7 - A Joke of Misfortune

by SorrowfulReincarnation

As a simple quarrel between sisters escalates, Vi and her roommate suddenly find themselves in the middle of a day of misfortune. Now on the run from the sheriff, they struggle to find a way to fix things and escape Caitlyn's wrath. But can what is broken truly be fixed, or are all their efforts for nothing? Set in the 'Bad Day'-universe after its finale.

Information: This one-shot is the seventh installment in the "Bad Day"-Universe of mine, set after the final installment, "A Final Joke", and is with that the fourth installment after the main series has come to an end. Since it refers to it, I highly advise you to have read the series up to this point to not be spoiled and/or understand everything in this.

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PLEASE NOTE:This installment is currently non-beta'd, as my beta-reader Time96 is unavailable at the moment. Once he is free, he will beta-read it, and I'll fix all mistakes I missed while reading myself then. You will find a note on my profile as soon as he has found the time to do so.

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A Joke of (Mis)fortune

"This is soooo your fault, fat hands."

"Hey, what the hell?!"

Vi tore her gaze away from the object on the ground in front of them to glare towards her older sister. All that the maniacal woman had to offer to her, however, was a shrug that spoke volumes of her thoughts. Of how little she cared.

A threatening finger was pointed at the older sister, but Jay 'Jinx' Inks really couldn't care less. She just ignored her younger – and taller, less childish and more attractive (and less insane!), as Vi liked to point out – sister and turned back to the mess they had gotten themselves into in the first place.

The brawler couldn't hold back a growl of disdain at that, even though she knew they had bigger problems than their usual disputes between siblings. Bigger problems over a way smaller object, one that might as well cost them their jobs – and limbs or lives, if things really got out of hand.

A nervous glance was exchanged between the unlikely sisters, panicked blue meeting uneasy pink. Just how had things gone this out of hand to begin with, anyway? When had their perfectly normal afternoon on the job, sitting in the office they shared with the sheriff of Piltover – and just incidentally Vi's girlfriend – and spent most of the hours of the weekdays in, turned into this? Whatever this was, that was.

This feeling of utter dread that now clung to their backs, their sins heavy on their shoulders, it made them tremble and fear the consequences of their careless actions. For them, it was almost as if the room had gotten a lot darker when the – sadly too familiar – sound of something fragile breaking had disrupted their little quarrel, which by then had long escalated into a brawl with Caitlyn out of the room, both of them freezing up in confusion.

It was Jinx who spotted it first. Vi was holding her smaller sister up into the air by the collar with her right hand, left hand struck out and ready to deliver a punch to her older sister's face, when the sound caused them to halt their every movement. Jinx herself had one hand pushed into her sisters face, two fingers accidentally having slipped into Vi's mouth and her pinkie resting on Vi's closed left eye, and her other hand resting on the wrist of the hand Vi was holding her up with, trying to get out of the grip and turn the situation in her favor. And from that position, Jinx saw it.

The shards on the floor just behind Vi, the liquid that spread over the floor, and the knocked over table. Without a single sound, realization dawning on her as she saw her sister's gaze resting on something just behind her, Vi slowly put Jinx down and turned around herself to evaluate the destruction.

They were going to have a bad time, they could tell, just by seeing the now broken object on the floor, seemingly beyond repair. Which it clearly shouldn't be. And clearly had not been when Caitlyn had left the room a few moments earlier to take a toilet break.

It all had begun that morning. A little disagreement between the Inks Sisters about the efficiency of energy stored within crystals and energy stored within enriched ores over breakfast, which had nearly driven Caitlyn insane because neither of the sisters was going to accept the opinion of the other one, which had carried on into work. Vi was insisting that crystals stored more power and were of more use in Hextech, while Jinx was persistent that ores were more applicable since they could be turned into different states and molded that way, increasing their usefulness.

Much to the sheriff's further irritation, they had continued to bicker throughout most of the morning – it now was right after midday – and make obvious jabs at each other's opinion and 'how stupid it was'. The downside of living and working with your crazy sister, and of having a common interest in mechanics and hextech with her.

And that was Jinx's point of view, not that of Vi, who actually had the more lunatic sister to deal with of the two.

Still, despite being annoyed by it, Caitlyn had not commented on it and not chosen a side. Having spent several years with Vi now, and more recently Jinx ever since she had her 'rehabilitation' and went to live with Vi, she had learned not to interrupt them. That, and that conflicts between the two unlikely sisters eventually solved themselves, with the two sooner or later always coming to an agreement, often even a compromise.

Instead of saying anything, she had focused on her paperwork and had let the two bicker. As long as they did their share of paperwork while doing so, she hardly cared what they did on the side. In fact, she even joined their conversations most of the time. It was fun and she often even learned a thing or two about the sisters and their views on life.

How the two had not killed each other when she wasn't over at their apartment was a small riddle to her, however. She only hoped that it would change for the better once she actually moved in with them, something that wasn't too far in the future now. With how long she'd been dating Vi and how much time had passed since that one fateful night at the chemical plant, they had agreed that it was about time. A new and big step in their relationship.

And well, even though she was the one living in a grand manor she had come to own through her heritage, they had decided she would join them in the smaller apartment that had once been occupied by Vi alone. In fact, Caitlyn had insisted on living with them despite the obvious difficulties that would bring.

There was no place in the world where she felt as at home as she did in Vi's apartment, right there with Vi and Jay. It was small, yes, but not uncomfortable or something like that. Was always full of life, never boring with the two sisters around.

If anything, Caitlyn despised living all by herself in that huge manor. It was lonely and cold – not in the physical sense, but in the sense of being lifeless – and she never really had enjoyed that much space. She preferred her office over her own home any day.

Living in the enforcer's apartment had a lot of advantages over living in the manor. First off and most obvious, Vi's apartment was closer to the station, lively and comfortable. It was fun to be around the Inks sisters and always brought a new challenge, which she really enjoyed.

Entering the apartment, or sometimes the mere act of being headed to it or in some cases even only as much as thinking of it, always filled the sheriff with a certain warmth. A feeling of being welcome and accepted for who she was, not what she was. Of just being able to be herself with no consequences and no strings attached.

Another obvious reason for why she enjoyed being at the apartment was that she got to be close to Vi. There was a certain charm to being in private with her, just spending time with each other (and Jay, who spent most of the time in her room / workshop, or with them), with no thought wasted about the more irritating things in their lives. Not a word lost about work, unless absolutely necessary. Life was peaceful, away from the hardships of work.

Even if their past – the bad days – still loomed over them like a dark shadow, their past sins crawling on their backs. Always in the back of their minds, a burden to carry.

It wasn't that they felt uncomfortable around Jay – Jinx – for what she had done in her madness, the lunacy that she was still consumed by and often falling back into. Not uncomfortable with anything, if they were honest. Each of them was free to express herself and do whatever they wanted in that apartment without having to be afraid of being judged by it.

Even Caitlyn finally could let herself go and do things that most people would most likely not expect of her, adapting to a more relaxed lifestyle with the sisters – like walking around in nothing more than a sweater that was too large for her lithe frame – the sweater actually courtesy of Vi – and a pair of panties. Like just lazing about and drinking beer with the sisters in the evenings, rather than tea – even though she still preferred the latter.

But only there, only in that apartment. Outside of it, things were completely different.

And now, that peace was threatened by the result of a stupid action by the Inks siblings. The consequences of their bickering, now more apparent to them than ever before, threatening to shatter their peaceful lives to pieces by the worst of all fates – an angry Caitlyn. Leaving them to pick up the shards of their once whole world, standing above them with no hope of ever repairing what was broken.

Like they stood above the shards of what had once been Caitlyn's most expensive and absolute favorite tea service.

Caitlyn wasn't going to spare them.

"We're gonna have a bad time."

They both shuddered at the forlorn tone in Jinx's voice. All hope was lost, and they both knew it – Caitlyn was in love with that tea service. Caitlyn loved it. And now, the most unfortunate of fates had befallen the innocent piece of porcelain - the Inks sisters. Bravely, it had stood up to the two bickering sisters, so full of courage as it stood at the edge of the table and faced their wrath.

Its little red cape waving in the draft, the little silver sword held high in its handle and pointed at the two giants, the cup had protected its brethren, riding its trusty steed called saucer. Throughout its journey, its quest bestowed upon it by the gods, the chosen hero had gained many friends and followers – the tank called 'teapot', the magician 'sugar box', the berserker named 'coffeepot', and finally the hive-minded legion of silverware. Together, they had faced this threat. Together, they had fallen.

Without a doubt, they must be asking themselves, as they lay beaten and broken on the cold hard floor, if there was such a thing as destiny. Perhaps there was, perhaps there wasn't.

And perhaps, Jinx was exaggerating the actual scenario of Vi knocking into the table and sending the tea service falling to the ground and shattering in her mind. Maybe there never was such a thing as a chosen one, a journey of hardships, and maybe there was no destiny. Maybe the cup had never had a cape and never held a sword.

But it surely sounded more exciting than 'I tackled Vi, she knocked the table over, and Caitlyn's favorite tea service broke'. And it was less likely to invoke the wrath of Caitlyn. After all, there was no way that she would get mad at them if her cup and its followers had fought that bravely until the bitter end, was there?

"It's that bad, isn't it?" sighed Vi in defeat. Feeling her muscles fail, she first slumped her shoulders and stared at the shards, almost as if in hope that they were to put themselves back together as a tea service, then fell onto her knees above them and gently scooped them up. "We're dead for sure, aren't we?"

"Well..." chuckled Jay uneasily, sled her hands into the pockets of the unzipped blue hoodie she was wearing that day and closed her eyes, "It's a beautiful day outside, birds are singing, flowers are blooming... On days like these, girls like us..."

Vi frowned at the choice of words. She turned her head to questioningly raise an eyebrow at her older sister, but recoiled at the sight of Jay – no, Jinx! - opening her eyes, irises glowing a bright amethyst in lunacy. As if on cue – perhaps because Jinx sled a finger over it and pressed a button – the small radio on Jay's desk began to play a foreboding music.

"... Should be burning in hell."

Silence. Just Vi frowning at Jinx, and Jinx grinning right back. Menacingly. Fear-inducing. Completely consumed by madness.

"That was surprisingly sinister." admitted Vi in awe, blinking at her older sister.

"Thanks." Jinx pulled her hands from her pockets and shrugged, "I learned from the best. New friend of mine, plays the trombone like no other. You need to meet him and his younger brother. Though they're easy to see through, they both are funny to the bone. And love cold spaghetti."

A shard fell from Vi's hand, the sound reminding them of the situation they found themselves in as it bounced off the ground. Panic spreading through them again, Vi quickly gathered the shards in her left hand and dropped them onto the silver tray that Jinx offered to her. Maybe there was a bit of irony to that, seeing as the tea service had been standing on that tray before it broke.

So, with the tea service all gathered, the older Inks sister hurried to her table and turned the radio off. With that done, she surprised her younger sibling by rounding her table and pulling the upper drawer of her desk open. She dug through it, grabbed a key from the bottom of it, then unlocked the bigger compartment of the desk with that.

"What are you doing?!" hissed the brawler loudly, gaze darting between Jinx and the door through which Caitlyn would enter the office any moment, "We've got to do something!"

The answer was that Jinx suddenly threw a bag into her face that she had pulled from the desk and emptied on the ground, the former contents rolling around on the tiled floor.

"We are going to do something!" insisted Jinx, waved furiously before rushing to the door and peeking outside, "Put that stuff in the bag, and that quick! I've got a plan!"

Vi frowned, not quite understanding whatever Jinx had planned, but complied. With the bag still unzipped, she just had to slide one end of the tray into the bag, then push the other end in. Knowing that the shards would be spread through it anyway, she hardly cared how rough she handled it, and zipped the bag up.

"And what exactly is that plan?" inquired the enforcer as she threw the bag over her shoulder and glanced over to Jay.

"We're gonna make a run for it and get that tea service fixed." replied Jay, turned her gaze away from the door and met the gaze of Vi, "We're in a city full of people that call themselves geniuses, and the two us are the smartest of the smart – there has to be a way to fix it and never have hat lady know we broke it in the first place!"

"Are you insane?" hollered the enforcer, only to remember what situation they were in and lower her voice, "Cupcake will notice it's gone, she was drinking from that before she left the room! And she'll skin us alive!"

The loose cannon ignored it for the moment and, with a last glance out of the door to ensure Caitlyn was not returning just now, turned back to the room. She shrugged and, staying turned to Vi and walking sideways, chuckled.

"Now, what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over." snickered the lunatic, "Wouldn't you agree, Fat hands?"

Wondering just what that was supposed to mean again, what hidden insult was within that statement, Vi rose an eyebrow at her sister. She opened her mouth, about to complain and question her older sister, but she should never get to do that – things went downhill even further, and that fast.

From one to the other second, Jinx's somewhat confident smile was wiped off her lips. A wrong step, one foot accidentally hooking behind the other one, and Jinx stumbled over her own feet in an uncharacteristic moment of clumsiness.

She fell, hands reaching out in a panicked attempt to find hold. Luckily, one of the desks stood directly in front of her and she could catch herself with its help, absorbing most of the fall. She still ended up on her knees aside it, but that was the worst of it. A relieved sigh escaped her, knowing that it could've ended much worse.

So when she glanced over to her younger sibling, she didn't immediately understand just why Vi was frozen up and staring at her in absolute shock. Following the enforcer's gaze to the top of the desk, she peeked over the edge and looked for the reason behind her sibling's new surge of panic.

Spotting what she had done, Jinx's blood ran cold again. It was not a good day for them, she could tell at that moment, a bad case of misfortune having struck them.

Having slammed into the table during her fall, Jinx had knocked over a bottle of ink – straight across the pile of reports that Caitlyn had finished just a moment ago. The work of an entire morning, gone in the blink of an eye, ink now seeping through it and obliterating letters. Words. Sentences. Everything, gone.

"Oh shit, there's no way she's not going to notice that..."

"Cupcake is going to kill us..."

It went quiet for a moment, their minds racing several thousand miles a second. Both of them were desperately grasping for a way out of the situation, an answer, anything that might help them. But what would help them against such a great mind as Caitlyn, a woman skilled in deduction, the hunt for those on the run, and in the use of a sniper rifle? A single, well-aimed shot – be it bullet, tranquilizer or net – and the escape of the Inks sister would end.

The answer was simple – there was no escape from Caitlyn.

"She's really going to kill us this time..."

"Weeeeelll… Not if I can help it!"

Reacting quickly in a moment of clarity, Jinx tackled into Vi and pulled the bag off her younger sibling's shoulder. Unzipping it and throwing it onto the ground next to Caitlyn's desk, the lunatic gunner swiped the stained documents off the desk – not caring as the bottle of ink rolled off the desk, bounced off the sheriff's chair and hit the floor – and added them to the contents of the bag.

She zipped the bag up again, picked it up, and by throwing it into Vi's arms finally snapped her younger sister out of her stupor as well.

"We gotta move, fast!" commanded Jay, seeing that Vi was finally perceptive again, "Hat lady could come back any second now, and I'd rather not be here when she finds the large inkstain on her desk, the puddle of tea on the floor, and the lack of her reports and tea stuff!"

She pushed past Vi roughly. The enforcer almost stumbled over her own feet – ironically, it was fortunate that she didn't, as it most likely would've only caused more chaos – but managed to regain her balance just in time to spot Jinx approaching the closet in the room. The very same that the loose cannon had emerged from during the night of the 'game' that hard started it all.

"Oh, what a great idea! Just however did I not think of that?!" snorted Vi, sarcasm dripping from her voice, "Thing is – I don't know if you remember, but cupcake is rather good at chasing people down, so even if we manage to escape – which I do not see us doing out the front door, since we'd only run into her – I doubt we will make it far."

Jinx didn't even bother to reply. Ignoring Vi – much to the enforcer's chagrin – she unlocked the closet and dove into it, grabbing the things closest to her and yanking them out, carelessly discarding them onto the ground.

"Out the window is hardly an option, either." continued the younger of the two, glaring out the window at the open road outside, "We'd be sitting ducks for her to shoot down. It'd be like one of those games at a fair for her. And there's no guarantee she won't be using live bullets rather than tranquilizers or nets..."

Jinx yanked a cardboard box out of the bottom of a pile behind her, letting it collapse and fall out of the closet. Not caring what became of the junk, she kicked it aside and fell onto her knees in front of the piece of furniture to pull the rest out.

"Doors are for people without imagination." sniggered the loose cannon finally, though she didn't reciprocate the glance that Vi sent her, "And windows for people who need to escape, but whose pursuer is not a famous sniper."

"That has to be the weirdest bit of logic you spewed all day." growled the younger of the two Inks sisters, "Sometimes you just have to make a door, that's all."

"Still uncreative." huffed the loose cannon. Having finally emptied the closet, she was now on all fours in front of it and sticking her head inside, giving Vi all the more reason to consider that her older sister had finally lost it for good. "Not saying you lack imagination because I know you don't, but you just don't have what it takes. A woman of battle with all your heart, but you just don't have the mindset to plan further than that. The escape. The run."

"And you do?" inquired Vi, though she already knew the answer from years of chasing Jinx through the city, only to lose her ever so often because of things happening on these chases that were just too convenient to be coincidental, "Scratch that, don't answer."

Not that Jinx had planned to, being too absorbed in whatever it was that she was doing – which included putting an ear to the floor of the closet and knocking on the wood.

