Vi had never been more confused in her life. She could hear gunfire ringing out through the office, mixed with the screams of the injured and dying. The lights above her flickered on and off and a fire raged somewhere behind her, the head of which she could feel washing over her aching body. Every so often an explosion just like the one that had started it off rocked the building. Someone hit her across the face hard, but she barely felt it. Caitlyn was shouting at her, her words washed away by the utter chaos that filled the office. She heard her name, shouted by Caitlyn's voice, but not from her lips.
Caitlyn hit her across the face again and the world caught up with itself. The dull ringing in her ears vanished in an instant, knocked from her ears by the hard slap of the Sheriff. "Wake the fuck up" Vi heard her angry voice say. "I can't wait for you to snap out of it, I need you right now!"
Vi shook her head once as she regained her senses, reaching one hand up to rub aching cheek Caitlyn had slapped. "I'm here" she said finally, trying to make sense of their surroundings. "What's happening? How many are there?"
"No idea" the Sheriff replied, slipping a revolver into Vi's empty hands. "but we've gotta deal with them before they kill anyone else."
Vi gripped the weapon tightly, studying the comfortable grip. Unlike the service revolvers the police were required to carry, this one actually fit her larger than normal hand. She hefted it once, feeling its weight push back on her. The handle was some kind of wood; oak if she had to guess, stained a dark red that contrasted the chrome steel of the gun perfectly. "Look at you" Vi said with a half smile. "Just like a boy scout; always prepared."
Caitlyn rolled her eyes and lifted her own weapon, an eloquent looking automatic pistol. Vi looked around the office as Caitlyn peeked over their cover. The place was in total shambles; papers everywhere, file cabinets knocked over, their contents strewn about the floor. The frames which once made their homes comfortably on the walls now lay shattered on the floor. Vi glimpsted one of Caitlyn's many "Officer of the month" awards briefly where it lay.
And then she saw the hole. What must have been a six foot in diameter circle had been burned clean through the wall of the building, revealing the city outside. There was nothing left in it's path; no tables or chairs, not steel cabinets, no desks or people. Vi glanced around their cover (which she now realized was the Sheriffs overturned desk) and followed the path of devastation. Sure enough, Vi could see down the cleanly burned hole, all the way to the elevator across the room. The The cubicles that were in its way had been cut through like they were nothing. What looked like a pair of legs lay in front of the elevator, separated from their now nonexistent body.
"Holy shit" Vi muttered to herself.
"Hey!" Caitlyn said, forcibly pulling Vi's head until she looked into the Sheriffs eyes. "Focus" she said coldly. "I need you right now. Not when you feel like it, right now. Are you with me?"
Vi gulped hard, trying to calm her racing mind. "You got it Cupcake." she said, her voice cracking ever so slightly.
"Good girl" Caitlyn responded, patting the pinkets cheek lightly. "Now let's go take back our station."
The device Jinx held in her hands was the most glorious piece of destructive power she had ever imagined. It didn't just kill people; it eviscerated them. It didn't just blow stuff up; it perfectly destroyed it, leaving virtually no evidence of it's existence. She saw a flash of movement as an officer ran out from behind the desk he had been hiding behind. He had barely made it three steps before Jinx fired the cannon again and vaporized him.
But Jinx felt nothing. The usual happiness that filled her when she killed, when she destroyed, was gone. She had nothing but the solid lead block that had once been her heart, and the voice of her long lost sister repeating the same three words over and over again inside her ruined mind: "Kill them all. Kill them all."
The voices all rang out in her head, screaming over one another in an incoherent roar. Jinx didn't hear the screams or gunfire around her, didn't hear the huge booming roar as her weapon fired once more at some unsuspecting victim. All she heard were the voices.
And she had to make them go away. Her brain felt like it was tearing itself apart as they all screamed their own objections, their own approvals, their own madness. Where did one voice end and another begin? What sounds were reality and what sounds were her own psychopathy? There was no separation anymore for Jinx; they were all real, all coming from somewhere around her. And she had to make them go away.
