The task of washing her hair is a grueling one, to be done with at least an hour at her disposal if not more. It's not even that she needs that much time to properly wash it- conditioner and all, it's what comes before and after that she truly hates (not that she likes to deal with it in the first place, hence braids). Namely- brushing. Some two meters long worth of work and it takes forever and then some to finish when started. Still, it's even more annoying when dirty and tangled. Fishbones mentioned once that she should simply cut it but while she did give his crazy idea some consideration, she eventually scrapped it as a no-go.
It's hers, Jinx is not about to give up on it, she only ever experimented with haircuts on her fringe but seeing the blue strands fall to the ground made her felt strangely melancholic. She refuses to go further than that even if it means a world of pain every time she grudgingly gets around to showering. Oh she likes water itself (unless it's Zaunite, you never know what manner of toxin got through faulty filters), only it's wet, and once her hair gets wet then good luck drying it up. As such she has taken to never washing her hair before sleeping, it's uncomfortable and a bother to find space to lay it out for drying.
Still, getting all the grime out is an enormous relief, she had no wish to deal with it until her back was at least mostly healed and would not be irked by the moist braids. So beside that one time when she caught fever she left it alone ever since blowing the factory up.
She groans as the brush get stuck after finding yet another knot on the top of her head. She has a suspicion that either Fishbones or Zap play with it when she's asleep just to screw with her, Pow-Pow is... Pow-Pow, he's a rather serious fellow most of the time and the maniac has trouble imagining him messing with her just cause. How they do it she knows not but seriously, this can't possibly be happening on its own, her sleep is restless and she tosses a LOT but it can't be the only reason.
Jinx sweeps a hand through her hair to pull out the loose strands and throws them into the toilet only to grab the brush again and start the process anew. If she's gonna deal with this then the least she will do is make damn sure her braids look nice. The thought leads the bluenette's mind to her posters all around the city. She feels highly insulted about the way they show her, she doesn't look like that when she smiles (does she?), that people can't remember her face right at the gunpoint is their problem not hers! But it sure is annoying. Well, useful too yeah sure but come on!
She wonders what Fathands thinks about her looks.
Her hand stops moving for a moment before she scowls and returns to the task at hand, agitated by her own thoughts. She finally puts the brush away and begins another part of the time consuming process, braiding. She prefers doing so with still wet hair as otherwise it proves to be quite the difficult task. Her fingers can't quite manage mastering the motions necessary. She bites her lip to help her resists a sudden need to scratch the back of her head, eyes twitching from agitation. She'll have to start all over again if she does and that will be even worse.
She rushes through the remaining motions and secures her work with a hair band before immediately digging her nails in the mess on her head to vigorously scratch it to the point of pain, grazing an old scar she usually covers with hair, the source of her ire- in the process. She can't remember how nor when in her life did it appear. Her memory from years back is spotty at best.
Satisfied, Jinx goes on about making the second braid only to find it uneven in length, a bit shorter than the right one. She takes both in hand to see that in her rush she made the first one a little more loose.
"Meh." She shrugs and tries to tuck the fringe behind her ear just to have it fall back to cover her face. Really. She glances at the hairpins inconspicuously laying on the sink's edge, after a moment of thought deciding to simply use wax to deal with the problem as she usually does. She nonetheless grabs the clips and sticks them behind her ear. She keeps telling herself she will figure out how to pick locks one day. Never really got around to seriously trying but she knows the theory behind it. And it's not like she needs to, the girl has her friends to deal with doors and nuisances of similar nature but she thinks it would be cool to know how to pick locks, maybe even useful when she wants to avoid noise (instead of having to bother with keys in say, hospitals). She bets her favorite officer knows how to. She used to be a thief from what she gathered.
"Ugh!" She shakes her head, the thoughts of Pinktard keep invading her mind way too often. It's like she built a nest there!
Her bloodshot eyes widen as the mental image of a miniature Vi, with pink wings, beak and all the rest of birdy stuff, flying around in her head and picking ears with hairpins, burns itself into Jinx's disarranged brain. She shudders and unconsciously picks her ear with a pinky as she reaches for the stack (a pompous name for the articles of clothing in question if there ever was any) of clothes she has managed to outfit her (many) belts with.
