So I really liked Arcane and wanted to try out a story following what happens if Jinx chooses a different path at the end of the season. Just so you all know, my experience with League lore is from this show, Legends of Runeterra and the research into the world I've been doing while writing this. Honestly gotta say I love the lore, but it gets goofy when you get to things like the Void, Aurelion Sol and the Aspects so those wont be featured in this story, but other than that Runeterra is awesome.

For trigger warnings, if you can handle the show then this story should be fine.

Anyways, leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter or if you have any criticism, but anyways, on with the show.

Jinx pressed herself to the corpse of her third father as Powder's heart broke for the last time.

I never would've given you to them. Not for anything.

She held his cheeks as she failed to choke the sobs before they could leave her throat.

Don't cry. You're perfect.

Her hands left his face and fell to his once pristine vest, now bloodied and torn in the aftermath of her mistake. Then, something within her shifted, like clockwork falling in and out of place, and the pain in her chest stilled, though it did not recede.

Silco's scarred face, so full of love and forgiveness and death - it tore at her in a way she knew she'd never be able to forget. In the end, she could only look away.

There was silence in that single moment that, for her, lasted until eternity and back, but she didn't say a word, even as she climbed to her feet and looked at what she'd done.

Violet stared at her, her expression caught somewhere between fear and concern - concern for her, even as she was tied to a chair and forced to play out the delusions of a madwoman.

And what delusions they were, setting up dinner for a family of ghosts. Vander, Mylo, Claggor - a father and two brothers whose only crimes were trusting her, and she killed them. And now she'd taken every item of theirs that she had left and brought them here; one last night together before she decided if she was Powder or Jinx.

She even brought the mannequins of Mylo and Claggor that she'd made all those years ago, when the loneliness became too much and the voices got louder and louder and louder and-

"Powder", Violet called out to her and Jinx… Powder - she didn't know anymore, and…

And what?

What did she do now?

"It's okay", her sister said, and her gun, the one she could swear she'd left on the floor, felt heavy in her hand, as darkness flashed behind her eyes for a brief moment.

Had she blacked out for a second?

Was it the Shimmer? She remembered being strapped to a table and pumped full of the drug, she remembered the soul-rending agony that accompanied it. She even remembered the visions of her sister and the Enforcer, fake yet so very real.

Could someone lose their mind a second time, under the right circumstances?

Still, that doctor… whatever he'd done to save her life had left her stronger and faster than ever before, and when that Enforcer bitch had pulled her own minigun on her, when her blood sang with the violence of it all, she felt powerful.

She glanced down to her gun, almost lost in thought for a moment.

Power came in different forms, she supposed. It was something she'd learned early on after Vi left and everything… changed, was the only word she cared to use. You could be powerful because you were good with your fists or a weapon, or you could have some talent with the magic that terrified the people of Piltover and the Undercity.

Her, though? She had her guns and her bombs and her smarts, and she was just insane enough to use them all, and people feared her because of it. It was why Sevika, for all her talk about Silco getting rid of her one day never actually tried to do it herself.

Power always came at a cost, though, and after what happened to her in that lab she had to wonder if she was even human at this point.

But as she found herself standing in front of the chair marked "Jinx", she couldn't find it in herself to care. Spinning the seat so that it faced Vi, she practically fell into its cold embrace, letting her arms hang spread over the side.

Jinx made to speak, then - to put voice to the words she'd been aching to say for hours, days, years, but something stopped her. It was the look in Violet's eyes that did it, fearful yet housing the slightest bit of hope that her sister might come back to her.

What was the point in speaking, anyways? Words didn't work - they never had! They didn't stop her Mom and Dad from losing their lives in a futile charge across the bridge to Piltover; they didn't stop Vi and her brothers from leaving her behind while they saved Vander.

No, the only thing that mattered was action.

She thought of her rocket launcher, the one she'd built after she reverse engineered Piltover's prized Hextech, and how a single pull of that trigger could change everything.

The Piltover Council wouldn't know what hit them.

How could they?

They thought their precious Hextech and their all-mighty Enforcers would be enough to protect them - they thought that street-trash like her were incapable of anything that could reach them up in their massive ivory tower.

We'll show them…

She was smart; she was dangerous.

We'll show them all.

She glanced over to the Hextech Gemstone at the center of the dinner table, resting atop the cupcake that she'd baked herself. It was meant to be a joke, like when she'd planted that paint bomb on Chuck's back in The Last Drop, but somewhere along the way, as she looked at the purple-haired Enforcer, tied down and so very helpless, it stopped being a joke and started being some weird, twisted form of vengeance.