"Still, how do we escape? Cupcake could be back any second! And even if, just theoretically, we do manage to escape somehow, which I still doubt we do, where are we exactly going? Cait knows us well enough to know any place we could hide at! And I don't know anyone who could save our asses!", huffed the brawler, but the lack of her sister answering finally irritated her, "Just what are you doing, anyway?! Trying to head to Narnia? Is that your attempt of escape? If so, we're really screwed, you lunatic!"

"Sh!"

"Did you...?!" Vi found herself at loss for words at this sudden turn of events, stared blankly at her kneeling sister's back, "Did you just shush me?!"

"Sh!" hissed the loose cannon again, this time waving Vi off, "Stay quiet! I'm trying to save our asses!"

"By doing what?" roared the enforcer in irritation, "Listening to the wood worms in our closet? Are you that vermin exterminator I called years ago? Cause I think you are the vermin, rather than that!Or are you really actually trying to find Narnia?"

Jinx didn't bother replying. In fact, she didn't even do as much as listen, knowing better than to take offense at what Vi said – the enforcer was clearly stressed and panicked, and Jay knew very well that Vi tended to make irrational decisions while in such a state. Instead, the loose cannon kept focusing on the closet, knocking harder with her right hand. Listening. Waiting. Hoping.

"Just what exactly are you expecting to happen, huh? To find a hidden passageway? This is not a mansion from a mystery novel, it's the goddamn Piltover Police Station you are in, more specifically the sheriff's office! As if...!"

"HA!"

Jinx's fist slammed down on the wood with all the strength she could muster upon finding what she had been looking for. Pushing herself up at the same time, the madwoman scared her younger sister and caught her off guard – by having the floor of the closet flip open to reveal a hidden tunnel.

Silence reigned as Jinx smirked proudly at her work.

"Okay, I take that back, apparently we are in a mystery novel."

Letting out an amused chuckle, Jinx jabbed her sister in the side and nodded towards the tunnel that had been revealed by the hidden trapdoor. Understanding the loose cannon's notion, Vi handed the bag to the lunatic and hurried to the hole, hopped in and ignored the metal ladder in it entirely – the shaft wasn't that deep.

"Nah." replied Jinx finally from the top of the ladder, before dropping the bag down for Vi to catch, "I've had these tunnels around for about two or three years now, long before that night at the chemical plant."

"Oh!" gasped the pink-haired enforcer in realization, watching Jinx climbing down the ladder after closing the hatch, "So that's how you found your way into Cait's office over and over again before that night we played your little 'game' here in the station."

"Yeah, I've been doing that for a while then, reading my case file and stuff." chuckled Jinx as she reached the bottom of the ladder, twirling around with a snicker, "I might have also done some other stuff. Clogging the toilets with toilet paper, scribbling into notebooks, rearranging files by hair color of the suspects..."

"I was wondering back then by what system you arranged these files. Figured there was some method to it."

"I also hacked myself into the computers and hid data, hid chairs, swapped family photos between desks, I did something to the large potted plant by the reception you don't even want to know, I switched the signs of the men's and women's locker rooms, and I also – and I know I really broke a rule there – played Minecraft and dug straight down."

"You peed in the plant, didn't you?"

"THAT is your greatest concern?" snorted Jinx in amusement, "Nah, I didn't. I did something bad to it, not good."

"I wouldn't call that 'good'." growled Vi, rolling her eyes. Still, she watched in silence as Jinx reached for the wall closest to her and flicked a switch, turning the lights on, thus revealing that they were standing in a long corridor, walls smooth gray stone with a glass pane every few meters over a lamp. "Where does this lead, anyway?"

"Small room under the janitor's closet. It's where I've been during our last game. You know, April Fools' Day. The thing with the riddle, the bomb, our movie night..."

"I remember." Vi followed her sister as she set into motion, slowly walking down the corridor now that they no longer had any need to panic and run for their lives – unless Caitlyn somehow found the hidden tunnels and figured out how to access them – at a slower pace. "To think that you've been only a few feet beneath us..."

"Yeah, I got you good that time." chuckled the loose cannon, "Just a few feet beneath ya, listening to everything you've been saying..."

"Wait!" Vi froze up, stopping in the middle of the cold stone corridor, an example that Jinx followed, "You could listen to everything?! As if it wasn't seriously scary as hell enough to see you just walk out of the closet sharp midnight again and again on the video surveillance recordings from before our 'game' here at the station, you're seriously trying to tell me you've been listening to us the entire time whenever you were here?!"

"Nah." Jinx shrugged as she huffed her new favorite word, "Just during our game on April Fools' Day. My radio, the one I kept in my desk, was on and transmitting everything down here to my lil' hideout."

"You're mad."

"I'm not a psychologist for nothin'." giggled the madwoman and started walking again, leaving her sister to follow, "And the local psychopath."

"Were the local psychopath, you mean." corrected the enforcer almost too quickly – they both knew the reason for that, both knew they all were afraid that Jay would revert to Jinx again – and rose an eyebrow at her sister. Not that Jinx ever saw it, walking away from the brawler that was quick to follow.

"I like to think that I still am." shot the loose cannon back. Shrugged, although not at Vi, and rose both hands, waved a one in the air. What exactly that gesture meant, Vi didn't know, and honestly doubted that Jinx did herself. She was like that sometimes. Wasn't only lunatic, but random. Messed up in the head to a point where method and madness began to blend into one another, just barely far enough from each other to be told apart.

Jinx twirled as she kept moving, snickered to herself about something only going on in her head.

Well, kinda told apart. Method and madness, madness and method...

Finally, a door came into view. Not that they had walked for long or far or anything, but the lights embedded into the walls hardly offered enough illumination to see past a few steps ahead. That, despite Jinx's obvious amount of energy, they were only moving rather slowly wasn't helping either. Certainly not a pace comfortable with the enforcer, but Jinx was leading and knew what she was doing.

As she had proven before, she excelled in the areas that Vi was lacking – stealth, caution, foresightedness. Countless getaways of the loose cannon had gone well, escaping even the smart sheriff more than once, the brain out of the three. Jinx, Jay, either of her personalities – they were cunning, sly, worked in a way that Caitlyn's brilliant mind didn't.

But could any of them truly be called more intelligent than one another? Caitlyn and Jinx liked to believe that exactly that was not the case, they all excelled in their own territory. The sheriff was quick and certainly surpassed her two peers in the power of deduction, seeing with her eager eye what the hotheaded Vi and the restless Jinx didn't. In return, the two Inks Sisters found their calling in mechanics – especially recycling and repurposing – that Caitlyn just couldn't wrap her mind around, and while Vi knew more about the fight than the other two, Jinx had the gift to analyze others by their actions, reactions and words.

In the end, however, that was not what Vi believed to be true. Far from it. It certainly went without saying that she knew her things about fighting and mechanics, even Vi had to admit that herself – but compared to both her girlfriend and sister, there was just so much she did not know. Not understand. Their knowledge surpassed hers, by far – and Vi was fine with it. She wasn't book-smart like Caitlyn, who knew of the world and the history, and social-smart like Jay, who knew of the psychology and how to manipulate it, and she didn't want to be. For she knew how her fists worked and how the moment worked – and as long as she had both her girlfriend and her sister, there was nothing else she needed.

Nothing.

Just about as much as Jinx – not Jay – was caring about a lot of things. She was far from carefree as she rushed ahead and hit a button – definitely harder than she had to – next to the rather futuristic door, was a walking bundle of energy and problems, full of worries and doubts as she had presented before. But in the typical Jinx-like fashion of childish passion and nihilistic view on the world, she just didn't care at all and focused on the moment. Lived the moment.

Because even though they all liked to believe that Jinx – the personality – had died on that chemical plant's ground that one night, they all knew that wasn't the case. Jinx, as a personality, had died no more than Jay had died several years earlier in Zaun in an all too similar fashion. In the end, that they were clinging to the belief of Jinx having reverted to a cross between Jay and Jinx was nothing more than the denial of the horrible truth that she could, at any moment, return to being that lunatic woman that sought no more than the thrill of adrenaline and the enjoyment of the destruction she left in her wake.

As sad as it was – the truth was that Jinx wasn't gone, just as much as Jay wasn't gone. Just as much as that the sister that Vi had now 'regained' was the combination of these two conflicting personalities. The sad truth was that this sister, that now entered the room she had opened, was both of these. A walking amalgamation that tended to switch by pure randomness between the sympathetic Jay and the psychotic Jinx, a lunatic truly absorbed in madness.

No one could tell what would trigger the next change between personalities, not even Jay or Jinx. Not even both of them together. At any time, literally anything – be it the smallest thing – could trigger that Jay became Jinx, that Jinx became Jay, or that both of them 'worked together'. But unlike Jekyll and Hyde, who didn't know they were one and the same for a long time as they fought for control, Jay and Jinx were very well aware of one another. Exploited it at times, dreaded it the other.

Neither of them could be truly free as long as the other one existed, but couldn't exist as long as it wasn't both of them.

Sometimes, Vi wondered how Jay managed that. And how Jinx did. How these two conflicting personalities – one full of nothing but disdain for the world, and the other full of hope – could exist in the limited area of their body's skull. As much as she tried to understand it, this silent war beneath the surface, the war within, Vi just couldn't understand it. Not how it worked, not how they – two aspects of the same person – coped, and what toll it'd bring in the future. What toll it possibly already had on the body.

Perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas to think of Jay and Jinx as separate personalities or different people. Caitlyn didn't, that much Vi knew, but for the enforcer – who had known her sister for most of her life and had looked up to her for a long time until that one fateful day in Zaun – it was complicated. It was complex, a deep psychological problem anchored in the depths of the lunatic's skull, and certainly nothing that even years of therapy could hope to cure. Or at least unravel. It was perhaps best to think of Jinx and Jay as two strings of a very similar color that, at one point, had tangled up into a giant knot – and the naked eye could not tell apart which string was which due to their color.

Yes. Yes, Jay – Jinx – was right. She still was the psychopath just as much as she was the psychologist. Just as much delinquent as she was officer. Just as much right as she was wrong. And just as much full of hope as she was nihilistic.

But there was only one thing that there was no doubt about when it came to her – she was fully absorbed in madness. A lunatic that had long let go of all things in the world and was now in free fall, plummeting to her certain death with arms and legs spread out, smiling to herself as she laughed at her own unavoidable fate.

For it would only prove that she had been right all along.

"You coming, or what?" hollered Jinx's voice from the dark room ahead, "We don't have all day - well, you don't have! I'm not the one returning home to a cold bed if we don't manage to fix this."

"Your bed is always cold!" shot Vi back and set into motion, rolling her eyes at her older sister.

"Well, touché, dear sister." chuckled the insane voice from ahead, "But that's what you think! While I may not share my bed and warmth with someone – apart from my beloved weapons – I at least possess the unbelievable WarmNights™. This fantastic little hextech device forged by JinxInks Technology LLC will have your bed ready at the most pleasing warmth before you even think of going to bed! Just set the time on the little dial, slip it under the sheets before you leave the house, and come back to a warm bed that you will never want to leave again! And for just 3500 Gold, it can keep your bed warm, too!"

Vi stopped in the doorway. Let the darkness consume her, but didn't wait for her eyes to adjust, already knew where Jinx was based on the origin of her voice, stared her sister dead in the eye as her silhouette finally became visible. Pale blue light originating from a monitor was illuminating the right side of the lunatic's face, the madwoman having slipped onto a bulky executive chair with her legs pulled up onto it and crossed before Vi had entered the room.

Overcome by confusion and disbelief, Vi felt one of her eyebrows slowly rise questioningly at her older sister. But Jinx's smirk only grew at this. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her legs, baring her white teeth in amusement at the enforcer.

"I'm not even going to question that."

"But you totally should!" countered the loose cannon and threw her hands up into the air, "I was being honest! I'm just about to launch my handy little gadget onto the market!"

Vi's eyebrow only rose higher.

"Once I work out the last little kinks that is." Jinx turned her chair away from the doorway and turned to face the screen, "They still have that weird habit of heating up uncontrollably at random times. I mean, sure, it did save me the time of shaving my legs... and that for a few months... and usually I'm all about secondary functions, but, duh, that's just insane little me. And second degree burns probably aren't so desirable..."

"One word." sighed Vi as she stepped into the room and began to glance around, taking in the details of the room she hadn't even known of until a few minutes before, "Ouch. But at least now I know why you've been walking so weird one week ago."

"Touché."

Sensing that Jinx was getting lost in her own little world again due to the absent-mindedness in the madwoman's voice, Vi just let her be for the moment. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the gloom that the room lay in, she could finally see just where Jinx had led her – and what secret lurked underneath the one location Vi had always deemed to be the safe haven of Piltover, the invulnerable fortress of justice and strength: Piltover's Police Department.

Now, just another lie she had believed in. Jinx had already long found her way in there as well. Or rather, underneath there.

Still, the room – as small as it was – wasn't exactly inviting. More functional than anything, lacking color and quite some home decoration. With dull gray walls, no windows – well, it was underground – and only two lamps on the relatively low ceiling, it was bound to be a dark place. Especially cause Vi couldn't find any light switch, and Jinx – sitting in front of several monitors, of which only one was turned on – didn't look like she had any intention of pointing one out, too busy typing on a tablet. Especially considering that she had a small desk lamp in reach.

The silhouettes of some furniture stood out against the rest of the darkness. Not that it was a lot of furniture. Aside from the metal desk with the monitors that Jinx was seated at in that bulky executive chair, Vi could only discern a handful of things. A bookshelf filled to the brim with books of varying sizes and colors, a table littered with random things, a trash can that Vi remembered to have gone missing at the station a while ago, a small mini-fridge that certainly had seen better days, a dull couch, and a closet that she doubted she wanted to know the contents of. If there was anything more, then it was swallowed by the blackness.

But perhaps this darkness had another purpose – hiding the dirty state that the room was in. Because even though it certainly was dark and limited visibility by quite a bit, the pale light of the monitor revealed the dust, dirt and garbage that the older Inks sister had not gotten rid of yet. Perhaps too lazy to clean it, perhaps too rarely ever down there – Vi couldn't tell.

Either way, though the darkness did a good job at hiding most of the filthiness, it could only do so much – the smell was still there. Especially that of the half-eaten pizza to Jinx's right, having laid there long enough for the pizza box to be soggy, cardboard soaked with grease and cheese. It certainly wasn't the only food that lay around half-eaten or forgotten, and there was evidence – empty boxes and cartons, bottles and crumbs – for more spread throughout the room.

Someone was fond of fast food, it seemed.

And Vi had the terrible feeling of finally having found out just where that missing part of her last payment had went. She had her suspicions as to where it had went when she had found that part of her secret stack of money in the apartment had gone missing, albeit she had expected her sister to buy something to make her crazy mechanic ideas become reality.

"I know it's dirty." began Jinx all of sudden, her voice void of emotion. She didn't look up from her tablet as she spoke, something Vi gave her credit for as her older sister had still noticed that she had been staring at the dirty corners of the room. It was only a few seconds after she fell silent again that Jinx turned her head to meet her sister's gaze, frowning. "If you see Elise doing a synchronized dance with the other spiders, don't accept any invitation for a cup of tea. She will just pour you a cup of spiders."

A sigh escaped Vi, a smile spreading across her lips. That was the same good old crazy Jinx she had come to enjoy and hate at the same time. And in the same old way, the crazy and random statements of the loose cannon brought irritation and amusement. The same old reaction.

Some things just never change, and perhaps that was for the better.

"I just quote myself here – I'm not even going to question that."

"Yeah, probably for the better." chuckled the madwoman. With her legs still pulled in, she pushed off the metal desk and turned her chair to face her brute of a sister, smirk across her lips in an intensity that Vi hadn't seen in a while.

Jinx was excited. Her full insanity was woken, roused from its slumber in the face of danger. If that was good or not, however, remained to be seen – on one hand, the insane Jinx was quite skilled when it came to escaping and scheming. On the other hand, the insane Jinx was unpredictable to the utmost, and the plans she came up with either revolved around explosives and mayhem, or were so crazy they seemed outright impossible.

And yet, always worked out somehow.

"Can I offer ya somethin'?" inquired the loose cannon with a gesture to the small fridge, "Go ahead and grab a beer from the fridge."

The pink-haired brawler followed her sister's gesture and sent a glance to the small fridge off to the side. Shortly contemplating whether or not to follow the invitation, she eventually just rolled her eyes and made her way to the fridge.

"Don't mind if I do." mused the younger of the two, opening the fridge – while taking note that someone, well guess who, had drilled a hole in the door and had closed it up again – and scanning the illuminated inside for the silver cans of beer, "I believe you want one as well?"

"Sure." came Jinx's reply from the area of the desk, the woman already back to whatever she was doing on the touchscreen of her tablet, "If you want, I've also got some hamburgers we could prepare, there's a stove next door. And there should be some frozen spaghetti in the freezer."

"Huh?!" Pulling her head out of the fridge, two cans of beer in hand, she frowned over to her sister, "Wait, frozen spaghetti?! As in, you cooked it and then froze it?" Watching Jinx nod, Vi shook her head. "Just... Why?!"

Jinx's head turned and a mischievous smirk crossed her lips, one that the enforcer knew to mean nothing good. Nothing.

"Because I like it that way, silly! Nyeh heh heh."

Vi's eyebrow slowly rose, questioning the truth of that statement, but she didn't move from her spot and didn't say anything. Jinx kept eye contact, the smirk not leaving her lips, full of confidence and amusement.

