FALLOUT

The door was busted open by a kick as the laceless shoes and an almost crumbling striped set of pants walked out the back door, into a street just left vacant, followed by a pair of long live powder-blue braids that gathered upwards, past the X-shape crossed black top to the messed upper hair of the purple-eyed girl, her face singed with some ashes and a clearly hurt, spent expression. She didn't even care of the collapsing Pure Air factory, set ablaze, as she got out, or the smoke and smog which slightly covered her.

It all finally happened- no, it BLEW on her face.

Not the rocket on that tank. The clear choice. Just like as it was in the party.

How could've she given a smallest chance to talk with her when it was all so already past the point of no return...

Again she believing Powder was still there...

Again believing there'd be a chance for them to be back together...

Again believing they'd be sisters...

Instead she blocks for the demon Cupcake after all *it* had done, all to hurt both the Loose Cannon and the brawler, even leaving Vi to fight that monster mutt that was surely gone at that point... Else Vi wouldn't have come to save the *real* monster, would she?

And now that Piltie demon had her sister again, all for herself.

Unless a part of that indeed wasn't all the demon, but instead Vi's choice. Vi *did* have a lot of Vander within her... Wanting to be a hero, protecting people with her fists, being the one everyone can rely on...

And yet how come she can't come to help the one she claims to care, but never actually *does, while she goes for everyone else?

And the hypocrisy in those words... that it's about everyone... that she gives more of a damn for Ekko and his buggers and even how worse the topsiders are than she ever gave for her very flesh and blood...

As Jinx walked down the street, in very slow steps, as the distant sound of gunfire echoed across, but none of the annoying voices tormenting her, or even the one she'd heed. Her mind was buzzing as her heart and chest pulsed in pain from all that hurting she was, that did bring her to that night in the cannery.

That hurt of betrayal. That feeling Silco did say either broke you or made you something stronger..

Definitely latter, though, as Jinx wasn't feeling ANY of that strength, right now...

It didn't take long for her to take notice of the bodies lying down on the street, spread about. Both enforcer and Urgy's nutjobs. A fight that took place, as usual in Zaun. In one side there was maybe three to four of those stupid topsiders as there were the cultists on the other.

But one in particular wasn't usual. As if she didn't belong to either.

A girl that Jinx *did* meet before. She was one of Ekko's band when Boy Hero had to be taught humility.

Except the girl now had bullet holes around her and especially on her forehead, almost atop her right eyebrow. Simply lifeless. The one girl that was there, whom was *saved*.

Now there, all dead, right between them...

And then Jinx noticed there was an enforcer rifle there too, close to her. Not too hard to draw the dots.

Jinx simply stood there, staring at the girl. And then at the enforcers. And then the cultists. And again, and again and again.

And then Jinx started to feel something she didn't think she'd feel after all that.

The feel of an urge.

The urge... to laugh. Like, really laugh, like she didn't in a very long time.

A fight she couldn't resist, as what started with a snicker and then a chuckle turned into a complete laughter, almost a cackle, but not a genuinely funny one.

But rather one of insane sadness, of the absurdity of it, one that had her fall to her knees.

The *absurdity* of her sister's words. The words that now did, right there, that final tiny nudge. The nudge to the fall and right deep to the well...

"It's not that black and white...", Jinx struggled to form her phrase amidst the laughter. "It's not that black and white, you say, sis...", the snicker was now subsiding. "Not that black and white... THEN WHAT YOU CALL THAT, SISTER!?", her voice boomed as she gestured at the bodies ahead of her, the rage returning as her purple eyes did begin to shine. "What you call that, *sister*? Sister who wants to fight for them... Who chooses them! Well, your chair, sis... YOUR CHAIR! JUST LIKE YOU HAD ME CHOOSE MINE!"

Jinx then got on her feet, breathing erratically, nodding erratically too. "Your chair...", she mumbled. "You wanna go all *Vander-style, huh, sister? You wanna be just like him? Well, lemme help you with the 'failing to keep'em safe' part! You'll see... You'll see! YOU'LL SEE! YOU AND ESPECIALLY YOUR PASTRY DEMON!"

She turned around to leave in hasty steps, with all the strength and insanity she could muster. She could see all of their figments, staring at her.

The Mylo. The Cleggor. The Vander. The Silco.

All silent.

All witnessing.

"You'll see, sis...", she whispered, the head all fuzzy. "You'll see... You'll see, sis..."


The battle at the main street was not going well.

Indeed they weren't thinning out in numbers and weren't stopping, even with all the rounds in the world being fired at them. Already the line almost buckled twice because of those more crazed fanatics with iron pincers of sorts. The line was almost attacked from behind from some cultist groups as well. The enforcers on the bridges and catwalks above couldn't be of much help, either, as they were being pinned down by the armed cultists as well.