Vi had left Powder when she needed her the most, abandoning her in the rain and, to this day, watching Vi walk out that alley was still the most terrifying moment of her life.

Her sister had screamed and slapped her when she needed her to understand because she only wanted to help! It was all she ever wanted to do! And when she had lost it all in that burning building, when she blew any chance at a happy life to kingdom fucking come, her one last bastion of support walked away.

Maybe… maybe the rational part of her understood that Vi needed space in that moment, maybe she'd have come back if it weren't for Marcus, but it didn't change anything!

She spent eight years alone save for Silco and the voices in her head, and even though Vi certainly didn't have it easy, locked away in Stillwater for that same amount of time, she wasn't broken like she was.

Jinx wanted her sister to feel that same heartstopping fear she had, all those years ago when Powder's whole world fell down around her, and this Piltie was the only way to do that, as much as she hated to admit it.

She wanted to hurt Vi just like she hurt her. She wanted it more than anything in the world because, if she could hurt Vi that way, then she wouldn't be alone anymore.

She wanted to do it so badly, so why couldn't she speak?

"Powder, just - just untie me and we can fix this, okay?" Vi pleaded, her eyes flitting between her and the Enforcer laid out on the floor. She tugged at her bindings sharply, panicked and desperate. "Please… Let me help you."

"Untie her, sure…" She heard from her left, and she looked to Mylo's corpse where it had begun to shift and writhe on the table, still facing away from her after she shot him - still gray, still dead. She looked away, but he carried on. "She'll help her Enforcer friend and then they'll arrest you. Or maybe they'll kill you…" A dark chuckle escaped him and his body shuddered with something she refused to think of as pleasure. "Personally, I like the sound of the second one. She still has one fat-hand left, Jinx", he said with amused contempt. "All it would take is a single squeeze and you'd be off with us."

Jinx growled, turning to Mylo as her blood began to sing again. "Just shut up! This is between me and her", she ground out, pointing at Vi for emphasis.

Mylo simply turned to face her, his head resting on his arms, in a way that might've seemed casual if it weren't for his hollow eyes. "Vander, Claggor, me", he continued, "and now Silco. Not much of a loss in my opinion, but he was family enough to you, so on the list he goes…"

Tears filled Powder's eyes even as rage grew in her chest. Anger wasn't alien to her, some days it was all she felt, but she still hated every moment of it. Sure, leaping across the table to beat Mylo's stupid, dead, corpse face in wouldn't help anybody, but it felt right in that moment, in a way nothing else did. But she'd feel the exhaustion later, the embarrassment that came after each one of her little tantrums, and that was what she hated about anger. It wasn't the feeling of it, that she loved, but calming down and realizing that everything was worse off than when she started.

Jinx's anger came from Vi, which was something she realized a few years after she joined up with Silco and his goons. She wasn't half as good at using her rage as she was, though. Vi could fight better than anyone she'd ever seen, taking that anger and using it as the fuel behind her fists, but when the little girl with blue hair and a broken heart tried, she could only ever scream and throw things around like a fucking child.

Her best work happened when she was in that blissful state between calm and mania, where she could think clearly enough with the energy to do something with all the thoughts in her head.

Jinx wanted to destroy Mylo, but she'd done that once already, and Powder was too tired, anyways. That boundless energy that had driven her to insanity and back over the years, it had disappeared and all she had left was regret.

"Please say something, Powder! I'm here for you, I swear! We can fix this!" Vi's voice reached a new high, her eyes almost flashing in the low candlelight even as her gaze flickered over to the Enforcer, and her thrashing renewed. "Powder, can you hear me, please?"

"Nothing can fix this", a voice so quiet Jinx could barely hear it droned out. "He's dead. Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Silco. Dead inside these four walls." It took a moment, but Powder felt the words leaving her throat and realized she was the one speaking.

Vi shook her head, desperate and full of panicked vigor. "We can run away, leave all this shit behind and it'll be alright! It'll be you and me, just like when we were kids, yeah? Please, Powder…" Her voice softened as her name left her lips, and for a scant second her struggles ceased.

As Powder made to respond, though she didn't know what she'd say, the Enforcer let out a weak groan, curling up ever so slightly as she began a slow return to consciousness. "What about her?" She asked, gesturing to Caitlyn.

Vi glanced back down to her girlfriend, or whatever they really were, Powder didn't care, she didn't, and hesitated. Vi had always been so closed off, but she was the most expressive person Powder had ever met. Not with her words or even her actions, but no matter how hard the redhead brawler tried, her feelings would always make their way to her face. It was an old skill she thought she'd lost, reading her sister like that, but maybe she'd kept something of herself from back when she was with Vander. Or maybe Vi was really just that expressive, who knew? She certainly didn't.

