Archive of Our Own

The machine whirred, a slow whine building and building like the hope in her chest. 

The centrifuge spun and the hex-crystal inside arced with bolts of electricity, more and more bolts shooting out as it spun faster and faster.

Powder bit her lip, excitement and hope and dread reflecting off of blue eyes illuminated by flashes of arcane energy. 

It whirred and whirred, spinning faster and faster. 

Until suddenly the machine cut short, dying down with a sad whine. 

With it, Powder's hopes and dreams. 

She didn't even cry this time. 

She just falls to her knees and sighs, her reserve of tears having long been drained by the many previous failures.

I'm sorry.

She didn't know who she was saying it to. 

Herself, perhaps. 

Ekko, maybe. 

Vi. 

Certainly, Vi. 

It had been such a dream when she had first thought of it, the possibility of remaking that- Ekko's research and…

Doing the impossible, she supposed. 

She wasn't foolish. Even if she had put away her ambitions, consigned herself to working in the Last Drop and watching life pass before her eyes, she hadn't lost that sharp perceptiveness her adoptive father so fondly called her 'shooting eyes'. 

And her shooting eyes had figured that Ekko was doing something interesting and almost impossible. 

Until he did it. 

Or, at least, that- Ekko and not her Ekko. 

Her Ekko had barely remembered the week in some case of sudden onset and localised amnesia, which only added to the near confirmed theory that that -Ekko was from somewhere else.

Somewhere else where he remembered her differently. Where he was scared of her, worried about her reaction, was twitchy in her presence like he expected her to blow up.

Somewhere else where he saw the need to hope for something , where the Zaun he knew was very different from the one he saw through her -Ekko's body. 

Somewhere else where he knew a Vi that lived.  

That mural would forever be burned into her mind, an image she could not have possibly conjured from treasured memories of a sweet and tough girl who took her into her arms and silenced the ever constant noise of the world. 

That Vi was strong, proud and though it was but an image she knew in her very soul that she was the same caring, loving big sister that Powder so relied on, before and after she had…gone. 

Her Vi spoke with a young voice, commanding yes but still coming into her own, forced to take on a role she shouldn't have had to if only they weren't so…weak. 

That Vi she knew would shatter the world when she spoke, that she could fight it all and win, that she could hold it up with such strong arms. 

Or maybe that was just in Powder's increasingly erratic dreams where the things in her head came surging back after recent events unturned the stone she had used to bury them under. 

She had never dealt well with the loss of her sister. 

The loss of what felt like her other soul. 

Blood may not have made family, she knew that more than anyone, but her and Vi's connection ran deep.

Vi was the little bit of land on which Powder could safely stand amidst the ocean of existence, that steady pillar she could rely on to hold her up even when everything seemed to want to bring her down.

Her light in the darkness of her own mind. 

Even in death Vi was the Older Sister, for only with Vi's voice in her ears and the ghost of her embrace did Powder sail through through the storm of grief that nearly drowned her. 

Vander helped of course, her great big bear of a father who held her tight, afraid to lose another daughter. 

Her brothers too, Mylo and Claggor, taking it upon themselves to ward away the cruelties of the world even while they grieved their sister just as much as she did.

It helped and hindered, in a way, this love from her family. 

It only confirmed that she was weak, that she was holding them back. 

That her weakness was the cause for Vi's death. 

That they loved her all the same instead of casting her out as they should have spoke volumes of their hearts and she appreciated them all for that. 

She had even gained more support in the aftermath of Vi's departure, for her beloved sister's death would set off a chain reaction that would shake the Sister Cities to their core. 

Powder herself didn't know what exactly happened in the direct aftermath, didn't really want to remember, but she gleaned it over time. 

Her, Mylo and Claggor had been detained, along with Vi's body because they all but threw themselves upon it to prevent it from being taken by the Enforcers. 

News of their detention then filtered to Vander, who learned that all his children had been arrested and one was dead. 

While the three languished in an Enforcer station, the Hound of the Underground, who once muzzled himself after the tragedy of his first rebellion, howled once more. 

And the Underground howled with him. 

Vander commanded respect from all aspects of the Undercity's society from the humble miners to the hardened gangsters. Many of them rallied because he asked them to. 

Many more came to his banner because it was the chance to finally make a stand once more against Piltover's careless oppression. 

Almost overnight, while she cried an ocean of tears and clutched her sister's unresponsive body hoping against all hope that her begging and pleading and broken heart would call her back, Powder and her siblings became a symbol. 

Everyone in the Undercity knew kids that stole, children forced by circumstance or guided by darker hands. Some people were sympathetic, others weren't, but all knew they existed. 

When a bunch of these children decided to rob Piltover some would have cheered, as any good Zaunite would when Piltover got their comeuppance. 

When they heard that, for this petty act of thievery which all Zaunites knew and were accustomed to, one had been killed and the others detained, their amused cheer turned to disbelieving fury . 

On the other side as Vander marshalled the Undercity once more (making amends with Silco, she would alter learn) the Piltovan Council was sent into a dizzy as they came under the rare two-front attack of an Undercity in a furious stir and their own people making raucous complaints. 

It would actually be a few years later that Powder learned that, in addition to them, there had been more casualties to that explosion. 

The reckless scientist himself whose apartment they robbed, and more importantly the daughter of a Councilwoman, both of whom had suffered injuries. Somehow, word got out that the building had been leased to the scientist by that very Councilwoman, who then came under attack by allowing this to happen and indirectly injuring her own daughter. 

It would later emerge that political rivals of the Councilwoman were the ones to spread the news, however they had probably not intended for it to evolve from an irresponsible act of a single Councilwoman to an act all the Council had been in some way implicit in. 

