Chapter Text
Bullets smashing against metal should be as far from rather peaceful sound of rain hitting ground, but for some reason Vi briefly thought of it, the last time she got to feel tiny droplets peltering all over her hunched form. She walked out the Kiramman estate and told Cait – no really, that wasn’t a good time to fall back the memory lane. Kicking the improvised shield over Vi did her damnest to shorten the distance between herself and the trigger happy maniac that wore her sister’s skin, talked in her voice. That was a mental image she didn’t need either, but lately who gave a fuck, right? As she got close enough to look into pink eyes – glossed over and disturbingly not blinking – she thought of a dozen unrelated things like pitter of a rain, thick greenish smoke of late evenings in undercity, how blue her sister’s eyes used to be and how they never looked this dead-fish like. Jinx snarled at her, her expressionless eyes glowed deeper pink, the shimmer in her must’ve surged yet again and Vi was hit over with heady scent of her. Machine oil and something sweet like candy or that orange fuzzy drink Powder always liked, it was the surface level – yet another needle going deep under Vi’s ribs and piercing her heart, how that terrifying stranger carried her little baby sister’s scent. Under it layers upon layers of hatred, bloodlust and something deeply feral, unhinged. This horrible mix got Vi again, as Jinx been flaunting it since they set foot into her overdramatic trap.
Vi felt her own jaws closing and a growl rumbling deep in her chest, where her own beast fought back to protect her. The gauntlets made a sound too, as if joining the vote of protest, and with the burst of fresh adrenaline Vi managed to tear Jinx’s new toy apart. Of course she picked a fucking rocket launcher as her favorite toy now, moving past stuffed bunnies a long time ago. What was that silly in a terrifying way name she gave it?.. Thrown back a few steps, Jinx howled and glitched in place a bit without really moving, it was like Vi blinked and she shifted in space. The shimmer really boiled in her and for a moment Vi wondered if it hurt her to use it as often as she did now. She wondered what it was like, being so deeply submerged into her own beast that she barely seemed to remember to stay on two feet. But maybe it was for the better, for her to not speak anymore, as every word she said now was another fucking needle deep in Vi’s heart and mind. Speaking of betrayal when she took every last thing that helped Vi go through the nightmarish seven years in the dark, and sullied it in blood and dirt. She dared paint their dead family faces all over the stone, to make them look at what she became now, and was fucking proud of herself for doing so…
*What THEY became. Pretty pictures.*
… It was only good she shed the human parts more and more as they fought, going lower and lower in her insane ladder to most basic parts.
Jinx blinked in and out of thin air once again and Vi surged for her, hearing a low buzz in her ears and a loud scream. She screamed. And her beast still growled, a non-stop threatening vibration shaking through her chest and throat and arms. She never blinked, yet Jinx was on her now, pink eyes left a quickly fading trail behind. Her teeth gleamed, stained with red, red like blood – she must’ve bit through her own lip.
Vi held her little face, dirty fingers digging deep into dirty cheeks, leaving tiny blood half-moons, girl’s big blue eyes overflow with tears, teeth stained in red, blood trickling down her lips and chin.
Vi shook her head from the blow she missed, and the shaking in her chest intensified. Alpha was mad. She was mad. She was alpha. She fought back.
The quick jab she aimed at Jinx wasn’t so quick – not in this gauntlets that made her hands so fucking huge and ate up all sense of space, even if Vi was short of living in them for the last month. It may have been quick enough to get Sevika, but not Jinx, and especially not now…
*She was always agile. Now she’s a lightning. What color though?..*
… when she was full of shimmer. Vi missed another hit, her cheek exploded in sharp pain and she gasped and felt it again – sweat and sweet, like candy, or that juice Pow loved, and heavy smell of that one little yellow shop that used to sell oils from Demarca or Noxus or something – and felt blood too.
Jinx spit her blood on her. Tasted like licking metal. Once Pow dared Vi to lick metal chain in winter and Vi’s tongue got stuck and Pow laughed herself silly. Somehow Vi thought Pow’s blood must’ve tasted sick shimmer-sweet now.
No, no, she got it all wrong. Powder didn’t spit blood on her, she kneeled her in the face and Vi tasted her own blood. Good, that’s good. Who knew how tasting Jinx’s blood would mess with her head.
*Her blood!*
The air felt thick going through her mouth and nose, maybe stuck in blood and not going through properly, or it slowly got filled with something – Jinx did it. She must’ve done it. Her style, tinkering around with stuff she shouldn’t.
