After thirty minutes or so of skimming through the diary, Vi returned to the room, diary in hand. She looked angry, and bothered at the same time. Caitlyn could tell that the entries had affected her just as badly, or even worse than it had affected Caitlyn.

"Vi, are you alright?" Caitlyn asked uneasily. She wanted to make sure her partner was not too disturbed by her own past, despite the fact that she was sure Vi was.

"Yeah," Vi replied quickly. Too quickly, as if she was brushing Caitlyn off. She turned to Jinx, "I need to know what happened next. Please." Vi sounded desperate, which Cait somewhat understood. If she was placed in the same situation of having a tragic past and knowing nothing about it, she would try to get some answers. Hell, she wasn't in the same situation, and she still wanted answers.

She focused on Jinx who had been preparing herself these past thirty minutes.

"Are you ready to tell us now, Jinx?" She gently inquired. She wanted to know as badly as Vi did, but there was no reason to pressure Jinx into talking if she wasn't able to.

"Yeah, I am," Jinx replied, sounding more sure of herself than before.

She took a breath before continuing. "It started with a mission…"

Jessabelle and Violet Strauss were lucky. Probably the luckiest girls alive. Sadly, that didn't necessarily mean that they had a lot of good luck. Their luck tended to fluctuate from bad to good luck way to often for their tastes.

They may have been made orphans in a harsh and unfamiliar city, but at least they still had each other, and they still had the gang providing for them. Things were starting to look up for them actually. Maybe they would get pure good luck from now on.

Jessie was even getting better at engineering. She was starting to dream that she could get a job as an engineer, like her dad had. Maybe one day, she and Violet could move back to Piltover and open up a shop or something. That would be great.

"Jessie! Can I come. Please?" Vi pleaded, stretching out the please. She had been wanting to go with her older sister on a mission for a while now, despite Jessie saying no each time.

Jessie thought about the request. She wasn't going on a dangerous quest or anything. All she had to do was get some pipes from a junkyard for some machine. Nothing too hard. So she supposed that she could take Vi. Vi could even help her gather faster.

"Okay, Vi. But you have to stay with me all the time. No wandering off," she answered.

"Yay!" The energetic three and a half year old squealed as she she squeezed her sister in a hug. The gesture was funny to Jessie, as her little sister only reached her waist. She picked up Vi in a more fitting hug, which the younger sister appreciated.

"Wait. What does wander mean?" Jessie chuckled at her sister, leaving Vi even more confused. As they left, Jessie explained it to her.

"What are we looking for, Jessie?" Vi asked as she searched through the junkyard with her sister.

"We need some pipes. They look like long silver sticks."

Vi gave a confused look. "But if we are looking for sticks, why did we come here? There are sticks everywhere."

"Like sticks Vi. They aren't really sticks."

"Oh, okay." Jessie giggled a bit before returning to searching.

Over the course of an hour, they managed to gather several suitable and untarnished metal rods. Deciding that they had enough, Jessie led them back.

"Okay, I think we have enough pipes now, Vi. Let's go back to the warehouse. Careful with them," she instructed, watching her sister flail around with three of the smaller pipes. Vi followed her out the junkyard.

"Can I come with you again, Jessie," Vi asked as she followed her sister out of the junkyard.

"You mean on future missions?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if they are easy ones like this, then yes. I just don't want you to get hurt on a mission."

Vi puffed out her cheeks in indignation. "But I won't get hurt. I'm strong."

Jessie laughed at her sister's response. "That you are, but doesn't mean I want to take chances. I don't want to lose you too." Vi instantly realized that she was talking about their parents and frowned. She didn't exactly know what happened, but knew that their parents went away, according to Jessie.

Vi looked to her older sister, who had taken on a downcast expression.

"Well I won't go away, so you should be happy. You always tell me to smile when I'm sad or mad. So you should too."

Jessie couldn't help but smiling at her little sister's words. It was funny to see such a smart little three year old telling her, a seven year old, who was turning eight in a month, to smile. But she heeded her sister's advice, or rather her own advice, and gave a big smile for her sister. Vi beamed in response, and the two shared a chuckle.

Their happy moment was interrupted as Jessie was knocked to the ground by a man exited a factory door. Jessie dropped all of her pipes as the man shoved her by.

"Watch where you are going, brat," The man sneered and left, as Vi scrambled over to help her sister.

"Watch where I am going? You are the one who hit me," Jessie returned, with a scowl, as she started to pick up her pipes.

