Yup, this again. Yes, Jack is mute.


Jack woke up on an uncomfortable bed after experiencing some uncomfortable sensations. If he could focus, he would have noticed the bronze walls covered in gears of all shapes and sizes. He also might have noticed the tubes connected to his skin and the tall woman with pink hair sitting in the chair farthest from him, but he could not focus over the constant outside noise. Machinery, gas escaping, steam whistles blowing, and the thunk of metal on other objects was a constant beating on his eardrums. He groaned and cupped his hands over his ears to possibly drown out the noise. He glanced around the room and noticed the woman idly using some sort of tool to tinker with one of two oversized metal gloves that laid across her lap.

The woman looked up from her current project and then yelled out the open door, "Cupcake! He's up!"

Cupcake?

Upon further inspection he noticed the woman's short pink hair, and that she was clad in a heavy looking suit of armor. Her features were hardened, and displayed a carefree-ish attitude laced with a serious tone. He wagered that she was a rash thinker, judging from her apparent choice of weapon, if that's what those behemoth gloves were, and the tattoo "VI" on her left cheek.

"The hell are you starin' at huh?" The woman asked.

Jack just averted his eyes and said nothing.

"Don't you hear me talkin' to you? I asked you a question."

Jack remained silent.

"Don't you speak english? or at all!?" He could tell she was short-tempered, her anger was beginning to show, and it might have boiled over to the point of physical confrontation if another woman hadn't shown up. She was dressed in a purple skirt and a large purple top hat. She had brown hair and expressed a much more serious yet friendly personality, perhaps the polar opposite of the other one. She had brown hair and there was a long rifle slung over her back.

"Vi, calm down. You haven't even asked him any questions yet and you're already looking like you want to beat his brains in."

"I did ask him a question actually, and he ignored me!"

"Just go back to fixing your gauntlets and let me handle the… non-violent interaction alright?"

Vi grumbled something and went back to her gloves.

This is swell, the classic good cop bad cop shit. I wonder where I am. It looks like the inside of a damn clock, and the noise is unbearable.

"So mister..." The woman glanced at the clipboard at the foot of the bed. "hmm… what's your name?"

Jack shook his head and pointed to his throat, something that should be a universal sign for "I can't speak." Either that or "I'm choking" but he hadn't seen food since he tried to execute his plan to break into the Big House. The woman seemed to understand, and asked, "Can you speak?"

Jack shook his head, and the woman continued, "Well, my name is Caitlyn, and that's Vi." She pointed to the pink-haired woman who was still tinkering with the massive gauntlets. Caitlyn grabbed the clipboard and turned the paper on it over. She handed it to him, along with a pencil and a heavy eraser. He proceeded to write "Jack" on the clipboard and showed it to Caitlyn.

"His name's Jack," she said

"Whatever," Vi grumbled.

Jack wrote, "You guys are, police right?"

Caitlyn nodded. "Piltover's finest."

"So is this the good cop bad cop thing? Whatever you're accusing me of, I didn't do it."

Caitlyn chuckled. "No, this is just me. Vi doesn't communicate too well unless she's using her fists, and as for your other question, I just want to know how you got here."

Jack wrote, "What do you mean? I don't remember how I got here."

"Well, witnesses said that they smelled ozone and then this black sphere appeared, blowing everything away from it like a huge fan or something. When it was gone, you were in its place."

"I was arrested by-" He erased that, and wrote, "Where am I again?"

"Piltover, city of progress."

Not after I'm done with it. Progress usually means coin, and all coin eventually leads to my pockets.

Jack wrote, "So this isn't Brari?"

Caitlyn shook her head. "I have no idea where that is."

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, and wrote, "It is my hometown, located in the country of Tafe, continent of Feta, on the planet of Runeterra. Any of those places ring a bell?"

Caitlyn read what he wrote and held her mouth open in shock. "Impossible! Valorian is the only- You mean to tell me that your home is also on Runeterra? As in… another continent?"

Jack nodded.

"This is news, the summoners, the scholars, everyone needs to know about this!"

What's the big deal? It's like she's never even considered the fact that there might be other continents on this big-ass planet.

"You can go, I'll have the nurse come and lead you out. Vi, common, we have to tell EVERYONE."


