Well... boy, Act 3 sure was something, huh? Fear not for the future of Fractured Reunion: it WILL be finished. There are a few more moments I really WANT to write and show. This chapter contains a few of em. I also gotta apologize for the grammatical state of the last few chapters: I've been typing everything on a Notes app on my phone then Copy-Pasting the Notes into the FanFiction app, and it's a ROUGH way to get a story up here. Thankfully, my new laptop finally came, so I'll be able to properly upload actual documents now, and fix the earlier chapters. I do not own Arcane or League of Legends. This is purely fan work. Please, feel free to comment, review, criticize, and above all; enjoy!
Fractured Reunion - Chapter 8 - A New Path Forward
Where in the FUCK was she gonna start?! Just... TALKING to them alone might be enough, but Vi wasn't willing to risk them and both cities on the frank uncertainty that just talking with them both individually would be enough. Assuming she could even GET to talk to them in the first place. Caitlyn, shut away in Kiramman Manor, two cities and two and a half ARMIES of people between them. Jinx, likely also shut away behind her own unwanted following...
...Shit, they both probably thought she was fucking DEAD. Worse than dead; she certainly hoped she hadn't left a corpse, but that would've left them with NOTHING. Nothing to bury, nothing to toss to the sumps and sea. Nothing to mourn, to move on from... And the LAST time either of them had lost someone important to them...
How the FUCK was she going to-
The ground shook beneath her feet. She was DOWN, in some of the harshest, fetid depths. It had been almost a decade since she last felt one, but she still remembered what those tremors meant. She could see the crowds stop, and shift and move. She followed.
Her worst fear was confirmed as she neared the end of the moving stream of worry and bodies. The crowd was coalescing around a mine shift, dust and toxins pouring out, chemgoons holding back friends and family as the many levels of bosses railed and prevaricated and tried to figure how to blame anyone but themselves. Vi'd been wondering how, where to start. She had her answer. She slipped through the crowd on the edge, dodging around as the chemgoons focused on a loudly wailing man in a wheelchair, snatching a spare bag of breathers and goggles as she dove into the mine shaft.
She remembered. That one day, Mom and Dad almost hadn't come home. They'd been just barely on the lucky side of a tunnel collapse, spent HOURS afterward trying to work through the cave-in to get the rest of their crew out. More than three-fourths had choked or been crushed to death by the time they broke through. It had been what truly pushed them to help organize the demonstration on Progress Bridge... the demonstration on Progress Bridge...
Vi started as she realized she'd reached the cave-in, as a wider-scope plan finally started to form in her head. Ok. She'd smashed the heads of technomagichanical monsters from the future. She could shift some dumb rocks, right?
What had taken her parents most of an entire day, she accomplished in under half an hour. The stone yielded handily to her, her new strength, her new hands and arms. Her new determination. She'd only started punching once she reached the big stones in the center, forcibly shattering a path out where before she'd just cleared the way of debris. Vi slung the bag of breathers and goggles through the hole before she got back to widening it.
First through was a kid, no older than Powder had been before... Vi worked faster, tugging and breaking as quickly, if safely, as she could manage. She scowled as she got a better look at the rocks that made up the cave-in. Grey Pockets. Sheer fractures in the structure. Clear hazards you LEFT ALONE. Even Piltover had mandated to not mine in such areas, if only cause constant accidents and replacing workforces cut into the bottom line.
She finally broke the hole wide enough she could come through to the other side. The miners were all taking grateful, gasping breaths through the breathers, but one was either dead or knocked out. Vi picked her up and motioned to everyone gaping at her to get moving.
Vi wished she could be surprised that when they all emerged out of the shaft, the chemgoons had lined up before it, guns not quite at the ready, but ready to BE readied. To handle the problem of uppity workers and potential witnesses as the boss saw fit. Bastard didn't even have the decency to speak the order: just waved a few hand signals at them. Vi passed the unconscious miner in her arms off, and waited for the moment, her own weapons at the ready. As she saw the muzzles raise or settle, flashes building, she thrust out one hand, letting the magic within her FLOW and BURN. She felt her arm SHIFT and CONTORT, heard the metal wiring and iron shards click and clatter. She heard the SONG as the crystal and flesh parted to let magic and air flow through the new gaps in their structure, runes on the insides of her arms and fingers lighting up with Arcane power.