*Smart.*
Vi swung wildly and heard it before she saw – got her! She caught Jinx in the gut with a right hook, and it punched air right outta her, the choked sound she made, like all of the pilties going down to the undercity to breathe The Gray for the first time. Vi choked too, even through her mask, vision permanently stuck in green. Why green if it’s The Gray?.. Jinx was there, at the arcade. She heard her then. She saw her frame hiding in the green shadows. Tricked them. They were four and she one. Escaped unscathed as they cornered her.
*Sly devil. Clever girl.*
There suddenly was a weight on her shoulders and another sharp burst of pain in her ear this time. Jinx got on her, sharp limbs delivering sharp blows. The green mist around her eyes lifted and Vi grabbed her shoulder – thought she did. But no, Jinx wriggled out of it, or was quicker than stupid huge fingers of gauntlets. Who’s fucking idea was to drag them all the way here?.. It would’ve been better if she slipped them now, Jinx was too damn fast to rely on anything than her own instincts against her now. Crazed, feral, fast!
Vi though Powder was gonna grow like this, and put all this against enforcers. And look at her…
*Look at her!*
… she did just that! Only Vi never had a nightmare so twisted, where she was behind the gas mask now, her face a metal scull now. Through the broken window of arcade, she saw herself, reflected in broken edges. Enforcer broke down the window and chased them all – Powder, Mylo, Claggor, herself – and she was behind the mask now. She chased them down. She got them all. She buried them.
Vi couldn’t shake her, so she made a wild dash forward, aiming to fall and smash her against the stone floor. The impact was there, first she heard the sound – louder than Jinx’s heart beating so fast like it tried beat out her chest and escape this mess ahead of her – of metal scraping stone, then a wheezing gasp of Jinx under her and the air that left her felt hot on Vi’s neck – danger! Hot breath sharp teeth blood Jinx got close, alpha must protect her…
*Protect her!*
…then felt pain in her knees catching up with her. The altar was suddenly underneath them, and Jinx was bracketed between her thighs and metal fists. She snarled and raged and flailed her fists, fast, small. Vi pressed on, climbed all the way up and crowded her prey, not about to let her go. She wasn’t about to make old mistakes and let her go now. Jinx was her sister…
*Sister.*
… no that was wrong. Jinx was something twisted and broken and bloody and she killed with unblinking eyes, glossed out now, hissing, whining. She was her responsibility…
*Mine.*
…to take care of. Yes, this was right. This was why she came here. Vi needed to end this all, to stop any more victims turning up bloody and dead over this old fight…
*Stop her!*
…she got Jinx hands held up high over her head, pulled it up and up so Jinx got to strain and wriggle up the altar to keep her hands attached to her shoulders and not ripped out. She stayed short. Shorter than Vi, she always was. Even short and pinned, she still struggled, still growled in that same low note, never once stuttering even as her chest heaved breath after breath, blowing out hot air on Vi’s chin – she was close enough!.. Jinx head butted her – Sevika did that! Sevika taught her? Sevika was here somewhere… - and another burst of pain briefly cleared the fog around her mind. It gathered tighter and tighter around Vi, and each time she surfaced was like gulping air above water before submerging again. Only the air itself was poisoned with a sweet scent of candy and heady of oils and sweat and wanting and omega.
Jinx kicked her in the stomach and Vi hurried to lay down on her and weight down her thighs to stop her sharp knees kicking again, not fancying getting another hit in the groin next. Jinx buckled and fought and grinded to no avail, not getting out of the metal hold on her wrists and not throwing Vi off.
*Stop fighting!*
She was so thin, Vi noticed now. Under all that snark and dramatics, loud laughs and fast jabs, lean muscle and weasel fast instincts, she was so frail and thin. So easy to break. With just a snap, Vi could break her. And that would stop it, all of it. The mocking tone of Jinx’s voice played out in her head “Hope you can live on after that” – she was going to. There was still a life after it, she could go back to.. Just go back, she had something to go back for. Just leave this place, and bury her sister and never think of it again and never take another breath and drown in the river. Or breathe, as the air now became dark saturated water.
Jinx struggled weakly, like an afterthought, and Vi took a breath and saw – her own hand, closed around Jinx’s throat, the stupid giant metal glove painted blue, but wrong hue, not Powder blue, but deeper, darker, Piltover. Piltover fist closed around her sister’s throat.
*Stop her!*
She wondered, if Jinx’s hands were cold as Powder’s always was. The gauntlets didn’t let her feel it. Through the layers of jacket – blue, heavy – Vi felt how hot Jinx’s body was running. All the fighting, shimmer must’ve kept her blood hot. Did it hurt?..