Vi sprinted hard out of the office and down the hole that had been left by Jinx's super weapon. She dove into cover as bullets rang out around her, shielding her head from the little bits of plaster and steel that rained down all around. Someone came around the corner in front of her. Not an officer. Vi unloaded her weapon on him and saw the bullets ping off of his thick steel armor. He stumbled back from the force of the shots, catching himself on the cubical next to him.
Vi dove for the brute, tackling him hard and sending them both crashing through the weak plastic wall he had caught himself on. Flipping the revolver around in her palm, Vi struck the man with the but of the gun in his unprotected face. Blood poured from his broken nose as she pulled the weapon back and hit him again, harder this time. She heard a satisfying crunch as something in his face broke and crumpled beneath the force of the blow. The man grunted in pain, trying to wrestle the muscular woman off of him. Vi hit brushed his flailing arms aside and struck him again.
Vi felt the brutes struggling stop, not knowing weather he was dead or just unconscious. She didn't really care either; there were more important things to worry about right now. She tossed her spent revolver aside and quickly searched the man. He had been carrying a crude looking battle rifle, definitely not Vi's style, and a massive chrome handgun, also not her style. She stood quickly, doing a cursory inspection of her surroundings. She had to get to her cubical and fetch her gauntlets.
Once the coast was mostly clear, she made a mad dash down the hall. Gunfire whizzed around her once more, which slowed her a bit. Knowing how vulnerable she was without her armor, without her gauntlets, made her think twice about every tiny movement she made. Jinx's weapon roared to life once again, filling the office with blinding light and excruciating heat. Vi cried out in pain as the skin on her left leg burst into flame. Her muscled charred and boiled as Jinx's weapon just barely missed her. Vi willed herself to ignore the pain as she toppled over and rolled in a crumpled heap to a stop.
Vi scrambled into cover, her back against one of the hard plastic walls. She was so close, she realized. Just crawl she screamed in her mind crawl your ass over there and kick that bitches ass! Vi rolled onto her side and began to crawl, but instantly regretted it. Her vision blurred as pain split her leg and arched throughout her body like a thousand volts of electricity. She willed herself onward, knowing that if she passed out, she was dead. It was ten feet away. Five feet away. Three feet away. She finally pulled herself into her trashed cubical and fumbled for her gauntlets which rested safely under her desk, seemingly unaffected by the chaos around them. Her shaking hands made their way inside them, inside their homes.
And everything slowed. Vi sighed happily as the pain in her leg seemed to fade away as the familiar vibrating hum rocked through her hands and into the rest of her body. A cool water flowed into her brain, numbing her mangled leg, calming her racing mind. Nothing could touch her when she had these puppy's on. Nothing could kill her. But she could kill them.
Vi pushed herself to her feet and punched through the wall of her cubical with one swift swing of her fist. The henchman nearest her cried out in surprise as she rocket towards him, fist pulled back. Before he could even raise his weapon to fire, she hit him, full in the face. The force of the blow sent him tumbling through the destroyed office some twenty feet. Vi didn't have time to see if he stayed down though. Another henchman, maybe fifteen feet away, was quicker to react. He raised his rifle and fired a burst in Vi's direction, but she was already moving towards him. She held one fist in front of her face like a shield while the other wound up to deliver another blow. This brute fell just as quickly as the last. Vi spun around, searching desperately for her next target.
She saw the woman just in time to dive out of the way. The massive beam of light cut another perfect hole right where Vi had been standing only seconds before. Heat rippled over her once more, but the kind of pain it had delivered last time was nowhere to be found. Vi rolled to her feet and charged the blue haired maniac, knocking filing cabinets, desks, and chairs aside with swift and devastating punches. Vi saw a flash of fear across Jinx's face as she moved closer and closer, far quicker than her weapon had time to recharge.
