With their business concluded, the Black Rose returns Mel to Piltover.
Or at least, that's what they said they would do. In reality, Mel stands on a propeller blade above a glowing chasm and notes with mild surprise she has reached the end of her emotional responses to such situations.
This is an old turbine; she recognises the design from an abandoned attempt to filter the grey. The vast construct is lodged between two fissure walls precariously suspended above a pit pockmarked with holes born from explosive force. She recalls Caitlyn's reports from a lifetime ago; remembers sifting through pages of carefully photographed monkey faces and glowing colour.
Mel frowns. The ravine is littered with the callsigns of the undercity's most infamous serial killer. It is also, notably, empty.
However adept Jinx is at evading Piltover's justice, she doesn't think the outlaw has the capacity to coordinate an ambush with the Black Rose. Beyond that, if the organisation wanted her dead she simply would be. The charade in the Oculorum had been awful but it proved she was a necessary piece in their plans.
That said, she had to be here for a reason. It was easy to tell Le'blanc valued control more than anything; especially among her pawns.
Mel straightens, shifts her weight and winces as the turbine moves with her. The undercity's lack of safety regulation would kill her long before any street gang or colour coded terrorist got the chance.
She shuffles her way to the centre of the space and looks around. Now from a vantage point where there are at least handrails the ability to pick out detail returns to her. What she gathers is… surprising.
Pink and blue lights hang over what she now sees is some kind of workshop. There are chalk drawings along the length of each of the propellers and she feels irrationally bad her walking has scuffed a quarter of them. If it weren't for the location and the known connotations of the symbols she might even describe the space as cozy. Childish for her tastes, but charming in the right circumstances.
The fissure is pockmarked with holes but one a metre or so above the propeller blade to her left looks promisingly like a tunnel. There's a short wooden ladder built into its side but unless her newfound magic grants the ability to fly she struggles to imagine making it up without falling.
Maybe there's something here she can use? A pink tarp has been stretched from one of the railings to the core of the turbine to form a small tent. Tied in knots it could make a harness.
Mel is lifting one corner experimentally - testing the weight - when she hears the footsteps.
They are fast but heavy; someone in a hurry but not enough to run. Someone unconcerned with the consequences of being caught. She drops the corner of tent and turns towards the source of the noise.
A figure stands at the mouth of her correctly identified tunnel. A cloak obscures most of their body and that's all Mel takes in before a pistol is levelled at her chest and two bullets fired.
The response is sudden and involuntary. She finds herself arms out - gold threading from her skin in an arcing shield.
Metal makes its impact and time slows and Mel closes her hands over the bullets - kinetic energy reduced to nothing as they drop to the floor as useless shells.
Instinct fades and she stumbles. Hands fall like dead weight to her side and she leans against a painted workbench for support. Her vision is hazy.
She knows she only has a few seconds before her attacker tries again. "Please -" Mel steadies herself. "I don't want to fight you."
"Where's Jinx?" the blunt response.
"I don't know."
She watches as the figure leaps from the fissure wall and onto the platform below; the already precarious structure shuddering with the impact. It's a woman, she realises. Short hair; rough, slightly older than herself - a monster of a left arm.
Mel goes to speak but her attacker gets there first. "Taking after your boyfriend I see." The woman punctuates her words with slow, measured steps forward. "Felt like getting your hands dirty?"
They stand eye to eye; Mel doesn't flinch from the heated breath on her face.
Indignation is the wrong emotion for this situation. She feels it anyway. Up close, the woman smells like cigarettes and ash and something unidentifiably chemical that threatens to make her eyes water. She frowns, "I don't want to be here."
"Then leave!"
Mel glances from the woman's face (twitching with barely contained rage) to the cave entrance - as inaccessible as ever.
"I can't."
She takes a calculated risk and steps a little to the left - sits with her back to the turbine's central body. Better to be on the ground than suffer the disadvantage of getting knocked off her feet; if they got into a real fight all she had was her magic anyway.
They stare at each other for a while; it's the other woman's turn to look indignant. Mel won't deny her the opportunity - she imagines this is a remarkably stupid move from an outside perspective.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Mel shrugs; folds her hands into her lap and ignores the several layers of disbelief behind the question. "Are you going to shoot me?"
