Chapter Text
“And here’s where you’ll be staying” Mel, the manager at the park, had brought us to the place that Powder and I would be living in for the next however many of what we’d be working here. “Sick” I looked around the empty room, and I have to say, it was way bigger than any room I’ve ever lived in before. “Wait, the ad said that there would be internet and cable, where’s the TV? Where’s the computer?” Powder started complaining.
Something that I found insane because this is the biggest room she’s probably ever seen. That wasn’t enough for her? “Those two things are communal, there’s a room dedicated to the computer, faxing, and printing and the TV is in the living room. But if you want, you can get your own TV or computer for personal use” Mel explained to her. Powder rolled her eyes and opened her mouth. To stop her from blowing the entire eight-hour drive that we woke up at four in the morning for, I gave her a light elbow in the gut.
“Hey, what was that for” she whispered over to me. I leaned in to answer her “Dude, we drove a lifetime to get here, our stuff that took two hundred and fifty dollars is in that I-Haul outside, there is no way I’m driving back to Zaun, just tell Vander or Silco that we had to come back because you wouldn’t stop complaining” Powder just grimaced, obviously annoyed.
Mel, for her part, looked like she just pretended not to notice what happened. “Anyways, it’s noon, here are your chores for today, don’t feel bad if you can’t finish them, you were late and it's your first day” She held her hand out. “I hope this could be the start of a good partnership” Her smile looked really reassuring, so I shook her hand “I hope so too”. Powder gave her a quick lazy one, leaning her head back after she left.
“UHHHHHH, I thought this place was going to have free stuff” her groans were something I had learned about after we reconnected. Anytime something inconvenienced her, she would groan about it, and I have to say I really wonder how Silco raised her for her to be such a crybaby. Like an even bigger crybaby than when she was a child “What’s your problem? Free room, free wi-fi, free TV, what isn’t there to like about it?” Powder crossed her arms, tapping one of her feet as she listened to me “Ok ok ok, I see well here’s your answer PFFFFFFFFFFFFFF”.
Blowing mouth farts, at eighteen years of age, great. “Powder I” she held her finger up, looking with an irritated smile “How many times have I told you, it’s Jinx now”. Mylo, why did you have to go and call her that “Powder you’re not a Jinx, how many times have I told you that?” “Know what, let’s just do this work so I can play video games”. She ignored me, just walking out of the room “HEY THE CHECK LIST I HAVE IT” I shouted into the hall, waiting for a response.
All I got though was the sound of footsteps and the front door opening then closing. “Uhhhhhh” and now she’s rubbing off onto me, great. Following her, I left the room walking to the front door, to find her waiting on the steps. So, she wasn’t just going to leave me “You ready to get those fat hands to work or what?” fat hands huh? Guess it’s better than nothing. “Yup got the check list right here” Powder held her hand up. At first, I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but when I looked down was, she was smiling. She shook her hand one more time, and then I got it; she wanted a high five. Nice, she doesn’t completely hate me “Now let’s get to work”.
Chore 1.) Trim the bushes around the lake
For the first chore, we had to go to the lake and trim some shrubbery. Simple, Vander had me do this for free at the local park when I was a kid, no problem. Powder and I hopped out the cart, going to the shed to go get the tools to do the job.
Unfortunately for us, the place was locked up. Powder tried to open it a couple times, not getting anything out of it “Let me try” I watched her painfully try to open the door with both arms and both legs, gripping the handle and pushing off with her feet. “I got it” her response came with grunts and her face turning red “You sure?” “YES”.
I gave it a few seconds before she couldn’t hold herself up anymore, her arms giving out and letting her fall to the ground. “Oh yeah, you sure had that” rubbing my hands together, I grabbed the handle and started pulling. Powder stood back, dusting herself off and walked to my right “wow you’re doing so much better than me” her tone couldn’t come across anymore sarcastic.
Trying to drown her out, I kept on pulling and trust me, I could hear how stupid I sounded “Want me to go look for some keys or something?” “NO, I got it”. Powder nodded “Right, well I’m going to go look for another way in” she started walking off “NO WAIT I GOT IT” I sounded just like her when she was trying the door “Sorry what?”
When she turned around to face me, the handle broke and I ended up hitting her in the face “POWDER OH MY GOSH I’M SORRY” “AH I SAID I WOULD FIND ANOTHER WAY IN”. I tried to help her up and her response to that was pushing me off. Looking at her, the hit gave her a black eye “Sorry” she ignored my apology and walked around the way.