It must’ve not, or she would struggle more. She almost stopped now, eyes blinking heavily, almost lazy. The heartbeat even louder, Vi could feel the rhythm of it through thick layers of clothing, or it was the rumbling Jinx did – like a little motor, herself. She loved all sorts of motors and gears and always ended up covered in oil. And smelt like it. And sweet, always sweet. She was sweet, her little baby.
*She's…*
The sweetness got clogged in the back of her tongue now, and filled up everything, the air thick. No, the water’s closing up on them, and it’s why Powder struggled to breathe and heaved choked sounds. Wrong name. Jinx. Jinx was…
*…ours*
…not her sister. They were supposed to end the fight. They weren’t fighting anymore now.. It was harder to breathe, to see anything aside from Jinx, pale face, flushed cheeks, eyes looking back, gleaming now instead of dead. Her mouth moved, and Vi thought she lost her hearing as nothing came out, and she leaned closer – there wasn’t really that much effort anyway, they already breathed the same clogged water-air-oil-sweet. Jinx was whispering, lips moving, blood trickled down her chin, down her neck. Looked pretty.
*Pretty.*
It tasted salty and iron, like her blood. Nothing sweet, and it felt satisfying on many levels, knowing she didn’t change that much. The skin under her tongue felt hot, feverish, salty. She could hear the heartbeat better now, the rhythm of her growling. It started lower, and got louder and louder at the throat, vibrating under her mouth, her tongue. The metal – blue, wrong – was in the way, so she got rid of it, the distinct sound of it hitting stone. The sharp gasp, violent rising of the chest, Jinx still rumbled that sound, low and deep. She was burning up, hot all over, sticky with sweat. Some other sound got up her throat, Vi felt it form and die under her mouth. Then she felt a frantic pulse point against her lips – tasted like blood too, but hers or Powder’s she couldn’t tell. They got the same blood, same taste. Her gums ached. The feeling was funny, not like loosing teeth – she lost teeth back while being a little pup, then grew real one – but like growing new. Jinx vibrated with her low sounds and heart pumping hot tasty salty blood, red – right – and pretty. Then she croaked – something – her name. She called her. She sounded troubled.
The water got darker. Vi worried. Powder worried. Something wasn’t right.. She started struggling again, a touch more urgent than before.
Something shifted in the air, not the smells or sounds, but like it moved on it’s on. Unnatural. The beast worried too. Powder’s must’ve too, that’s why she wriggled madly underneath Vi. She didn’t have to look to know it, time was running out. She was here for a reason, she needed to do it, fast, now.
*Got her. Now!*
In a heartbeat, nothing but darkness around her – she closed her eyes and only noticed then – and mad trashing of her sister getting her weaker and wearing her down, she felt the pain in her jaws growing, around her fangs the most, and then she knew – the beast knew – she was ready, and sunken them down and it was it. She needed to stop it – the fighting, the yelling, hatred, betrayal, pain.
Only yelling didn’t stop and got worse somehow, and fighting too. Her mouth filled with blood and taking a quick gulp down, Vi felt her slipping – wrong.
*Hold.*
She tried, only not feeling anything in her fingers but soft cushion of the gloves – no Jinx. She slipped, was weaseling her way out – wrong! She wasn’t supposed too!
The loud sounds crashed in the distance, more yelling, more colors flushed behind her closed lids and she opened them, and stared back into panicked, huge pink eyes. And then they were much further as Vi felt strong kick to the chest and landed almost off the platform, her gauntlet clattering as metal fingers grabbed the stone, almost like a different entity attached to her. Like she was a different entity in her own body.
Jinx stared at her, frightened like Vi never saw her. She held her hand to her chest and looked – shaken, wrong wrong wrong scared.
The beast did it, the taste of blood in her mouth, the scrambled thoughts slipping about like rats under rain – heavy pit patter, bullets raining down on metal, Caitlyn’s sad eyes, blue – turning lighter.
Vi felt the powerful shake of the ground, the hairs at the back of her neck raised in fear, something was going on around them, some other tragedy aside their own, but she couldn’t take her eyes off her sister cradling her bleeding wrist to her chest. With a sudden clarity, Vi realized it all. How terrible this girl looked, all beaten down, frightened, humiliated. Tears run down her flushed cheeks, pink from the shimmer, dark from the make up. Bloodied lip and chin and throat – Vi was close to throwing up.