And then dropped.

"Okay, so I accidentally put it in the freezer instead of the fridge." groaned the loose cannon in defeat, threw her hands up into the air, "And I forgot it in there! And now I have no idea what to do with it! I don't want to throw it in the trash cause it's too good for that, but I'm not brave enough to let it thaw and eat it myself, cause I don't know if that's good for my stomach... Even Fishbones didn't want it!"

"You know..." Vi's eyebrow remained in its position, not sinking back down. Still, she threw one of the cans of beer to Jinx, the woman with the electric-blue hair almost missing to catch it, leading to the can bouncing off her wrist up into the air several times before finally landing safely in her hand.

Relieved, she let out a giggle and opened the can – and quickly regretted it as foam shot out, leaving her to bring the can to her mouth as fast as possible, staining her clothes with beer. Vi rolled her eyes at that, but finished her sentence either way as she grabbed a chair and sat down on it. "...that oddly reminds me of that frozen chicken back in your old hideout."

"Hm!" moaned Jinx into her can of beer, wildly swinging her free hand around to signal she had something to say, "Funny that you bring that up!"

Vi's eyebrow did the impossible and rose even higher. And though she knew she'd regret it, she still opened her mouth to ask what exactly that was supposed to mean. "Because...?"

The maniac grinned widely at that, foam spilling from her mouth and dripping down her lips, much to her sister's disgust.

"Well, turns out it was actually in cryosleep." giggled the loose cannon, then nervously scratched her cheek, "I don't know how I did it, but I managed to put something in cryosleep. Too dangerous to try again, especially since I ran out of that weird ore that I used to build the freeze ray rifle and currently do not intend to get more. And that aside, I have no idea if it will work again, and if even on an organism of another size."

She turned in her chair and started typing something on her screen for a second, but seemed to have no intention of telling her sister what she was doing. Eventually, she just turned back to face Vi, who had just opened her own can of beer.

"Anyway, remember when we were moving some of my stuff from my old hideout to your apartment?"

"How could I?" snorted the enforcer over the brim of her beer, "You had me carrying the heaviest furniture you possessed for hours!" she stopped to lift a hand and, scowling, she pointed an accusing finger at her sister, "And then you just decided that you didn't need half of that stuff and burnt it."

"I didn't just burn it." shot Jinx back and shrugged, "I made a bonfire and lit it. So, if I ever die now, I just respawn at it and just have to retrieve the souls I've gathered!"

"What the hell...?" Vi stopped and shook her head, grunted at the thought of whatever was possessing her lunatic sister this time, "Why do I even try...?"

"Yeah, see, that's what I thought when I first got to Ornstein and Smough." exclaimed the madwoman in question, "But I digress. That chicken? Super creepy. Haunts my dreams now, especially since I know it is still out there somewhere..."

Jinx turned her chair around – a bit too fast, causing it to almost topple over – and grabbed her can of beer, which she had set down in between explaining. She took a generous swig and, lost in thought, began typing on her tablet again using only index finger and middle finger of her free hand. Suddenly, as if only then remembering that her sister was with her and that she hadn't finished her tale, she whirled back around , beer sloshing around, and grinned.

"Do I even want to know what you're doing over there, Jay?"

"You'll see in a moment." replied Jinx and shrugged, "Anyways, to move from the old hideout, I had to remove this weird ore from the freezer that I used to keep my stuff frozen. And well... I was packing some stuff into cardboard boxes, just minding my own business, when the freezer suddenly burst open and that chicken surfaced from it like a zombie from the grave!"

"You're serious, are you?"

"For once in my life, yeah. Terribly so, I'm afraid." the loose cannon took a second to wipe a stain of beer off her black shorts, "That thing attacked me, broke some of my stuff, and then fled through the window. And now it's out there, lurking, waiting... I know it just waits for the perfect moment to enact revenge on me. God knows what it is doing right now..."

"Great." Vi's eyebrow had reached the limit of how far it could go up ages ago, and the sarcasm in her voice wasn't far from reaching it as well, "A crazy chicken is out there to hunt a lunatic psychopath. Just what has the world become..."

"If I say 'a better place', you're probably not gonna believe me, right?" chuckled Jinx, but slowly trailed off as she saw the judging frown on Vi's face, "Just asking! Alright, I'm shutting up!"

"Probably for the better. I don't know how much crazy bullshit I can take today, with Cait probably about to murder us." sighed the enforcer and rose from her seat with a groan. Her sister silently watched her walk around the room for a second, but eventually just turned away and left her to have a look around the room.

With Jinx no longer interested in keeping up a conversation, Vi moved her focus elsewhere. The messy room, stuffed full of random objects that clearly didn't belong there, offered quite a few possibilities for distraction, something that she found herself thankful for as it provided a way to pass the time while Jinx did whatever she thought of as more important than discussing their current situation and possible solutions.

Having no real interest in the more random stuff that Jay kept in the room – to be honest, there was enough of that in the apartment that they now shared – the enforcer of Piltover ignored the objects that immediately struck the eye due to how out of place they were, and went for a table on the far side of the room that she had previously missed in the darkness.

As Jay kept typing, the younger Inks Sister frowned at the table littered with documents and empty boxes of what had previously contained various different foods – fast food, takeout from various restaurants Vi was sure she had at least heard of before, candy and snacks. Bascially, Jinx had been living unhealthy down in that hidy-hole. And probably for quite some while, which at least explained where she had been sneaking off to during the last few months leading up to their bet, which had ended high above Piltover in a skyscraper at midnight.

A bit of disgust struck her as she shoved the empty boxes away to reveal the documents beneath, the question as to how her sister could work in a room like that bothering her. Sure, neither of the two Inks Sisters was known for keeping their surroundings particularly clean.

Vi's own workshop – once in the room in her apartment that Jinx now occupied, now located in a small garage in a back-alley she had rented together with Jay – was a mess of gears, tools and components, and she actually enjoyed the disarray. Had some kind of overview of where things were, something she couldn't say about when things were actually cleaned up and where they were supposed to be. And the same thing applied to Jinx as well, considering what her hideouts had once looked like, and the state her own workshop was in.

But that wasn't the same kind of disarray that this hidy-hole was in. Food, or just the remains of that, had never been something that Vi had left lying around – especially not close to her work – and she was sure that Jinx hadn't done that before either. So why there, down in that room? Vi wasn't sure she'd be getting the answer, and wasn't sure if she wanted it either.

But with the mess out of the way, she actually got to look at the documents that had been buried underneath. Most of them appeared to be meaningless reports and discarded ideas that the lunatic had once written down, none really finished and often abandoned halfway through the stage of design.

Jinx hardly seemed to care about these, seeing as she had been burying them underneath all that garbage, quite a few stained with grease. Still, one of them in particular caught Vi's eye nonetheless, this one a kind of blueprint in a state way closer to completion than the rest, with several handwritten notes by the madwoman herself drawn on it. Just barely more than halfway done, it was what Vi saw on it that caught her interest.

'Slayer Gear' was written at the top of the blueprints, below several drawings of what looked like a redesign – or possibly even completely new model – of Jinx's standard gear. With a rocket launcher of a more morbid design, a pink skull at the front of a large tube, the design at the very top did remind Vi of Fishbones.

Below, way bigger and taking up most of the large blueprint, was a design of what looked like the unholy combination of a mini-gun, a drill and an engine with two large exhaust pipes. Or rather, an engine that had, aside from two exhaust pipes, several barrels mounted on it, which someone had added blades onto. And, with that spinning, the idea that it was a drill wasn't too far-fetched. Then again, Vi couldn't be entirely sure about that, as this sketch had not been finished and was missing quite a few lines. Most of the details she had on that was what she could decipher from Jinx's handwritten notes on it. It sure wasn't cute pink Pow-Pow, at least, as far as she could tell.

A new type of stun gun was located at the lower right of the blueprint, but it had been crossed out and obviously had been discarded by the lunatic. The large pink 'NOPE' written above it was practically speaking volumes. What Jinx hadn't discarded, and located to the left of the abandoned stun gun design, was something that Vi couldn't help but guess to be an electric tonfa. It was far from finished – in fact, the only thing that really let the crude pipe-like sketch make any sense, was the stick-figure drawing of Jinx slapping an angry 'FAT HANDZ' with a stick, a small bolt of lightning drawn above it. And seeing as she had been keeping that tonfa – named 'Saltsticks' by her – it did make sense for that sketch to be of one.

It seemed like there had been more to that blueprint once, however. Right from the designs of the weapons, Jinx had ripped a large section of the document off, which now, Vi suspected, was one of the many crumpled pieces of paper that lined the back of the table. While kind of interested what Jinx had drawn on that – and why she had created this 'Slayer Gear' in the first place, only to then discard the whole idea again – Vi didn't bother to check every crumpled paper, and instead disregarded the entire blueprint as one of her sister's crazy ideas that had no real reason for existing.

Tearing her eyes of the blueprint, the enforcer decided to see what else was among the documents that littered the table. A few more sketches and random notes of the older woman were in between the documents, most of which were either empty or incomprehensible.

What should really catch the eye of the enforcer, however, turned out to be a newspaper. It wasn't the only one in the heap of paper, most of them older than a month or two, but the image on the front page stood out - a burnt down residence that Vi couldn't help but think of as oddly familiar.

That, and the fact that it had been sent to an address that Vi know didn't exist, namely that of the police station with an added 'J' at the end. And didn't know what surprised her more – the front page, or the fact that Jinx had an own address for her hidy-hole.

Her eyes drifted to the title, though it only read 'abandoned residence burnt down mysteriously', which was why she instead focused on the article itself. Briefly skimming through, she learned that the residence in question was located in the outskirts of Piltover, and that the officer in charge – same department as her, but another rank – suspected it to be arson.

And, upon reading that and checking the date of the newspaper, she realized why she couldn't shake the feeling off that she knew the residence.

"Jay!" she hollered, saw how her sister cringed out of the corner of her eye, and waved the newspaper ominously as Jinx slowly turned, "This residence here, said to have burnt down, isn't, by any chance, the one we were fighting in last April, right? It's in the neighborhood I chased you through, and this newspaper is from about a week after that..."

"Of course not!" countered the loose cannon immediately and smiled, "We weren't doing anything stupid then, like playing with fire or anything... This might be nothing but a coincidence!"

The smile of the deranged woman quickly fell, however, as she saw Vi's gaze drifting back to the article and skimming further through it.

"Police reports that it is most likely a case of arson, though the theory of careless adolescents playing with fireworks gone wrong has been mentioned." read Vi, exchanged a knowing and accusing glance with her sister," Latter theory is backed up by discovery of fireworks on the scene, of which some reportedly went off while firefighters were still extinguishing the burning building. Remains of these fireworks were later found in what was presumed to have once been the kitchen, along with traces of spilled flammable cleaner. Whether or not it was an accident or arson is still being investigated."

Without another word, Vi threw the newspaper back onto the heap of documents and crossed her arms beneath her chest. Frowned at her older sister, who stared back quite uncomfortable. The corner of her mouth twitched, only once, but fell back down once Vi's frown turned into a scowl.

"So..." sighed the loose cannon and threw her hands in the air as she turned her chair away again, "Maybe it's not a coincidence. Maybe we never went back to retrieve the fireworks I dropped in that room. And maybe my list of committed crimes includes arson and ultimate badassery now..." she suddenly pushed off the desk and rolled in her chair towards her sister, "But just maybe! You'd have to prove it was me, and I doubt you can. Other than ultimate badassery which I definitely did commit, but we all knew that should've been on my list of committed crimes from day one."

"I don't have to mention that I disapprove, right?"

"Wouldn't be fun if you did approve." shot Jinx back right away and leaned forward in her chair, "Last time you approved of what I did, we kind of almost killed one another, and I got these..."

As the madwoman turned and, once more showing how little shame she had, took off her blue hoodie she had been wearing that day, Vi shuddered. She remembered them only too well, the burn scars running down Jinx's side, which she was at fault for. The everlasting reminder of that night, the additional disfigurement to the older Inks Sister.

Jinx never blamed her for that, though. It was something that had happened at the peak of their madness, both of them lost in anger and betrayal, not in their right mind. Never forgotten, though, even with the scars covered up.

Seeing as that statement had just ended the conversation anew, the one topic mentioned they had silently agreed that they would never go into detail about again, never question again – a bad day – as it would not end well, Jinx actually let out a sigh. And then, chuckling, suddenly began to hum.

"Everybody get up, it's time to slam now!"

Holding her hoodie like a ball in her hands, Jinx – nearly undressed above the waist – jumped up from her seat and threw the piece of clothing across the room, the object flying over Vi's head and landing on the couch behind her.

"We got a real jam goin' down, welcome to the Space Jam! Here's your chance, do your dance, at the space jam – alright!"

Hearing this and seeing Jinx dance around the room while taking off her black shorts to add them to the growing pile of clothing on the couch, Vi couldn't help but roll her eyes and snicker. Good old Jinx, random as hell, and always able either lift of completely destroy the mood.

"You know, Jay, this time I'm serious." offered the brawler with a smile and shook her head, "No more renting movies with my ID without my consent. I may enjoy the movies you choose as well, and I may enjoy these sisterly video nights we have ever so often, with Cait occasionally joining in, but at least ask me beforehand."

"Will do!" sniggered Jinx and, grabbing a bundle of clothes from beneath the desk she had been sitting on, vanished through a door that she left open, "Probably."

"Heard that!"

"Would be sad if ya didn't, fat hands!"

Again, Vi only rolled her eyes and smiled – something she had adopted from Caitlyn lately. Not that she was losing her more abrasive nature, but she had learned that – when it came to Jinx – sometimes it was easier to just swallow that irritation and roll her eyes at whatever her older sister did.

And only lash out if Jinx really overdid it, which the crazier woman was provoking on purpose more often than not.

A random thought crossed Vi's mind at this moment. Having spotted it, the dog tag with Jinx's name on it, evidence of her being the only surviving member of the Zaun Special Forces, on the desk where Jinx had sat before, the enforcer found herself – if only for a moment – reminded of their origins. And that triggered a question she had been meaning to ask for a long while.

"Say, Jay..." she called over her shoulder to the open door, heard the rustling of clothes being put on in return, "About your degree in psychology..."

She didn't get to finish the question. Interrupted by the sound of a heavy belt being picked up, Vi found herself frowning – Jinx's police attire did not include a belt, though she had overheard Jinx inquiring Caitlyn about how many modifications to the attire were acceptable – over to the door. And just in time for her sister to emerge from it, a swift kick closing the door behind her.

Jinx wasn't dressed in her police attire. Not even close to it. But what she was actually wearing did surprise Vi enough for her to shortly space out, something that Jinx used to buckle the heavy belt – several bullet casings on it – around her waist.

Gone was the blue hoodie and the black shorts, in its stead a pink and black color scheme that Vi hadn't seen in a while. Not since the bet on April Fools' Day, where Jinx had 'gone back to being a criminal' – because that was exactly what she was wearing that moment.

Her old attire, from the days she used to bring terror to the streets of Piltover - revealing skin, burn scars and tattoos, with several belts and hooks for her beloved weapons Pow-Pow at her right side, Fishbones on her back, Zap on her left hip, and Saltsticks across her lower back. The only thing that really differed from back then were the burn scars and the fact that she only had one braid, the other one having burnt off the night of their final battle. But she was working on growing it out again, and had already made some progress on that, though she kept it hidden in the single braid.

That still didn't explain the change of clothes.

"Uh... And you are wearing that..." Vi pointed at her sister's clothes, finger moving up and down, "Why again?"

In response, the loose cannon struck a pose that radiated confidence. She put a hand onto the spot she usually kept Pow-Pow at, the mini-gun at that moment safely stowed away in Jinx's locker in the women's locker room of the police station above them, and smirked at her sister.

"Isn't it obvious?" inquired the loose cannon and chuckled, then continued in an overly dramatic tone that had Vi roll her eyes in return, "Right now, we are no longer vigilantes, Vi. Our actions have sent us down a different path, we have sealed our fates with our wrongdoings. Now, we're nothing more than stowaways on the train of justice, criminals running from the law as we're trying to undo our mistakes and fix what is broken!"

"Yeah... Right." drawled Vi skeptically, eyebrow rising back up as she watched her sister fist pump in excitement. "I think you need a train to the next doctor, cause you've really lost it this time."

"I am a doctor." reminded Jinx and pointed at herself, then huffed and crossed her arms, pouted, "That aside, I'd make a great stowaway."

Vi sighed, this childish behavior of her older sister sadly too typical to be considered strange. Lowering her face into her hands, she massaged her temples and silently cursed to herself. This really wasn't how she had intended to experience that day.

"As long as you're not considering that to be an option, I agree." growled the enforcer and rose her gaze to meet that of her sister, "I'm not up for another game of betrayal, Jinx."

The loose cannon, surprised at her sister calling her by that name, rose an eyebrow. Glancing down at herself and thinking about it, realization slowly dawned on her, and she let out a surprised 'Oh!' before looking up again.

"But I have no intention of turning my back on you and Cait!" insisted Jay and crossed her arms over her chest, "That would kind of defeat the whole purpose, don'tcha think?"

Now it was Vi's turn to frown, but the madwoman didn't even move in the slightest, though she was aware of the question lingering in the air. And seeing that she didn't, Vi eventually did voice it. "Care to elaborate on that?"