Chore 2.) Clean the boats
Ok, so guess we’re getting off to a bad start, I mean we’ve both done stuff to annoy each other. BUT I still think we can come out on the other side of this more connected than before. Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe, because during the time that we were cleaning the boats, she didn’t say anything to me “Pretty cool huh? These boats are sick” I tried to make conversation, but she didn’t say anything.
“You’re the new guys” oh thank God, someone who might get Powder to say something. “Yeah, we are” I turned around to talk to them, seeing a girl with brown bob cut, smiling at us. “It's so nice to see new faces here, I’m Maddie by the way” she walked towards us with her hands behind her back. “Vi” I replied to her while she looked at what Powder was doing. “Um sorry what's your name?” she asked, but Powder didn’t respond. “Sorry about her, she’s being moody. Her names Powder” I had to be the one to answer for her.
That seemed to tick her off since she immediately snapped her head up “My name is Jinx” Maddie seemed to be caught off guard, taking a step back with her smile fading “Oh uh... um well it was nice to meet you two” she nodded, quickly walking off. “What was that?” all Powder did to respond was throw her head back while continuing to ignore me.
Chore 3.) Deliver materials to the tinker shack
After that, we had to go pick up some boxes from one end of the park to some shack, not too bad. At least it wouldn’t have been, but Powder didn’t help me move any of the boxes onto the cart “Thanks for helping” I sat in the driver seat of the car, seeing her sit there on her phone. And she stayed like that all the way to the shack, which was a small house with a garage “Alright, Powder, this time you are going to help” she rolled her eyes as I said that, but she did get down.
As we started getting a couple boxes from the back, the front door opened and a girl with glasses and messy, frizzled hair came out “Is that the materials we ordered?” we? “Uhhh yeah” I held the box out, but she didn’t take it “JAYCE OPEN THE GARAGE”. Right after she said that the garage door slowly began to open, and inside were three other people, a guy who looked built, one skinny guy leaning on a bench with a cane, and one really pretty girl with blue hair.
“Just drop it off over there” the built one pointed inside. I motioned for powder to follow me, to which she pushed past me. Walking up to the group, the girl with blue hair stopped to talk to me “So you’re the two that mom brought on?” she asked, looking me up and down. “Guess so” I shrugged, trying to act like I didn’t care. “You like own this place or what?” oh god I’m trying too hard. And I think she saw through it because she giggled a little bit “No- well kinda, my family does, but I don’t really have a say in any of the decisions that matter”.
“Like bringing two paid live in interns to help around here?”. She nodded “That one I actually did since originally we were just supposed to bring one on” that part made me raise my eyebrow. “What?” “Yep, we were only doing one, but the girl who accepted the job practically begged to bring someone else on, which I’m guessing was you” Powder begged me to come along? I looked at powder, who was looking at some of the blueprints on the wall while messing with two glowing orbs.
“Caitlyn, can you get the stabilizer from the attic, ours died again” Caitlyn huh? “Sorry, but gotta go get that, it was nice meeting you though” she waved at me, going back inside the house part. All I could think about though was what she said about Powder accepting the job here.
“Why are you guys trying to mix other elements into whatever this is? Shouldn’t you pressurize it?”. The two guys looked at her, almost like they were trying not to laugh “Kid, this substance is insanely unstable, and we’re trying to slowly work towards stabilizing it” the built one elbowed the skinny one in the side a little.
“Right, but if you’re trying to stabilize it, you’re not going to add another volatile substance. What you need is some kind of high-pressure chamber to compress it, you know, change the properties” the two looked at each other, but instead of laughing they looked like they were thinking about it.
“We’ve thought about it, but for now, we’re going to play it safe” the girl with frizzy hair walked into the garage. “I’m impressed though, that's the first thing you thought of” she walked up to Powder, “Yeah well I’m an engineering student so stuff like that is always at the front of my mind” Engineering student? Since when was she going to school? “Oh, really? At the city college or?” Powder shook her head “No I’m going to PU, but I take most of my classes online. I do go to in person ones that matter though” the girl nodded her head “Well then you might end up taking some of our classes” she pointed at the two guys at the bench.
“And you guys are?” Powder spun her finger in a circle at them. “I’m Sky and those two are Viktor and Jayce. We work for PU’s engineering department” she held her hand out for her to shake. Powder did, giving a pretty fake smile before the two of us were back on our way.
Powder and I walked back to the cart in silence, but I have to know, why did she want me to come? So, while we got back in, I popped the question “Hey, why did you want me to come?” Powder looked surprised, like she never thought this would come up again. “What are you talking about?” she tried to play it off, but I can tell she isn't being real with me.