Because Councilwoman Cassandra Kiramman, when backed into a corner with her child injured and her family name about to be put to the torch, made the bold move of dousing the whole thing in fuel and holding up a proverbial match. 

All the dirt, all the gossip, all the connections were laid out to ensure that if she went down she would take the whole damned thing with her. 

To top it all off, to add even more fuel to the firestorm they had inadvertently caused, a miracle happened. 

A section of the Enforcers, led by the very same Captain who had first detained them and kept them in sparse but not uncomfortable custody while he tried to figure out what had happened, announced his intention to refuse any orders from an irresponsible Council. 

And that he would, of his own accord, set them free. 

Claggor would later remember (because Powder only ever remembered Vi during these moments in her nightmares) that Captain Marcus came to them and shakily apologised for their treatment. Her brother would say that the Enforcer couldn't look away from her, from how she held onto Vi's necklace as she curled up on the floor, covered in her own sickness because she refused to do anything but shiver and shake after they finally had pried Vi's body from her grip. 

They were released to Vander's open arms and a furious gathering of the Undercity's toughest. 

Her, her brothers and her sister's body wrapped in white cloth which she clung to like a lifeline. 

All of that took three days. 

To forever change the world, it took three days. 

And her sister's death. 

Despite it all, despite the undeniably positive benefits those three days would later reap for all of Zaun, if Powder had a chance she would give it all back and have her sister instead. 

It was selfish. 

Horribly, terribly selfish and she was the last person to ever deserve that. 

But had Vi been just a little bit selfish, she would have lived. 

Powder would never voice these thoughts of course, but she held them close to her all the same. 

So when that -Ekko came to her world and upended it, showed her a possibility that she only found in sweet dreams amidst the ocean of nightmares, was it any wonder that she would jump at the chance to make possibility a certainty? 

Only, with several failures and a dwindling supply of hex-crystals, it seemed certainty was kept an ocean away. 

A glass was put in front of her and a particular crinkly straw was plopped inside.

She smiled, despite her mood. 

"Thanks, dad." Powder muttered and she took a languid sip. 

It was a sweet fruity cocktail.

It was nice. 

It tasted like ash. 

Somehow, they were both true. 

She felt a big, warm hand on her head and smiled once more, even if it was a little embarrassing. 

"Still no luck in this project of yours?" Vander asked.

Powder sighed and shook her head, trying to find pleasure in sweetness when all she felt was empty numbness. 

It was a hard thing to face for a supposed 'genius' like she was, the prospect of abject failure. 

Trial and error was one thing sure, and that was kind of what it was at first and what she was expecting. 

At first. 

But it turned out trying to recreate the impossible was…difficult. 

That Ekko and Heimerdiner's notes were detailed and laid much of the groundwork for her own understanding, but there was a fundamental issue that Powder just could not wrap her hands around. 

Hextech.

The yordle and dimension traveller had lived experience of this bit of -literal- arcane technology and they understood it intrinsically, or might as well have compared to Powder. Though thorough and informative, their notes contained key details that, she presumed, someone who knew what hextech was and what it did would understand much like how old cooking books were made by and for people who already had a base level of understanding of the subject. 

(Powder knew this because cooking and chemistry had quite a lot in common.) 

It was frustrating. 

Well, frustrating at first , when she thought it was simply something she could get over given enough time and effort. 

But now? 

Now it was just depressing . 

Research cost time, effort and resources. 

She had plenty of the first two (especially for this ) but now had scarce little of the other. 

Every failed activation cost a hex-gem from an increasingly lighter bag and with the one man who might have known how to get them long gone, Powder had no way of getting any more. 

Not even Uncle Silco's extensive (and eyebrow raising) smuggling connections could find a source. 

She felt a tap on her nose and scrunched her face in response. 

"I'll take that as a no." Vander said with a small laugh. 

Powder grumbled and took another sip of ash. 

"Can I suggest a good meal and a nap? I'm no doctor, but I know that helps with a lot of issues in life." 

Powder sighed and slumped on her arms. 

It was not an unusual sight, it was on Vander's bar after all. 

"I think I need more than a nap." She groaned, fatigue that had been held off by manic energy, caffeine and not a little bit of desperation suddenly catching up to her. 

I need a miracle. 

Before that- Ekko's arrival, Powder had stowed away whatever ambitions she had with tinkering and making things. 

Mouser sat in her drawer, a sad little pile of junk and discarded hope. Ideas of zap guns, clip-on explosives and glowing mechanical firelights sat gathering dust in her mind. 

Because what was the point? 

Everything she touched would break, one way or another. 

Better then to leave in her head where it could do no harm.

Then that- Ekko came with his hopes and dreams and fears and ideas . 

A breath of fresh air in the fissures where such a thing was precious. 

How amazing it was, that he gave her hope where no one else could. 

How very fitting for her, that she turned such a gift into a dagger to stab herself with.

The idea of losing this, of failing this one thing , felt like walking off a cliff. 

Irreversible. Dreadful. 

Inevitable. 

Losing Vi again would break her, she knew. 

Even if the Vi of her memories embraced her with more strength than her teenage arms should ever have had, even if she knew that in one world at least Vi lived to grow into the powerful, wonderful woman Powder always knew her as, Powder was selfish . 

She wanted both. 

If she could want one thing , could the world not grant her this?

She sighed once more and closed her eyes, just for a moment. 

"You're strong, Powder." Vi held her face with her big sister hands and she felt warm and fuzzy. "You can do anything you put your mind to." 

Powder didn't feel when Vander gently ran a hand over her hair, did not stir when he picked her up and brought her to her room and tucked her in. Did not wake when he kissed her on the forehead and wished her sweet dreams. 

She was with Vi, and that was all she ever wanted. 

Powder always had…odd dreams. 

Sometimes they were amazing things, full of bright colours and funny animals and her family loving her. 