It didn't matter, because as Vi's gray eyes filled with fear and longing and hope, looking at the woman in the uniform that had caused them so much pain, she knew.

"You care about her." She said, voice as dead as the cold heart in her chest. It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.

"No, no, listen to me-", Vi cried, but Jinx wasn't having any of it.

"Don't lie to me", she said, and her sister fell silent. The words tumbled out of her, then, and she didn't even try to stop it. "You must've spent all those years alone in a cell, so of course you fall for the first pretty face to show you any kindness. I don't even blame you!" She let out with a laugh she didn't feel. "Silco tried to kill us when we were kids and I still love him - loved him." Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped them away with a snarl. "We don't control who we love, and we sure as fuck don't control what they do to us."

Jinx paused, looking to Vi, and she waited for her to continue pleading, to continue her stream of apologies that had started soon after she lit the flare and hadn't stopped since. Her sister was quiet, however, torn between looking at Jinx and the Enforcer.

Without a word, without even thinking, Jinx raised her pistol and aimed at the pretty girl slowly writhing on the ground. Vi lurched forward in her chair seemingly on instinct, her eyes wild. "Don't, Powder, holy fuck, put the gun down! Please! Please, don't! I'm the one you want! She has nothing to do with this!"

"There's the fear", Mylo drawled, his limp body rising up so that he could rest his elbows on the table, cheeks in his hand. His head was tilted to the side in a way that would've seemed unnatural to Powder back when he first started speaking to her, but she barely even noticed it now. "Look, she's shaking~"

He was right. Vi's hands, weapons as strong as steel, were clenched so hard that they trembled, and blood was slowly trickling from where her nails must've bitten into her palm.

It would be so easy. Five pounds of pressure on the trigger and Vi's worst fears would be realized just like hers had been, back in the alleyway just outside the building, when every voice in her head telling her that Vi abandoned her had been proven right. It would be so easy.

Vi was afraid that Jinx would kill her friend, that the Enforcer cunt had been right, that she was too far gone! That fear would be proven, and then they'd be in the same spot, together at last, after all this time!

But Violet would be alone.

It was that thought that made Powder lower her gun.

Fear was good: it kept you alive, it kept you motivated and it made sure you were always on top form. Powder knew fear well, and Jinx was a master in inflicting terror like few else in the Undercity. But if she pulled the trigger, if she killed Vi's first friend in nearly ten years, what would her sister have left, other than her regrets and a sister she'd hate?

The only thing Powder knew more than fear was loneliness.

Mom and Dad were dead. Vander was buried in a shallow grave somewhere alongside Mylo and Claggor. Ekko, once her best friend whom she had loved dearly, had either died on the bridge or was coming up with new ways to kill her. Fucking hell, Silco's corpse wasn't even cold yet and she was already halfway done ruining whatever relationship she had left with her sister.

Powder didn't have any family or friends left. There was no one in her corner, no one rooting for her, and that was something she'd learned years ago. Silco had loved her, in his own twisted way, but he didn't show it beyond not killing her even during the period when she was more trouble than she was worth, and by the time she knew just how much he cared for her, he'd slipped from her grasp forever.

Jinx was a monster. She was sick, irredeemable and unlovable, but through the fog of madness and rage she knew that, whatever she thought of her sister, she didn't want Violet to feel that pain, at least anymore than she already had in Stillwater.

Powder was broken and alone, and she hated herself with every labored breath that left her chest, but despite all that had happened tonight, she still didn't want her sister to end up like her, because that was what would happen if she killed Caitlyn. Vi would lose the one chance she had at love, at a better life with someone who wasn't damaged beyond repair. She would join her sister in her living hell.

Her pistol, lighter than ever in her palm, became heavy and she let it slip to the floor. The clang of metal hitting stone was like a gunshot in itself, causing Vi to flinch, and fuck did that hurt Powder to see - to know that her sister truly thought the worst of her. "No…" Powder said, voice a low groan, and for a moment she felt distant, possessed, even, like someone had gently taken the wheel from her in her mind, and she felt conviction enter her heart. Not hope, not even desire, just a sense that there was something she needed to see through.

This hell she existed in, haunted by the people she'd loved and murdered, she would make sure it existed only for her. Violet wouldn't see a fucking inch of it. It would be the one and only good thing she'd do with her life; she'd make sure of it.