A blazing forcefield burst it's way into existence right in front of the chemgoons, the bottom edge slicing through the barrels of their guns. The head chemgoon, carrying some sort of revolver number, had started to get a shot off. It smashed and ricocheted against her forcefield, burning lead flying back down the barrel and igniting the next bullet in line. Everyone yelped or cried in surprise, but he SCREAMED as his hand was suddenly blasted to red, dripping chunks as the bullets in his gun went off inside the chamber.
"Alright, assholes," Vi let out a shuddering breath and felt her risen arm shift and contort back to a normal, human shape, as opposed to... WHATEVER twisted form it took when she channeled the Arcane through it. It always SOUNDED nice, at least. Like giant, flowing chimes. "You got one chance to do the smart thing. Get the fuck out of my way, or I go THROUGH you..." She could hear the crystal and metal of her fingers and palms scrape and sing as she clenched them into promising fists.
They did the wise thing; dropped their ruined guns, and stepped aside. Vi stalked forward, throwing up another barrier as the boss started running. He ran nose-first into it, and was probably making offers and promises she couldn't hear over the blood roaring in her ears, the thunder in her heart. She threw a punch and felt great satisfaction as several teeth skipped against her barrier, as his face crashed against it, then slid down into the roiled earth.
"He's all yours." Vi called over her shoulder as she stalked towards his desk at the meager overview platform. She could vaguely see the kid and her dad run to the man in the wheelchair who'd been screaming before. The bottle of whiskey on one corner of the boss's desk CALLED to her, and it took every ounce of her strength to not answer it. She instead snatched up his very fine-looking lunchbox, and the great sack of cogs which she tossed toward the crowd with a call to not spend it all in one place.
The food in the box would be reward enough. Finally, something to eat that wasn't sometimes literally crawling with the malignant Arcane. Vi took an eager bite of a frankly nice-looking sandwich - like, Topside-quality sandwich shit - and had to stop as despair began to grip her heart tight, as the awful realization settled in. As the flavors settled on her tongue, and she swallowed slowly.
No. It couldn't be.
...She fucking MISSED the flavor of the Arcane infections! Eating around Janna-forsaken TUMORS and STREAKS of magical ROT, but never being able to quite keep all the bile and mutated meat out of her mouth if she wanted something in the general direction of not enough food. And she FUCKING... She took another bite.
Yep. She MISSED it. Fuck her running...
Learning of the unofficial-but-very-much-understood ceasefire between the cities made dealing with intruding asshole Enforcers even easier than she thought it'd be. Sure, being able to break a riot club on her forearm and summon forth magic barriers did a LOT to dissuade the usual pricks looking to shakedown or just beat down trenchers. But threatening to report them seemed to scare them just as much. Unexpected, but quite promising. Especially with what Vi had planned. What she NEEDED to do, to convince others to try and do with her. THAT was what she was really working on her rep for. So when she eventually suggested something so impossible and naive, she wouldn't just be shot.
And she had to build that rep from both angles, stopping wayward Enforcers and chemgoons, wannabe barons and of course, miner bosses. Though, cracking open a chemtank like he was a can of fish in the old main square had probably been the most dramatic of her acts. She tugged at the sleeves of the red multihued long coat Babbette had forced on her after that, claiming she needed to look as good as her rep if she wanted to be taken seriously.
She honestly couldn't STAND all the titles and names the Undercity was bandying about for her. But she'd USE them, that was...
Vi slower as she saw Jinxers and chemgoons outside her door. She recognized the livery on the goons at least: Sevika's people, somewhat distinct but very much joined at the hip of the Jinxers these days. She smirked and raised her hands, open, over her head.
"Ogre wants a word?"
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Pleasant as ever, I see."
The two women glared at each other. Vi wasn't surprised that Sevika seemed utterly unphased by her apparent return from the dead. But then, she hadn't really made any secret of who she was, and Sevika had never been one to sweat minor details when a major plan needed handling.
