Powder wasn't stupid. She looked at her older self, and almost recoiled.
That older pretty girl with the long dark hair called her 'Jinx'. The single word that haunted everything Powder did; whether Mylo called her it or not.
None of her monkey grenades worked?
She's a Jinx.
That one time they did work and Vander had to spend half an hour taking bent up nails out of her legs?
She's a Jinx.
The job went wrong because those blue stones were apparently magical time bombs?
She's a Jinx.
Something goes wrong and it's not actually her fault; but she's involved somehow?
She's a Jinx.
But Jinx didn't look like a jinx. Powder was tiny and slower than the others. She cried easier, and she couldn't help out much despite wanting almost nothing more. Powder was a jinx. This woman who had squatted down to cup her face with the tenderness only Vi had ever shown her? Jinx wasn't a jinx.. "No. You're Powder. But I'm Jinx."
She was beautiful.
"And we're perfect."
The surety in girl's tone took Powder's breath away.
Caitlyn wasn't sure what to feel. For the first time in years, she had missed her target. She didn't mean to shoot that massive gun. She meant to paint the floor with Jinx's brains. But the weapon's light completely obscured her vision at the last moment.
Jinx was going to slaughter the council. All of them. Even mother. And Jayce. Caitlyn's relationship with her parents was strained, at times, but the idea of losing even one of them to the madness of that blue-haired bitch was unacceptable. And Jayce was the older brother she was never allowed to call him as growing up.
Unbidden, the dark thought crossed her mind that Jinx's attack on the council could be considered vengeance for the deaths of her own parents by the order of that same council. Enforcers wouldn't just kill people from the Undercity without the council backing them up. She knew that. Caitlyn had looked up the riots that lost Vi and Jinx their parents. The Enforcers were not in the right; the whole thing was a demonstration of power, nothing more or less. Not that the records called it that. But Caitlyn knew how to read between the lines.
Caitlyn of before wouldn't have really cared about it all. Well, she would've cared about the wrongness of it out of personal principle, but then Vi happened. And suddenly the fact that Jinx and Vi's parents had been murdered on the Bridge by enforcers in front of them when they were children put a name to a victim of the Enforcers' violence. It made Caitlyn wonder about Sheriff Grayson's role in that campaign. As a part of her cried out that the chivalrous woman who made her want to be an enforcer in the first place wouldn't have had any part of that shameful business. But the more cynical part of Caitlyn whispered that before all else, Sheriff Grayson was a professional who would follow the council's orders, even if she knew they were wrong.
Caitlyn shook her head. Revenge or no, justified or no, Jinx had tried to kill her mother. And that made her the enemy. The blast of blue that bounced them into the past was not something Caitlyn could've expected. But as she looked around at the three pairs of doppelgängers, she was beginning to believe she wasn't alone in her confusion as to what to do next. Even now she was restraining herself from trying to put a bullet in Jinx's skull.
Vi would never forgive her if she pulled the trigger like that. Might actually lash out in violence. Caitlyn knew that. Vi had spent nearly eight years thinking her sister was dead at Silco's hands. And Jinx had thought her idol, her older sister, had died as well. The moment with the flare stuck out in Caitlyn's head. Jinx had been crying, and it was only when she, all decked out in Enforcer regalia had appeared that Jinx' walls slammed back into place and Vi lost her chance at reconciliation. Well, Ekko probably didn't help that situation at all by kidnaping them and preventing a dialogue; even if the boy was well meaning.
"Can somebody explain what the hell just happened?" the boy with spiky hair spoke up as his eyes frantically darted between everyone standing around awkwardly all looking at the interaction between Jinx and her younger counterpart. Caitlyn could tell the moment he noticed the enforcer uniform Jinx had forced her to wear to her ghastly tea party.
Caitlyn decided it was time to use that enforcer training for good and rally the situation. "Jayce, do you have tea or something? We all need to sit down and talk, and this will take a little while."
Jinx stood again and looked at Caitlyn with a smirk that sent chills up her spine. "Aw, Cupcake. Didn't like my tea party?" Jinx's eyes were bright. Not as bright as when she had accosted her in the shower, but Jinx was a feral beast and Caitlyn was inherently afraid. The girl had just shot her adopted father to save her sister. The horror of the moment must still be raw, and thus Jinx even more unstable than usual. There was also the yet to be explain reason why her eyes had changed color. Jinx didn't seem the type to take Shimmer.
"Can we just not. At least not until we figure this thing out? The shit that just happened should stay between us. If we fight now, we all lose," Vi spoke up in a tone that was almost barking, but Caitlyn could see the desperation in Vi's eyes. She knew, and Caitlyn knew, that Jinx could take them in a fight. She was different now. After the bridge, something was done to her. Physically, she was more than a match for them. Far stronger than she'd been before, if how she swung that massive gun like it was nothing when before she needed both arms to brace it against her hip to at them.
Jinx looked for a moment like she'd like nothing more than to fight, but her horribly violet eyes flashed back to Powder before she seemed to reel in her emotions. "Alright then Cupcake," Caitlyn flinched at the moniker coming from Jinx. "How about we see how your tea party goes."
For all his faults, Jayce was always able to read the room. Caitlyn wasn't sure if he could feel the danger radiating from Jinx, or the tension between the three travelers. But he did as Vi suggested, dragging Caitlyn's younger doppelgänger along with him. She had been staring between both versions of Vi. There was something childish and wild in Caitlyn that nearly made her laugh as she noticed that it seems she was destined to be attracted to Vi. Luckily, her younger self had her eyes mostly on the age-appropriate Violet.
Thankfully Jinx seemed to be busy with processing everything that had happened in the last five minutes for them. Caitlyn wasn't sure what would happen if she snapped. As twisted as she was, Jinx still adored Vi.
In short order, tea was served in a set Caitlyn knew Jayce only brought out once or twice a year when her parents would visit him to ensure that he was still worthy of their patronage.
"So! This seems to be a wildly unseen situation. Please tell me how the hell my prototype spawned older versions of you three?" Jayce started, always to the point.
"It's complicated," Caitlyn spoke up.
"No shit," Violet the younger spoke up. "First things first, we're gonna need to get our names straight. We can't just have two people saying 'yes?' when our names are dropped.
"Well, that won't be a problem for me," Jinx spoke up looking at her older sister. "I already made it clear my name is Jinx."
Caitlyn noticed Vi's flinch. She wasn't the only one. Powder's eyes crinkled in confusion. The former enforcer decided to speak up, "I'm Caitlyn."
"But that can't be right can it? Because I'm Caitlyn." The younger of the pair spoke up.
"We could always use nicknames," Vi spoke up, looking at older Caitlyn with a smirk.
"Vi no."
"Vi yes. This older Caitlyn will be called Cupcake." Vi looked entirely too smug with herself. Cait–Cupcake's frown at the pink-haired girl was fleeting before it softened into something else.
Caitlyn looked between her older counterpart and Vi making eyes at each other and muttered, "That's not at all dignified."
Jinx looked at young Caitlyn making a similar expression as herself and lightly chuckled, "You and I, might just get along kid."