Coming to her feet, Powder made her choice.

She trudged the few steps towards Caitlyn, gently resting upon her knees as her hands found their way to the Topsider's neck, checking for a pulse. She'd been moving around moments before but it wouldn't hurt to check. When she felt the steady beat upon her fingertips, and heard the breath quietly leaving her lips, Powder stood, looking towards her sister. Vi had a smile upon her face, the first she had seen from her since their reunion on the tower, and it was a small, hopeful thing. Her smile faded, however, with Powder's next words, stooping down to grab her pistol and minigun.

"She'll untie you when she wakes up."

Powder wasn't looking at Vi at that moment, she was too busy snatching the Hextech Gemstone from atop the cupcake she'd baked, a substitute for Cupcake's head. She'd have giggled at that any other time, but her heart wasn't in it right then. That hurt more than she expected, if she was being honest with herself. She liked jokes, she liked laughing at anything she deemed funny. She didn't like feeling sad and somber, it stopped her enjoying the few good things she had.

"H-hey, what're you doing?" Vi called out to her, drawing her away from her thoughts. Powder didn't look back, she didn't want to see the expression her sister was wearing. That didn't stop her mind from wandering, though. Would she be happy that Caitlyn's life was spared? Worried about what her sister was doing? She didn't know, nor did she want to. "Powder? No, no no no, where are you going? Powder! Hold on, please!"

The sounds of struggle resumed but she ignored it, slotting the Gemstone into her pocket as she headed towards the hidden alcove of the cannery where she'd hidden Fishbones, the Hextech rocket launcher she'd intended as a gift for Silco. She crouched down and removed the covering she'd hidden the weapon with and slung it over her shoulder, noting how light it felt and wondering if that was because of the Shimmer, before attaching it to the small clip she'd sewn into her shirt. Then she put her minigun's strap on her left shoulder and let it hang at her hip, holstering her pistol after.

What a sight she must've made, then, as a brightly coloured, five-four girl armed with enough weapons to wipe out every fucking Enforcer in the city, all the while looking seconds away from a breakdown.

"Powder! Come back! Ugh, shit!" Powder heard Vi curse before a meaty thud resounded through the space, and she could only assume she'd tipped over her chair while still being tied to it. She almost managed a laugh, then. That was her sister, making decisions without ever thinking them through, for better or worse. "Caitlyn! God, fuck! Wake up, for fucks sake, Caitlyn!"

And that was her cue to leave, because if Caitlyn woke up and tried to stop her, the Enforcer would die, and that would defeat the purpose of everything she'd done in the past minute.

She heard a groan and a weak voice call, "Vi, what… what's going on?" But she'd already left.

Jinx walked away, leaving Powder's broken family behind.

…

Her underground home was hidden by design.

After nearly half a year with Silco and his crew, he realized that Jinx wasn't exactly fitting in with the rest of his subordinates, leading to arguments that would've turned violent if it wasn't for the threat of Sevika stepping in, at least once her replacement arm was finished. Silco wasn't about to let his new investment cause problems within his gang so soon after Vander's death, especially during what was effectively his takeover of the Undercity, so he decided to move Jinx to a safer location.

It couldn't be anywhere "on the map", so to speak, but also somewhere he and Jinx could find easily enough. That, and having it be close enough for Silco to be able to check in on her at a moment's notice, narrowed down the list of options rapidly. Eventually, however, Silco's knowledge of the old mining systems that made up the deepest levels of the Undercity, what started the Undercity, even, came in handy.

See, there were dozens of large, industrial-grade fans designed for the sole purpose of bringing fresh air down into the Undercity mines, but as the years went by and they were shut down due to technical issues, more efficient ways of providing oxygen to the underground were looked into. The solution found were gas masks that could filter the toxic air of the mines into something resembling clean air, which were cheaper to produce and distribute than the overall cost of maintaining a huge, clunky fan.

And as the years went by and the Undercity grew from mining systems into a genuine society with its own culture and people, the now out of commission fans were simply forgotten by everyone. Everyone, except for those like Silco and Vander who owed the air in their lungs to such machines, back in the day.

Jinx remembered feeling hesitant when Silco first showed her the space, nearly eight years ago. What happened if the fan simply rusted away in the night and she fell to her death, or what if she tripped and fell off the damn thing? When she'd asked him, he'd told her she was more than capable of checking the strength of the fan herself, and that there wasn't really much he could say about the other scenario than "watch your step."

