"Whee! Look at all the pretty colors, Fishbones!" Jinx giggled as another house went up in flames. "And the music… it's so beautiful," She added.
"I believe the 'music' is screaming, Jinx," Fishbones "replied". "He" was right; Jinx was enjoying hearing the cries of Noxians rising up to meet the smoke from the smouldering buildings. Some cries were from guards that had either been blown up or simply thrown backwards. Others were from innocents that hadn't heeded Jinx's warning and were burning along with their houses. And still others were from guards that were burning as well.
"Thank you for shopping Jinx Airlines!" She said cheerfully as a soldier attacked her, only to be driven away by a rocket to the gut. "Looks like you had a blast! Haha! Get it?" She said as the guard exploded along with the rocket a moment later. "I'd say fly with us again, but…" Jinx let it hang as she frowned down at the puddle that was once the poor soldier.
"There she is! Be careful, she's insane!" An enormous monster of a man, at least seven feet tall, ordered from beneath his bulky, ornate armor. The sword he held had a red blade, customary for Noxian generals as it reflected their fierceness in combat. But as Jinx stared at her new enemies, he was not her concern.
She was more concerned with the soldiers themselves. "Are those…?" She whispered. She quickly found that yes, those WERE Vi's gauntlets on the arms of every man in front of her as they dashed toward her in the Assault and Battery formation. "Shit!" She yelped, pulling a smoke grenade from her belt and tossing it down. By the time the fog had cleared, she was gone and the smoke had disrupted the gauntlet's homing programming.
"She can't have gone far and she can't run forever! Spread out, hunt her down in groups but stay apart so she can't blast you all at once. Smash her brains in!" Randuin ordered. As his men split off, he smiled under his helmet. "And meanwhile, I shall return to lead the other group," He said as he stalked off.
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"Come on… he must have ran off somewhere. He better pray that it was far enough," Vi growled as she prowled the empty alleyways that housed businesses and shelters alike. As she emerged into the main business area, she saw Caitlyn fighting and furrowed her brow; she'd gone too far. She turned to back and her blood ran cold at the sight she'd caught in the corner of her eye.
Riven and Singed were going at it, just like in the mines. Riven had been fighting off Singed's bio-weaponry at every turn, whether it be his clouds of toxins, the needles or even a poison-filled bomb he'd thrown. Vi could clearly see that Riven hadn't been able to avoid all of it; her eyes were glazed and her fighting was sloppy.
She saw it all happen in slow motion: Riven's knees buckle slightly, Singed's grin as he took advantage and threw her yet again and finally the soldier that turned around with her own hextech gauntlet technology and slammed the exile in the face. The explosion of hex energy literally crumpled Riven's skull; there was no coming back from that. No rescues. No divine intervention.
Vi's heart burned with emotion as the broken sword flew from Riven's limp hands, clattering along the ground until coming to a rest not far from Vi. The brawler looked at her gauntlets, charged with energy. She could charge in and swing for the fences at Singed's head. Hell, she could probably knock him into next week. But she shook her head: there was only one right course of action.
Katarina yelled her real sister's best name as she saw the white hair disappear from view. She'd seen what had happened even as she pulled three knives from a downed warrior. Katarina was shocked to see hextech gauntlets on the new wave of soldiers in the first place, but now that shock was matched with despair. And then she saw Vi. Vi, the one who originally created the gauntlets that had just slain Riven.
Katarina was enraged. But she knew how to use the anger. Hey, assassin. It's go time¸ she thought.
With pleasure, the killer replied before bursting forth from Katarina's mind. She shunpo'd from one man to the next, an equal opportunity killing machine that Caitlyn had to jump away from. She ran straight for Vi and the real Katarina panicked; she was fighting to regain control over the cold heart that had broken free. I act only on your innermost desires, Katarina heard her dark self intone. Katarina tried to shake the fact that deep down she wanted Vi dead for enabling Riven's death but could not deny it.
Lux realized it first and fired a stun out, miraculously snaring Katarina. "Kat! Get ahold of yourself!" She yelled before spinning around and beheading a man who'd tried the same on her. Kat agreed inwardly and fought to regain control, but the assassin within broke out of the binding spell and continued her path of destruction toward Vi.
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Vi looked down at the broken sword… and began charging her gauntlets. And kept charging them. Caitlyn heard the familiar noise and looked over just in time to recognize what was happening. She'd heard that noise before when things had gone wrong in the garage and Vi had overcharged her gauntlets with energy. The results were often concussive.
"What are you doing, Vi?" She called as she pierced a man with the Demacian-issued bayonet on her rifle and fired into the hole she'd created. Vi gave a low whistle as she dropped her left gauntlet and held it in her right hand, overloading with hex energy.
"Playing catch," She growled before throwing the gauntlet overhead. It landed in the middle of a group of reinforcements that were charging into the battle and went off like a small nuclear bomb, annihilating them. "Get back!" She yelled, pointing to a group of Demacians who were engaging the enemy. They'd seen the first explosion and quickly ran as the other gauntlet blew up behind them, leaving another pile of ashes in the place of the soldiers that were standing there.
Then she knelt down and picked up Riven's blade. Singed, who had been watching the proceedings with interest, laughed heartily. "Going to try and avenge your fallen friend with her weapon? You use your fists, silly girl. I doubt you've ever used a sword in your life, much less a broken one," He sneered before charging forward with a huge syringe in his hand.
Vi grasped the hilt. Singed was right; she'd never used anything but her own two hands to settle her fights. She'd tried out weapons as a kid on the streets, but anything that wasn't either her own two fists or something to enhance them felt bulky and unwieldy. But this… This sword was not a sword. As Vi swung the blade and severed the needle, the weapon became nothing more than an extension of her own body. As Singed gaped at the useless item, Vi dove and rolled behind him, popping back up and slicing through the hoses that connected the poison emission barrels to his back, causing it to fall to the ground and leave him with nothing but his own two hands and the emergency dagger at his side.