She did this. She was here, in Janna’s temple, aimed to kill her sister, and instead she forced a bite on her.
Dread crawled up her spine and gut, she couldn’t breathe right – she never should’ve, from the start, right as she scented it first!
Another sound, another shaking, Vi frantically reached out without any idea what she wanted to do now, only thought clanking in her empty head how this could not be happening…
*Wrong*
… and Jinx hissed at that and suddenly she wasn’t a marble statue of struck silent grieve. She exploded with sound, as if she caught up herself on what happened, surfaced from whatever brainrott they both went under – and yelled. Vi watched dumbstruck, not hearing a word, her mind playing funny tricks on her – like showing her a silent memory of Powder crawling in the mud surrounded by orange fire, yelling after her, sobbing, shaking – and Powder now yelling at her, shaking with rage and disgust, eyes no longer blue or still, the fire now in them, mad, burning.
As Vi reached to her, hand enormous and comical in her peripheral, and Jinx recoiled violently, mouth pulled back in ugly scowl, hissing, a cornered animal knowing she lost the fight already and nothing stood between her and the alpha making her submit, surrender, accept her fait properly.
But it wasn’t so! Vi tried to plead – with whom, she wasn’t even sure anymore, maybe with Janna herself to take this nightmare away and let her make it right. She felt right amount cracked to believe in prayers at the moment, and close enough to crawl out her own skin. More than anything, she wanted to grovel for forgiveness.
The altar was already there, she thought with hysteric amusement.
She blinked, clearing her vision that got blurred, and then stared down a gun barrel, another ludicrous thought run through her – seemed like Janna answered real fast if one prayed on top of her altar. The gun shook a bit, but aimed right between her eyes and Vi felt them cross, and another scent got in the mix, much softer and mild, filled with terror nonetheless. The tiny hand holding up gun, too big for it yet impressively steady, belonged to tiny child throwing herself in crossfire to…
The kid was protecting Jinx, the realization served another punch in Vi’s gut. It all wasn’t right, but she couldn’t even begin to unravel it, stretched too thin mentally. The world around them did not wait for either to handle their breakdowns, the ground shaking and deafening sound rising from the depth and intertwining with the splitting horrors, reminding the tiny humans how fragile they actually are in the face of a goddess wrath. Vi froze up looking at one little girl trying to cover for another – a monster fighter this little one, and Vi being true monster in this story, not the frail waif of a girl shaking and still trying to wrestle back the child, those two clinging to each other. She felt like she swallowed dozen rusty nails, exactly like those little Powder used to fill up her bombs with back in the day, and then she felt a whole lot of different things in a rapid fire speed.
Cait stumbling their way – as if summoned outta thin air, her rifle glinting in her hands, half-dragged on the ground, the weight of it suddenly too heavy for her hold. She took so long to lift it up, and at the same time it was there, aiming steadily right at them and…
Commotion on the periphery got her attention – every single drop of a rain got her attention, it was split like glass, shattered like their arcade dirty window smashed down by enforcer – Jinx managed to throw her little protector over the edge of the altar, her hand raised and then…
Over the roaring and groaning of metal, angry gods and high pitched noise inside her ear – too many explosions courtesy of her little inventor – she heard that one little inhale turned a tiny painful sob. Her mind dropped.
Next, a flash – Jinx lingered, stared in disbelief at her hand, something wrong..
*Wrong!*
..as if missing, sharp and clean pain exploding all over Vi’s uncovered fist – next she caught up to her body being thrown upfront, hands outstretched, unbalanced with one gauntlet off, swallowing just as hard, instead of sweetness it turned ash at the back of her throat. The beast raged and trashed over her scull, ribs, stomach, cutting himself on nails, bleeding, desperate, chanting jumbled prayers of *protect-attack-stopher-wrong* .. Teeth clacking, every sense overused – too much noise too much smells too much color. Her jaws moved, opening up just a bit, Vi heard a distant sunder rolled over their heads, a bit and she saw herself standing between the altar and another hunter, dangerous, aiming for her – and what’s hers. Recognition caught up with Vi, only her mouth felt stuffed with cotton, no words forming. Just as well, words didn’t help her much lately.
It was all over quicker than it felt, every second filled to the brim with all sorts of madness imaginable, and just as Vi and alpha came to agreement – rare for them outside of violent flashes of bloodlust over faceless Silco’s goons – all truly went down to hell. Down with the wind they went, floating for short moment until instinct fought the silly fear and joy of flying down and Vi managed to grip the metal straw in the mids of a hurricane. Good thing she still got one gauntlet on.