Other than those two glaring issues, however, it was pretty much perfect. The system of pipes that led to the fan base were damn near impossible to navigate without someone who knew the way, or a very detailed map, and the entrance to the pipes themselves were only around a ten minute walk from The Last Drop. Depending on how long it took Silco to make his way through the tunnels, he could get from his office to her place in under thirty minutes. Of course, getting things like sofas and beds and the equipment for her workshop down there had been an endeavor all on its own, but if Jinx was being honest the extra work was appreciated, even if she hadn't realized it at the time.

It had given her something to do, other than wallowing in her guilt and misery.

She thought many things of her home, hanging above the abyss. It was safe, warm, and large. It was her safe haven, her private place where she could escape from the world. But as Jinx stepped out the final pipe and down the ladder that led onto one of the fan's large blades, she realized that, more than anything, her home was empty.

Silco was the only other person who knew this place existed. Now it was just her, and that scared her. If she was the only one left who knew about her home, did it even really exist at all? If a tree fell in a forest and no one heard it, was there ever a sound? Jinx had heard that one from Silco during one of his grand speeches, back when he'd tried explaining to her the difference between thought and action, and the nuance that came with the two.

Thoughts, in this context, were actions yet to be done, according to him. But an action that could not be perceived by another was no different to a thought, for it was not real.

Jinx had never really understood that. She was a genius, sure, but philosophy was something only the Pilties bothered with, using all that free time they have from being given everything and not having to worry about things like food, shelter or whether they'd even make it to tomorrow. They were things she'd been concerned with, growing up in the streets of the Undercity, even when she still had Vi and the others, when she was surrounded by people who loved her and she loved in return.

But the people of the City of "Progress" never had to work for anything, so they spent their time pondering useless shit like "the meaning of existence" or "the sanctity of all life."

You know, silly stuff.

Jinx growled and tugged at her hair, kicking the air angrily; she was getting distracted.

This place… she didn't know, she'd lost her fucking train of thought…

It felt empty now, and she was the only one who knew about it, so, like thought before action, it didn't really exist. Now she was here, did she exist, or had she effectively vanished off the face of the planet? Was that how it worked? She didn't know, and she didn't care.

It was stupid. This whole thing was stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid stupid stupid stupid.

Powder fell to her knees and screamed, bashing her fists against the steel flooring and revelling in the pain. She screamed long and loud, knowing no one would hear her; not that they'd care if they did.

She screamed until her lungs burned and her throat felt raw, but that only made her punch the floor harder. She wanted to feel the bones in her hands break, craving the distraction of agony so she wouldn't have to think about what really hurt right then. Powder knew she'd been denied, however, when that new yet familiar fire ignited in her veins. It burned her, like her nerves had been set alight, but it didn't hurt. It felt good, and she hated it.

Shimmer…

Her eyes, once the gentlest shade of blue, were now a deep, sickly purple, and the feeling that she'd lost part of herself on that operating table grew under her skin once more.

The adrenaline activated the Shimmer in her system, a side effect of the procedure that saved her life when she hadn't wanted to live, and when her fists next struck, it was the steel that caved in.

She was stronger than she'd ever been in her whole fucking life! So why couldn't she hold onto someone, anyone! Why did everything slip out of her grasp at the last second?

Powder pressed her forehead against the cool metal of her home, the ache in her eyes forming into tears that streaked down her cheeks. Her fists came to rest beside her head, the blood that dripped down her fingers feeling like the first step to forgiveness, or absolution.

She needed more.

Jinx drew her knees under her so her chest was off the floor, planting her hands firmly, before driving her skull down with all her might. The shrieking sound of steel being beaten in was like music to her ears, but it wasn't good enough.

Weak.

She was weak.

Her forehead crashed down a second time, then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, until she felt blood dripping down her face, coming dangerously close to getting into her eyes. When Jinx looked down she saw that, somehow, she'd damn near sheared the metal in the floor and had cut herself on a sharp edge that had formed.

But it still didn't hurt.

Why couldn't she feel pain? Would she ever feel anything, anymore, apart from the ache in her chest? Did she deserve to?

Powder fell back, resting on her knees and rubbing the blood away from her eyes with a sob.

She didn't deserve anything.

She'd killed people, and while they were her enemies, Firelights and Enforcers alike, they were still people. What would Mom and Dad think of their little girl, their Powder, if they could see her now? What would Vander, or Mylo, or Claggor say? Would they say anything at all, or would they stare at her with that same disappointed look they had since she took their lives, all those years ago?