“That girl with blue hair, she's the park owner's daughter and she told me that the person who answered the job listing really wanted to bring one other person on with them, which means you”. I couldn’t help but smile, because it meant that she could pretend as much as she wanted, she wanted me here.
Powder rolled her eyes then spoke to me “I asked if you could come with me because you kept bugging me about coming along. Besides, having someone else to share my work with means more time for what I want to do” she gave me wavy hands as she explained all that, but I still knew deep down it was more than that.
“Sooooo what you’re saying is that you are better off with me than without” she groaned and once again rolled er eyes “Whatever you wanna call it” she didn't disagree and she’s talking to me again so that's a win.
Chore 4.) Restock the snack bar
This one should be easy, just taking stuff out of boxes, then placing them elsewhere before tossing out the boxes, simple. Powder and I drove the cart that they let us use for work purposes to go to the snack bar, in the park’s central area.
Powder turned on the radio while we drove there, listening then skipping to find something she liked. I was cool with it, until some crappy K-pop song started playing. Ok, I’ve learned something new about her. Living with Silco has ruined her taste in music.
I changed the station, getting a rock one “Awwww yeah” I looked over at Powder to see how she was feeling about it. She stared with a cocked brow, changing the station back “Awwww no” what? I thought she liked rock. “Come on man, no way that was bad” it wasn’t any sort of contemporary weirdo stuff, so I can’t imagine she hated it. “Well, I wanted to listen to K-pop” Powder kept her hand over the dial, probably knowing that I couldn’t fight her hands on it.
“Whatever, we’re here anyway” stopping just short of the eating area. Powder hopped out and walked ahead of me “Then let’s go, so I can go back to listening to music”.
Powder handled the refilling the soda machine and snack display while I refilled the hot dog toppings and Nacho's “Vi check this out” she got my attention “What?” I looked over my shoulder to see her juggling bags of candy, chips, and cookies.
Didn’t know she could do that “Ha ha, now put them back before you drop them” I went back to filling up the Nacho chip box. “Please, as if, I could juggle a cup of open soda with all this” “Sure you could Powder, but I don’t wanna find out for right now” hearing the sounds of ruffled plastic stopping, I assumed she had cut it out and put it down.
“Vi look” those sounds resumed. This time, there was the sound of a half empty cup being tossed. When I turned around, she was there, juggling everything from before with the bonus of a soda cup. I’ll be, she can do it “Cool powder, now cut it out and finish up restocking”. After I told her to stop, she kept going “Powder I said stop” and still kept going “Sorry, don’t know who Powder is”.
Ok, so she’s going to be like that, huh? “Powder, I said stop” she shook her head, looking like a teacher waiting for a student to answer a question correctly. “Powder, I’m not calling you that” “OOOOOOOO Then how would I know that you’re talking to me?”
“We are literally the only two here” she giggled as if I wasn’t being serious “Awww but you see, Powder, just doesn’t really speak to me, you know how it goes”. No, No I do not, but not wanting to drag out this, I caved “Fine, Jinx, put the stuff back” “There, that’s all I wanted” she stopped juggling. Which meant I found out that ‘Jinx’ never learned to stop juggling properly. Because the next thing I knew was, the bags of snacks hit me in the face followed by the soda.
Trying not to lose my mind, I just gave her the Mylo shut up face. Props to her, she understood and just got back to work. After that frustrating experience, we got on with the last chore
Chore 5.) Go and check the electrical at the old community center
Finally, one last chore before we could get to moving our stuff in. And from the looks of it, it was going to be the easiest. All we had to do was to check the breaker box, turn it off then on, check the power in the place, and BAM we’re outta there to go and move our stuff in. We pulled up to the place, and it looked pretty beaten down.
“Let’s just get this over with so we can go back” I was tired. The whole day of doing this stuff has been butt cheeks. I just wanted to set up my bed and be in it before twelve AM. Jinx didn’t say anything and just sipped an XL soda.
Stepping out of the cart, we walked over to the breaker, and pinging it with a buzzer to see what switches were active and which ones weren’t “No…No…No…Yes” one by one I checked them while Jinx looked like she was going to lose her mind “UUUUUUUUHHHH” looking over my shoulder she had thrown her head back and groaned “What?” “You’re taking forever”
I could feel the vein in my forehead about to pop “I am just trying to do the job right” I could just feel the eye roll “And I am trying to go back home, unpack my stuff, and go to sleep”. I might kill her. “Give me that” she tried to pry the buzzer from my hands “DON’T DO THAT” “YOU’RE TAKING FOREVER” “NO” “STOP” “GIVE ME THAT” “NO” we struggled for a couple of seconds before Jinx’s drink spilt on the breaker box.