"If you insist." huffed the older sister of the two, still grinning widely, "I thought it was obvious, but I'm not a cop because I'm interested in fighting for the law or because I'm willing to uphold justice. For all I care, law and justice can go and screw themselves, I'm not believing in that shit. It's biased as hell, and it doesn't care for special circumstances. No, the only thing that I really trust in are the good old rules of nature. The hunter and the prey. The struggle between strong and weak, of fighting to come out the victor. And, newsflash, it's not always the strong one."

She turned away and took a few steps into the room, feet dragging across the floor. Kicking an empty pizza box out of the way, the heavy gunner let out a huff and thought about what to say next for a moment. Decided before reaching the desk she had sat at before.

"No, I'm not interested in the law or the justice, I don't trust them. None but your own personal laws and justice, that is. I'm an anarchist at heart, we both know it." the madwoman turned to her sister and frowned, "I'm living for the fun and the heck of it. I know things will eventually go down the drain the way I live, but I don't care if I think about how much fun it'll be on the way there!"

The frown made place for a smile. An honest one, not one full of insane excitement or sadistic pleasure, one that was more Jay than Jinx. One that had Vi smile back almost immediately.

"I want to experience all that fun with Caitlyn and you, Violet. All the way." smiled Jay and let out a sigh, "We've had our fun being on different sides. Have explored all the possibilities until, at the end, it wasn't being fun anymore. Until the only outcome was no longer fun."

Turning her gaze away, Jinx's smile fell and was replaced by a scowl. She obviously didn't like where she was going with her words, and frankly, Vi didn't like it either. There was an implication in the air that had Vi fearing Jinx's next words, but the madwoman had every intention to clear it up.

"I'm not saying that I'll just go back to wrecking havoc once this all isn't fun anymore. To be honest, I don't think this chance I was being offered will ever get boring, and that's because I'm with you and Caitlyn now. Because there's just so much to do and to see, and that just in this pathetically neat city alone. And even if it does get boring, I still have you two."

Relief washed over Vi. So Jay wasn't going to turn on them anytime soon, which was more than she could wish for.

"Alright, appreciated." chuckled the enforcer, "But don't you dare go sappy on my ass now, Jay. We have some other problems to take care off, you lunatic."

"Right."

Jinx nodded in agreement as she spoke, but turned away from her sister at the same time. Headed for the desk, she first picked up the tablet and touched the screen a final time, but then surprised Vi by reaching over to the object to the right of the desk. And seeing Jinx pick up the dog tags just served to remind Vi of the question she had meant to ask before.

"That reminds me, Jay..." she began, and waited until Jinx had turned around, the loose cannon's full attention on her, "Remind me, how again did you manage to get a degree in psychology, you maniac?"

"Hm?" with her hands still behind her head, having just put the dog tags on, Jinx stood by the desk and stared at her with wide eyes, "How I...? Oh. Yeah."

Her hands sunk down to her sides with the dog tags in place, the mischievous smile finding its way back onto her face almost as naturally as that. Baring her teeth as her smile turned to a grin, the heavy gunner with the questionable sanity rolled her eyes.

"I got that degree in Zaun, what do you expect?" she shrugged at her own words, mirth in her pink eyes, "These nutjobs think that a madman conducting experiments on himself – which has left him purple, deformed and with a horrible speech impediment – is a goddamn genius and support him!"

Okay, that much was true, Vi had to give her that.

"I just had to prove I'm really screwed up in the head and they figured I'm the best choice to deal with every nutjob out there!" snickered Jinx before bursting into violent laughter, thrusting a hand to the side in an overly dramatic gesture, "I think they don't even want their lunatics cured!"

"Right." drawled Vi and sighed, "I forgot."

"Happens."

Instead of continuing her explanation, the loose cannon began to play with the dog tags around her neck, idly turning it back and forth between two fingers. Something in her eyes changed at that moment, and it wasn't until Vi moved a bit that she realized that Jinx was staring through her rather than at her. She was lost in thought, mind in a place far away.

It happened from time to time, as Vi had come to notice. More of than not, it seemed to be connected to these dog tags, once worn by the Zaun Special Forces. A unit of elites that had not been disbanded, but been completely eradicated years ago. As Vi knew from that valuable possession of Jinx, the lunatic had once been part of it. The only surviving member, in fact.

Having left behind all connections to Zaun, the so-called 'City of Privileges' in contrast to Piltover's title of being the 'City of Progress', Vi only knew what little of the tale had made it past the borders of the corrupted city-state. That the Zaun Special Forces, once the epitome of Zaun's military force, had been gunned down by heavy artillery of unknown origin. Corpses littered with holes, neither the murder weapon, nor the perpetrator had ever been found.

And strangely enough, Zaun had not even blamed Piltover for such a massive strike against them, as they usually would.

There were theories out there, told in the shady pubs all across Valoran. Theories of how Zaun wanted to cover up something big like a war with an unknown threat that happened underneath the surface. Theories of how Zaun had taken out the elite of their military themselves. Theories about betrayal and ambushes.

The only real lead on the obliteration of the unit, however, was that there had never been any struggle, they never put up any resistance. Three of the six dead members had been shot in the back, obviously caught off guard and never saw it coming. Another one had most bullet wounds in his side, most likely gunned down while turning to investigate what had killed the other three, and a fifth member had most entrance wounds on the front.

It was the sixth dead body that really was the most mysterious of all. With a single wound right in between his eyes caused by the same weapon, the murderer seemed to have acted way more controlled than with the rest of the unit, almost as if hesitant. Almost as if something had stopped him. It was assumed that he saw the murderer, as between the deaths of the rest of the unit and his death, there were nearly ten minutes. Ten minutes that remained unexplained.

And it still remained unexplained how Jinx had escaped that, at least to those – and it couldn't be many – who knew that she had once been part of the unit. Vi didn't dare to ask. Neither about her sister's time in the unit, nor about the extinction of it. If she knew who it was that had killed the entire unit and what had happened to her after that. If that was the real reason she had moved to Piltover in the first place.

The same old rule applied to it – You don't talk about a bad day. Never. And hell would freeze over before Vi broke it again.

But that didn't mean she couldn't have theories, silent ones that were never voiced. And, as Jinx seemed mostly at peace with the extinction of her unit, Vi assumed that her sister had already hunted down the one who had taken her partners from her. That she had already taken revenge, paying back the death of her associates one by one. One bullet at a time.

"You know what's even harder to believe?" inquired Jay all of sudden, scaring Vi back into reality where she found that Jinx had made eye contact, "That Piltover actually accepts this degree from Zaun, no questions asked. Makes me wonder who the real nutjob is."

"Undoubtedly you, Jay."

The lunatic's face scrunched up, first in surprise, then into a scowl. But it lasted for no more than a full second, and was then replaced by the madwoman's trademark smirk.

"Touché."

Not leaving Vi any time to further pursue the topic, Jinx hopped backwards onto the desk and reached over to a remote that lay underneath the one screen that was turned on. Hitting one of the buttons on the remote right away, Vi found that the screen had actually been frozen all along, displaying a playlist of music that – for Jinx at least – was surprisingly well ordered.

With the button pressed, the screen changed, surprising Vi as it suddenly displayed a map of Piltover. Several locations were highlighted, of which the enforcer recognized two to be the Yordle Academy and her own apartment. Aside from that, Jinx's old hideout was encircled, and Jayce's laboratory was highlighted as well, though Vi only recognized it due to Jinx having left a handwritten note in pink on it. Which at least explained what she had been doing on that tablet of hers.

Letting her thumb glide over the top row of the remote, Jinx turned the other four screens – these mounted onto the wall – on as well, and enjoyed Vi's expression as the enforcer feasted her eyes on the work that Jinx had done in only these few minutes between them arriving in the hidden room below the police department and that moment.

"Welcome to the emergency meeting, fat hands." chuckled the older of the two in childish delight, "By the way, I get to call you that again, now that we're no longer vigilantes. At least until we restore our rightful places at hat lady's side, that is."

"Did you..." Vi's eyes were full of awe as she scanned the screens for the information they displayed, "Did you throw all of this together while we were here? Or have you been prepared for this?"

"Threw it together just now." admitted Jinx proudly, "I was thinking about how to save our asses while we got down here, and these are the possibilities I can think of right now."

Moving through the room that was now brighter due to the pale light of the screens, the loose cannon grabbed one of the chairs and pulled it up to the table. She gestured Vi to sit back down as well, and the enforcer complied, falling back into her seat from before, though she kept her gaze focused on the screens.

Showing images such as the map of Piltover, mug shots of a boy that Vi knew as 'Ekko', pictures of Zilean the Chronokeeper, and even Jayce, Vi knew that Jinx had put quite some thought into their situation already.

And noticed pretty quickly that something was off with the data.

"Wait... Is that report on Ekko from the criminal database? Our database, that of the police department?" growled the enforcer, feeling panic arise, "You downloaded the contents of the database? Are you mad?"

Seeing Jinx only raise an eyebrow in return as if not understanding the question, Vi facepalmed. Actually slapped her palm against her face with enough strength for it to hurt pretty bad.

"Sorry, forgot who I'm talking to for a second." groaned Vi, not removing her hand from her face, "Cait's actually gonna kill us if she finds this out after she realizes we broke her favorite tea service and messed up her reports, I can tell."

"Not if we fix things, and if she never does find out." giggled the lunatic in her chair, before picking up a laser pointer from somewhere out of the heap of documents on the table next to her, and using it to point at the top right screen, "Aka 'Jinx's plan through time'. Get it? It's a pun, 'cause for this plan to be executed, not only do we...!"

"If you don't start explaining, and I mean the actual plan and not the pun, Cait will get your head on a plate. And that's not a pun."

"Alright, alright!" huffed the lunatic, then pointed her laser pointer at the top right screen again, which showed information about Zilean, "So, basically, there's two ways to save our asses – either through either reverting the state of the messed up objects or situation back to the point where it was not messed up yet, or through making it in time – namely, before Caitlyn realizes the full extent of our shenanigans – to a location where we can most likely find a way to fix the things."

Vi's head turned incredibly fast, the enforcer glaring at her sister with ire in her eyes.

"Did you just..." she stopped, narrowed her eyes further, "Did you just explain the pun, after all, and explain the basic details of the plan to me?"

"Maybe." chuckled her sister with a shrug, but then pointed her tool at the same screen again, "Let's explore option one first – we return the state of the objects or the situation to the point where things were fine. That gives us two possibilities, of which the first is Zilean, that old fart."

She began typing on her tablet, which she by then had put onto her lap, and in response, several more images of the Chronokeeper and his huge watch spread over the screen, as well as a map of Valoran that had a single, giant red question mark drawn on it.

"Zilean, being the Chronokeeper, has access to the possibility of altering time, at least as far as I know, and rumor says he is capable of reverting objects to a state of any point in the time that has already passed. Provided we supply him with the shards and the stained reports, he might be able to fix them."

"Objection." spoke Vi and rose a finger, though she failed to understand why that made Jinx burst into laughter, "While what you said is true, I highly doubt that Zilean will help us. He is against messing with time and ensures that it won't be changed. He's basically the last one we want to go to."

"Yeah, I know, but I still decided to at least bring this up." sighed the loose cannon, then let the red dot of her laser pointer travel to the map on the screen, "And even if he would agree to help us, it would leave us with the problem of locating him. He could literally be anywhere in Valoran and in any possible time if it is true that he can also travel through it. So we can safely abandon that idea."

With the push of a button, the screen turned off, leaving only the other three mounted on the wall and the one standing on the desk, which was displaying a map of Piltover.

"Fixing the situation or objects through time, possibility two – Ekko." she trailed off, growled and exchanged a troubled expression with her sister, "Though I can safely say he isn't our best bet. And probably the last person I want to turn to. I mean, you remember the fiasco that ensued the last time we met him, right?"

Both sisters groaned and rolled their eyes at the memory, though Jinx used the moment to let her fingers move across the tablet resting on her lap to bring up more images of the criminal from Zaun and his invention, the Zero-Drive.

"Ekko is a prodigy from the streets of Zaun, a former gang member. He is able to manipulate time to explore branching possibilities using his invention, the Zero-Drive, and has been known to experiment with multi-dimensional probabilities. Which is kind of the dilemma."

"Yeah." hissed the enforcer through clenched teeth, gaze resting on the mug shot of the Boy who Shattered Time, "That guy gives me the creeps. Even though I hardly know him, he knows details about me that I'd rather not have anyone know, even though not all of them are right."

"Same with me." agreed Jinx, "Doesn't even know my real name, but knows some things I'd love to shut him up for."

"Exactly." Vi was gnashing her teeth at this point, "What bothers me the most is that he keeps going on about how the three of us 'were once in gang members in allied packs in Zaun, but went different ways'. He keeps yelling at me that I 'sold everyone out', but that 'he still believes in me' and that 'he knows I will return to Zaun one day'."

"You think that's creepy?" huffed Jay and poked her sister in the shoulder, "That guy had a crush on 'me', before I went crazy and started talking to my friends Pow-Pow, Fishbones and Zap – and I didn't even know him until roughly a few months ago, so he can't know me from before that! And he's what? Sixteen, seventeen?"

"He's a creep. I don't like him." growled Vi and scowled, "All that crazy shit he's spewing is unnerving me, and he openly announced that he hates Cait and everyone else from Piltover. And latter is basically waving a red flag."

"Definitely." with that, Jinx crossed her arms and frowned, "But can we blame him? The answer is 'no', though it is basically his fault. After all, he was the stupid one and messed with timelines, and doesn't realize he's stuck in the wrong one and that he keeps mistaking us for the Vi and the Jinx from his originaltimeline."

"In which we apparently never left Zaun during our childhood, never had that original bad day, and instead joined the packs for whatever reason." added Vi, "Ah well, some things apparently still happened in that timeline. I still left Zaun for Piltover and even sold you guys out, you still went batshit for another reason, I still joined Cait, and you still decided to come to Piltover to wreck havoc."

"Some things never change, fat hands." snickered the lunatic, "Anyway, we can safely rule him out, I guess? I mean, even if we didn't, we'd have to go to Zaun, and I don't think either of us really wants that. We're not that desperate, right?"

"Right."

With her sister confirming it, Jinx pointed the remote at the screen and turned it off as well. And with that done, the loose cannon leaned back in her chair and huffed, crossed her legs and finally closed her eyes, scowled to herself.

"That aside, I didn't like the idea of messing with time in the first place." grumbled the madwoman, "There's two things that even I don't mess with, and that's time and demonic forces. Both can screw up everything in the blink of an eye, get out of control with no hope of fixing it. There's no real control of either – everything will just backfire in the end."

"So even you have boundaries."

"Damn right, Vi."

The two sisters, after sharing a glance, turned to the screens ahead of them again. Only three were left turned on now, and two of them were displaying maps. And seeing just who the last screen displayed, both Vi and Jinx sighed.

"So... Him, huh?" inquired Vi eventually, "Can't say I like the thought of having to resort to beg him for help, but it is probably worth a shot. Better having him never let me live this down than to have Cait angry at me. She's dangerous when angry, and I'd rather not have her give me the silent treatment."

"I don't like going to him either. He's always looking down on us for the way we handle mechanics, and how 'inferior' it is to his work." sighed the loose cannon, "And aren't you just pissed because your bed will be very lonely tonight?"

"If you imply what I think you imply, then..." Vi stopped, scowled, and then just shook her head, "You know what? I'm not even going to continue that. Screw you."

"I bet you're going to say this quite a few times today." giggled Jinx, "Especially once we're at Jayce's lab. Which reminds me..."

All but one screen turned off as the older Inks Sister pointed the remote at them, this one displaying the map of Piltover. With that done, she rose her tablet and began scribbling on it, the screen displaying the map allowing Vi to keep track of what Jinx was doing – namely drawing a route on it from the police station to the laboratory of the Defender of Tomorrow, which Vi noticed went through quite a few alleys.

"We should take this route. It'll be the safest and provides us with quite a few possibilities of escape, stealth, hiding places and cover." instructed Jay and began to encircle all the alleys on their route, "In the unlikely case of Caitlyn finding us, we aren't completely helpless that way."

"Agreed. Let's just hope that scumbag Jayce can actually help us." huffed the enforcer, obviously not very fond of the idea, "If his inventions are as superior as he always says, they should be able to help us at least fix the reports."

"They better do! With all that boasting over the years, they better do some shit." the loose cannon rose the remote and turned the final screens off, "By the way, do you think Caitlyn has noticed by now that...?"

"VI! JAY!"

Both of the sisters cringed horribly as they heard the enraged scream – at the same time from above, muffled by the floor in between them, and from the radio on the desk. An uncomfortable glance was exchanged between the two sisters, both of them aware that this meant nothing good.

"Yep, she did." Vi chuckled uneasily as she glanced at the ceiling above them, "I know this isn't the moment, but... Well, told'cha she'd notice."

"You're right." mused Jinx as she lowered her gaze to meet that of her sister, having watched the ceiling as well, "This isn't the moment for that."

With a groan, the enforcer rolled her eyes and balled her fists. Leave it to Jinx to set the wrong priorities in such a moment.

"I guess we're back to square one then: How do we escape?" sighed the brawler, "Unless you've got another fancy secret tunnel that can..."

Jinx rose her eyebrow again in that one particular way, and Vi immediately shut up.

"Right, I forgot who I'm talking to again. So where to, Jay?"