Then the bridge , the bright flames and the smoke and the blood. 

Amazing dreams have happened rarely since. 

From then on it was more often…difficult ones. 

Monsters gnashing at her from the dark. Jagged faces of people she knew mocking her. 

Her bright ideas and inventions turning against her, revealing in dreams what she knew in reality; that all she touched would break and hurt the ones she loved no matter what she did. 

Those were hard dreams and she would wake, crying and shivering. 

But then Vi.

Vi who held her close, who kissed her temple and who told her she was okay . 

Such simple words. 

Powder wished she could tell her sister how such simple words helped so much. 

How they banished away the monsters. How they turned mocking grins into gentle smiles. 

How they made her feel like she was useful. That she was okay and not a broken thing being put together by a silly little girl playing at inventor. 

Powder felt so selfish. 

So many loving people said those words to her in her waking moments, people precious to her, people who she would fight and die for. 

But they weren't Vi.

The distinction was so small and yet so impossibly large it was difficult to put into words. 

All she could ever say was that Vi was -is- her sister. 

And all Powder ever wanted was her sister to tell her she was okay again. 

In the waking world she had her doll and her shrine and now a mural. All important, all treasured. 

But in her dreams, if it was a good night, she would have Vi's voice.

So she tried to recall it as she found herself wandering around a place that looked like Zaun's dockside, with all the old fishing warehouses that used to be abandoned as the river Pilt became more and more polluted, but were now slowly being reclaimed by Zaunite traders. 

This being a dream, Powder was kind of thankful she couldn't smell the fishy smell that no doubt lingered, though it was an unusual setting regardless. 

It wasn't an unwelcome change though, more pleasant than a nightmare of black space and horrifying colours. 

Her footsteps were quiet, in fact it was all nearly silent and Powder wandered around for what felt like a good while before deciding that instead of walking with her feet, she walked with her mind. 

This was a dream after all. 

Her theory was confirmed when the world shifted just a little and she found herself in front of a particular warehouse that was livelier than the others, with lights and sounds coming from within. 

But, as she took a step forward, she was hit by a wave of dread, cloying and freezing her limbs. 

Instantly she looked out for wild shapes, for faces in sickly bright colours but saw nothing aside from a dreary red sky and the warehouse that now seemed larger than it had been only moments before. 

It's just a dream. Just a dream. 

A very different dream than any she had ever experienced before.

Her mind always worked differently than most others and her non-nightmarish moments almost always involved some kind of puzzle solving, some kind of putting something together to a nice satisfaction. 

Her and Vi. Her and Ekko. Her and Vander and her brothers and her whole family. 

Her inventions, finally figuring out just that one piece that had always been missing. 

It was almost always pieces of things coming together like fitting a puzzle. 

(Dreams were weird, alright?) 

All this meant that this dream was not her normal dream. There were no pieces to fit together, no clear puzzle to solve. 

And yet it was not a nightmare either, for those were uncontrolled chaos in eternal blackness where she couldn't see anything but her own fears coming at her from the dark. 

Powder let the dread water away because she wanted it gone and in her dream in her mind, at least this little odd section that sprung up, she was in command. 

Once she felt control of her own dream-body again, she tried to wave away everything else, to start from a blank slate, but apparently there was a limit to how much she could control her own dreams as nothing happened. 

Still, better than the usual…

With nothing else for it, Powder walked into the warehouse. 

Or tried to, as it exploded the very next second. 

By instinct she threw herself to the ground and put her arms above her head.

But this was a dream. 

More to the point it was her dream, for all its strange oddities. 

Powder felt no actual pain, just pinpricks on her skin and the uncomfortable feeling of being too close to flames but it was not enough to wish it away. 

Soon enough she was back on her feet, not a stain on her as she looked around and tried to figure out what exactly was happening. 

"I just tried to help!" A young girl called out, sounding anguished. 

Powder flinched as something lanced into her heart, an inextricable feeling of guilt, regret and utter despair . 

Which made no sense, because she was pretty damned sure that that voice was hers.

What's going on?

Getting a bit tired of not knowing, Powder closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to find where she should be slotted into this puzzling place. 

When she opened them, she found herself in front of a scene that had her gasping. 

She was looking at herself.

Her younger self, with her choppy cut hair and hand-me-down clothes. Dirt marred young-Powders face that already looked messy with tears. 

Standing opposite her was…a monster. 

Jagged and dark, its form ever shifting but keeping vaguely humanoid, outlined by a distinct shade of red on the edges. 

It had a face though. 

That of her sister. 

Her Vi. 

The young teen who had been forced to bear the weight of the world.

But Powder knew on an intrinsic level that this Vi was not her Vi. That this monster with evil eyes and an evil face could never be her Vi. 

"You're useless. Always have been, always will be." This Vi spoke with a voice like poison and it was the final confirmation Powder needed to know it was not her Vi. 

"No! Vi please!" Young-Powder cried. 

Again, Powder was hit with a lance of pain into her heart, despite knowing this was utterly impossible.

It felt so strange, to have this disconnect between what she knew and what she felt. 

"Always clingy, so pathetic." The monster that was not her sister approached her younger version and gripped her (herself?) by the face with one black hand that already left bruises, black spots that grew like an infection. 

"Please Vi!" Young Powder begged, tears streaming down her fragile, blackened  face. 

Through the pain that made no sense (not that this dream made any in the first place) Powder tried to wish away the scene, to impose her reality on this horrid vision.

The scene shifted only a little, ever so slightly and ever so literally, like someone took a picture and superimposed it but didn't quite line it up properly. 

However, in that slight window before the dream-nightmare reasserted itself again, Powder saw someone else. 

Within the shadowed form masquerading as her sister there was a figure she recognised, because she was on a mural that Powder maintained daily. 