But… but she'd spared Caitlyn, and she'd given Violet a chance at a life with someone she could love. Wasn't that something? Her one good deed, wasn't that what she'd said? She'd made sure Caitlyn was okay, and she'd walked away forever, lest she hurt her sister more than she already had. It was all she could do, because anyone who came close to her suffered, and she wouldn't allow Violet to stand next to her, in her own, personal hell.

It wasn't right.

She'd hated Vi just as much as she missed her, for all those years spent in this fucking hole in the ground, crying out for a sister she hoped was dead to come and save her.

The blue smoke she'd had tattooed on her skin, a mural depicting that stupid flare Vi had given her before she went to save Vander, her last connection to her, ached in a way Powder wasn't sure was real. Sometimes, when her mind overtook her and she was left alone in her bed save for the ghosts only she could see, she'd hold that flare to her chest and pray that Vi would find her. She'd never used it, though, however much the urge to writhed like ants under her skin, so she expressed that need with the ink on her side, a silent plea that no one else but her understood.

She could forget about it most days, she could claim she only got it because she thought it was pretty, but on the days when she really needed Vi, she knew their bond would be with her until the end of her days.

Jinx told Silco almost everything, but never that. It was one of the ways she coped, and Silco never liked weakness, or ways of dealing with pain that didn't make you stronger.

She clenched her fists and felt the steel breaking beneath her fingers, tearing the metal from the floor without meaning to and scrunching it in her palm.

Blood and forgiveness.

Absolution…

She'd lied when she said helping Violet would be her one good deed. Powder didn't know if she was strong enough to do it, though. Wiping away a life of sin with one good deed wasn't possible, but two? Maybe…

Powder staggered to her feet, vision swimming as glorious pain returned to her body, the steel digging into her hands having slipped from numb fingers. She folded her arms across her bare stomach, shivering despite the heat in her home. Her sight was failing her, tears and the stars in her eyes coming close to blinding her, but she knew this place like the back of her hand and she found her way to the edge of the fan blade with ease.

She wiped the tears from her eyes with her forearms, being careful not to get blood in them, and saw with clarity for the first time in what felt like years.

A broken girl stared down into the abyss, and she liked what she saw.

There was no fixing her mistakes, she couldn't take back what she'd done. The people she'd hurt and killed weren't coming back, and even if they did, they'd condemn her as a monster and a freak. She was unstable. She was a danger to the world and the few people she had left in it, and there was nothing left to do but make it right.

The games she played with Vi, where they pretended to be monsters; in the end, Violet would be the one to save her from her own imagination, the hero at the end of the story. But, in those stories, the hero killed the monster to save the people they loved, and that made things simple.

She was the monster who wanted to be the hero, just this once, and that meant she had to die.

Powder moved forward an inch or so, so that the tips of her steel-toed boots hung over the edge. Each breath felt like a knife in her chest, but they gave her courage for some reason.

She didn't even need to jump. She could just let go, and gravity would do the rest.

"Wow, Jinx… You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this." Mylo's distorted voice crackled next to her ear, and she could feel his presence just over her shoulder; the world's most annoying angel of death. "I mean, it's about eight years later than I was expecting, but good job on surpassing my expectations."

Powder hated the way he sounded in that moment, mocking and satisfied, like her life was just a burden to be eased. Maybe it was…

A growl of frustration tore out of her, her hands coming up to tug at the hair on her scalp. "Just shut up! Please!" Begging was weak, she knew that, but she couldn't handle him right then. "This is it, I'm done! You got your wish, just leave me alone!" Her voice broke with a sob and a fresh wave of tears rolled down her cheeks, eyes burning.

Mylo only laughed while his pale, gray fingers wrapped around her shoulders in a vice-like grip. "No, no. You see, that's not how this works!" He shouted, and Powder jumped because he'd never raised his voice to her, even in all the years they'd been together. "It's your fault that we're dead, and it's you who keeps us here!"

She staggered as her brother spun her around, forcing her to meet his hollow eyes, and he grinned, the corner of his mouth reaching all the way to his ears. His body cracked and twisted in the dim light, like Mylo was just a disguise for some greater, darker entity, and it's true form was beginning to shine through.

Then his cold hands moved from their place on her shoulders, ghosting up her neck and over her chin so that his palms came to rest gently on her cheeks. Mylo's next words were soft, caring, and for a moment Powder believed her brother had truly come back to her, that the past eight years of her life had all been a bad dream. It wasn't to last.

"We're stuck together until the very end, so… feel free to kill yourself."

Jinx…

Powder…

She knew anger, she knew sadness, jealousy and fear, but she had never felt as empty, felt a complete absence of emotion as she did in that moment. "Why're you doing this to me…" She barely recognised the sound of her own voice, like a wounded animal begging for salvation, or death, like there was a difference between the two.