Vi took a swing at the psycho, but she was too fast. She dropped the heavy weapon and rolled away, pulling Zap out of it's holster as she tumbled back onto her feet. Vi dropped low to avoid the weapons arching electrical blast, remembering the last time she had used it. Jinx backpedaled as quickly as her legs could take her, firing zap after zap at quickly approaching pinket. Vi ducked and weaved away from every shot, intently focused on her target. The fear had returned to Jinx's face, but it wasn't a flash this time. The Enforcer could see it grip the woman like an iron vice, slowly squeezing down harder and harder.
Then the last nail sunk into Jinx's coffin. Her back collided hard with one of the only remaining cubical walls in the building, stopping her swift backpedaling in it's tracks. Jinx felt the fear bite into her brain just before Vi's blow sunk into her stomach.
The woman flew upward, hitting the ceiling with an loud crunch and a grunt of pain. She fell back down to the ground, right beside the waiting enforcer. Not missing a beat, Vi flipped the maniac onto her back and pinned her arms down with her knees. Vi's gauntlets slid off of her hands and thunked to the floor as she hit the release switches inside them both.
"Are you fucking happy now?" she muttered, sinking her right fist into Jinx's face. "Have you killed enough people today?" one of the knuckles on her left fist split as the punched the woman again, but she barely felt it.
Jinx took each punch numbly, barely registering them. Who's voice was that? That couldn't be her. She was dead. Jinx had killed her. But she was speaking to her. The voices inside her head had all silenced, and Violets voice had left her once more.
"Why can't you just fucking listen to me!?" Vi screamed, punching her harder than before. "I'm your fucking sister you bitch!" She cemented the last word with one final punch.
Vi huffed heavily, closing her eyes as hard as she could. The adrenaline began to wear off, and the pain returned to her leg with each pump of her pounding heart, but she didn't care. The pain in her heart overtook every other pain she had felt before. Vi remembered the little girl that she just couldn't get rid of. Jay had clung to her leg like a little puppy on and off the job, so much so that Vi actually started calling her 'pup' instead of sis. That little girl that she had to take care of more often than not; making sure she didn't get sick, that she ate well, that her hair was out of her eyes so she didn't bump into stuff. Vi bent her head down and cradled Jinx's head softly. She didn't cry. She had no more tears to shed.
"What am I going to do with you?" Vi whispered to herself, quoting that phrase she had said millions of times before, years and years ago.
Jinx couldn't speak. Clarity was washing over her for the first time in years, cleaning her muddled and dirtied mind. She was broken, she realized dully. Broken and shattered beyond repair. Violet had always taken care of her when she was young, always found a way to save her in the darkest of times, but there was no saving Jinx from herself. I'm to broken to be fixed she thought suddenly. With the last of her sanity, Jinx uttered the only two words that made sense to her.
"Kill me."
Vi stared into her sisters eyes, recoiling slightly like she had been struck by a viper. Vi couldn't process the words, couldn't comprehend what she was being asked to do. She couldn't kill her little sister, could never end the life of someone she loved so wholeheartedly. Jay, the little girl that she had taught to be a mechanic only to be surpassed by her natural talent with machines. Jay, the sister that had had her back in every job, on every robbery, no matter how bad it looked. Jay, the only person that understood why she cried at night, knowing that she would never see her parents again. Jay. Her sister.
But she wasn't Jay anymore, Vi realized suddenly. She was Jinx now, from her overly long blue twin-tails to her seemingly random tattoos to her psychotic and clumsily constructed outfit. The little girl that Vi had loved was long gone from this world, replaced by this broken and inferior copy. Vi's little sister had died in that mine all those years ago. Vi stroked her sisters hair, still cradling her head with both hands. "I'm sorry" she whispered.
And with a jerking twisting motion, Jinx got her wish.
Hey. Abe here. There's nothing I can say here that will make this ending any better, or explain things any clearer. This was a difficult chapter to write.
As always, please continue to show your support by reading and reviewing. If you have any requests for stories or are interested in roleplaying, please PM me any time. I hope part two was everything you were expecting.
Abe