The man who had been walking away turned back around at the sound of her voice. He had recognized it, and as he scanned the faces of the girls. As he turned, they got a better look at him. He was tall, and a bit older, wearing a large white overcoat and tan clothes. He looked like some kind of scientist.

"Oh my, oh my. Why if isn't it the Strauss children right in front of my very own eyes. How lucky of me to find you two." His sneer transformed into a fake smile, as if he was their long lost uncle happy to see them again. Jessie instantly realized something was off about this man, and felt the urge to run.

"How do you know us?" She hesitantly asked.

"You are telling me that you don't remember me? I'm shocked," The man looked affronted, but his eyes did not seem to care. "I was your dad's lab partner. Remember me? Mr. Whist?"

His name did cause Jessie to remember him. She recalled seeing him once or twice, when he and the other man- Singed or something- went to talk to her dad about business. He was as creepy then as he is now, and she remembered that he and her dad got into fights a lot.

"I remember you. What are you doing here?"

"Well I was searching for something in particular, but let's save that for later. How are you two doing, hmm?"

"...fine?" Jessie was confused at his question. Why would he be asking how they were doing?

"Good, that's good. I heard what happened to your parents. I'm sorry for your loss."

Jessie confused. How could he have known that their parents were killed. Only she and the murderer knew what happened to them, and only one of them were still alive to tell the tale.

"How do you know what happened to them?"

"Well, blast it, you caught me." The man chuckled. He didn't seem to really care that he had slipped up, almost as if he intended for her to ask him that question. "I know because I was the one who ordered their deaths."

Both Jessie's and Vi's first reactions were shock, but Jessie's soon turned into anger, while confusion came to Vi.

"Jessie, Mommy and Daddy are dead? I thought you said they went away to a happy place," Vi asked, tears starting to well up at the knowledge that her parents were not going to come back, even if they wanted to. Jessie ignored the question, rage overcoming her.

"Why yes, little one. Your sister was not lying. They did go to a happy place. I would bring to them, but I think that they would want you to wait for now and stay with me." Whist responded, sounding cheerful, as if he cared nothing of their parents or their wishes.

"That man who killed them…was working for you?" Jessie questioned, her voice shaking.

"Why yes. Quite an incompetent assassin really, as he fell to the hands of a little girl, but well, he got the job done. Partly. I suppose I should thank you, though. You saved me the trouble of having to pay the bastard for his poor job." Whist muttered.

Jessie was further angered by how casually he was taking everything. He didn't care at all that he was facing the two children he had orphaned, even having the audacity to thank Jessie for killing her parent's murderer so that he didn't have to spend anything.

"WHY! WHY DID YOU KILL THEM!" Jessie exploded.

"Well don't you have a tantrum. If you must know, it was because your father was in the way of important things to me, and I needed him to disappear. And I couldn't simply let ends free, so I had the assassin kill your mother and you two, except he failed on the last part. But I am thinking it may have been better this way, as I can use you both as experiments. Yes, it is much better this way. And, I am sure it would make your dad proud to know that his daughters would be helping to explore new boundaries in science." Whist chuckled in glee.

"Now if you would politely come with me, we can get started." He pulled out something from his coat, some kind of metal band, walked over to them. both of them backed up in fear.

"No, we aren't coming with you. Leave us alone!" Jessie shouted.

"That's not the attitude to have. You could be helping so many people if you just come with me."

"No! Go away!" Vi returned.

"Well, if you will not go willingly, I suppose I will have to resort to more forceful measures," Whist frowned as pulled out some kind of gun from his coat pocket.

Jessie's eyes widened, knowing what the weapon was. It was a taser gun. He dad and some of the inventors at the warehouse told her about them.

Whist set the gun on an non-lethal state, and aimed it at them. Jessie instinctively reacted, pulling a pipe off the ground and swinging it at him. Luckily, she hit his hand, knocking the gun out onto the street below. He cursed and clutched his hand, while she and Vi dove for the gun. Jessie picked it up, and raised it at the man.

Noticing that she had it, Whist backed up a bit. "How dare you strike me, and then dare to aim that gun at me. Put it down, girl. You don't know what you are doing with it, nor would you have the audacity to actually pull the trigger." Whist acted on his words, and begun to advance towards Jessie. Vi stood behind her sister, as Jessie placed her finger harder on the trigger.

"Go away or I will shoot you. I killed that murderer you hired, and I'm not scared to kill you. Leave us alone!" Whist scoffed at her words and moved forwards anyways.