Vi, older Vi, with her strong jaw and piercing eyes.

But in that brief glimpse Powder saw that the face that she gazed at with warmth and awe was caught in a scream of pain. 

It was wrong . So, so wrong. 

So she tried to make it right. 

This was a dream. Her dream. 

As not-Vi lifted her arm and said more cruel words that would never come from Vi's mouth, as more alien feelings of anguish and regret swirled in the pit of her stomach, Powder tried to impose her will once more.

The dream shifted, the picture tearing at the edges of her vision and once again she saw older-Vi, trapped in the writhing shadows edged with red, her face stained with tears. 

No! Absolutely not!

In her dreams, her regular, not weird dream-nightmares Adult Vi appeared as Powder saw her as: strong, powerful, a blazing fire that enveloped her with warmth.

It did not square with the thing she was seeing now. 

It did not fit.

If this was the puzzle Powder needed to piece together, then so be it.

Slowly the world began to split, burning at the edges as a layer started to shimmer and move. 

She saw double. Triple. 

She saw Vi. 

False Vi in black, mocking and evil, ready to strike her crying younger self.

Older Vi in red, eyes wide in terror as a silent scream tore through her throat. 

No. 

No!

NO!

She saw in quadruple, then double that again, layers and layers unwinding and shifting as Powder tried to fix this breaking thing.

"No!" Powder screamed, clutching her head as a riot passed through it. "Not here! This isn't right! " 

The dream broke with a shatter of glass. 

Powder fell to her knees, the all consuming feeling of fear, regret, pain and despair that kept lancing at her heart carried away like a receding tide.  

To be replaced with confusion not wholly of her own. 

"Powder?" Vi asked, voice hoarse. "Powder, where are you? Powder?" 

Growing panic was added to the confusion already in her chest. 

They were in the ruins of the warehouse, but there was no younger Powder. 

No false Vi wreathed in darkness and spoke in poison. 

Just her and the sister she saw through a dimension travellers eyes. 

"Vi?" Powder asked.

Vi turned, saw her, then fell back shaking. 

"Wha…what?"

Powder felt shock. 

Surprise.

Disbelief. 

Feelings that were and yet were not her own. 

Powder's mind, parts of it always whirring, tried to puzzle it out using what verifiable evidence she had in a dream world which made no sense. 

It was just her and Vi. 

"Wait…Powder? Is that…is that you?" Vi looked at her like she was seeing a ghost. 

Looking at a face that was at once both familiar and yet not, Powder decided that she didn't care that nothing made sense. 

The puzzle was nearly finished. 

With tears in her eyes and warmth in her heart, she leapt at her sister and held her tight .

"Viii!" she cried into her sister's chest. "Vi!" 

When those strong arms wrapped around her Powder felt complete. 

Vi woke with a start, heart thumping and chest tight with a tight, Targonian knot of emotion. 

What the hell? 

"Honey?" Caitlyn shifted next to her, bringing a warm hand to her face. 

She saw her one blue eye, creased in concern. 

Vi swallowed and laid back on her too soft pillows, taking her lover's hand into her own. 

"Just…a dream."

Caitlyn nestled into her neck, "Not a nightmare?" 

Because you've been having those a lot, were the unspoken words. 

Which, true, she had been. 

Hard not to, when your whole family died in front of you twice and you were only now coming to face that particular demon. 

This time though? 

"No." Vi muttered, clutching at Cait's hand while she poked at the knot in her chest. "Just a dream."

She felt a kiss on her neck, gentle and warm that sent pleasant tingles across her skin. 

Vi smiled, welcoming the invitation. "I guess it started as a nightmare. The warehouse one…"

Caitlyn drew circles on her shoulder, a gentle, constant touch to let her know she was there . 

Vi needed it. Needed so badly to be reminded that she wouldn't lose everything again. 

"But then…it wasn't?"

"Hm?" Caitlyn conveyed her request for clarification with a look. 

She could get a lot of things through with just a look, her Caitlyn. 

Though, Vi secretly hoped it was just because it was only with her . 

"There was… someone there."

Blue eyes, blue hair, a face so painfully familiar it genuinely hurt. 

But it was not her . 

Not…exactly. 

Vi didnt know how she knew. 

But she knew . 

She knew as sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, as sure as water was wet and as winter was cold. 

Maybe it was horrendous overconfidence, she certainly was no stranger to that. 

But a big sister knew their little sister. 

Still, it did not mean she didn't enjoy the embrace from the ghost in her dream, that she didn't feel the warmth and the love and the overwhelming joy that swamped her heart and nearly crushed it. 

That she didn't want to give it in turn, even to this ghost conjured by her deepest consciousness. 

"Someone you liked?" Caitlyn said with a hint of a tease in her tone, though still full of warm concern. 

Vi tapped her lover's hand with a gentle swat and a small laugh, "Easy there, not all my good dreams are with you."

Caitlyn giggled, a noise that always had Vi's brain tingling. 

What made it sing though was the way her lips landed on her own. 

"Well, I'm not just in your dreams…"

The next time Vi dreamt, she found herself gripping prison bars.

Instinct had her smashing her palms against them, letting out a fierce scream, full of primal fear. 

Then, out of nowhere, as her scream echoed down the empty halls she could never see out of her cage, she felt a sharp stab of panic and worry. 

Fitting emotions in her current situation, but Vi realised a few things pretty quickly. 

One, she knew she was in a dream. That was not the normal fare, she was pretty sure. 

Two, despite hitting the solid steel bars pretty dang hard, Vi felt zero pain even when she knew doing that hurt like a bitch.

Three, that panic and worry didn't make sense . 

She knew, because that would come later in this particular dream, after she had burned all her anger and the oppressive dark came to swallow her, to muzzle the beast in the cage while it cried out for a mother that would not come, for a sister that didn't know she was even alive, for a father who was long dead.