She rolls her shoulders to stretch out the skin on her back before pulling on the top part of her outfit over the head, and after few experimental stretches buckles it. She doesn't want to upset the bruised and dry skin under the piece, it's mostly just stinging by now but still, it's a bother, Jinx hates those insignificant things that do little more than create a distraction from whatever she tries to focus on. Her nose twitches at the thought, knowing full well its owner will have to cease using drops soon. She discovered on her own that for whatever reason her nose will keep stuffing up until she stops fighting it, after moderate amount of time given to the body to rid itself of sickness.
Not that her temperature is gone but the murderous cough that tormented her for the last few days is. At least her back doesn't look like a grumpy rainbow any longer. It looks like a yellow one instead, with red and purple bruises gone.
Not wanting to be coped up any longer than necessary she pulls on her unmentionables and shorts. She only found one stocking, the pink one. Even though she clearly remembers that a week ago she still had teal and violet ones, pairs even! How she ended up with one out of six she has no idea. She groans at the thought of blisters she's going to suffer unless she gets new socks. If this trend keeps up then she will walk barefooted in no time! And she happens to very much like her boots, mostly because her toes are safe and sound inside, as opposed to the stuff most ladies around Piltover wear, heh, to be honest she can't even walk in them but that's not a big loss in her eyes.
Why would anyone choose to torture themselves with heels on daily basis is beyond her. But there is one thing she does get about their outfits.
She reaches for the cosmetic box.
Now painting she can understand, painting is fun. Jinx has noticed women do it all the time, or at least the ones from the shinier parts of the city do. No wonder, the ones working in factories get so dirty by night time it's a miracle they aren't permanently infused with dust. They never let her do it before she got out and she has never quite managed to replicate the effect that this one lady in Zaun pulled off when she for the first time discovered this whole make-up stuff. Oh so many fancy names for simply painting one's face
She might have broken the aforementioned lady's mind with her tragic attempts at applying one, but she got better.
Mostly, anyway.
She throws the last brush back inside the box and scrunches her face up to admire the work she has done. Yeah, "mostly"- is a very good word to describe it. Jinx flashes her reflection a nefarious smirk at the thought of what's gonna happen soon. She was supposed to wait two more nights but ended up not capable of sitting in place for so long. She did her nails twice from sheer boredom! She even made a plan for tonight! It consists of two whole stages, plant a bomb in some place flashy to distract The Force from her real target, preferably hard to quickly access, so that cops have issues getting in and out of that location. Then get out and liberate hexplosives from the Academy. Simple, easy to follow, easy to remember. Basically fail proof if somebody were to question it (and she knows nobody will). Made in less than a minute so there is also that. Long winded plans never work, not that the criminal tried, mind. But she learns from mistakes of others.
It's funny how Hat Lady never learns how her elaborate traps are simply too sophisticated to work. If she really wants to stop her then she should simply call in a favor with Piltover's military and call for bombardment when the bluenette happens to be staying in one place. Or use the zeppelin for a more precise chemical strike. She got smoked out from Zaun because of such methods. Poison gas, she was coughing up blood for weeks to come after that. But boy was getting out of that pile of dung exciting! Best chase in her life right after that one where she collapsed a building on top of herself to escape.
She's really starting to doubt Snore Face's intelligence. So many ways to make things more interesting, collapse a building on her way, or the one Jinx is in. Poison the district, blow stuff up! No really, she can't outrun a shelling though she sure as a clock would have a blast trying. She giggles with a maniacal glint in her eyes.
"Hey Fishbones!"
"Yes?" Comes from the storage room where the sociopath left him so that he could get acquainted with three bombs she made this evening.
"Don't you think it'd be a blast to run from a shelling site?!"
"Not funny Jinx." The girl's expression turns sour and she storms out of the bathroom to retrieve all the supplies she will need for tonight's escapade. She shots her friend a glare as she enters the storage room but doesn't stop gathering her things as she speaks.
"Whatcha mean? It's hilarious." She puts on her gloves, used to be that both were the same length but one of them got torn up by a cat lately. Of all things, stupid cats, too stupid to be fun to play with and too big for a good target practice. At least they run fast, somewhat compensating for it. Pigeons are better, small, fast, and they fly.
"It's a pun." Well dur.
"Yeah, they're great, you're such a fun sponge."
"About running from a death zone, why don't you ever try normal jokes?" She freezes. Normal jokes?
Huh.
"You know any?"
"...no."
"Well then don't go around telling people to make them! That's stupid, okay hang on." She grabs his strap and throws him over her head, followed shortly by another belt with rockets- six to be exact, she fidgets with both until arranging them comfortably on her back. It hurts a bit when Fishbones rolls around but it's nothing she can't handle. "You never laugh. Why?"