And now the biggest of limitations was upon them - lack of ammunition. How can so few bullets stop a horde? The logical answer was: they couldn't. And there were no news of fresh ammunition coming their way. No good news at all, as the enforcers wouldn't stand any melee. They were a police force, above all else, not as trained for shock as Noxians or Demacians were.

"Dispatch, Dispatch!", an enforcer shouted from his radio. "There's too many of them for our bullets! We lost the main street, we can't hold!"

Suddenly, an explosion above rocked the bridge slightly ahead as the middle section then cracked and collapsed, taking any enforcers atop it down with it. It didn't take long for one of the enforcers, Officer Reat, to notice something behind the charging mass of cultists and the debris that did fall atop some of them, uncaring of the losses.

Something rather large, almost twice the size of a normal man, brandishing some sort of large cannon. A cannon that was then pointed right at the line. Right at his direction.

A loud noise was then heard, and a thick muzzle flew fast, hitting an enforcer to the right of the line, hitting with such a violence and impact it blasted his left lung and pushed him back against his companions, buckling the line. And then another shooting sound, and another muzzle. And another, and another, which virtually fractured the firing line as the cultists moved in.

"PULL BACK!", another enforcer shouted. "PULL BACK!"


"Dispatch, dispatch! There's something large in here tearing our men to shreds with a cannon! The main street is collapsing!"

"Multiple hostiles on Japper Street, more than we can handle! We can't hold, we're moving out, stay away from Japper Street!"

"There's over five- no, seven above, they're jumping! Pull back, PULL BACK!"

"Another group, we're cut off, get indoors! GET INDOOR- GAAHH!"

The voices at the radio stations did say clearly enough of the situation in the makeshift outpost close to the bridge at the southern isthmus. One report, at one point, depicted these cultists jumped from the balconies, bridges and catwalks right atop the enforcer firing lines to sow chaos for the advancing forces. And some enforcer groups in other streets have retreated as more and more numbers, no doubt all of those from the Dredge, started to move in and muster in a big force.

None of this was good news, and Camille deep down knew it. It was a whole different kind of enemy they were facing, unlike the Chem-Barons' henchmen. Those could be broken, outmaneuvered, dealt with, unlike the cultists. If an enemy was so unafraid to die, how could there *be* a victory?

The answer was there couldn't, there could only be slaughter. Something totally inelegant, except for perhaps a Noxian. Which her adversary was, too. And thus whatever initial advantage they had was lost and now were being as overrun by the gathering new higher numbers of the opposition, clearly unafraid and even suicidal.

"Ammunition report.", the Warden-Marshall ordered.

"Crates to cross the bridge in ten minutes, fissure level in fifteen.", an enforcer reported.

"Warden-Marshall.", another enforcer, a female one, called. "Dispatch at Central just called in, we have 516 in custody and on her way to Point One."

"The gauntlets, as well?", Camille asked, and the enforcer nodded. "Begin withdrawal orders to Point One. After the inmate is at the bridge, retreat all personnel in the southern isthmus, reinforce guard at the Bridge. Detonate the elevator shafts and staircases after three minutes, then."

"Three minutes?", the enforcer asked. "Ma'am, we still have several enforcers spread about down there!"

"They had best *haste, then.", Camille raised her tone as to declare the word is final. "Issue the orders. Carry them out."


"This is Dispatch, all units, new orders. Withdraw to Point One, repeat, withdraw to Point One, general retreat is in effect. It's not a joke, you WILL get left behind, fall back NOW! General retreat to Point One!", the Dispatch voice rang on some radios, but it was ineffective as the cultists could reach the enforcers' line, dragging and striking them down, while the shots from the cannon-toting figure were hitting the enforcers on the catwalks above. Only a few could turn around and run as a few others tried to provide covering fire for the retreat.

As Reat turned around as he ran, he could see the cultists really being as brutal against the few defending enforcers.

His heart raced, and then shook his head as he turned around, ran and didn't look back, with others.


The towering stature of the Dreadnought at the midst of the blazing, ruined, corpse-riddled Main Street remained as stoic even as the cultists howled and roared in total savage triumph, given the engaging enforcers from the topside had retreated, clearly unable to bear that much the pains of conflict. Pains Urgot himself was long used to. Clearly he knew the topsiders could be barely blamed. How could they bear it, given they spent most of their years in peaceful splendor?

As he walked forward, he could see the cultists did drag in some living enforcers, no doubt for their own pleasures, be it the quick ones of doing it themselves or going even more slowly. Something Urgot in particular never took a liking to.

One shouldn't toy with his food, after all.