She heard footsteps and tensed.

But they weren't the heavy footfalls of jackboots. They didn't come slowly, approaching like a cruel hunter who wanted to draw out the last agonising moments of the prey it had wounded. They didn't come with the gradual clang clang clang of a baton running along bars. 

They were light, hurried. 

Worried.  

Worry that she felt in her core. 

Vi held onto the bars, where once she knew she would have fallen back to the corner.

All of her was tense, all of her focused everywhere in every corner watching the dark shadows in case they moved. 

On the footsteps came. 

Tap tap tap tap tap.

They were light, whoever it was. 

"Hello?" A familiar voice called out, half-whispering, still loud in the echoing prison deep beneath the earth. 

Slowly, tentatively, Vi reached out a hand through the bars, fighting against her instincts and yet daring to hope . 

In one blink, no one was there. 

In another, she was. 

Blue haired and blue eyed, with a lightly sun-kissed, healthy freckled face and skin that wasn't translucent. 

She had no veins around her eyes, no heavy bags, no look of exhaustion, no hint of madness, no crooked smile on chapped lips.

No tattoos of pretty clouds. 

It wasn't her. 

"Jinx?" Vi said anyway, voice carrying pain, and tentative hope. 

Always, always hope. 

The ghost blinked and Vi felt confusion and…hurt? 

It was a dull ache accompanied by a feeling of tired resignation.

But still, amongst it all as she gazed at eyes that looked so much like her own Vi felt a sea of love and sorrow , joy and bitterness, an intermingling of opposites that left sweetness turning to ash in her tongue and coming back again. 

Small, pale hands clasped her own and a wave of painful joy came over her. 

"Vi." The ghost said, a quiver on her smiling lips. "Im…Im so sorry."

Vi blinked, confused even as her chest tightened. "What?"

The ghost held her arm tighter, bringing her hand to its face which Vi cradled like it was the most natural thing to do. 

(It was) 

"Im sorry, for everything." The ghost cried and Vi felt stabs of sorrow. "I…I…I thought I could help…Im sorry…" 

No. No! 

Vi shook her head and held that ghostly face gently but firmly, bringing her closer so she could reach her other arm out and embrace the ghost. 

The bars made it awkward, uncomfortable. 

She wished they weren't there. 

There weren't. 

Vi held the ghost tighter and lifted her into a crushing embrace, burying her face into blue hair. 

"It wasn't your fault." Vi said, riding a sudden wave of shock, of pain and a rising tide of hope held back by the thinnest dam.

"It wasn't." She repeated as she lay a kiss on a forehead that had, in more than one world, received so many from her. "It wasn't you Pow Pow. It was never you." 

When she pulled back Vi saw a face so much like the one she knew, yet so different . 

But still so fundamentally the same in all the ways that mattered. 

The ghost of a sister that died twice, once when Jinx rose from the ashes and another when Jinx fell, looked at her with such tender love and hope Vi felt utterly overwhelmed. 

It was comforting, like a warm blanket on a cozy summer morning. 

Which was where they ended up, on the top bunk of a familiar bed with a blanket wrapped around them, the sun peeking through the tiny window and yet covering them both in sunlight. 

The ghost wrapped her thinner, paler arms around her, burying her face into Vi's chest in a way that a smaller girl had done so long ago on this very spot. 

Vi didn't mind. 

She wanted it, actually. 

Yearned for it. 

They were silent in their old space, but though their lips were still their hearts thrummed and their emotions danced to a tune that was both melodious and chaotic all at once. 

Joy and sorrow. 

Yearning and satisfaction. 

Hope and pain. 

But, amongst this overwhelming mix, Vi anchored herself in the one certainty she held above all else: She loved her sister.

The one she had raised, the one she had failed and now the ghost conjured by her mind that she could only hold in her dreams. 

"I love you." Vi gave voice to the emotion, to the certainty . 

Powder looked up at her, fresh tears in her eyes that were full of life and a wide smile on her healthy, plump lips.

"I know." 

No other words were spoken. 

No other words needed to be said. 

When Powder woke up, she felt…content. 

Happy, even. 

Really, truly, happy. 

For the first time since the other Ekko had left her world. 

For the first time in…a while. 

She wiped a tear from her face and fell back on a wet pillow, content to bask, to let time pass without self doubt dogging at the edges of her mind.

It was a dream. Powder thought, conjuring the feeling of adult Vi's impossibly strong arms wrapping around her and keeping her steady, safe, assuring her from her own worst enemy. 

I love you. 

What three simple words could do.

Powder sighed and closed her eyes, mind clutching at the fleeting memories. 

Yes, it wasn't a normal dream. 

Yes, it was definitely strange and there was something going on. 

But sometimes, there were some things even her neurotic mind would accept as a gift horse. 

The next time Powder woke up in her dream, she found herself standing in a street in Zaun. 

A very familiar street. 

Seedier, more run down, but still intrinsically familiar. 

"Powder?" 

She turned, spotting a similarly familiar building. 

It was grimier definitely, but she recognised the Arcade anywhere. 

"Vi?" 

As well as the woman standing in front of it. 

"Hey…" Vi said tentatively and Powder could feel a mix of confusion, happiness and a bit of relief. 

Some of that came from her, she knew. 

A lot of it came from another place outside of her. 

She approached slowly, step by step, Vi rooted in place as Powder felt rising excitement, hope and joy. 

She stopped, just outside of arm's reach and felt a stab of apprehension, watching as Vi's face showed a modicum of doubt. 

She felt bad about causing it, a feeling mixed with her ever burning curiosity. 

The way Vi's expressions played out, Powder could see it reflected as clear as day. 