Without another word, the loose cannon jumped out of her chair – forgetting for a second that she had that tablet on her lap, forced to catch it as it soared through the air - and hurried across the room. Leaving the device she had been carrying on the table along with the laser pointer, she wordlessly pointed at the door she had left the room through to change.

Understanding it, Vi rose from her seat as well, grabbed the bag with the broken tea service and stained reports inside, and fell into a sprint to catch up with her sister, who had already left through the door by the time she set into motion. Rushing through another room – smaller, even less furniture in it – she regrouped with the loose cannon in the corridor beyond it.

If the corridor looked any different to the one directly beneath the sheriff's office, then Vi didn't notice. Not that she was paying any attention to detail at that moment, only focused on Jinx and rushing through the darkness to wherever this tunnel led.

The answer was provided a lot quicker than she thought, and she didn't like it – if her sense of direction was right, and usually it was, then they were still beneath the police station. Not at all far away from it, where Vi wished she'd rather be at that moment.

Ending in another ladder, this one a bit more rusted than the other one, Jinx was the first one to reach and climb it, having sped up for the final few meters. Jumping right onto it, the nimble sister climbed it with the speed and grace of a spider, and before Vi could even start climbing it, had vanished through a hatch in the ceiling.

Following Jinx through that turned out to be a bit more of a problem than the escape had been until that moment, the hatch providing little space for the taller and more curvaceous enforcer. And that there was only very limited space above it didn't help much. Smelly, stuffy and dark, Vi actually wondered for a moment where she had ended up after going through that hatch – and realized relatively quick just where she was.

A metal coffin.

Or, at least, what she liked to call that. Leaning against the front of the confinement and thus emerging from it as the lid opened, she found Jinx in front of her in the middle of the women's locker room, already hastily attaching her heavy weapons to her lithe frame. Throwing a glance back at the object she had emerged from, realization struck Vi.

"So that is it." huffed Vi and jerked a thumb into the direction of the locker behind her, "Now I know why you were so hellbent on getting that particular locker. I knew there had to be a damn reason, though I admit that this is not what I expected."

"Shut up." cursed Jinx and shook her hips to ensure that Pow-Pow wouldn't fall off its hook on her belt while running, "Grab your gauntlets, we don't have much time. Hat lady might already be searching the station for us, and I'd rather not run into her."

"Got it."

Vi pushed past Jinx and hurried to her own locker next to that of Caitlyn, the code for the electronic lock already in mind. Back when she had just become a cop herself, she had been making fun of the fact that there number pads on both the inside and the outside of the locker, but now that they had emerged from inside one, she found herself glad that there were as she punched in her own code.

Not too different from that of Jinx, actually, but hell would freeze over before she'd tell her crazy sister that. That, and the fact that she knew Jinx's code, 10-6-8.

Once her own locker sprung open, the enforcer quickly reached inside and grabbed both of her gauntlets. Putting them into place on her back in their deactivated state, she turned to face her sister and nodded, confirming she was ready.

And seeing that she was, Jinx quickly sneaked to the door to the police station's main hall. Pushing down the handle and gently opening the door, she peeked outside, scanned the hallway for the sheriff. And only after ensuring that Caitlyn wasn't there, she gave Vi the gesture that everything was fine, and slipped out of the locker room with Vi in tow.

The enforcer sent a glance back into the other direction as she followed her sister, but was glad to find that Caitlyn really wasn't there, just other officers that either enjoyed conversations or were walking around. Finally, facing the way they were headed, she couldn't help but chuckle at the door in the distance. Just like that, escape had gotten into reach.

"I can't believe this." she eventually giggled to her sister as they opened the first set of double doors that led into the small lobby and, in just a few steps, the door leading outside, "I have to correct myself, I believe – we're actually just going out the front door, just like that."

Sunlight on their skin, having escaped the station, the two sister exchanged a smile and chuckled.

Even though the more difficult part followed now.

---

"So..."

Jinx glanced over to Vi as the brawler spoke up, the two of them standing in front of the large door to Jayce's laboratory. Meeting her older sister's gaze, Vi frowned and the lunatic frowned back.

"What now? We just knock? Ring the doorbell?"

"Right." snickered the loose cannon, sarcasm in her voice, "And then what? Inquire if he wants to talk about gods? Sell him some cookies? Maybe kindly inquire if we could use his toilet?"

"No time for sarcasm, Jay."

"That's what you say!" complained Jinx and crossed her arms, pouted childishly, "Anyway, I'd say we just bust the door down and have a great entrance!" Peeking to her sister, she began to wriggle her eyebrows, "Get it? That's a pu...!"

Suddenly sent into a world of hurt, jaw aching and throbbing from one second to the next, Jinx lost balance and fell to the ground. Slowly moved a hand up to her face and experimentally moved her jaw slowly. Grinning in insane excitement all the while.

"...punch to the face, you're right, Jay." finished Vi and shook her right hand, eyes scanning the door in front of them, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Leaving Jinx to her little fit of insanity that was triggered by the pain, the enforcer stepped up to the doorbell and just rung, not in the mood for big and overly dramatic plans. Usually, she'd be in for the idea of having to make a door for them herself, but she had enough property damage on the list for the day already, and she needed solutions, not more problems.

She still cast a glance to her sister, Jinx just getting up from the ground and smirking at her, lunacy having invaded her pink eyes in an intensity that Vi hadn't seen in quite a while, triggered by the punch to the jaw.

It wasn't that their relationship was a violent one or that they got into a lot of physical fights ever since Jinx's rehabilitation, but ever so often, when things and frustrations got out of hand, they still lashed out at one another like they used to when still on different sides of the law. And both were okay with it, as these little sparring sessions, as they called them, helped them to keep them on their toes and allowed them to vent their emotions.

And that aside, it never got worse than a few punches and blows being exchanged.

"Jayce, Defender of Tomorrow, speaking." blared a male voice from the intercom all of sudden, "You're currently interrupting important research, but how can I help you?"

Both sisters shuddered at that and rolled their eyes, but Vi still managed to stay calm at the man's overconfident voice and step up to the intercom, whereas Jinx turned away and feigned to retch.

"It's Vi." spoke the enforcer into the intercom, "Can I come in? I have a favor to ask of you."

"Vi? Now that is a surprise. This is the first time you pay me a visit on your own. Or is Caitlyn with you?"

"Currently not." replied the enforcer, but couldn't help to send a glance over her shoulder to where her sister was now pretending to vomit, "Uh, no. No, she isn't."

She met by silence for a few seconds, a silence that she really didn't like. Out of curiosity, she used the moment to take a step back and check if she could find any cameras mounted onto the wall that Jayce could see them through, but found none.

"...is Jinx with you?" inquired Jayce eventually over the intercom, sounding hesitant and uncomfortable. Again, Vi threw a glance over her shoulder – and did a double-take as she found that Jinx actually looked a little pale in the face, almost sickly, which Vi was not sure if it was part of the act anymore. Or if it had been an act to begin with.

Slowly, she turned back to the intercom.

"Okay, so this is just a theoretical question, and based on the assumption that you'd let me in if I were alone..." she hesitated as well now, shuddered as she suddenly felt a gaze boring into the back of her head, "...would you still let me in if I say 'yes'?"

In reply, a rather heavy and long sigh followed, originating from the intercom. Hearing Jinx scoff at that, Vi closed her eyes and prayed to whatever god it was that had cursed her that it would soon all be over. That the day would soon be over.

Eventually, a buzzer resounded, and the front door opened before them.

"I'm in the lab. Just follow the corridor to the end, it's the metal door there." echoed Jayce's voice from the intercom, "But I'm doing this on the condition that you at least try to keep her in check, Vi. Please."

For once, Vi actually found herself sympathizing with the self-proclaimed Defender of Tomorrow, something she had once thought of as impossible with how she and Jayce never really agreed on things. In the end, it wasn't that she disliked or even hated him, but they just were too different. While both were brawn with brains, Jayce rather thought things through and preferred new and shiny technology, whereas Vi rather acted than just standing around and letting every opportunity pass by. That, and she actually preferred to work with what others considered scrap metal, to repurpose and recycle, as did Jinx.

In the end, mechanics wasn't just mechanics.

Heaving a sigh and making sure that the bag was still in its place, the enforcer turned to her sister, who had miraculously regained color and health.

"You heard him, you better behave. God, I'm your younger sister, not your guardian..." groaned the brawler, then turned back to the open door, "Let's go."

"Right behind'cha!"

Vi, having just set into motion, stopped again.

"Actually..." she turned back to Jinx, grabbed the ex-criminal's shoulders, and shoved her into the door first, "...I'd rather have you leading so that I can keep an eye on you. We really don't need more trouble today, Jay, and I just want to make sure you don't get distracted."

A groan was the answer, but Jinx still relented and began to walk down the corridor. Much to Vi's surprise, the loose cannon actually proceeded down the white metallic hallway without any hitch, headed straight for the metal door that Jayce had mentioned.

It opened by itself the moment that the two unlikely sisters stepped into its range, allowing them to enter the main lab of the inventor. And the moment that Vi took her gaze of Jinx to scan the room for the man, Jinx bolted.

Finding Jayce proved to be easy, Vi just had to follow the sound of a gas flame to find him. Leaned over a white metallic round table, the inventor was in the middle of welding something together, and didn't even bother to look up from it as he heard the enforcer approaching him. Didn't even have the decency to shut off the welder so that they could talk.

"Jayce." she spoke with a raised voice, hoping to get his attention, even though aware that he already knew about her presence.

"Make it short, Vi." responded Jayce, "As you can see, I'm in the middle of..."

"Very important research. Yeah, you said that at the front door." finished Vi for him, scowled at his back, "What the hell, Jayce? I'm paying you a visit for the first time by myself while not on the job, and this is how you treat me?"

A sigh was the answer, but the complaint didn't fail to achieve the desired effect – Jayce did turn the welder off, turned to face her, and took off the welding goggles.

"Alright, you have my full attention. What is so important that you and J..." he stopped, gaze shifting away from Vi and to the enforcer's right, "Put that down right now! That's some expensive equipment!"

Vi felt her shoulders slump slightly, didn't have to turn around to know that her sister had just picked up something – some test tubes containing colorful substances in this case – to further examine it. And seeing Jayce turn back to her, she could tell that Jinx had complied – even if with a loud groan that didn't get past Vi unnoticed.

"Well?"

In response to that – in the eyes of both sisters stupid – question, Vi dropped the bag she had been carrying all the way from the police station. Of course, that just had Jacye confused, and honestly, Vi didn't even blame him.

"Jinx and I got into some trouble, and we're currently trying to find a way to fix things." began Vi to explain, knowing that her lunatic sister wouldn't contribute much to convincing Jayce, and even less to explaining it, "You were our best shot."

"And what is it that you've done this time?" asked Jayce, and Vi didn't like the way he said 'this time', almost like an accusation, "And how do you expect me to help you?"

"Look, I..."

Suddenly pushed out of the way, Vi found herself nearly losing balance and trying her best to regain it. The moment she had it, she turned her head and glared at her older sister, who had claimed her spot in front of Jayce. And much to the Defender of Tomorrow's annoyance, was wearing a pair of rather futuristic looking glasses, a white glove, and a pink chest plate with a dial on one side and a speaker on the other – all belonging to Jayce and being part of his experiments.

"We screwed up big time, accidentally broke hat lady's tea service and spilled ink over her reports." explained Jinx so fast that she almost stumbled over her words, "So, genius, can you fix that or not?"

Slowly, Jayce's right eyebrow rose, though his gaze shifted over to Vi as if to question the validity of the loose cannon's tale. And, seeing Vi sigh, knew that it was true, though it seemed to surprise him.

"Well, I can't say for the tea service, but I think I have something that could remove the ink stain while leaving most of the affected reports intact." replied Jayce eventually, though he still seemed confused, "But I don't think it's the question of whether I can that you should be asking, but rather if I want to."

Letting out a confused hum, both of the sisters blinked at the man – who had the nerve of turning back to the thing he had been welding before.

"Excuse me?" drawled Vi eventually, and Jayce – having just put his goggles back on – stopped and sighed. Turned back around. And let out a gasp of surprise as Jinx threw the glasses to his feet, which shattered immediately. If that hadn't done it, the heavy combat boot that it was crushed beneath a second later would have.

"What do you mean with that? You're not going to help us out of some selfish reason?" bellowed the lunatic and pointed an accusing and threatening finger at Jayce's face. But, despite the obvious anger at Jinx destroying his property, he remained surprisingly calm considering that a well-known madwoman was threatening him.

"I'm not going to help you, that's right. The two of you got into that situation yourself, and it's not my cup of tea that you messed up." replied the Defender of Tomorrow with a straight face, "Fix it yourself."

"Well that is what we're trying to do, scumbag of tomorrow!" roared Jinx before Vi could say anything, "We've sneaked out of the police station and made it all the way here, and now you're denying us help? What kind of 'righteous man' are you?!"

"One currently being annoyed by a woman that talks to her weapons and her brute of a sister."

That was the wrong choice of words. Maybe not so much in the eyes of Jayce, but both sisters cringed noticeably. And while Vi felt a bit of anger well up, it was Jinx who had one of her eyes twitch dangerously.

But Jayce paid it no notice. With a gesture that dismissed the sisters, he turned back to his work and, with the goggles already on, turned the valve to start up the gas again so that he could continue to weld.

What he surely hadn't expected, however, was the sound of breaking glass. And, dreading to find out what it was that had made the sound, slowly turned around until he could see Jinx standing in front of him, shards of expensive laboratory equipment to her feet. The next piece of equipment was already in her hand, this one way more expensive than the broken test tube.

"You're not helping us?" repeated the madwoman in a high pitch that reminded both the Piltover Enforcer and Defender of Tomorrow of her more destructive days, "Did I hear that right?"

"You did. I'm not..." began Jayce again, only for Jinx to immediately let go of the microscope. It bounced off the tiled floor, leaving a rather crack in it, but remained lying on it to the lunatic's feet after that. Broken and bent.

And Jinx's hand went for a set of test tubes again, left eyebrow rising while her lips turned into a thin line.

"This won't change my mind, Jinx." spoke the man, though now clearly irritated, "And I believe I told you that when you dropped by that one time while you were still a criminal, which I honestly still see you as. No matter the destruction you cause in my lab, I will not do whatever it is that you want me to."

"Okay." to both Vi's and Jayce's surprise, Jinx actually relented and put the test tubes back down on the table, though still dangerously close to the edge, "Then how about you be a good lil' boy and not help us?"

To that, Jacye actually let out a dry chuckle. Irritated and clearly anything but amused, but still a chuckle.

"Reverse psychology doesn't work on me, moron." he claimed, but still decided to turn the gas for the welder back off. In the end, it was only common sense to keep open flames away from Jinx – normal fire control of Piltover.

With a groan, Vi intervened. Reaching out and grabbing her sister's shoulder, she pulled her a few steps away from Jayce, the pink chest piece that Jinx was still wearing clattering loudly, almost as if Jinx had suddenly turned into a robot.

"Just what was that, Jay?" sighed the enforcer quietly and frowned at her sister, "What do you take him for? A fool?"

"Hm... Not necessarily." admitted the woman with the electric-blue hair after a glance over her shoulder to where Jayce was still standing and frowning at them, "But I'm saying that, if I ever walk past him, I've met a ton at once."

She suddenly smirked in a way that had Vi immediately feel uneasy again, and that feeling only got worse when the lunatic pointed at the pink chest piece she was wearing. "Get it? It's a pun! Met a ton!"

"Actually, I don't get it." growled Vi right away, not even bothering to think about whatever her sister could mean this time, "And I don't think you get the situation. We need his cooperation, if we want to or not, and I don't think that threatening him or leveling his laboratory will help us to convince him."

"Oh shut up!" drawled the lunatic in response and slapped her sister's hand away to turn back around to the man, "I've got this."

"You're only making this worse, Jay."

"I don't see how." scoffed the loose cannon as she made her way back to the Defender of Tomorrow, "The worst I can do is to give him death by glamour, and that won't happen unless the ratings are suddenly through the roof!"

With both of her arms thrust into the air, the lunatic danced back to where their uncooperative solution to half of their problems was standing. And, silently, already dreading for what was to come this time.

"Okay, Jayce, you can drop the act now. I've seen through your little charade." chuckled Jinx, confident as she was, "The real reason you don't want to help us is because your inventions aren't really all that great and can't really do all the crap you spew."

"You do realize I've built the Acceleration Gates and what use they have, right?" shot Jayce back, but definitely took the loose cannon's words personal, a strike at his huge ego, "And what did you build lately that was noticeable and important, Jinx?"

In return, the madwoman's face immediately lit up. Vi immediately realized that Jayce had just asked the wrong question and woken the woman's insanity, but it was too late to do anything against it.

"Well, I've built a weapon to surpass Metal Gear!" claimed the madwoman and hammered a fist onto the pink chest piece she was clad in. Of course, this statement only left the other two people in the room confused, but Vi knew better than to question it. Jayce didn't.

"And just what is a 'Metal Gear'?"

"You haven't heard? Well, of course you haven't." giggled the heavy gunner in her excitement, "A Metal Gear is something that I've been planning to build for a long time now."

This time, both Vi and Jayce reacted the exact same way – the rose questioning eyebrows. At this point, though knowing that it wasn't wise, even Vi was interested in whatever it was that Jinx was going on about. She still didn't ask.