Her would-be attacker stares. A long moment passes of her working her jaw before she makes a noise of deep set frustration and slumps to the floor - legs crossed.
Unexpected.
Best to clear the air of assumptions first. She keeps her face neutral; doesn't want to waste the opportunity. "I didn't come here of my own will and I don't know where Jinx is. By the paint on your arm I take it you're an associate of hers?"
The woman eyes her: "The fuck you mean you're not here on purpose?"
"I was kidnapped."
She actually snorts at that. "Not by me you weren't. Not by Jinx either by the look of things."
Mel blinks, curious. "How can you tell?"
"You're too clean. Take it from me - you'd need about a half-gallon of paint on you before that becomes a believable lie."
Of course. She nods in understanding, tries to make it obvious she hasn't been caught in any real deception.
"I was taken by a mage."
"Then why are you here?"
It's a good question, one Mel has to consider before answering. "This is a test, I think. They want to see if their investment is worth it; if I can kill the biggest threat in the undercity."
She watches the easing expression on the other woman's face shift back to a hard line. "I won't let you."
The response is automatic: "I don't think you could stop me if I tried."
Mel doesn't know why she says that, doesn't know why she believes it either.
She closes her eyes and comes to the realisation that through the entire interaction she hasn't once been afraid. Surprised, yes, but fear? The Black Rose could have done whatever they wanted while she was unconscious. Picking at her emotions would be the least of it; she knew what a sleeper agent was.
She finds herself studying the long cracks in the fissure walls, avoiding eye contact. "I don't want to hurt anyone. Certainly I would prefer to deny the agenda of the people who took me, if I can."
Mel risks a glance at the stranger sitting a meter or so away and sees a wariness that wasn't there before. Good.
She's tired of fighting.
With the threat de-escalated to a point she won't immediately be tossed down the fissure, Mel wants answers. "Who are you?"
The other woman visibly bites back her indignation.
"Why would I tell you that?"
Rather than give a real answer she keeps her body language neutral and talks past the question. "My name is Mel Medarda, I'm-"
"I know who you are."
She thumbs the space where her family ring used to be and nods. That much was obvious.
"All the more reason for you to give me your name, then." Mel leans back, gives an intentional half smile and makes a show of looking the other woman up and down with just her eyes. "It's only fair."
Her efforts are met with a glare and a long silence. This woman is the easiest person to read she's ever met, at least emotionally. Mel lets her face be searched for an ulterior motive; knows there isn't anything in her expression beyond light curiosity. She raises her eyebrows.
"..Sevika." The name is said offhand, almost resentfully.
Interesting. 'Sevika' translated directly to servant of God. Mel didn't take the woman as the type to pray.
She says as much and Sevika snorts like there's some private joke Mel isn't aware of. "You take it too literally."
That's probably true. It's a puzzle she has to restrain herself from solving - there are more important questions to ask.
"Well then, Sevika -" Mel moves very casually to stand and is watched like a hawk the whole way up. "I would very much like to leave you alone but I'm not in the business of falling to my death. Would you be kind enough to help me outside?"
Sevika makes no move to stand and instead jerks her head towards the tunnel. "Exit's that way."
"I can't jump that far."
"A child can jump that far."
Can. Present tense, meaning a child has done so before; is potentially doing so on a regular basis.
Mel keeps her voice soft. "I'm not from the undercity."
Sevika mutters some curse in the local dialect. Mel doesn't know the words but she understands tone well enough; she's about to open her mouth to try a new angle when Sevika hauls herself to her feet anyway.
Mel watches the metal arm scrape against the floor as the other woman stands. She notes with some disbelief that despite its size there are no hextech components; Sevika is carrying the weight herself on a presumably amputated shoulder.
Terrifying.
Wordlessly, the undercity woman turns and walks towards the tunnel. Mel hurries to keep up and winces as the propeller bends under their combined weight.
Now at the edge of the blade she glances up to the wooden ladder nailed a half meter above her head. "Are you sure this is safe?"
"Absolutely not." Sevika grins, crooked and nasty as she bends to wrap her human arm under Mel's legs and hoist her into a seated carry position. The upper hand seems to please her.
Mel clings to Sevika's neck and buries her face in the other woman's shoulder to avoid the fissure drop below. Perhaps the show of weakness could be considered a ploy, but truly? She never liked heights.
Sevika jumps.