Okay, she can feel what I'm feeling and-

Her thoughts ground to a halt.

Vi sucked in a breath and looked down, seemingly surprised that she did so. 

"There's no hiding, is there?"

Vi blinked, and Powder felt confusion and a rising apprehension. 

"Hiding what?"

Powder bit her lip to prevent it from quivering as she quickly closed the gap and swung her arms around her sister. 

Surprise. 

Joy. 

Acceptance. 

Love.

"Powder?" Vi asked quietly. 

"I love you." Powder whispered, voice quiet while her emotions sang . 

The Arcade was alive with music and lights, a full rave whose only participants were two sisters whose laughter lit up the whole building, their joy electric as they played on games that both remembered from their childhood. 

"Aaaaand boom!" Powder shouted with a laugh as the last target evaporated with a shot from her dreamt-up zap blaster, "That's eighty to twenty in my favour. Suck it sista!" 

She blew on the smoking tip of the hand cannon she had only ever thought of in her dreams and gave it a twirl on her finger. 

"Eugh." Vi threw her own conjured pistol away, Powder watching as it dissipated into air. 

A shame, she would have liked to have looked at it closer. It looked like an Enforcer model. 

"Hey." Vi wrapped an arm around her shoulders and turned her to face another Arcade classic aside from the shooting range. "You get your game I get mine, let's see how long those scrawny noodle arms hold up eh?" 

Suddenly, Powder was no longer feeling so cocky.

With a thought, both of them were in front of the boxing machine Vi had always dominated, with Claggor coming in a very distant second. 

Neither she nor Mylo even got on the lowest rungs of the scoreboard. 

But hey, this was a dream, surely she could imagine herself having super strength?

After what felt like an eternity later, Powder learned that this was not her dream as she collapsed on a bed of pillows her sister conjured for her. 

"THAT SUCKED!" She declared, somehow feeling the painful burn of exercise on her arms and legs and back and everywhere else . 

Vi laughed and plopped down next to her, infuriatingly barely breaking a sweat. "You did better than I thought!" She said as she gently rubbed her back. 

Powder pretended not to be soothed by the gesture, but going by the spike of amused pride she felt, Vi knew anyway. 

She breathed, relaxing. 

It was liberating in a way, to have her emotions so clearly felt by another. Even better, more fitting, that it was with Vi. 

A Vi that she was…hoping, getting pretty certain, was more real than a mere conjuration of her admittedly very active imagination. 

She felt a tap on the back of her head, "You're thinking."

Powder grunted. "So? Your pea-brain can handle it."

Powder felt shock, shock that quickly turned to amusement that carried a dangerous excitement. 

She couldn't hide her own giddiness. 

It had been so long since she could feel safe enough to be a bratty bitch.

To act like a little sister. 

Vi didn't disappoint as her older sister went for her ribs with tickling fingers and a growl. "Oh, you're gonna be like that are you!" 

Powder could no more contain her laugh than her emotions, howling as she struggled in vain to get away from invading fingers that grasped at her ticklish spots, Vi going for the exact places Powder had tried to vainly defend when she was ten, with about as much success. 

She screamed, she swore, she tried to slap and kick Vi away but through it all she could never stop laughing, could never stop broadcasting her joy. 

In turn she relished in Vi's warmth, basked in that plain and simple happiness her sister exuded. 

But, though she and Vi smiled, Powder could also feel the underlying pain beneath it all. 

The ache of longing. The fear of ending . 

Things that were so familiar. 

Vi finally decided to have mercy, ending her relentless assault when she felt Powder's subtle shift in emotion. 

Before Vi could ask her question or do anything, Powder flipped around, sat up and hugged her tight. 

She loved how happy it made Vi feel, just to have this touch. 

But it spoke of darker things, that she craved it so much. 

"I love you." Powder whispered, encasing both their hearts in warmth. 

Vi held her close, tight, like she would go away at any moment. 

Power knew because she felt it. 

"You're real, aren't you." Powder whispered, questioning morphing into a statement as the words left her mouth. 

Surprise. Confusion. 

"Im real." Powder said as she drew back, bringing Vi's hands to cradle her face as she looked up to eyes that were so much like her own.

Shock. Disbelief. 

"Talk to Ekko. Ask him about me. Ask him about a girl from another world who lost her sister and never lived a day since." 

Vi held her right up until the moment the dream ended. 

So close, Powder did not need strange dream magic to know what her sister was feeling. 

She could see it in powder blue eyes. 

Afraid. Hopeful. 

Resolved. 

Ekko hadn't expected much that day. 

Just more of the usual; getting reports from his Firelight leads, sending resources where it was needed, checking up on the reconstruction and cleanup, dealing with whatever bullshit Sevika wanted to and maybe getting a lunch break for once. 

By around four in the afternoon, as Ekko was about to bite into his first piece of food since this morning (a Jericho Special), there was a knock on his door.

His house, not his little office in Firelights main HQ, because by Janna it was hard to find a moment of peace 

His house, which was higher up and needed a hoverboard to reach, or else some serious parkour. 

"What the fu-Vi?!"

The older woman hung on a tree branch, clothing looking a little ruffled, bits of leaves and twigs sticking out. 

"Hey Little Man," Vi dropped down onto his porch and stalked forward, dropping a heavy arm around his shoulders.

Ekko distinctly felt like he was indeed Little Man, not a respected resistance leader as he was "gently" V-handled into his own home. 

"So, when were you gonna mention you met my little sister in another dimension?"

His eyes popped.

When Vi next 'woke' in the dream world she was glad she didn't carry the antsy, anxiety-ridden energy she had gone to bed with. 

Or rather, struggled to go to bed with. 

It had taken hours of endless exercise to fully burn it all out and by the time she was able to shut her eyes she saw the peeking rays of morning light.