She closed her eyes and pressed the trigger, firing off a jolt of electricity at Whist. It hit him point blank in the gut, effectively dropping him to his knees in an involuntary spasm. However, the setting he had it placed at was not enough to render a well aged man unconscious, and he started to get back up a moment after. He roared in anger as he clutched a nearby rail to aid his recovery. Jessie and Vi panicked and ran away, while he was getting back up.

As Whist had been blocking the way back to the warehouse, they ran back to the junkyard, hoping to hide amongst the abandoned machinery.

They reached the junkyard a few minutes later, out of breath and tired. Jessie looked back to see Whist catching up, running at full speed. They could never hope to outrun him, and it didn't seem like they had enough time to go hide, if there was even a suitable place to hide in. They needed to find a way out, escape him somehow and get back to the warehouse to hide. But how?

Then a thought came to Jessie: the river. A long river wove through Zaun, and part of this junkyard was overlooking it. If they could get down the cliff side and ride the river on something, they could get away. The river connected to the warehouse too, so they could just get back that way.

Deciding to go through with her plan, Jessie picked up Vi in piggyback fashion, carrying the still winded little girl to the end of the junkyard. Jessie had to be careful of the rusted nails that were scattered about the junkyard, but she knew where most of them were, allowing her to run with haste. She hoped that Whist was impeded by the treacherous obstacles that she navigated through.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" She heard Whist shout. He was getting closer, she needed to hurry.

"W-where are we going, Jessie?" Vi asked in a panic filled voice. But Jessie couldn't respond right now. It was already getting painful to breath, talking would be nigh impossible right now. No, she just needed to get them to safety first, then she would be fine.

She finally reached the edge of the junkyard a moment later. They stood in the cliff top, overlooking the river. It was steep and tall, so it would be dangerous to climb down. They could try jumping into the river, but Jessie didn't think that would be safe either. She looked around for something to help them down. She heard cursing a few meters away, signifying that Whist was getting closer.

There! She spotted a large hextech car tire. They could use it to cushion the impact of the river, and to float away in it. She dropped Vi off her back, took a deep breath and went over to it. "Vi! Help me move this tire over to the edge!"

Vi was confused at the request, but listened to her sister, recognizing the urgency in her voice. Together, they managed to move the tire over to the edge. As they started to prop it up, two hands reached out and grabbed them.

"Aha, got you both. That was quite an obnoxious chase you two put me through. You will pay for that later. For now, let's get you to the factory. I have many plans, and no desire to deal with any further antics." Whist stated, frustration evident in his voice. Sheer panic coursed through the sisters' veins, and they frantically struggled to get out of his grasp.

"Stop resisting me!" Whist roared, anger level rising at their struggles, but they ignored him. Jessie managed to get a lucky kick to the groin, disabling Whist for a moment. That slight moment was all they needed, as they broke free, and managed to push the tire upright. Jessie helped Vi into the tire first, and started to get in herself when Whist returned his grasp on her. He pulled her out before she could push the tire off the ledge, and started to reach for her sister too. Jessie noticed his reach, and made a decision, pushing the tire off, saving her sister.

"No!" Whist shouted, but Jessie couldn't focus on him, as all she heard was her sister call out her name as she fell.

"You fucking brat," Whist cursed slapping Jessie with his free hand. He scowled and peered over the edge of the cliff. Jessie, clutching her cheek, looked over with him. Together they saw the one sight that Jessie never wanted to see and always tried to prevent: an immobile Vi hung on top of the tire, with blood soaked hair. Her sister was dead, and she was all alone now.

"No…Violet..." Jessie murmured, shock taking over.

"Hmph, the little thing didn't survive the fall. Pity. At least that is one less Strauss I have to keep up with now. I see now that Ivan's ridiculous stubborn streak runs deep in your blood. It will be the first thing to be ironed out," Whist muttered, pulling the grieving girl away from the edge.

However, what neither realized at the time was that the little girl left down on the tire was still breathing…

"After that, Whist took me to a laboratory that he started after he was fired by Singed. His former partners and him were all too eager to test on me. I stayed there for fifteen years. Fifteen years of hell on Runeterra, where they tested chemicals on me, ran me through military operations, and other shit to make me into some kind of soldier," Jinx concluded.

Caitlyn and Vi were speechless. Both of them were deeply bothered by the tale, Vi more so.

"You… you didn't just make a choice to let me go...you saved me from that bastard," Vi weakly stated.

Jinx just nodded in reply.

"So that's why I don't remember you or anything, because I got injured in that fall?"

"Yeah, the tired had rolled off the cliff, and you must have hit your head hard enough to leave you unconscious and give you amnesia," Jinx answered.