She wanted this to end just as much as Mylo did, but he was her brother. Couldn't he love her in her final moments? Even just a warm smile, so she wasn't alone. Why couldn't he give her that one thing, if only to make the end easier?

Mylo's face twisted, his features becoming almost monstrous as his fingers tightened on her face, and he threw her to the floor with a cry of animalistic rage. She managed to catch herself, but she landed badly on her hip and she cried out in pain. She looked up at him, heart pounding wildly in her chest, and tried to scramble back on her hands and feet as his arm snaked down towards her once more.

It didn't matter how fast she was, though, since his arm moved with inhuman quickness and soon her jaw was caught in his grasp again. Her breath left her in ragged pants and gasps, irrational fear building up in her again.

"Oooooh, is little Pow-Pow afraid…" Mylo crooned, face pressing right up to hers so that she couldn't look away. He snarled, fangs bared, when she whimpered. "You were always the burden, needing the three of us to carry your weight wherever we went. You couldn't fight, you couldn't protect the haul, and you could barely even keep up with us. You were a coward then, and you're a coward now." He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in before asking the damning question. "Do you think they were afraid when they died?"

He tried to force head to the left, so that she would be facing the central space of her home atop the fan, but she fought him tooth and nail, slapping at him with her hands and trying to keep her head still.

"Look at them, Jinx."

It was a command that echoed in the deepest parts of her, reaching down into her flesh and bones, seeding itself in her aching heart, but she didn't want to look. She couldn't look.

"Look at them!"

"No!"

"Look!"

Powder screamed, wrenching his hand from her face and spinning away. Then she curled up on her side, wrapping her arms around her head so she couldn't see, no matter what. She could hear her own voice, then, chanting "no, no, no, no", under her breath, though it didn't feel like she was the one speaking.

The world went silent save for her cries, along with the quiet creaking of metal as she rocked back and forth on the floor. And, for a while, time lost meaning as she laid there, sobbing like the child she pretended not to be.

She couldn't fix this. She was a contradictory mess of broken thoughts and dreams; she couldn't fix herself. She didn't want to even try. There was a point of no return, and she'd crossed it so many times she couldn't even count. Even if she found some semblance of sanity, she'd still be a monster, and a murderer.

The edge into the abyss called to her, just like her bed did on the mornings where getting up seemed like too much effort, but she didn't dare move. They were out there, waiting for her just outside her vision. She didn't want to see them. She couldn't handle it.

All Powder could do was breathe, and pray the next breath would be her last.

She felt Mylo's presence over her shoulder, watching and judging her as she lay at his feet, but he must've grown bored after a while since he walked away, the quiet footfalls sounding like gunshots against the steel. With him gone, Powder was able to rein in her breathing as best she could, and she noticed just how sore her entire body was.

When was the last time she slept?

It had to have been right before the doctor injected her with shimmer, when she'd been on death's door and in the blissful realm of unconsciousness. Did that really count as sleep, though? It didn't matter, what's done was done.

But she really, really wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for the next week.

She couldn't, though. She needed to see this through, needed to make this right. This wasn't for her. No, this was for everyone she'd loved and lost. Mom, Dad, Vander, Mylo, Claggor, Ekko…

Violet.

Silco.

What would Silco think of all this? Turning the Undercity into Zaun was his life's work, and no matter what people said about him, about how he controlled the people through violence and drugs, he truly cared for this place, these people. And he threw it all away for her. For a daughter he once tried to kill, the same girl who his former brother took in after her birth-parents died. He'd given her food, money and a place to live. He'd given her tools to build whatever she wanted and, when she got old enough, he offered her a place at his side as he raised Zaun from the dirt under Piltover's boot. Not forced, offered. She had every chance to say no, but how could she, when he had saved her?

He'd loved her, and accepted her. Maybe she was wrong in every way a person could be, but Silco had never once looked at her differently because of it. He'd only ever tried to help her through her pain, in the only way he knew how, because Silco wasn't perfect. He was preachy, pompous and so stubborn, but he was hers, when she had nothing left.

He gave her everything he had, up to and including his life, his dream, so that she could live.

Was she really going to forsake him, when he had the chance to do the same, and didn't?

Powder took a deep breath and rolled onto her hands and knees, quickly wiping the tears from her eyes and lamenting when they came off purple, before staggering to her feet.