Or, maybe, that was the orange glow of flames around her. 

She was on edge immediately, fists clenching as she took in her surroundings. 

It was a strange place. 

The orange glow came from flames, but they were cartoonish drawings made with crayon, yet for all the child-like comparisons they felt malicious, if fire could feel that way. 

The flames were drawn on a black canvas that seemed to span everywhere, stretching to the very horizon. 

A black that covered the whole world. 

It all felt wrong.  

"Powder?" She called out, voice echoing in the dark and coming back at her in mocking tones. 

Not here. 

Not here. 

Not here. 

A facsimile of her voice whispered, dissonant, the very sound like knives stabbing into her ears. 

Vi bristled, angry.

How dare you! She thought. 

"How fucking dare you!" She shouted. 

The darkness around her drew back to reveal colour. 

She was standing on fancy white paving stone, the kind Piltover used. 

She stomped, summoning more of her anger, fuelled by righteous indignation. 

The dark drew back further to reveal the area immediately around her. 

It was the Bridge, she recognised. Tell-tale struts and decorations making it obvious. 

It wasn't the Bridge of her world though, for that one still bore the marks of battle and carried on it mementos for the dead and the lost. 

This one was clean, healthy if a structure could look that way. Though there were no people there was evidence of their activities; picnic baskets, stalls, locks on the overly fancy railings. 

It was a place that was well travelled, well lived . 

Vi walked, the dark keeping its distance from her but she could feel it trying to encroach.

"Powder!" She called out again, voice ringing. 

There was no reply aside from hushed, stabbing whispers cloying at the edges of her light. 

Vi grit her teeth, blocking them out.

But she could feel.

From somewhere within the black canvass she could feel fear, pain, regret.

And a longing that felt like her name. 

She grabbed onto this connection, closing her eyes to the lying dark and choosing instead to follow her gut. 

Vi

Something called her name. A voice without malice. 

She hesitated for a step, then shook it off and stepped again and again, moving towards it guided by her instincts even while she felt the gnawing jaws of darkness and doubt bite at the edges.  

She brushed against something. 

She held it. 

It was a hand. 

One that felt small, but calloused. 

She opened her eyes and saw red.

A mop of red on a young face.

Vi sucked in a breath, shock flowing down her connection to Powder, enough to stir more emotions. 

Her younger self looked at her while she looked back. 

Silence and eternity seemed to pass. 

It was perhaps a silly thought, but Vi never thought she could look so…young. 

Had she been this young at any point? 

She reached out a hand and cupped her younger face, touch gentle, heart suddenly aching for this girl. 

How had this young little girl managed to hold on, against everything Vi had gone through? 

How had this child managed?

How did she?

Young Vi suddenly held on, gripping her hand with more strength than Older Vi expected. 

She felt oddly proud. 

"Im here." She said instinctually, go to phrase for soothing younger sisters and (apparently now) younger selves as well. 

Younger Vi studied her, powder blue eyes feeling like they were boring straight into her very being. 

Older Vi hoped she measured up. 

After a breath, Younger Vi sighed, her grip loosening. 

She felt a wave of relief coming out of her. 

Then another of fear coming back.

Someone screamed in the distance, a sound that pierced her heart because she knew that voice. 

Knew as sure as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, as sure as water was wet and as winter was cold. 

Younger Vi turned, still holding her hand. 

Older Vi scooped her up and ran ahead. 

She felt surprise from the little girl in her arms. 

"You've done enough." Vi said, eyes shimmering with tears. "Let me, just this one time." 

Slowly, Younger Vi relaxed into her grip and held onto her shoulders, nestling her head in her neck. 

Relief. 

As Young Vi settled, Older Vi ran dispelling the dark as she went, heedless of its increasingly sharp whisperings and the colourful teeth that came gnashing out of the shadows. 

She followed her gut, down and down the bridge, a seemingly endless path. 

Around her the world shifted, pristine paving stones becoming dirtied with black stains that soon turned to blood. Picnic baskets, merchant stalls, love locks and all else vanished into clouds of smoke and bullet casings, the sounds of shots ringing out accompanying the roar of a fierce but unseen fire. 

Still Vi ran, her younger self holding on, engine within her whirring to life.

"POWDER!" She screamed, trying to find a head of blue hair through a thick haze of smoke and darkness. 

She felt another jolt of emotion in her gut. 

Uncertainty amidst a sea of fear that was almost overwhelming. 

But also Hope, kicking itself awake. 

"IM HERE! IM HERE!" She shouted, hoping -knowing-, her sister could hear. "Where are you Pow Pow!?"

More fear. More hope.

"Its okay! Its okay, I'm here!" She waved the smoke away, searching in what seemed like a vain effort as the bridge never ended and she could never find the spot she was looking for. 

"...Vi?"

Vi's breath hitched, hope and anxiety coming out in equal measure and receiving the same in return. 

"POWDER!" Vi screamed once more, her voice thundering, briefly scattering the smoke and the flames and the sounds of gunshots to reveal, for only a moment, the peaceful bridge. 

"Vi? Vi! Vi where are you?!"

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, distorted by things in the dark, stealing her sister's voice to carry it away to hidden places. 

Holding her younger self tightly with one hand, Vi formed a fist with the other. 

She thought of Powder, her younger sister, the girl she held up as an endless sea of sorrow threatened to drown them. 

She thought of Jinx, the woman who managed to put herself back together, and found the strength to do the same for her.

She thought of this Powder, a girl from another version of the world, one where seemingly everything went right. 

Everything, aside from one thing. 

"You died, Vi." Ekko said, face reflecting his thoughts on the very notion. "That was the big change. I-the other…I got you killed." 

Though she swallowed, the thick blockage in her throat didn't seem to move. "That's it? That's the only difference?"