"Wait..." spoke Jayce in her stead, holding a hand up as if to really stop the lunatic, "Let me get this straight – you've already built a weapon to surpass something that you haven't finished building yet? Then what is the purpose of still building this Metal Gear thing, if you've got something better?!"

"Ha! Of course you wouldn't understand!" Jinx shrugged and nodded to herself, "You're just too short-sighted, scumbag of tomorrow!"

Another blow to the man's huge ego, and not one he was willing to let go. Tearing off the welding goggles and throwing them onto the table behind him, he glared daggers at the former criminal, which only smirked in return. In sadistic pleasure at his irritation.

"And who do you think you are to tell me that, Jinx?"

"I go by many names. But, actually, I am..." adding a dramatic pause, Jinx grabbed one of the vials closest to her and suddenly raised it like a glass, "Catbug! I mean, Temmie, hoi! No, no, I'm the idol everyone craves! The chosen undead! Or..."

"Great, look what you've done Jayce..." groaned Vi as she walked up to the inventor, massaging her temples as Jinx kept ranting on, "First she was a lunatic, now she's a narcissistic lunatic with a multiple personality disorder."

He scowled at her, but Vi merely rolled her eyes at his obvious annoyance. Justified, given that he had certainly not imagined that his day would take a turn like that, but Vi had practically thought the same thing until things started going down the drain at a pace way beyond what the enforcer felt comfortable with.

"How is that my fault?" he inquired with an edge to his voice.

"Well, you just had to ask her all that!" elaborated Vi and nodded to her sister, "If you had just ignored it, you wouldn't have triggered her insanity, but now we have to deal with the consequences. The random stuff she keeps going on about."

He didn't reply to that, but his glare increased in intensity, grew darker as his eyes narrowed further. Oh, he was angry, and Vi knew that they had – if there ever were any – practically destroyed all chances of him helping them out at this point.

Neither of them noticed that Jinx had trailed off by then to listen to the conversation, just waiting for the right moment to strike and get back into it. That Jayce gave her an opportunity with that glare was mere coincidence, but more than she could've hoped for.

"Why so serious, Jayce?" drawled the loose cannon in an insane snicker, and got the attention of the two other inhabitants of Piltover present that way. She didn't cringe in the slightest when the dark glare of the Defender of Tomorrow shifted to her, quite the opposite, and just exchanged a glance with her sister.

"Look, listen, I..." began Jayce with the intention of ending this ridiculous situation he had to deal with, but was beat to it by Jinx throwing her hands into the air.

"Well, and I hope you brought a keyboard! It's time for a pop quiz!" exclaimed Jinx, and only now did Vi finally catch on to what was really happening, "This one is an essay question!"

A smile crossed Vi's lips, disbelief over what she was experiencing. Jinx's madness truly had been woken, that was undeniable, but the absolutely crazy behavior – well, crazier than usual – was intentional. Jinx wanted to annoy Jayce.

Now, whether as punishment or means of getting him to agree, Vi didn't know, but she had to say – she didn't hate the idea of irritating the man. Again, she didn't dislike or hate him, but he had been going on her nerves quite often in the past with his major ego, and paying him back in the fullest seemed pretty appealing to her.

"No. Just no." growled Jayce through clenched teeth, irritation slowly turning to fury.

"Oh yes! And here's the question!" shouted Jinx in return, making sure to be loud and annoying, "What do you like most about Jinx NEO? Here's a hint: The best answer is 'legs'!"

While not intended, aside from irritating Jayce, it served to amuse Vi. And that a lot, a random thought striking her that she just couldn't keep to herself.

"Well, not like you have much else to offer above it, right?"

The mood changed completely in that one sentence. While Jayce still shook in anger, Jinx's smile fell and she slowly turned to face Vi. Disbelief was written across the lunatic's face, left eyelid slowly twitching ever so often. Her mouth opened, unintelligent sounds leaving it, no coherent words.

"I... What is this... I don't even...!" mouthed the loose cannon in an attempt to respond.

Both sisters were startled out of that by a loud bang. Turning to the only man in the room, they found him with one fist resting on the table, his face red in anger. Now, Vi had always known that Jayce was a very emotion-driven man, but anger had not been on that list as far as she knew.

Not until that moment, that was.

"Enough of this!" roared the Defender of Tomorrow and hammered the fist down on the table yet again, "You and your stupid shenanigans! I've got more important things to do than to deal with you two! Listen up, for I won't say it again..."

He took a step forward and, panting in fury but desperately trying to keep himself under control, closed his eyes, snarled.

"I won't help you, no matter what the consequences of your actions will be!" he snarled, "Even if the consequences of your actions are to cause every volcano in Valoran to erupt and the whole Runeterra to go down in chaos, I will not help you!"

Both sisters took a step back as the Defender of Tomorrow grabbed the heavy gas bottle and heaved it onto the table behind him, fearing that he were to lash out at them with it, and instinctively, Vi reached for her gauntlets while her sister just rose her hands in defense.

"Okay okay!" exclaimed the lunatic heavy gunner, "We get it, you know Caitlyn's anger and the consequences of it, no need to name them!"

With that, Jayce froze up. That had been the final straw, and Vi saw it in his eyes. Saw how all the anger and irritation was evaporated, leaving only one thing – determination.

"Out." he spoke with resolution but void of emotions, stared with empty eyes straight ahead, "You two, get the hell out of my lab now."

"Now that is not what I'd call hospitality." huffed Jinx, "We..."

In an attempt to prevent more damage from being done, the enforcer reached over and put a hand onto her sister's mouth, covering and whatever words had been about to leave it.

She had been right, Jinx was only making things worse.

But definitely not as bad as the situation turned within the next three seconds, and that with one sound alone – the sound of the doorbell ringing.

Both sisters twirled around to the door at the sound, with Jayce merely glancing over to it for second. Meeting the panicked gaze of Vi, he remained silent for a moment, seconds went by in which nothing happened.

Then, the doorbell rung again.

Under the panicked gazes of the sisters, he eventually set into motion and stepped back to the table they had first found him at, where a set of buttons was located near the middle of the round white piece of furniture. Reaching past the object he had been welding before, extending only index and middle fingers, he pressed a red button.

"Jayce speaking, how can I help you?" he spoke, voice resolute and unwavering, though his gaze still rested on the two uninvited guests.

"Oh, now he keeps it brief and modest!" complained the loose cannon quietly, but quickly shut up when Vi sent her a dark glare. Though both that and Jinx's frown were eradicated relatively fast when the person on the other end of the intercom started talking.

"Good afternoon, Jayce. It's Caitlyn." spoke the sheriff's voice, polite and calm as Caitlyn always was, "May I come in? I fear I have a favor to ask of you."

The irritated glare of the Defender of Tomorrow shifted to where Vi and Jinx stood, the enforcer waving her hands in plead for him not to mention their presence, while Jinx instead tried to deliver the same message with a glare and a threatening gesture.

"How... ironic." he mused into the intercom, and the expressions of the sisters intensified, both fearing he would rat them out, "I've been approached with the same request a lot lately."

Jinx made the gesture of beheading him, even though they all were aware that he was in control of the situation now. More so than he had been before. And it would be wrong to say that he didn't enjoy that, being to get rid of his current problem with absolutely certainty and just a few words now.

"Come in, Caitlyn. I'm in my lab, conducting research."

Both sisters glared at him and the hint in his voice as to their presence being a nuisance to him, but more so for letting Caitlyn – the embodiment of their problems at that moment – in, which he did at that second by pressing the other button next to the one for the intercom.

"We need to hide." hissed Vi to her older sister and put a hand onto her shoulder, though she kept glaring at the Defender of Tomorrow, "Now."

Instead of complying right away, Jinx took a second to point at her own eyes with index and middle finger, then at Jayce.

"Sell us out, scumbag..." she growled and made sure that Jayce was listening, resisted Vi's pull until she finished, "...and I promise you a world of hurt and a destroyed lab, and that's only going to be the beginning of your problems!"

Finally stopping to resist, the loose cannon let her younger sister pull her away from Jayce. Turning around to follow, Jinx let Vi guide her. The situation they were in wasn't exactly in favor for them, however – being located in the middle of the building, Jayce's laboratory didn't have any windows aside from a large skylight, and the only door that wasn't electronically locked was the one they had come in through. The one Caitlyn was about to enter through, in fact.

Luckily, the lab at least offered quite a few places to hide, and Vi was the first one who – with the bag thrown over her shoulder – dove behind a large white table not quite unlike the one that Jayce had been working at. Jinx followed, hit the ground in a somersault and dove into the other direction to hide behind a low shelf filled with vials and smaller containers.

No second to late, as the sheriff of Piltover entered the room the moment that Jinx entered her hiding place.

Vi, even though she knew it made little sense, took a deep breath, then held it. Glancing first to Jinx to ensure that her sister was alright and on the same page, she slowly leaned to the side and glanced around the table.

True enough, it was Caitlyn. In her usual attire, the violet dress and her hat, the sheriff was carrying her rifle on her back and a scowl to match the events of the day as she stepped into the room, headed straight for the Defender of Tomorrow. And though Vi knew that terror should be the only thing she should be feeling at the prospect of being within the irritated sniper's remarkable range, she couldn't help but silently chuckle at the cute frown wrinkles upon her girlfriend's forehead.

"Good afternoon, Jayce." repeated the sheriff herself as she reached the tall man – though to stop and frown as she stepped on something that crunched beneath her boots. Taking a step back, she lowered her gaze and stared at the glass shards and the broken microscope to her feet in confusion, then at the man with the silent question as to how that happened.

"I..." began Jayce, though he trailed off to glance over to where the sisters hid, and spotted it as the older one emerged from her hiding spot just enough to glare daggers at him and remind him of her threat that way, "...accidentally knocked that over. Happens even to me on occasions."

"That so? I wouldn't have imagined." mused Caitlyn, but then disregarded the thought and turned back to him, "Well, Jayce, as I mentioned, I fear I have a favor to ask of you."

With the sheriff occupied, Vi glanced over to Jinx. Meeting the gaze of her crazier sister and seeing that Jay must've had the same idea, she nodded and pointed past the loose cannon into the direction of the only way to escape, the door that Caitlyn had just come in through.

"Fire away, Caitlyn, I don't mind." replied Jayce and – much to the further irritation of the sisters – continued in a slightly louder voice as if to ensure they would hear it as well, "One good turn deserves another, ain't that right? You help me and I help you."

Both sisters fumed in chagrin to this, but Vi – who had by then set into motion and, still crouched, moved past Jinx – didn't stop to send the man a glare hidden from behind the sheriff's back like Jay had done. Began to lead her older sister towards the door while making sure to remain in the cover of the furniture.

Though she wasn't one for stealth, it wasn't that she was completely bad at it or unable to remain hidden.

"Why are you saying it like that?" inquired the sheriff, suspicious of her close friend, and – having a hunch – turned her head to glance back for a second.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

"Doesn't matter." she added before Jayce could answer, turning back to him, unaware that the sisters had foreseen it and hidden, "Look, Jayce, my day has been anything but enjoyable. Vi and Jay have gone too far this time."

The sisters, now on the move again with Vi leading, stopped for a second to exchange an uneasy glance.

"I'm not sure how it got this far or what exactly happened, but it at all started this morning when they got into another fight. Quarreled all morning, then I step out for a short moment, and when I return, not only are they gone, but so are my favorite tea service and my just recently finished reports." continued Caitlyn, unaware that her words caused the sisters to panic and speed up, "I don't know what these shenanigans are about, but I'm intent to find out as soon as I find them."

Again, Jayce's gaze shifted, this time as he spotted Vi crawling from behind the cover of one table to another, but he kept it short as to not have Caitlyn notice again.

"And how can I help you with that?" he inquired, but found himself surprised as Caitlyn shook her head.

"It's not that." replied Caitlyn and crossed her arms beneath her chest, shifted into a slightly irritated stance, "Instead, may I ask if you have something that could possibly remove ink stains? From clothes, for example?"

Now, Vi and Jinx stopped dead in their tracks. With a shelf between them and the other two people in the room, the sisters exchanged a confused glance, neither of them understanding what Caitlyn could mean.

That was, until they peeked around the shelf. And in doing so, both felt their blood run cold.

Being behind Caitlyn, they had no problem seeing it, the large black stain that covered most of the sheriff's derriere and upper legs.

"Oh for f..." whined the loose cannon quietly, seeking her sister's pained expression, "I think I accidentally pushed the bottle of ink off the desk when I grabbed the reports. You don't think it... I mean, on Caitlyn's chair...?"

"You just screwed us over, big time."

"By the way, Jayce, you don't happen to have seen them today, do you?" they heard Caitlyn inquire – and bolted.

With the door in reach, both Jinx and Vi rose to their full height in nearly perfect synchronization and rushed for the door. And, sending a glance towards Jayce, Vi met his gaze.

He was smirking.

"Behind you, Caitlyn."

"YOU FUC...!" screeched Jinx, but never got to finish it as Vi pushed her towards the door. All their stealth – which they had done a pretty good job at so far – ruined in one blink of an eye, and just when they had reached the exit. And speaking of eyes – when Caitlyn turned, the first thing that Vi saw was blind fury.

A click echoed through the laboratory, an object soaring through the air and missing Jinx's head by mere inches. The net hit the wall instead of Jinx and bounced off it, evoking a sharp gasp from the lunatic and a somersault into the safety that a table provided.

"THE RATINGS ARE THROUGH THE ROOF!" bellowed the madwoman in panic, hearing how Caitlyn reloaded and how Vi dove past her through the door out the lab, "I mean, abandon the ship! Run!"

"Shut the hell up, Jay!"

Not having to be told this twice, Jinx rolled out of safety – another net missing her – and dashed towards the door.

And though she was out of it with another quick jump, still wearing Jayce's experiments, hearing that Caitlyn had to reload, she still poked her head back inside.

"Seriously, I came out to have a good time, and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now!"

A net flew past her, and only because she ducked out of the way in time. Seeing this as her ultimate cue to leave – and the fact that Caitlyn had set into motion to chase them down on foot - the loose cannon made a run for it down the corridor, at the end of which Vi was waiting and waving.

And yet, Jinx insisted on doing one last thing as she charged, and turned her head to scream over her shoulder, spotting Caitlyn bursting out of the lab.

"You think you're all that, Jayce, but you are nooooot!"

---

A trash can fell over when Jinx ran into it, the loose cannon almost falling over the silver container. Garbage spilled over the sidewalk, but the lunatic didn't care even as she stepped into it, and instead dove into the dark alley right beside it, which she had watched Vi enter only seconds before.

The enforcer was already on top of a large dumpster at the end of the dead end and in the middle of climbing over the wall behind it when Jay spotted her, feet carrying her through the dark alley. By this time, Piltover was already tinted in the orange of the first rays of twilight, making the alleys ever darker and more complicated to traverse – exactly what they wanted.

"Get back here!"

The madwoman threw a glance over her shoulder to find the sheriff reach the entrance of the alley. With a finger on the trigger and already aiming, a shot rang out the moment that Caitlyn could see either of them – which just happened to be Jinx.

But the loose cannon had been prepared and just been waiting for that to buy them some time in form of Caitlyn having to reload. By grabbing a steel drum and dragging it behind her, she managed to have the net hit and envelop the drum instead of her, and have it buy her enough time to climb the dumpster and follow Vi over the wall.

Dropping down on the other side, she regrouped with her sister, Vi catching her and putting her down on the ground. With no time to talk, the two of them set into motion again, Jinx taking the lead this time.

Caitlyn was still hot on their heels and the two knew it. Didn't have to wait and stick around to hear the sound of the agile sheriff jumping onto the dumpster and onto the wall from there, and didn't have to look back to see her aiming from that position perched atop the brick wall.

Cutting a corner and entering another alley connected to the one they had been in, the sisters managed to escape the dead-aim of the sheriff of Piltover again. Not for long, they were well aware of that, as were they of the fact that they'd eventually make a mistake that would get them caught if things didn't change soon.

"If only I would've taken some Flame Chompers with me!" lamented the lunatic gunner aloud, "They could've stopped her!"

"Well, you don't have." growled Vi in return, glaring to her sister running slightly in front of her, "Now shut the hell up and quit wasting energy you need to run. Cupcake is unrelenting when it comes to hunting..."

"I remember." shot Jinx back, "Because you seriously seem to not remember that I was the one running from you for years. Running around, climbing over obstacles, shooting you with... Oh!"

In a moment of realization, the lunatic reached over her shoulder, and feeling her hand touch the cold metal, she couldn't help but grin in delight.

"What do you mean with 'Oh', Jay? What are you...?!" the enforcer was cut off when her sister suddenly made a jump forward during which she pulled Fishbones, her shark-shaped rocket laucher, over her shoulder. Not caring to do as much as aim, Jinx pulled the trigger the moment that she twirled around – incidentally the moment that Vi passed her – and released a rocket into the direction they had been coming from.

And though Vi didn't stop to see what happened next, she did glance over her shoulder just in time to see the rocket explode in the middle of the alley upon hitting the ground, scaring the crap out of Caitlyn, who had just rounded the corner.

Debris flew through the air and began to rain down from above, a wall of fire and smoke momentarily obscuring their view and cutting Caitlyn off from following them. With that done, Jinx let Fishbones slip back into its place on her back and twirled back around to fall into a sprint immediately.

Instead of following Vi on the ground, however, the maniac with the heavy artillery chose to make it harder for the sheriff and, using a trash can as a platform to jump off from, managed to reach the fire escape ladder above.