A dying fizzle of electricity later and the box died “OOOOOOO” Jinx recoiled, retracting both of her arms towards her body “No…No…NO” I tried to revive the thing by pounding on it a couple of times. “So….do we go now?” Jinx asked, “Are you serious?” “What?” “DUDE IT’S BROKEN” “We don’t know that” I might kill her.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN? LOOK AT IT” Jinx nodded her head, then she lifted her finger to try and get me to stop talking. “Let's go inside, check if anything shorted, then if they did we can just say that the place suffered some water damage. Bop boom bam and we’re off scot free”.
I was going to yell at her, but it was actually a genius plan “Fine”. We walked inside, seeing that in the main area were old arcade cabinets, a snack bar, and a dance floor that I am sure we will never see again ever after this. “Ok, try the lights” I flicked the switch, and nothing happened. “Now try the dance floor” doing the same thing nothing. I’m honestly getting pretty hopeful “Try the target shooter thing” and wouldn’t you know it, completely dead. “Cool, now try the arcade machines” flipping the last switch, nothing happened yet again. “See? We’re all good. Nothing to worry-” just as she was going to finish, the screens from the arcade machines just started blowing up, followed by a blue electricity going in a line towards a boxing machine.
“Ok yeah no, we are so fired” Jinx looked at me with her hands on her hips, like she was going to accept defeat. “I mean... maybe we can play this off as water damage?” I smiled at her, but it was obvious we both knew the outcome. “TEEMO SMASH” “Teemo what?” the two of us looked over to where the sound came from, seeing a buff blue tall version of the video game character at the end of the arcade hall. “Hmmm oooook so RUUUUN” the two of us booked it out of the building and back to the cart.
While we were getting the cart started, that stupid blue monster had busted through a wall, throwing an arcade machine at us, barely missing the cart “TEEMO”. “VI PUNCH IT OR WE’RE GOING TO DIE” Jinx looked over the seat, at the thing chasing us “I’m going as fast as this thing can go, but I’m not sure if you noticed that we are driving A GOLF CART” considering how smart she is, she sounds really dumb right now.
“VI TAKE A U AT HIM” suddenly her hands gripped the wheel and tugged hard to the right “ARE YOU INSANE” we struggled for control “VI JUST TRUST ME” “WHY SHOULD I? ITS YOUR FAULT WE’RE IN THIS MESS TO BEGIN WITH” Jinx grunted, leaning back to do something “WHAT ARE YOU-” and before I knew, her head collided with mine. Unfortunately for the two of us, her ripping the wheel from me resulted in the cart flipping over.
Luckily, it landed upright, and we were still inside it. “VI PUT THESE IN THE GAS TANK” she handed me a couple of those blue orbs she was messing with back at the tinker shack “WHY DO YOU HAVE THESE?” Jinx shook her head “I STOLE THEM NOW DO WHAT I SAID OR WE’RE LITERALLY GOING TO DIE” guess if we’re going to die, we might as well go down swinging. I threw the orbs in the gas tank, and the cart started to glow. Jinx slammed the gas and, in a moment, we were heading straight for that stupid bluey freak “JUMP ON THREE” Jinx yelled at me; her eyes focused on Teemo.
“THREE” ok so she isn’t giving us any time. Luckily, I managed to jump off at the same time she did, the two of us rolling away from it. As for the cart, it rammed into Teemo, driving him all the way back to the community center and then blowing up.
“Wooooah” Jinx and I looked at the explosion, and even this long apart, our reactions to seeing something like that have been the same. Jinx looked at me with a smirk, looking weirdly proud of what she had done “Guess we’re done with our chores, huh sis?”. She called me sis, she still believes we’re sisters. “Heh yeah, guess we are done... Sis”.
“DONE? YOU CALL THIS DONE?” Mel stomped over to us and from the look on her face, she wasn’t happy. I mean I gathered that from the sound of her voice but seeing her up close just confirmed it. “YOU WRECKED THE CART, SHORTED ALL THE POWER HERE, AND DESTROYED THE COMMUNITY CENTER” her voice carried wind with it, messing up both mine and Jinx’s hair. “NOW CLEAN UP THIS MESS OR YOU'RE FIRED” she stormed off, me and Jinx looking at each other afterwards.
“You just wanna look for another job?” “Sure”