in the dark. Then, Powder inhales, and in the next breath, she’s back.

Every part of her can feel it, like being on a precipice, about to lose your balance, only to be pulled from the edge. Or, maybe the feeling is more like being knee-deep in the ocean, nearly swept away by the riptide, and finding yourself returned to shore. All to say, Powder knows to her bones that she’s returned to the correct dimension—her dimension.

She wakes at the base of the Undercity tree that the other-Ekko had shown her. In the time since, Powder hadn’t dared show it to anyone else, wanting to keep that precious glimpse into an older Vi all to herself. She visits often when she can, though lately, it had become more difficult as Mylo and Claggor grew suspicious of her weekly outings. 

The tree is as beautiful as ever, its canopy of leaves a shroud from the harsh daylight. Even with all the progress they’ve made in the Undercity with air filters and water levies, a tree this old and imposing is still a miracle. Hadn’t Ekko said it was a place the Arcane was found naturally? Given recent events, Powder supposes it checks out.

The mural stands proudly before her; the texture of the paint glistening in the light. Her sister looks down on her like a guardian angel, though that at least, has always felt true, even without the paintings. After all, Powder has always felt her sister’s presence in everything she does, when comforting Vander on the death anniversary, when signing the first contracts between Piltover and Zaun, when scaling up buildings to find viewpoints, even though none of them need to do that anymore.

It had always felt like seeing Vi at the edges of her vision, like a haunting, and Powder couldn’t run fast enough to catch up to her, no matter how fast she climbed. Were it not for the sheer amount of work that always arrived at her desk and her family’s insistent motherhenning, Powder feels as though that constant ghost of her older sister could have driven her mad.

Now, though, her heart just aches at the thought of Vi, fifteen and unbearably young, looking down at her. Hand outstretched, waiting for Powder to take it.

Powder stands. She places her fingertips against the wall, tracing the shape of Vi’s tattoo. She shuts her eyes, and draws upon the memory of being in the other dimension. Vi, her brave and stupid and brilliant older sister. Vi, leading her out of Zaun and into Piltover, broad shouldered and undeniably strong. Vi, alive.

It’s enough. 

Powder smiles. She mutters to herself, without even knowing the weight of these words in a different timeline, “Love you. Always with you, sis.”

Leaves rustle above her, and the ground is full of shaking, dappled shadows. The sun is setting. Powder basks in the easy breeze, relishing in her memories of it all. She imagines looking up and seeing Vi, fifteen, pulling her up, up, up through the ladders to Piltover. The vision turns into Vi, older, holding her hand as they descend into the grimy pits of post-war Zaun. 

Somewhere in between, Powder has built her own happiness.

Speaking of which, based on how low the sun is beginning to fall, it must be close to dinner time. Vander, her brothers, Ekko—they’ll be calling for her soon. Powder supposes she should figure out how long she’s been gone too…damn, how much time has passed?

The shrine to Vi, her Vi, will need attending to as well, neglected as it’s been. She hopes her sister wasn’t lonely while she was gone. 

There’s an old lullaby she hums as she makes to leave. It’s the one Ma used to sing, the one she nearly forgot, until she found herself in Vi’s arms again. Powder relishes in the memories, grieves the what-ifs, dreams and hopes and loves.

She takes one last look at the mural. Raises two fingers and wiggles them. Then, she turns around, walks out through the tunnels, not once looking back.

Following a well tread and familiar path, Powder finds her way back to the life she’s carved out of the bedrock, covered in blisters. 

Home awaits.