Ekko looked away, unable to meet her eyes. 

She felt heavy, burdened by pain, by knowledge of things she should never have known. 

Young Vi shuffled and looked her eye to eye. 

This girl, this young little girl who awoke on this horrible day to smoke and fire holding her younger sister's hand, let out a breath and nodded. 

I'd do it. She said without words. I'd do it for her. 

Her heart ached, a bleeding wound that she realised right at this moment had never healed. 

Slowly, gently, she brought her younger self close and kissed her forehead with tender, scarred lips. 

"You don't have to." Vi whispered.

Her younger self drew back, shocked. 

Vi's left arm whined, slow at first, building and building as arcs of blue shot out from the hexcore within her Atlas gauntlet. 

"You've done enough." She said softly, looking into powder blue eyes exactly like her own. "Let me take care of you, okay?" 

Tears sprouted from Younger Vi's eyes, her lips quivering. 

Lips not yet scarred, eyes not yet hardened. 

Yet still so resolved. 

Proud. 

She felt so fucking proud. 

She hugged her younger self, holding her close as she lifted her gauntlet into the air and let the building energy finally discharge. 

In one brilliant flash of lighting blue the darkness was washed away, the monsters lurking within sent scattering. 

The bridge was revealed in all its pristine glory, clean, unscarred, all the things indicating its well-loved and well-used nature returning. 

And there, standing amidst it all, was Powder. 

Well, two of them. 

There was a younger Powder, a Powder she recognised as one that didn't yet know how to make her clever little devices, a baby really, too innocent for the world she would have to face.

Holding her protectively was the Powder from another time, another world, clutching her close.

Her sister from another dimension.

Her sisters all the same. 

"Pow…" Vi approached the shaking pair, both of whom had their eyes closed to the world. 

"Shhh, shhh…" She took the older Powder into her arms and hugged her tight, flooding her with the love she always felt while her younger counterpart did the same. 

"Vi? Vi is that you?" Powder asked, slowly peeking from underneath her eyelids. 

Vi, both of them, brought their sisters in close. "Im here." She soothed, kissing Powder's temple. "We're here." 

Slowly, shakily, Powder wound her arm around Vi, speaking through tears, "I was waiting for you…I was waiting and-"

Vi nestled Powder under her chin, kissing the top of her head as she rubbed her back. "It's okay, I'm here. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I made you wait." 

Powder cried into her and Vi did her best to cover every bit of her little sister from the world. 

Both of her did, Younger Vi holding Younger Powder protectively too. 

"It's okay my baby. It's okay." Vi's world narrowed to only them, her focus entirely on her siblings and herself. "I'm here now, It's okay." 

Slowly Powder drew back so they looked at each other eye to eye and Vi couldn't hide the pain she felt when she saw the tear-streaked face looking at her. 

"You're here." Powder said quietly, half-statement, half-question.

She looked lost. Scared. Uncertain. 

Her voice was doubled, Vi realised, one older overlaying a younger voice. 

She looked at the young girl Powder held in her arms, Young Powder, the child both adults knew. 

Young Vi held her, covering her.

Both were looking at her, waiting, expecting something. 

One was waiting for an answer she already knew in her heart. 

One was waiting for assurance she needed . 

Something bloomed in Vi's heart. Something that was warm. Something soft. 

Something that was strong enough to cross time.  

"Im here, Pow. I'll always be here." She pressed her head against Powder's, Older Powder, the sister she did not have the chance to grow with but loved all the same. "Wherever you go, wherever you are, whichever dimension and whoever you are, I'm always here." 

Older Powder was looking at her with intensity, fingers gripping tightly at her jacket.

Younger Powder started closing eyes, relief exuding from her small form. 

Vi trusted not just in words, but in feeling too. 

She gathered all the love, the assurance, the utter conviction she held. 

That she had always held, for better or worse. A fundamental part of her ever since she held a small bundle in her arms that had a tiny tuft of blue hair. 

In one world, Vi never had the chance to see Powder grow. 

In another, Vi had to learn to let her go. 

The dream-world began to shift around them. 

As it did so, day turning to night, Young Vi slowly wiggled down carrying Young Powder in her arms. 

Both older sisters watched their younger selves, holding onto them as they found their footing. 

Young Vi looked at Older Vi with powder blues eyes that were so intimately familiar. 

Beside her, Young Powder smiled timidly at Older Powder, mirroring her older self by hugging her sister's arm. 

Slowly both sisters let their younger selves go as the bridge vanished, the world splitting into layers upon layers, scenes of their memories playing out like a performance on a stage. 

From Powder's memories Vi saw how she died, how a part of Powder died with her. She witnessed her sister's anguish, the torments she suffered, but the joy too. She saw her adoptive brothers grow from young, inexperienced boys to strong, smart men. She saw them love her sister who grew alongside them, the girl carrying a weight in her heart that looked a lot like her. 

She saw Vander, living and breathing, aging and never once losing the love and care he always had for all his children. 

She saw a Zaun grow into something she had only ever dreamed of, a Zaun that did not live in fear, one that no longer had to struggle so mightily against Piltover, against itself. 

Powder, in turn, saw Vi's life. Her struggles. Her pain. Her endurance despite it all. 

She saw how her sister loved so deeply it blinded her. How such love kept her going. 

She saw shades of blue, on clouds on pale skin, on eyes that mesmerised her sister. 

She saw a Zaun and Piltover gripped by war and conflict, people she recognized turning to monsters she could never even fathom. 

But she saw too how such struggle shaped them, hardened and taught them, forced each of them to bear their hearts and reach out to each other to face the end. 

They held each other close as, in their dreams at least if it could not be their realities, their worlds intertwined. 

We're sisters both thought, both heard from the other.

Even when we're worlds apart.