"Hold.", he ordered a pair of cultists dragging a clearly injured enforcer, as they then stopped and he approached and towered in his enormous stature before the downed enforcer, whom froze and shriveled before the enormous size of the man-machine hybrid. "It is something else, I know... Just so indescribable.", he said. "It has been indeed *too long* since you and your peers felt it, has it not? Clearly there is some truth to what those physicians claimed: too much time in the sun can be hazardous for you. Such was the case just now. And for you to believe you could take what was yours, in your state... still, I appreciate your effort."

The Dreadnought then took a step back, if that could be called so when he had the Six, and then pointed his cannon at the enforcer, whom beheld it frozen with due dread.

"Do not fight it.", Urgot said.

The enforcer could but close his eyes as then the loud gunshot noise came and the wide flash, followed by the noises of something piercing and blasting through meat. Sounds that did draw the attention around the Mighty One.

"You may keep on along, now...", Urgot said as he then turned around to leave the Main Street, walking down to what some would call his domain, close to where the Dredge once stood, prior to the cataclysm, along it's empty streets, where he knew many lied in hiding, in fear of the open, like preys before predators.

Such was the way of Nature. Either they did learn or soon would, and this was just the beginning of it.

As we went on his way back, however, along the road he did come across something rather unexpected. Or expected, but only unannounced.

Jinx, sitting in the middle of the street, with apparently most of her weapons with her, staring at him with a rather weary, hurt expression. As the Dreadnought then approached, he could the more evident signs something did transpire during the engagement with the enforcers, or more specifically, the ash-stained skin and the messed up top hair.

"Hi...", she said, as if she had done too much effort to let it out.

"It seems *both of us* have had our trials, little one...", Urgot said, a second later.

"Sheesh, how'd you figure?", Jinx asked, in sarcasm but too weary, as she looked down.

"One who is perceptive can learn so much, without having to be told.", Urgot answered. "Not just your appearance, Jinx. That look as well, in your eyes. The headsman I told you of before once had it. It was that look that defined him, in the end. The look of betrayal."

Jinx stared back at Urgot, that phrase indeed recalling one of Silco's lessons. When she was 'reborn' in the waters of Zaun.

'Betrayal, that pain, it feels like it'll eat you from the inside out. It can either break you, or forge you into something greater.'

"You also let a weak man die, didn't ya?", Jinx asked, but got no answer, Urgot simply staring at her, though his eyes did dart aside for a split second. She then looked down. "I tried doing it all, being it all just for her. For sister. To earn her approval. Her love. Even took what she called me to heart, being called a *jinx* just fine. Tried being what I thought she wanted for me..."

"Someone to look up to.", Urgot said, a couple of seconds later. "So much we make anchors out of them. Crutches and ropes. Until they let us down."

"You don't say...", Jinx's voice almost croaked. "And now, for all my troubles, she's with those dung farts you must've met. In those stupid fancy clothes and shiny helmets, living way up there in the bright sun and the pretty rooftops and the sugar-sick pastry... Wanting to save people. To be a hero."

"Hero.", Urgot replied, with some subtle contempt on his voice. "A fancied word for a dangerous, unreliable role model."

"I know.", Jinx nodded. "Silco taught me a bit on that. Said they made things worse, got others killed."

"You learned your lesson, then.", Urgot replied, a couple of seconds later.

"Guess so.", Jinx shrugged. "Don't look up to sisters..."

"Close.", Urgot replied. "Attachment is a weakness. To grow so enticed and thus so dependent on it that once it is taken away... you can't recall how to live without it. I will not support you emotionally, little one. I dare not such cruelty, and I offer no crutches. All I offer is the truth - It was better it ended the way it did. Whether you can live with it, it falls on you."

Jinx then stared at Urgot. "You said, when we met, it'd take a while before I found what I really wanted.", she said. "Guess I did. What Silco taught me? I wanna shove it down my sister's throat, hard. Hers and all her new buddies, especially the girlfriend she's with now. Guess you and your wackos could join in."

Urgot glanced at her for a couple of seconds. "As... tempting as it is, I also have, as you once said, 'my own stuff going on'.", he said. "The Chem-Barons whom exploited this Undercity are still due their reckoning."

"Your loss.", Jinx said. "You'll be doin' it forever, though."

"With patience, I was released.", Urgot said, looking at the horizon, past the long street ahead. "With patience, they will all fall."

"Didn't get it yet, did'cha, Urgy?", Jinx asked, a second later. "You're just facing the chicken scratch when the *real deal* just showed up on your face. Just think it, how'd you think the Baron schmucks got up and stuck there for so long? If certain *someones* wanted, they'd already be done and gone, wouldn't they? The Baron guys, they're just here to squeeze and squash the little mites, keep'em kicked down. Now who do you think gets all the dough's worth?"