Caitlyn contemplated the information. There was multiple questions running through her mind, but one in particular stood out.

"Jinx...how did you escape from the lab?" She asked. She didn't want to trouble Jinx further, but she needed to know.

"Well that...that was through sheer patience. After going through fifteen years of hell, you learn patterns, and then patterns of patterns. Eventually someone will make a mistake. It was kinda like a card game. You wait until your opponent slips up, and in that very moment that they realize they made one, you capitalize. In this case, their mistake was allowing a lazy guard watch me as they tested my combat efficiency. All it took was a jab to the neck of the stupid guard for me to be able to pull a rocket launcher on them. I didn't stop until I blew every single last one of them up, and then set the whole thing on fire." Jinx sighed. "Well, all of them except one slippery little motherfucker. Can you guess who it was?"

"Whist. That bastard managed to get away, didn't he?" Vi questioned, fury evident in her voice.

"Yep. He slipped away in the chaos. I spent another four months trying to find him. He disappeared completely, so I came here. I still don't know exactly why I decided to come here, but I am glad I did. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the new deputy had my dead kid sister's face." Jinx gave a slight smile."

Vi looked away. "I-I need a moment. I gotta go find something to punch." Vi stormed out of the room, looking distraught.

Caitlyn was bothered at seeing her partner like that. She looked over to see how Jinx was, knowing that telling her story must have been draining.

"...Are you alright, Jinx?" She hesitantly asked.

Jinx sighed, "Honestly, I don't know. I guess...better? Isn't that what you are supposed to feel after talking about shit like that? What do I know though, I lost my sanity a long time ago."

"Maybe you didn't though. You don't sound all that insane right now. Maybe you kept a bit of sanity, and have been recovering ever since. That is what it seems like to me." Caitlyn didn't know where she got those words from, but they made sense. Jinx didn't seem like the batshit crazy maniac that came to Piltover a couple of months ago."

"Well that's mostly because of you, Cait. You've been helping me through this. No offense, but I am kinda glad I crushed you under rubble." Caitlyn had to chuckle at this.

"Me too, Jinx. Me too."

They shared smile for a few moments. After a bit, Jinx dropped it, giving a fake cough.

"You should probably talk to Vi. I would do it, but I'm not that good at words and emotions and that junk."

"You're right. Knowing her, she is probably dealing with it in a stupid way." Caitlyn turned to exit the door.

"Cait," Jinx called. Cait turned back around. "Thanks. For everything."

Cait gave a smile in return, and went out the door.

"Cait," Jayce had called out as she entered the living room.

"Yes?"

"I sorta, accidentally, eavesdropped. Sorry. Is it all true though? What happened to Jinx and Vi, that is."

"Yeah, it is. Jinx was telling the truth. I trust her to have told it."

"Well damn, that's some dark crap then. Are you gonna try to find the sick bastard?"

"Yeah, Jayce. I am going to find him. Then I'm going to make him pay, dearly."

"I'll try to help get information on him as well. I'm sure the scientists around the city have heard about him in some way."

"Thanks Jayce. Have you seen Vi, I need to talk to her."

"No problem, and she went to that room to the left," Jayce said, pointing to the workshop. Caitlyn nodded another thanks, and went to the room.

"She's a genius, Cait." Vi murmured, gazing at the intricate weapon diagrams.

"I know, I didn't understand any of this either."

"No you don't understand. This stuff is so..so intricate. Like, I know everything about mechanics, or at least I thought I did. Everything about these diagrams are so confusing, even I don't understand it. And it's not because they don't make sense, they are just so advanced." Vi set one down and sighed.

"She really is my sister, Cait. And she saved me from all that shit that she went through. I treated her like crap for the longest. I-I could have ended up like her, insane and broken, but she saved me..." Vi lost her words thinking about it all.

Caitlyn walked over to her and placed her hand on the younger girl's shoulder.

"Don't think about the past and what could've happened to you. It's the past for a reason. Leave it behind, and look to the future," Cait advised.

Vi closed her eyes, and clutched her fists. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes, her pale blue orbs shining with a new resolve.

"We are going to catch that prick, and make him pay for everything he did. I'm going to beat the shit out of him, then spoon feed it all back to him to beat it out again." She boldly spoke.

"Agreed, just without all the vulgarity of that sentence." Vi chuckled, and they started to decide what to do next.

Concluding Note

And so everything is revealed. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, and even gained a lot of new ideas for the story after writing this. Updates should be more frequent as a result, if writer's block doesn't strike again. Hope you all enjoyed (or whatever, as this chapter was somewhat tragic).