She said she wouldn't look, wouldn't willingly confront the ghosts living in her mind, but she needed to see him. She didn't know how she knew he'd be there, she just did, because she needed his advice one last time, and he'd never let her down. If that meant she needed to see Mylo and the others, so be it.

Steeling her nerves, she turned and faced her family.

They were all there, scattered around the central space of her home, some lounging on various bits of furniture and others standing, ready. Mylo and Claggor were sitting on the floor right by her little workspace, where she built her toys and perfected her Hextech, glaring at her with dulled eyes that screamed out for vengeance. Vander was standing near them, gray and animalistic, knees bent with his eyes locked on her, his gaze flicking between her and his two sons. It felt like he was sizing her up, like a wolf staring down a sheep. Across from him, standing at the edge of the fan blade she was on, were her parents. They're forms were murky, unclear, and the only definite features of theirs that she could make out were their linked hands and their disappointed eyes.

It hurt to see.

"Do you think they were afraid?"

And, the last of her victims, sitting in her workshop's chair, idly thumping through her stolen notes on Hextech, was Silco. It felt like her blood froze upon seeing him, like all the air had been knocked out of her lungs, but that didn't stop her from taking hesitant yet hurried steps towards him. She only stopped when Vander planted his right foot forward, snarling; a warning. She stopped in her tracks.

"Answer me." Silco growled, but she was too busy looking at him to respond. Her eyes roamed over his broken form, his bloodied suit with holes in his torso that she put there, along with his eye which, once a bright orange, was now chalk white. "Jinx!"

"Ye-yes?" Jinx replied on reflex, flinching back with her hands in front of her chest.

"Were. They. Afraid?"

"I, I, I don't…" She trailed off, reaching up to run her hands over her right braid of hair; a nervous habit. "I don't think they were…"

Silco stood with a sigh, shaking his head like he was disappointed with her answer. "Of course they were afraid, you stupid girl. That didn't stop them from giving their lives for what they believed in."

Powder blinked and her father's slender corpse appeared right in front of her, his hand latching onto the front of his shirt when she flinched back. "What's stopping you?"

She shook her head, trying to pull away but he only pulled her closer. "You're too weak, you lack conviction."

"No…"

"Yes. Everyone standing before you gave their lives in service to a goal they believed in, one they knew was greater than themselves. You haven't got a goal, and even if you did, you wouldn't be strong enough to see it through."

"You're wrong! Please, please, believe me!" Powder wept, reaching out with her hands to pull her father into a hug, but he moved away before she could. "I don't know what to do! Please, tell me what to do!"

"You were always the sheep, weren't you. So brilliant, but you always end up in someone else's shadow." He told her, the words tearing through her like knives.

"I don't care! I just, I just, I need you. I need you! Please!" She was hyperventilating, the calm, detached part of her noticed, but it did little to stop the string of words leaving her lips. "Do you want me to die? I can do it… I'll do it if it's what you want!"

She screamed when his palm met her cheek, knocking her to the floor, and the agony that rocked through her was something more than physical pain. And as she was laid out on the floor, hand held up to defend herself, Silco's pale form shifted into something feminine, dark hair turning bright pink, his suit and tie morphing into white and red Trencher's clothes. Fire flashed in the edges of her vision, and suddenly she was in a burning alley.

And then, as quickly as she was gone, she returned to herself, to the ghost of her third father staring down at her.

"I gave up everything for you, and you're going to spit on that sacrifice!" Silco screamed at Powder.

"Then what do you want me to do!"

Silco spread his arms wide towards the ghosts of her family and said: "I want you to do as we did."

"Wh-what?"

He smiled and crouched down, taking her trembling hand in his own.

"Do as we did. Fight the good fight, then die."

His free hand vanished into her pocket before producing the Hextech Gemstone.

"You want me to make more Hextech…" She whispered, awed.

"It is the key to freeing our people, Jinx, to gaining the respect of Piltover, once and for all."

"And once I've done that… I can be", she trailed off, and Silco finished where she left off.

"Then you can be free, and you will see us again."

That sounded amazing, like a dream she would've had back when she was younger, back when she still had light in her life.

"Give Hextech to the people of Zaun, without restriction from those in Piltover who would seek to stunt our growth. That is your goal."

Jinx had never heard anything so beautiful in her life.

She shot to her feet and dashed past the ghosts of the people she would soon see again, practically jumping into her workshop chair and snatching up her tools.

Jinx would fight the good fight, and then Powder would die.

A broken girl lost herself in her work, while those who once loved her vanished from sight, but, for once, she didn't notice just how alone she was.

She had a job to do.

Hope you enjoyed, and see you next time where we pick up with Vi.