Not caring to look back – she knew that, even with the smoke and the fire gone, Caitlyn now had another obstacle in the way of a hole in the ground – the loose cannon rushed along the catwalk that made up most of the fireladder on the level she was on, even rounding the next corner that Vi had vanished around.

It really came in handy that the two sisters knew the city and the never-ending labyrinth of alleys, and not for the first time. Navigating urban areas was more of a natural talent for those who were born and raised in the streets, and neither Vi nor Jinx would ever deny that.

A small advantage over Caitlyn at that moment, though the sheriff knew the city very well, too.

With the end of the catwalk drawing near, the lunatic spotted another one in the distance – the gap too far to jump just like that. But being the mad genius she was, she already had a solution for that, and not one that would come to the mind of a sane person just like that – instead of going down, she turned as she reached the end of the catwalk, and hurried up the metal stairs to the next level. Almost stumbled over the final steps.

Not slowing down upon reaching the new area, she twirled around yet again and rushed for the end of the catwalk on that level – and jumped. For a moment, she was in free fall, wind roaring in her ears as gravity did its work and pulled her down.

And hit the other catwalk in a roll to absorb the impact.

Stumbling to her feet, she continued along the catwalk for a few meters, but knowing that it wouldn't get her very far, scanned the surroundings for a way to continue on. The options were limited, quite obviously, but she had no intention of going back down to where Caitlyn was free to aim at her.

This time, as the end of the fireladder drew near, Jinx knew she couldn't pull the same thing off again – the next building had no fireladder in reach, not even for a risky jump like the one before. The only fireladder remotely close was that on the building on the other side of the alley, and she doubted even she could make that jump unscathed.

Out of the corner of her eye, the lunatic spotted something that could come in handy, however. She had noticed it before when they had ran into the alley, but some of the buildings were under construction – hence the catwalk-like additions to the fireladders.

The object that Jinx spotted was a simple wooden board, about twice her size and just as wide as her. Quite obviously, with how it already had stains of different colors, it had been used to cover up gaps for when the buildings on the other side of the street had been painted, and now was to do that on this side of the alley. Most prominent were the colors blue and pink, much to Jinx's enjoyment.

Still, the board was exactly what she needed, and picking it up wasn't even that much of a problem for the girl despite her rather fragile build – in the end, one shouldn't forget that she was the one carrying around heavy artillery most of the day.

Pun intended.

With the board in hand, all she had to do was to turn around to face the gap between herself and the building on the other side of the street, and put it down. Just long enough to connect the two fireladders – literally just long enough – the sight of it gave even the normally hazard-loving lunatic Jinx the creeps, but was just another challenge from which she wasn't going to back down.

Though she had to admit, as she slowly made her way across it, that she really didn't like walking on tightropes. Not that she suffered from vertigo or anything, had done crazier things way further up, but tightropes were what really had her uneasy. Always had been that way, and always would be.

In the end, she reached the end without any problems arising – other than the feeling of uneasiness, that was. Just another thing that her madness – triggered by the adrenaline and excitement – could drown out.

From that point, however, all she had to do was follow the catwalks. Not having been removed yet after painting the buildings, these were literally from one end of the alley to the other one, and allowed the loose cannon free passage. Even offered her the possibility to turn her head for a moment and scan the alley for the sheriff, which by then should've made it across the hole in the floor.

She was nowhere in sight, something that Jinx found herself glad for.

Finding Vi again proved to be easy for the older sister after that. The enforcer, not as quick and nimble as the lunatic, was traversing the alley below. Had to swerve around garbage, dumpsters and whatever the painters had left behind, while Jinx had to just follow the path that was before her. Before long, she was right above the enforcer.

"Yo, fat hands!" she called out, and her sister reacted. First by cringing, then by looking up. Meeting the enforcer's gaze, the loose cannon smirked and gave Vi a thumbs-up.

While running straight into a stack of paint buckets left behind at the end of the catwalk.

It was hard to say for Jinx what exactly happened at that moment, as all she remembered was falling backwards onto the catwalk and being buried underneath several buckets of pain. None of which opened, much to her relief, as she'd rather not get her old – and still most favorite – outfit stained with color. Even if blue, and especially pink, were her favorites. The brighter the better.

For Vi, it wasn't as hard to recall the events. Jinx had called out, she had looked up, both of them had been relieved for a moment that they had made it that far – and the next thing was that the loose cannon rushed into a stack of buckets.

And that something was suddenly coming closer and closer, until it hit her.

Literally.

It was the sound of tin bouncing off the pavement that had Jinx immediately push the buckets of paint off her and back on her feet. First suspecting that Caitlyn had caught up after all, the lunatic hurried to the edge – stumbled over one of the buckets and landed on all fours at the edge – with a hand already on Zap to save Vi if necessary.

But the angry glare she found to immediately rest on her was not that of the furious sheriff, which was in fact nowhere in sight, but of Ryze.

At least, who she thought to be Ryze for a second, due to the blue skin. Which was until she realized that it was still just Vi, albeit blue from head to waist. The open bucket to her feet, blue paint leaking from it, was probably the explanation.

Oh, what a truly unfortunate day.

"You're blue now." chuckled the loose cannon over the edge of the catwalk, stating the obvious, "That's my attack. Nyeh heh heh."

"Get down here, you freak, and I show you my attack." growled the enforcer back, anger in her blue eyes, "I promise you, it will leave you blue as well. Blue and green, that is."

"It was an accident!" claimed the madwoman – which, her being that, of course didn't help her credibility – and shrugged, but then her face suddenly lit up, "Oh my god, Vi, I just realized – aside from living with me, you can make spaghetti just fine! Oh no, you are meeting all my high standards!"

"I'll turn you to spaghetti, you little...!"

"You truly are the best sister!"

"And soon, an only child."

As the brawler balled her fists, one step away from grabbing her gauntlets and giving Jinx a reminder of the time they had been fighting each other, the madwoman frowned down at her.

"Okay, that was a little harsh, don't you think?" mused the loose cannon. Taking her hand off Zap, she leaned onto her elbows and place her chin on her palms.

"I'll show you harsh! Get down here, and I'll...!"

A shot rang through the silence, live bullets. Neither of the sisters had been prepared for it, even less that the target had been neither of them – especially not since Caitlyn rarely missed, and certainly not a target that wasn't even moving. Having forgotten about the sheriff until then, both sisters cringed in shock.

Only Jinx felt the repercussions of forgetting about their current situation. It caused her to lose ground.

Literally, as one side of the scaffold, which the catwalk she was on was part of, came crashing down.

Letting out a sigh, Caitlyn, on one knee, slowly lowered her rifle. Watched as Vi let out a shriek and brought distance between her and the breaking scaffold, stumbled over her own feet and landed on her ass, and as Jinx rolled down the now steep catwalk into the alley.

And with that taken care of, the marksman rose to her feet and shouldered her rifle. She had them now, of that she was assured, and she doubted they could escape again. Especially since she knew that, around the corner, this alley only ended in a dead end.

So, with confident steps, the sheriff – tired of running through the city all afternoon – finally approached the two runaways, though making sure to let some of her anger leak into her steps so that the two knew that they were in trouble.

Which they really were if they didn't start explaining where her tea service and her reports had ended up, and why her chair had been stained with ink that was now also staining her dress.

In a way, however, she had to admit that she did feel a bit of pity as she watched how Jinx picked herself up from the rubble – even though the madwoman looked like she was having the time of her life.

"So?" inquired Caitlyn in a stern tone as she eventually stepped over the two, "I believe you have something to tell me, right?"

Vi slowly turned her head to meet the gaze of the sheriff, panic written across her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but only made unintelligent sounds that had the loose cannon chuckling as she dusted herself off.

"Do we, hat lady?" giggled Jinx, "Do we really have to answer to you?"

"Well, Jay..." shot the sheriff back and put a hand onto her hip, "Seeing as my reports and my tea service is missing, I'd say you'd have to."

"Huh. Then surely you want me to answer now."

"Yes, we established that just now." growled Caitlyn and her glare intensified, "Now spill it. And stop the mind games, I fear I'm not in the mood for that."

"That so?" Jinx trailed off to chuckle lowly, almost darkly, and glanced to her sister, "Well then, I guess that my answer is..."

Caitlyn moved first. She had expected the loose cannon to try anything funny, and was prepared for it when Jinx reached over her shoulder for Fishbones. Pulling her own rifle first, already set to firing nets, the sheriff aimed it at the madwoman only a few steps away from her.

And regretted it. As it turned out, Jinx had been prepared for her being prepared, and the sheriff's maneuver of trying to intimidate the ex-criminal turned on her.

With the rifle pointed at the criminal and in reach, Jinx only had to pull Fishbones and, instead of firing it, could slam the massive rocket launcher down on the rifle.

With the force of the entire momentum coming down on the rifle, the sheriff – even if she would've immediately let go of it – was pulled forward into a stumble. A stumble that ended in an ungraceful fall to the ground.

"My answer is that we're getting the hell outta here!"

Even though she still had Fishbones leaned onto her left shoulder and was holding it up with that hand, Jinx rushed to her sister's aid and quickly pulled Vi up onto her feet. Not saying anything to the enforcer, however, the loose cannon just turned around and made a run for it, knowing that Vi would follow right away.

Caitlyn wouldn't be out for long – definitely not as long as before, when the hole was blocking her way – and Jinx, for once, didn't feel like causing even more destruction, knowing that it would only backfire on her, so she let Fishbones slide back over her should into his place.

Though the loose cannon's first instinct was to run past Caitlyn back the way they had come, she quickly realized that this would only mean that they'd be out in the open and without any opportunity to dodge – most of the garbage blocking the way was too low to duck behind.

That only left one other direction to escape in, and that was around the corner, though it meant to run into a dead end. But she and Vi had overcome worse obstacles, and it wasn't the first time – and certainly not the first time that day – that the two would escape a dead end.

A possible solution to escaping this scenario quickly became apparent to Jinx the moment she actually rounded the corner and was running straight towards the wall. She just had to lift her gaze a bit, that was all.

While there was no dumpster this time and while higher than the wall they had climbed over before, this time around, there was a fire escape ladder right next to it. Even though it was out of reach, located too high for anyone to reach it with a normal jump, it was exactly what she had hoped for. And besides, there were two of them.

"Vi, the fireladder!" she called over her shoulder, making eye contact with her sister – who was still covered in blue paint and carrying the bag that contained the objects of their misfortune. Seeing Vi nod in return, the heavy gunner changed her course for the ladder, knowing that the enforcer had understood.

Slowing down just enough to let Vi take the lead so she'd reach the ladder first, the loose cannon sent a glance over her shoulder. Caitlyn was just getting up, but in position to shoot right away, and that was what Jinx relying on.

Vi was already in position when Jinx turned back around, standing just below the fireladder as agreed on. She squatted down when her sister closed in and held out her hands, ready to give the loose cannon the boost necessary to reach the ladder above.

Slowing down even further upon reaching Vi, Jinx stepped into her hand and let the enforcer do the rest, throwing her up into the air. Perhaps a little higher than necessary, as Jinx had originally intended to grab the actual ladder and climb up, but instead ended up flying over the railing onto it, but who was she to complain?

As soon as her heavy combat boots came in touch with the metal floor, the madwoman let her weight fall forward and caught herself in another somersault. Immediately turning back to the ladder, she went onto all fours and reached down, urging Vi to hand her the bag.

Understanding what her sister wanted her to do, the brawler quickly removed the bag from her shoulder and handed it to Jinx – just as a net hit her feet. Suddenly finding herself falling, Vi let out a gasp and tried to catch herself on her hands, but got one arm caught up in the strap of the bag and accidentally pulled on it.

If Jinx hadn't immediately wrapped her legs around the railing upon finding herself pulled down, stomach painfully slamming into the fireladder, she would've fallen back down as well. But there still was another consequence, one that announcing itself with the sound of tearing fabric – the bag had ripped at one end of the strap.

And the first thing that Vi saw upon freeing her feet from the sheriff's net was an ink-stained page of a report, and few more were raining down on her.

Realizing what had happened, both sisters acted immediately. Jinx, sitting at the top with the remains of the bag, quickly pulled it onto her lap to prevent more contents from falling out. At the same time, Vi quickly got to her feet and grabbed all the pages that had fallen, while keeping an eye on Caitlyn.

The sheriff had stopped shooting to reload, but Vi could see it in her girlfriend's eyes – Caitlyn had seen the pages and had caught on. She wasn't the smartest of the three for nothing, after all.

"Yo, fat hands!" exclaimed the lunatic above all of sudden, and before Vi knew what was going on, Jinx dropped something down to her. Something that, as it scattered in midair, Vi quickly recognized to be the rest of the reports.

"Are you out of your mind?!" shrieked the enforcer and jumped up to snatch as many of the pieces of paper as possible before they scattered even further, "What are you doing?!"

"You take the reports and get the hell out of here!" instructed Jinx in return and peeked into the bag to ensure that only the shards of the tea service had remained inside, "Find a way to fix them! I'll take care of the tea service!"

"What?!" roared Vi, but found herself ignored by the loose cannon. Instead of answering, Jinx grabbed the remains of the bag with the shard inside and made a dash towards the stairs leading up, fully intent on escaping over the roof.

This plan was quickly thwarted by Caitlyn, who until then had just watched. Pulling up her rifle and firing a single shot at Jinx, the net missing the loose cannon but hitting the railing next to her. A glare was cast into the direction of the sniper, but that remained all that the elusive ex-criminal did.

As, in the next moment, she just twirled around and – much to Vi's shock – jumped from the fire escape ladder straight over the wall. Gone, leaving her sister behind with the ink-stained reports and the furious sheriff.

And for the first time in a long while, Vi found herself absolute speechless. Not just momentarily unable to respond, but actually shocked to the point where her mind went blank.

"Well, would you look at that." spoke Caitlyn behind her, causing Vi to tear her gaze away from where she had last seen Jinx to the sheriff that was now approaching her with her rifle pointed at the enforcer, "Abandoned by your own sister so she can save her own skin. Care to tell me just what happened here, Vi? From the very beginning?"

The enforcer blinked at her girlfriend, then slowly lowered her gaze to stare at the reports in her hand. In the end, she was asking herself the very same question, trying to catch on.

And finally groaned and slumped her shoulders.

In the end, Vi, quite opposite to her sister, knew when to give up. Was the reasonable one out of the two, even if not right away. Had, even then, momentarily considered to turn around and barrel through the wall with her gauntlets, but realized that it was just delaying the inevitable.

And Caitlyn, smiling despite her anger as she saw that Vi had come to her senses, would always trust in that.

"Alright Cupcake." escaped the enforcer in a long sigh, a pitiful smile offered to the sheriff, "What's my punishment?"

---

The last rays of sunlight were falling in through the blinds when Jinx, by herself, sat on the couch in an apartment in downtown Piltover close to the train station, several blocks away from the police station and Vi's apartment, away from where the others would suspect her.

It was one of the few hideouts she had not bothered to get rid of after turning her back to the destruction of the pathetically neat city, though nearly all of them – including that one – were only used to store old stuff in nowadays.

They still offered the seclusion that the loose cannon needed at that moment, and from time to time didn't mind at all. Most of these locations, these hideouts as she preferred to call them, were cheap apartments she had rented under fake names and – until recently - had paid with the money she made with swindling. Now, having limited the amount of hideouts to what she could pay without problem with her wage and still have enough money for each month, she hardly even visited them anymore. Hadn't been in some of them for months.

This one, though, she had always enjoyed most. It had a comfortable, homely feeling to it, though she couldn't really say why. It just felt that way, and since when did she need reasons for something?

Having changed clothes after a shower, as the old ones were stained with beer and sweat, the loose cannon now sat dressed in a white shirt, a black jacket and gray denim pants on the red couch in front of a coffee table.

Leaned over the tea service, which by then was mostly restored, the loose cannon was in a pretty good mood. In the end, she stuck with super-glue to fix the broken object – sure, it didn't look nearly as great as it had done before, and somehow the damn glue also stuck to her, but she was pretty content with her progress. Only a few of the bigger shards of the tea cup were missing by then, and heck, it wasn't even nightfall yet!

Spotting some movement as she picked up the next shard with only her index finger – making use of the fact that her fingertip was sticky as hell by then – the madwoman glanced up to the armchair across from her and used her right hand to wipe some last drops of water from the shower she had taken from her forehead.

A wide smile found its way onto Jinx's lips as she spotted the woman that had found her way into the hideout. Smiled at the lady in the fancy red dress, which contrasted with the almost unnaturally pale skin and the midnight black hair that cascaded down this strange beauty's shoulders.

And the lady smiled right back, a strange and uncanny mirth in her dark eyes that fascinated Jinx, as did the lady's cold smile. The lunatic nodded once to the lady, but then went back to her work. Picked up a new shard and set it in place. Knew the lady would watch her in the darkness, and even in the light though unseen then.

Finally, the lunatic placed the final shard. Kicked back to admire her work with a wide grin.

It was horrible.

Having managed to only 'repair' a single cup, it looked even worse than before. With traces of super-glue on both the inside and the outsides, cracks clearly visible even in the dimly lit room, and a hole the size of her thumb that had remained near the brim, as she couldn't find the last shard she was sure she had seen before, the cup was a depressive picture of disfigurement, sorrow and an unfortunate fate.

Even in the eyes of the lunatic, but at least she had tried, right?