"There's nothing to laugh at. And before you ask, I don't see what's so funny about destruction."
"You don't know a lotta things you're missing out on, but you never even try to enjoy yourself. Gears- you're a rocket launcher what else could you want?"
"I told you, some peace and quiet for start-"
"Yeah, sure, a weapon wanting peaceful life," snarls Jinx. "Can't believe I made you. Scrap's all you're good for in a house. Or a dumpster. You wanna be a dumpster?"
"I'd be happy if you were." This again, he keeps saying that as if he knows what she thinks. And he doesn't because she is perfectly happy with her life!
"I'm dandy now, so stop giving me your crap cause you're a death machine for life!"
"I just-"
"Blah blah blah, you just want me to die of boredom. My butt can't take any more sitting- figuratively." She grabs two ammo belts, then starts fastening them over waist and back. "And I don't hear better ideas coming from you. Or should I turn myself in?"
"You don't listen."
"And you do?" She picks up six snail drums and attaches them to the hip belts, then turns to the silent Pow-Pow and packs another three into him, each for one barrel. He's rather small when folded, she could actually make it so that he would be the size of a lunch box, BIG lunch box but still, she could fit it into a backpack. But that would mean having to unload the minigun every time she'd want to switch his size. So she decided to stick with a bigger version.
She can't tweak Fishbones too much as the barrel needs to be tight enough not to spit fire outside of it, restricting her options quite a bit, to visuals mostly. She picks her pink weapon up and straps him to her waist belt.
"Life isn't all about fun you know," he grumbles.
"Who says so?" She turns head to see his face, genuinely interested.
"Normal people?" Well that's a relief.
"Sheesh. So I'm normal now huh?"
"No! I- you-"
"Oh come on, I'm not gonna pretend to be like all these bores. But - heh, imagine me, in a... an apron or something, really," She giggles "Me. Settling down." It's like forcing a fish out of water and expecting it to live. Which they don't. She knows that first hand. From many (many) times she tried figuring out if they can.
"You could try though."
"And you could try to be less of an ass about it. I built you, I can replace you if I want."
"But you won't." It comes out more as a question than a fact he was probably going for. The girl turns away and lets the question hang in the air as she grabs Zap and puts him in the holster before finally answering with a smile that is only a little off.
"Nah, I probably won't. Now c'mon!" She throws the explosives' satchel over the shoulder, swaying lightly under the weight of all the gear she put on herself. "Let's wreak some havoc!"
"Put your signature here, here aaand here. There we go miss, you are free to go." Says the secretary in the hospital's departure office. Really, Vi hopes never to see more papers again in her life, so the thought of returning to work in a week to be drilled by Cait to finish paperwork as fast as possible sends an unpleasant shiver down her spine. At least a month of such treatment, she's not sure if it's a lesson for spilling on her report or not but it is her own fault. Finishing it before deadline, what came over her?
Ugh, she'll just have to get through it for however long it takes. Vi picks up the holdall (courtesy of Jayce) with her gauntlets from the ground, as while itching to wear them again, she's off duty and not allowed to do so on hospital grounds, technically, who would have stopped her after all? But it's not like she can't wait another hour until getting back home, to tweak and calibrate them a bit as they keep malfunctioning ever since the last fight. Besides, while she certainly hasn't stopped trying to write with the gauntlets on, the officer managed only a moderate amount of success in that venture. Along with breaking dozens of markers.
She grabs the bag with the rest of her belongings and after exiting the office moves to the entrance. Futureboy should be waiting for her in the parking lot already, in her own car as his was apparently confiscated for the time being. She snorts at the thought, it was hilarious to hear the man rant over the phone about all the parts he will have to smuggle into the city since even black market is not in possession of what he needs. Vi knows that because she is the one who helps him acquire the goods.
The pinkette finds him leaning against the passenger's door, with the window open and radio music coming from the inside. The machine itself is modified to handle small arms fire and not exactly the image of perfect care as Vi tends to pour more love into her Gauntlets first, then her bike. The car being somewhere down the list. Basically an emergency vehicle she's not opposed to trashing.
"Hey Jayce what's up!" His eyes snap to her, only now noticing Vi's arrival.
"Hey yourself. I've been looking for a place to store some of my work away all day, nasty. Apparently I'm not really a wanted person in the circles I'm looking around. Fancy that huh?" He finishes, tone heavy with sarcasm.