The nurse was a nice lady who quickly took the tubes out of Jack's arms and sent him on his way after he signed several forms. At this point he'd given up on hoping that the machinery noises would stop, and instead wondered how these people could stand it. As he stepped out of the hospital, or what he thought was a hospital anyway, he noticed clean-ish streets with people going about their business. There was not one person that didn't have something in their hands.

"Also on Runeterra." So I'm still here… -ish. On the one place on the planet that Brari's scholars didn't have a concept of, not that I'd listen to those uptight bookworms anyway.

Jack took a guess, and was correct in his assumption that one could hail a cab in this city. After observing a man hold his thumb in the air shortly followed by a cab picking him up Jack decided to try it. It worked, and after he crossed the speech barrier by using the paper and pencil the cabbie provided him he was on his way to the closest bar.

It's going to become a serious burden needing to rely on people for too long. I need money, or knowledge of this place so I don't always have to write shit down so people can know what I'm trying to say. Either that or I could learn to play charades. Perhaps I could get lucky and find this driver every time… on second thought he smells.

Jack chuckled at the thought, causing the driver to glance at him through the rearview mirror. "You new in town?"

Jack nodded.

"Oh, well there's a closer bar, but I'll take you to the best bar in town for people of our income level."

Jack raised his eyebrow.

"I mean, you don't really look like the type of person who's really successful here. I'm talking hella money."

This caused Jack to become even more confused, so he raised the other eyebrow.

"I mean, to make it here you either have to be an inventor, or a superhero or some shit. Normal guys like you and me don't do so well in this place. Well, I mean I do well enough, enough to pay the bills ya know? It's just I don't have any luxury items because everything here is so damn expensive."

Jack nodded.

Superhero? That ought to be a challenge. Then again, it seems like the common people here are fed up with their inferiority. Maybe I can be an anti-hero, take from the rich pricks and give to the good poor people. Of course I'd have to keep a percentage... a big percentage.

"Hey, you don't talk right?"

Jack nodded again.

"Ah, you can keep that pencil and that paper pad. It's a little hard to order a drink without an order. I'm Bruce by the way, nice to meet you..."

Jack scribbled his name on the paper, tore the piece off the pad and handed it to the cabbie. He immediately read it, disregarding all concern for driving safety.

"Jack? Alright Jack, we're almost there. If you want I can wait for you, you got a place to stay for the night? I know a guy who owns a cheap hotel. It's a good place though."

Jack shook his head.

"Ah, well I actually might join you in there, my shift isn't over, but fuck it right?"

Jack shrugged.

"Eh, fuck it. Oh by the way, I know a place where you could get a- Oh shit!"

Jack barely had time to react to the projectile that was speeding at them. It was a large, dark pink rocket with a shark face drawn on it. Jack opened the cab door and jumped out the cab. Bruce did the same just as the rocket impacted the ground beside the cab. The explosion threw the cab and surrounding cars aside, and tossed Jack and Bruce onto the sidewalk.

Son of a bitch… what the...

Jack stood slowly, winded from the force of the explosion. Miraculously he wasn't injured, and neither was Bruce, but that much couldn't be said for the ones around them.

"It's that skinny pale devil again!" Bruce yelled.

Jack turned and offered Bruce his hand.

I just hope to god this makes you forget about my fare, even though I never intended to pay you.

"Everything was fine until that insane-ass anarchist showed up."

Sounds like something worth my time, and like you've forgotten.

"She just goes around blowing shit up because 'it's fun.' It's as if she exists just to make my life even more shitty than it already is."

As if you're the only one affected by this.

Jack wrote on the pad and showed Bruce. "Does she have a name?"

"No, well, no one knows but everyone calls her Jinx."

He wrote, "Where is she?"

"Why? Are you planning to become the next hero?"

Quite the opposite.

"You owe me a cut if you make it pal. There's a rumor going around that she's been seen mostly around the north side of town." He pointed north. "Don't get yourself killed." When he turned around, Bruce finally noticed his blown up taxi cab. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Jack waved goodbye to Bruce and began walking. As soon as he was clear of most of the wreckage of Jinx's rampage, he began to run. When he reached a building, he simply found his way to the top using the ledges, fire escapes, and decorations. Once on the rooftops he ran faster. He felt like he was at home again as he took his staff from his pocket, expanded it, and used it to pole-vault over a large gap between steam-spitting buildings, running free without limits with the wind at his back.


GG