Singed was dumbstruck as he watched Vi expertly spin the blade as if she'd used it from birth, charging forward and throwing the blade at his face like a spear. Singed went prone to dodge it and rolled back over just in time to see the broken sword somehow flying back through the air and into returning to its wielder's hand. He rolled again to avoid being skewered, rose to his feet and was greeted with a slash that laid open his left cheek.
"That one's for Lux!" Vi spat. With Singed reeling, she slashed again, exposing the muscle and tendons of his right leg. "For Katarina!" She continued, followed by a vicious slice that removed his left arm from his body. "For Jinx!" Singed continued on raw instinct to step back as Vi put her right foot forward, spun on it, stomped her left foot down as she turned from him and pushed off as hard as she could, driving the blade barely past the tip into Singed's forehead. "And this," She hissed, dropping low and kicking out to take his legs out, "is for Riven," she finished, axe-kicking the blade down to the hilt into the ground through the terrorist's brain.
Caitlyn was nearly paralyzed in shock as she watched Vi at her deadliest. She remembered what Vi had told her before, that the brawler had blood on her hands from her past. But now she'd seen it in person, and it horrified the sheriff. She stared as Vi roughly yanked the blade from the dirt as she took deep breaths.
"YOU!" Vi looked up just in time to avoid Katarina's attack. "You did this, you bitch!" She roared as she slashed again. Vi raised Riven's sword in time to deflect the blow and jumped back to create space between the two women. Vi looked at Katarina first in disbelief, then in understanding as she noticed the cold eyes. .
"Kat, get your fuckin' dark side under control!" Vi demanded as she tumbled away from the continued assault. Around them the war raged, Demacian against Noxian, champions against champions, and even as Vi continued to defend herself she wondered where Swain could be. A shallow cut to her arm brought her back to the fight at hand.
"You're the one that invented those damn things! You. Killed. Riven! PAY!" Katarina shrieked, intensifying her strikes and forcing Vi back. The enforcer quickly looked left and right before noticing Caitlyn. Her sharpshooting partner could surely incapacitate the out-of-control assassin long enough for her to regain control. Vi began to back off in Caitlyn's direction, but Katarina kept coming.
Caitlyn realized that Vi was trying to line up a shot, but with the two in such close quarters it was nearly impossible for her to hit one without hitting the other. She growled and spun around to see a Noxian swinging toward her, barely missing her head and sending her signature hat flying. Caitlyn snarled in a very un-Caitlyn-like manner. No one, but NO ONE touched her hat.
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"Did I shake 'em…?" Jinx wondered as she ran toward the fighting in the business end of town. "Well, shit. Guess not," She said with a smirk as she saw a wall of men in front of her. Leading them was Randuin, who ducked as Jinx fired her "ultimate" rocket. Even he was impressed at the damage it'd done- it had literally flattened his men into the earth and created a depression in the ground. Luckily, his stronger armor had protected him from that fate.
"So… You're Randuin, eh? The one that directly ordered the hit? You took my parents, my life and my sanity from me," Jinx said, her psychosis melting away as she saw the man. The two circled each other, measuring, assessing. Randuin unsheathed his sword and nodded.
"It was nothing personal. It was a military-issued order from my higher-up. I was told to eliminate as many of Zaun's military officers as possible. I was raised in this city-state and its army, Jessebelle," Randuin said. "You must understand that. And to refuse an order from Swain is to invite death and allow the order to go through anyway."
"That doesn't erase the suffering that my sister and I have endured," Jinx snapped.
"Nor does the fact that you've recovered from your insanity assuage the pain of the families you destroyed," Randuin answered. Jinx blinked and bit her lip. He was right.
"…You don't even want to fight me, do you? Down deep, you never wanted any of it, did you? The military, being a captain, ordering hits…" Jinx asked. Randuin looked at the ground briefly, though his mind screamed at him to stop letting his guard down.
"My father, my grandfather, his father… the lineage intertwines with this militia many, many generations, girl. It wasn't really a choice."
"But if it was a choice?" Jinx pressed.
"…I don't know. I just don't know," Randuin replied, troubled. Jinx hesitated; she had the perfect shot lined up in a small hole in his armor. And then she heard something she never thought she'd hear.
Drop the gun, Jinx heard her other side advise. She noticed that time had been stopped again, and Jinx sidestepped from Jessebelle. Jessebelle turned her head and rose an eyebrow.
"You've trusted me all day, haven't you? Trust me here. I don't know why, but somehow I just feel like you're needed in the fight ahead. I may be crazy, but trust me on this one. Besides, if you don't kill him it's 160 ounces of blood less on your hands! Maybe more, judging from the size of him," Jinx added. Jessebelle blinked a few times, decided she really didn't want to know how or why the psychopath knew that number and nodded.
Jinx slipped back inside and time went on as normal. Jinx remained still for several seconds before finally putting Fishbones onto her back. "I… I don't want to fight either. I have somewhere else to be," She approached her former opponent and removed his helmet. Randuin did not resist; he seemed torn between emotions. Placing a hand on his bare shoulder, she smiled. "You won't have to fight anymore. Trust me," Jinx said as she met eyes with the man, then gave him back his helmet.
"Why's that?" Randuin asked as she walked away, replacing his headpiece.
"Because I'm going to make all your problems go away," Jinx smirked as she heard the timer go off on the timed mine she'd place on his form and grinned as his final cry of pain split the air. "And you're next, Swain," She growled as she ran ahead.