"No shit." The Enforcer throws her bags in the trunk before approaching her friend and playfully hitting him in the shoulder. Which she apparently overdid as the man winces and rubs his arm, the woman answers his annoyed glare with a smirk "Don't be a baby, and what did you expect? You screwed over how many fences those people were working with?"
"I know, I know, still, I've got to stash it somewhere, outside the city if I have to." He sighs. "I will have to throw it out otherwise."Vi rises an eyebrow at that.
"Throw away? Okay you got me curious, whatcha got there that's so bad?" She asks while walking around the mask to get into driver's seat. She can let others drive her car but not while she's around, unless she can't of course.
"Nothing... extremely bad, just a lot of it." He says as he gets into the battered vehicle and shuts the door behind him. "Little things, radio wave interceptor, independent battle AI, bugs, cipher breaking, focus and amplifier for custom laser cutters, the works."
The woman starts up the car and moves out onto the streets.
"Don't you have half of that licensed anyway? I mean you invented the current standard for radiophone so what's the big deal?" None of that sounds particularly bad, he might omit some nonsensical rules about safety and such when testing a laser outside Piltover's Scientific Industry Department but all inventors do that anyway, scared of competition stealing their work, it happens all the time so that fear is actually well founded.
"Broad length wiretapping."
She shouldn't have asked.
"Oh. Ugh, maybe- maybe we should drop the subject. I don't think I should know the details." She falls silent for a moment before adding, "I could look for a storage you could use though." If her boss ever got to know about this...
"Thanks, I appreciate it."
"Nice to know, what's the rush anyway?"
"Caitlyn more or less said she will get a warrant to search my laboratory soon." Vi whistles as she hears this. Cupcake getting a warrant for her little helper means a couple of things. Firstly, some high up bureaucrat rat must be looking into Jayce's case again and she wants to throw him off, and secondly, she must not have liked him getting caught and connected with anything illegal, thus the planned shakedown. To keep the city hero on his toes. Or even both, or she might be PMSing, who knows? "How long do you think?"
"A week, tops." The Enforcer laughs when she hears Jayce groan on her side. "Suck it up man, you don't even know how much stuff you can move in a day when you really have to."
"It's delicate machinery, you can't just throw it in a box and drive it without securing the package."
"Please, it's better to throw it all out then?" This gives the scientist a pause.
"Eh. Good point I guess, come to think of it I should probably ready it for transport beforehand."
No! Really?
"You know, it's amazing how for a genius you don't seem to think too far ahead. I approve."
"I don't know how much is your approval worth but I'm honestly touched."
"Hey! It's worth helping you keep all your precious inventions right?" She huffs and pauses for a moment a an idea forms in her mind. "Hey, what you say for a night out? I've got a week of big fat nothing ahead of me so don't worry about Cait this time."
Jayce winces as the memory of said last time resurfaces in his mind, when he and Vi got absolutely smashed in the middle of week, it wouldn't be such a big deal if not for the fact that his pink haired friend literally vanished for a whole day. As it happens, the Sheriff concluded it his fault that her officer did not arrive for work (not that she wasn't chewed out and flooded with work for her "irresponsible behavior", when after a whole day of search he found her still plastered and ready to board a ship to Iona). It might have only been a tongue lashing since really, what else could she actually do? (beside forcing him on a wild chase after Vi through the entire city that is).
But if someone were to say that being scolded by the Piltover's Sheriff is no big deal, Jayce would be forced to punch that person right out. To protect both his and Vi's honor. Or anyone's ever that had found himself in trouble with the raven haired beauty for that matter.
She can be downright terrifying when she wants to be, she knows just the right words and just the right tone to make a person feel like a stupid, meddling child.
She's incredible like that.
"Uh, you're absolutely sure about that?"
"Yeah, yeah. Lets just drop my stuff off and let me get ready, and get batteries in my gauntlets changed too, they got fried. Thanks for the bag again, very convenient."
"You're seriously taking them with you?" He asks incredulously.
Vi stops the car and turns in her seat to pointedly look at the Mercury Hammer lying on the backseat.
"Alright never mind. Point taken."
Expect shit to go down next chapter. Our girls are ready for a night out!
You're shitting me... 5. That's commitment to the cause right there! Thank you, whomever actually chose to participate. By the difference of 1 vote I hereby announce Vi's nickname spelling to be Fathands.
"Insert applause pls"