As Urgot then stared back at Jinx, whom shrugged in return, his eyes did dart away, considering. It did, somehow, recall the Dreadnought of the why he was disposed of in the sumps beneath the Dredge, to be rid of all those the prison wouldn't desire. A part of that vicious system.

Just as the Chem-barons, whom supposedly, had all the power, apparently were so, as well. Just to be rid of those whom weren't desired, as well.

Weren't desired by those above them. Whom LIVED above.

In such a comfort so explicit, but instead masked under another name.

Progress.

It was such an obvious sight, but apparently one that he overlooked, and now it offered further light to him.

"Seeing it now, ain't ya?", Jinx asked.

"Yes. I am.", Urgot mused. "Piltover is a parasite. No wonder the Undercity is as it is. How long has it been sick...", he looked above for a moment, before staring down at Jinx. "But, just as any other parasite, they'd still resist, with the wonders they'd possess. As well as the river."

"You gimme a couple days on that.", Jinx stated, bluntly, a second later.

"A couple of days.", Urgot said. "And then what?"

Jinx's eyes darted down, facing ahead.

"Ready or not, here I come...", she answered, her mind set.


Final Notes:

(Conclusion in August 13th, 2023)

Just as Mylo's words summed up the previous chapter, Jinx's words pretty much describe what's much to come in the next chapter. And to think this one practically became the same length, if not a bit more, than 'There's Dirty War and There's Dirty War'! At least, if anything, we should get straight to the real thick of it, and it is what you all think it is - Piltover will get theirs. And no, it shouldn't be a cause to celebrate, as this would betray the theme in Arcane that 'no one wins in war'. It was all fun and games in the Shimmer site raid until Renni's kid bit the dust, as it was in Dredge until the boiler blew up. It was all fun and games in the fight with Sevika until Vi got stabbed, as it was during Vander's attempted rescue before the monkey blew off. Also, this whole fic is pretty much covering what it'd be about, the war, so there is that.

Taking the butcher's way - going by parts - this episode really did cover a lot of things, didn't it? We had Heimerdinger discovering the Z-Drive and making his choice, Jayce's growing rift with Mel, Ziggs meeting Viktor and then Jinx, Sevika realizing what Urgot is all about, Urgot's backstory told by third-parties, Vi making her choice and suffering the consequences (especially regarding Caitlyn and their growing rift too), the confrontation in which even our favourite wolf monster got to fight, and now the set up to what's next. Ziggs meeting Jinx and then what comes next does indeed sound a bit *too* rushed, but that was one of the prices to that strategic decision regarding chapters 3 and 4 of this fic, but I believe those scenes covered to a degree the beginning of their... partnership, respecting Jinx's enemy rules. xD

Speaking of strategic decision, there were a couple indeed to this chapter, especially in regards to both the confrontation between the enforcers and Urgot's cultists as well as Jayce's involvement in this. There was indeed an interest on my part on making the confrontation, especially the last part, more intense, with Camille on the middle and the enforcers being really forced to retreat, but I did realize it'd somehow overshadow the upcoming event, so I did finish it the way it did, as it already conveyed the threat of the cultists sufficiently and also served Camille's character, she only being headed there for Vi, or rather what she had right in her hands. *Ba Dum Tss* As for Jayce's lack of involvement, while his presence would make sense given his impulsive heroic nature, we must also remind what he has to lose (or rather what he *is* losing), which is Mel. Besides, given his still political status, it's not like Camille would simply just go 'get your hammer there and bash something'. But rest assured, the Mercury Hammer's time is at hand, just as was the Z-Drive. Expect the next chapter to be more action-packed than a thanksgiving turkey.

And, of course, let's get to them. Vi and Caitlyn, especially the latter's change in character at this ending here, as some may accuse in the comments. Now let me be clear - I'm aware of how Caitlyn is like and how this may look like a betrayal of her character, but I instead do remain firm by this for a sole reason and that is... character development. Keep in mind, we're talking about a girl whose family and innocence were destroyed - figurative and literally - by a rocket, whose entire world was turned upside down by out-of-control elements that essentially stemmed from that tragic event. Whose newfound friends were as affected as her by the one whom fired the rocket and continued - and continues - to rack up the body count. Everything picking up more, and more, and more.

And now, even as the reasons were rationally due, she felt betrayed and slighly abandoned, even more with the proposal Vi gave Jinx to leave - as if Jinx was basically walking out the front door, unpunished for all she had done to everyone aside from her family. So yes, it's not like Caitlyn could act as a stone-cold, law-abiding robot in that state, even as the shock of the loss was days past. This act does also pretty much recall that of Ziva in the 6th season's final episode in NCIS, which that one also goes justifiably against her character but does go through a course correction, which does add a layer of interesting development towards her. As well as, say, Jean-Luc Picard in 'First Contact'. So yes, I'm sticking to my decision, unafraid.

Until the next chapter.