Looking up to exchange a glance with the lady in red, she found that the woman had moved to the window and was looking outside, a melancholy in the black eyes that had Jinx sigh silently. Decide against bothering her.

Her eyes fell onto the cup again, then the bag to her feet, which still contained the shards of the rest of the tea service. There was no way she could fix all of these before morning, and if she was honest with herself, there was also little point in doing it.

She had tried her best, and even if she would've finished it, there was no escaping the inevitable that Vi had already fallen victim to. Now, with the brawler having been caught, there was no way Caitlyn didn't know the full extent of the unfortunate day, and no amount of failed attempts could change that.

"Just give up Jinx." spoke Fishbones suddenly, reminding the loose cannon of the presence of her 'friends' on the couch beside her, "You tried, and Caitlyn will appreciate that."

"She'll still punish me, Fishbones!"

"There's no way around that, and you know it. She will forgive you and Vi, but there's no way around the punishment." claimed the rocket launcher, "And besides, you have to admit – you kind of deserve the punishment."

"Hm... Maybe..."

"And, if you really think about it – isn't that a very important aspect of life?"

Jinx perked up and frowned over to her trusty companion. "What do yo mean with that, Fishbones?"

"Everything in life has consequences. Consequences we have to face, that we can't run from. Running from them only makes things worse."

"Huh." mused the madwoman and focused back on the tea service, "Maybe you're right Fishbones."

"You know I am." insisted the rocket launcher, "So take that cup and go back to the police station. Face the consequences and grow on them. I bet that Caitlyn will appreciate that more than any attempt at fixing things – actually making them worse – can."

The loose cannon nodded to herself at these words. Cast a last glance to the rocket launcher to her right, and then rose from her seat. Took the cup and cradled it in her hands like it was the most fragile thing in the world. Smiled.

"You're saying that Vi and I should've never run, Fishbones? That we only made it worse?" inquired the lunatic as she examined the cup, "Because I actually agree. I no longer feel like that was the smart move to make."

A sigh escaped her and she closed her eyes. Put the cup back down to grab her weapons and attach them to the hooks that the jacket and the belt provided, then took the fragile object again.

"Alright, time to move. I've got some things to take care of. Consequences to face, I guess."

She rolled her shoulders and her neck, chuckled to herself. Had every intention in the world to, for once, face the consequences of her action.

Until she heard music. A soft hum just outside the window, melodic and otherworldly alluring. Confused, she glanced to the window and approached it, taking note of the sadistic smile that had spread across the lips of the lady in red.

And spotting who the lady in red was observing, couldn't help but smile as well.

Consequences, huh? Well, Fishbones was right, Jinx had to face them.

Jinx had to.

Feeling a drop of water roll out of her hairline and down her forehead, the lunatic rose a hand and intended to wipe it away.

And promptly let out a hiss as she cut herself on the shard stuck to her forehead with super-glue.

---

"Caaait..."

The almost ghostly whine from the other side of the room, while registered, remained ignored by the sheriff that, by then, was dressed in her officer attire due to the state her casual one was in. Instead of doing as much as looking up, Caitlyn instead flipped the page of her book and continued to read.

"Cupcaaaake..."

Again, Caitlyn ignored it, though the smile on her lips grew.

"Really? I have to copy them all? All the reports, until tomorrow?"

This time, Caitlyn did lower her book a bit, even though just far enough to glance over it at the desk of the enforcer, where Vi sat leaned over the ink-stained pile of reports and a stack of blank paper, as well as the small heap of reports she had managed to decipher ever since turning herself in.

Not exactly an easy task, having to somehow try and read through the large stains of ink and copying the reports that had been messed up, but punishments weren't supposed to be easy. There was no mercy there and Vi had brought it upon herself, the horrible task that had the strong woman close to tears.

A hint of sadism that Caitlyn didn't know she possessed was ignited, and offering Vi no more than an amused smirk, she rose the book again. Heard how the enforcer's head met the wooden desk in frustration.

It was roughly a minute later that another sound made both women perk up – the sound of the door to the sheriff's office opening gently. And, much to the surprise of either officer behind their respective desk, it was the familiar head of their heavy artillery expert that poked in through the gap.

Seeing that all attention was on her, Jinx opened the door completely and stepped into the room, turned around and politely closed the door behind her. Only with that done did she face the two women and smiled at them. Smiled like an idiot that had no idea of the rather bad mood that had prevailed through most of the day.

And, as if she wanted to make things worse, Jinx – dressed in tight black pants, a white shirt and a black jacket that were too short for her – walked right up to the sheriff's desk and, absolute happiness on her face, pulled out the broken cup from behind her back to present it to Caitlyn with a cat-like smile on her lips.

Immediately, Caitlyn's amusement was gone. In fact, Vi was sure she felt the temperature of the room drop a few degrees in no more than a second.

"Really..." drawled the sheriff, not very impressed, as Jinx carefully set the cup down on her desk, absolute lack of emotion in her eyes as she saw what the loose cannon had done to her beloved possession.

Sure, she had been prepared to never see it again after having seen what had happened to the reports and after having heard the whole from Vi, but to actually see it poorly glued together did strike a nerve after all.

"Look, Jay... I appreciate the gesture. That you tried, at least." sighed Caitlyn and, taking her hat off and placing it on her desk, moved a hand through her hair, "But it doesn't seem very honest the way you act. I mean, first running and then coming back with this with the widest smile I've ever seen on your face? Who do you think is at fault for all this?"

The loose cannon frowned at that. Her smile dropped and was replaced by her face scrunching up in confusion – before pointed over at Vi.

"What?!"

Fists hammered down on the wooden desk as Vi jumped out of her chair, but Caitlyn gestured her to sit back down.

"Are you saying that you're not at fault at all for what has happened?" inquired the sheriff further and rose an eyebrow at the woman before her desk. And watched as Jinx eagerly nodded to herself, and then smiled over to Vi – and that warmly. Honest and full of glee.

It pissed the enforcer off.

"Why, you little...!"

When Vi jumped up again and actually left her desk, Jinx surprised both the sheriff and the enforcer by suddenly shrinking away, actual fear in her eyes as she dove behind the desk of Caitlyn and stared with wide eyes at Vi.

And, now standing in front of her desk and blinking at Jinx's weird reaction, all anger evaporated, Vi noticed something that she hadn't when sitting.

Something was off about Jinx, and it wasn't just the behavior. Something physical wasn't quite right, and Vi saw it for the short moment that both she and Jinx were standing.

Jinx was too tall to be Jinx. Almost half a head taller than usual, it was as if Jinx had hit a growth spurt during the last few hours, which definitely couldn't be. Jinx, petite as she was, was in the middle of her twenties, and you don't suddenly hit growth spurts then anymore. Especially not ones that leave you growing that much in just a few hours.

That, however, left only one possibility – The Jinx in the office with them wasn't Jinx. Not Jay Inks. Not the real one.

Which left the question what the real identity of the women with them was, although Vi quickly caught on. Even before 'Jinx' finally 'spoke'.

"This isn't what I signed up for!" whined a melodic voice inside the heads of the sheriff and enforcer, "She said it was entirely Vi's fault and just told me to deliver this thing here! She asked me if I could do her a favor, not face her punishment!"

"SONA?!"

---

In downtown Piltover, near the center of the city and right in front of the train station, Sona Buvelle stood and carried a harp opposed to her usual instrument. Happy and full of glee as she always was, she played the instrument.

Loud, off-tune. Had a shard of a tea service sticking to her forehead. Her clothes didn't fit her body and threatened to fall of her petite frame.

Life was wonderful if there was a way to escape consequences.

---

"You're still up?"

Jinx perked up as she heard the voice behind her. Curious, she turned away from the window she had looked out of and faced the living room of Vi's apartment, the place she lived in with her sister, and soon her sister's girlfriend.

Sure enough, it was Vi, dressed in a pale tank top and matching pajama pants, who stood in the darkness of the living room. Only the pale light of the moon was falling into the room through the large round window that Jay sat by, her favorite spot in the whole apartment being on the small low bench that doubled as the windowsill ever since Christmas with Piltover's Finest.

Wearing only a shirt too large for her petite frame and her underwear, the loose cannon, leaned against the wall to the right of the window, looked like she was ready to go to bed herself. And considering what time it was, just past midnight, it was the place she should be.

"Couldn't sleep." admitted Jay and turned back to the window, watching the empty streets below. The street lights that illuminated them, soon extinguish as the clock hit one in the morning. Not long, and the lights would be gone.

"I know the feeling." offered her sister. With Vi approaching the window as well, Jay pulled her legs in to make some space for the enforcer to sit down with her, let the enforcer sit down with her back leaned against the other wall. "Cait's already asleep. Not sure for how long, considering that I've left the bed. She tends to notice and wake up if I'm gone for a while."

A chuckle escaped Jinx, one that Vi joined in on as it turned into giggles. And, as their voices faded, they fell into a comfortable silence. Just enjoyed it as the minutes passed by and the calm of the night washed over them, bringing relaxation.

"By the way." began Vi eventually after a good ten minutes had passed, "Nice job with that trick at the end today. I was kinda upset at first, but I must admit that I like the idea you had there. You've fooled even me with it, and you just swapped clothes with Sona!"

"Yeah." snorted the madwoman, "I saw her walking through the streets, humming to herself, and had that idea. Just had to ask if she could do me a favor, and she agreed. I mean, kinda makes me feel bad for her since I basically forced all my problems onto her, but that's just unfortunate for her, I guess."

"You had Cait so shocked that she didn't even bother to punish you when you showed up about an hour later to give Sona her clothes back." Vi snickered to herself at that, "All she did was scold you for doing that to Sona! Man, that kinda makes me wish I had someone that kinda looked like me and that I could send to situations like that in my stead."

"What about that kraken priestress you recently befriended? Whats-her-face?" mused the lunatic and Vi could literally see how hard Jinx was trying to remember the name.

"You mean Illaoi?" she offered, and watched as Jinx's face lit up, "The hell? Did you recently lose most of your vision, cause Illaoi doesn't even look like me In the slightest!"

"You sure? Did you ever see yourself next to her? Cause I think you don't!"

"Well, of course I haven't seen...!" realizing where the logic was headed, Vi let out a groan and stopped herself, knowing it was pointless to follow that line of thought. Slumped her shoulders and rolled her eyes.

"Anyway, I really liked the idea of sending Sona in my stead as well." continued Jinx and chuckled, "After convincing her, I just had to give her some clothes that don't make our different build stands out. But damn, convincing her was already kind of a problem..."

"Didn't you just say she agreed right away?" asked Vi, and watched as Jinx nodded.

"Oh, that wasn't the problem!" explained the madwoman, "She did agree, but the problem was her telepathic voice..."

"Because...?"

"Have you ever tried to listen to a voice that's just in your head, while there's several other voices talking already?" mocked the gunner and pointed at her own temple, "Hello, madwoman here, the voices in my head never stop~!"

To Jinx's surprise, the result of that was actually quite different from what she had expected. Instead of rolling her eyes or acting irritated, there was something else that appeared on the enforcer's face, and it was something Jinx had not expected at all.

It was uncertainty. Hesitation.

In fact, Vi even turned her gaze away, suddenly interested in something outside the window that even the lunatic couldn't see as much as she tried. Vi`s lips were a thin line as Jay studied her sister's face, gaze not resting on something in particular, but actually beyond it. A place that not even Jinx had access to – the enforcer's mind.

"Actually..." whispered Vi suddenly, not even turning back to her sister, "Actually, something like that has been bothering me lately."

She turned her gaze to meet that of her older sister, which filled with concern as she saw the unusual behavior of the enforcer. Something wasn't right, not at all if it could change Vi that drastically, and if was connected to something that was remotely to what the lunatic went throught during every damn second of her life, then it was bad. Real bad.

"I don't quite feel like myself." began Vi quietly, "I've been having been these strange dreams lately, Jay. And, at times, more and more often in fact..."

With her empty gaze slowly sinking, Vi rose a hand to her head and place her fingertips on her right temple.

"...I've been having these headaches, At first, I awoke from these nightmares and had them for a few minutes, but they come and go during the day as well now. Get worse every time." she met the gaze of her sister again, "It's almost... as if there is something inside of that wants to get out, Jay. Something that's fighting my sanity."

Silence reigned between them after that, none of them daring to avert their gaze. Something lingered in the air, however, a bad feeling neither of them could shake off after these words.

"Are you sure you not just overworked?" offered Jay carefully, "Have you visited a doctor yet?"

"Already been to one earlier this week. Couldn't find anything wrong with my body or anything." replied the brawler and turned to look out the window again, "But maybe you are right. Maybe it's really just that I'm exhausted, seeing as these nightmares cost me quite some sleep."

For a moment, Jay just observed her sister sitting opposite to her and watching the street below. Wondered what really was going on, and hoped that it really just was the lack of sleep that had Vi so troubled.

Hoped it was only that.

"Maybe."

"Maybe what?" inquired the voice of Caitlyn from the entrance to the living room, moments before the sheriff – wearing a light blue pajama that, much to the amusement of the Inks Sisters, had a little star on the upper left – appeared from the darkness, giggling at the sight of the two unlikely sisters sitting by the window, "What's this, a sleepover in the living room without me?"

"We could turn it into one." offered, to the surprise of the others, Vi, and patted her lap. The sheriff rolled her eyes at her girlfriend's invitation, but still followed it and claimed her rightful place on Vi's lap.

"I actually like the idea." giggled Jinx across from them and watched it as Caitlyn made herself comfortable on the lap of the enforcer, Vi wrapping her arms around her from behind. "I could go and grab some blankets and pillows if you want."

"You two are crazy." sighed Caitlyn, but smiled and sunk deeper into her girlfriend's embrace, "One thing for sure – I'm not getting up again, I fancy my spot here, and I'm too tired."

Jinx instinctively rolled her eyes at the two lovers and shook her head, but still got up from her seat to go and grab the objects in question.

Consequences, Fishbones had said. Consequences one had to face – they didn't always have to be bad, even if things started out pretty weird and negative. One would be surprised by how many good things a bad thing brought, what fortune could be born from a day of misfortune.

That was a thing that Jay had learned that day, and she suddenly didn't mind consequences as much anymore. Even the bad ones.

You just had to live with them, they were part of life, part of the experience. And why ruin that by running away? By making things worse? Why not stand tall and take it as it was, no questions asked, and no regrets had?

For if you run, if you try to escape, if you ask the question of 'what if' and 'what would have been' – then you summon them. Practically ask for them to loom on the horizon of a nearing morning.

The bad days.

And bad days, they had experienced enough, the three of them.

So why not once a good night?

Before Jinx could do as much as heading back into the corridor through the dark living room, though, something caught Caitlyn's eye outside the window and she frowned. Immediately, she had the attention of both enforcer and loose cannon, who turned their heads to look outside as well.

"Hey, Jay...Vi... That down there, crossing the street in the moonlight..." Caitlyn trailed off to lean forward to get a better look, not quite trusting her own eyes, "...is that a chicken?"

---

And that's the latest installment to the series – finally, that is, as I've been longing to write another for a long time, but couldn't as my old computer broke and it took me quite some time to get a new one! And god, it's been a true meme festival with Jinx this time.

Usually, at this point, I'd be thanking Time96, my beta-reader, for having beta'd the installment, but sadly, as you surely have seen at the top, he's currently unavailable and won't be doing the beta-reading for this installment until late April.

With that, this is the second update this month that he hasn't beta'd, the first being the latest chapter for my RWBY fanfiction "Dreams Crushed", and the other upcoming one being the story that should've been released today due to a promise I've made. But after having pulled two all-nighters in a row for this installment here, I'm not quite sure about it anymore. I'm gonna get some sleep and then return to finish the other planned story for this month, but I fear that I won't upload it before tomorrow.

Speaking of the meme festival this time – there were quite a few Undertale references that I couldn't resist. In fact, I even listened to 'Bonetrousle' during most of the Jinx scenes, and to 'Death by Glamour' for the Jayce's lab scene – could be just me, but 'Bonetrousle' is oddly fitting for Jinx.

Writing this installment has been a bit of trouble for me, and I'm not as satisfied with how it turned out as I was with the rest. Not even sure why, to be honest, maybe the general idea was just too ridiculous. Maybe it's just that I'm too tired or exhausted to properly judge, my last energy drink was empty three hours ago and I've skipped dinner yesterday because I wasn't feeling so well.

Either way, it took me several days to finish this although the scenes were all prepared. I even scratched two scenes from the final version – one with Vi running into Illaoi and managing to escape Caitlyn thanks to that encounter, and one scene with Vi returning to the police station after she realized she couldn't fix the reports, where Caitlyn was already waiting for her, having expected that outcome.

I'm more confident regarding the next installment to this series, however. It's got a more serious topic and won't be as funny and humorous as this installment was. In fact, I'd say it's going into direction of 'A Final Joke' regarding its seriousness.

Not gonna share its name this time because that is kind of a surprise, but I do have something to say about it, starting with the fact that I've left quite a few hints for it during this installment you've just read (if you didn't read it but are down here – achievement unlocked: cheater!). There's a lot of elements that are pointing towards the next installment to the series, foreshadowing it even, which you'll see very soon.

Especially the ending had an implication for the next story, but may not be what you think it is...

Oh well. This has been another installment to the series that has been waiting for way too long to be continued, and I hope this was an acceptable return of it. If not, the next one might be.

Yeah, that's it. This has been SorrowfulReincarnation, and, as usual...

So long~!