"We've got a CHANCE, Vi. A chance to unite the Undercity in a way that could make the difference. And here you come, disrupting a very carefully arranged chaos, pushing back the wrong that'll give us the anger and reason to do what needs to be done. Why?"
"Cause no one wins in war, Sevika."
His words. HIS words, stopped her anger dead in its tracks.
"I've got something I want... I NEED to say to Zaun. At the old cannery, two days' time, spread the word if you please."
The cannery was absolutely fucking PACKED. Yeah, that was technically a good thing, but FUCK. She'd thought she'd be ready to speak, but FUCK...
She took a deep breath, reminded herself. The waves of blood, Jinx and Caitlyn tearing each other to pieces. Caitlyn firing at Vander to protect Jinx and her Jinxers. Caitlyn and Jinx working together to keep her safe. That look of pure POWDER on her face as Vi held an Atlas Gauntlet raised high to crush that same face to jelly, and the child she tried to force out of the line of fire. The shock and apall on Caitlyn's face repeated again and again as she took in the true desperation of the Undercity, and the unwillingness of those in power to do anything to help.
It could work. It WOULD work. It HAD to.
She stepped out on the walkway, clapped her hands to get the crystal SINGING, and took a deep breath.
"Most of you know me, one way or another. Vi. Vander's kid. Daughter of Connol and Felicia. Stands for Violence. Piltie-fucker. Traitor. The Trencher Bluebelly. The Lady of Colors. The Crystal Hand. Jan'ahrem Reborn..."
She shook her head and smiled. Waved.
"Vi. Stands for Violet."
She took a steadying breath, then continued.
"I got something to say. Something to suggest, and I'm gonna do it anyway, even if I'm alone. But I hope I won't be. I know, what's brewing. What you all want, dream of. I was the same, for a LONG time. My parents died at the Bridge Massacre, fighting for a better life for me and my sister. And for so long after, I wanted Topside to hurt and bleed and suffer like we had. Part of me still does..."
She leaned forward, set her arms on the railing.
"But no one wins in war. All that happens, is everyone loses. Some just lose more than others. And maybe, maybe I'm wrong, and that's what it'll really take. Everyone, on both sides of the river, just fucking LOSING until there's nothing left to lose. But I can't let that be the only option on the table. It can't just be, being hurt, and hurting back, forever..."
She pushed herself back up, her face hardening, resolve building. She wasn't sure if her eyes were glowing or not. Wasn't sure if it would look better or worse if they were.
"I realized something, awhile back. We've never tried to LET THEM SEE. See us, see our struggle, see us as people, exactly like they are. We've always assumed they just... wouldn't, so we never even tried. It's a non-starter, so why bother, right?"
She could feel the affirmative rumbling. And it terrified her.
"But I saw. I saw so MANY of them see it, the first real time it looked them in the face. And not all of them will. Not all of them will care. Most will just keep on as they'd been. But we don't need all of them to get what we want. We don't even need most of them. We just need enough of them, need the right ones. And I really, truly think we'll get them if we just give them the chance to really see us, really hear us."
She laid it out from there. Progress Day. Progress Bridge. Bring a weapon, and be prepared to drop it. If all goes well, you won't need it in the first place. And when someone yelled why the fuck they wouldn't need something to defend themselves with, Vi lifted her arms, and strained. A forcefield the reached higher than the ruined roof burned its way into existence, more than tall enough to block a barricade's line of fire from top to bottom.
"You know where. You know when. I hope you get WHY. I'll be there, and I'll do it. On my own, if I have to. But I hope I won't be."
She backed away from the railing, retreating to the ruins of the roof. She watched the crowd file away, back to their lives. And she HOPED.
"Shitwringer of a speech there, Sis."
Trying to decide HOW detailed to get held this up more than perhaps any other chapter I've written yet, and maybe any chapter I've still got planned. We'll see, but MAN, this was a DOOZY. I knew, roughly, all the things I wanted Vi to do to help rebuild trust with the Undercity after helping gas and fight it, even if that frankly WAS a fundamental alternative to an all-out war. She'd push back on the worst elements of both cities, display some badass strength and Arcane power, and most importantly… the MINE. Again, pulling from now-ANCIENT, CONTRADICTED LoL Lore, Vi really made a name for herself using a stolen pair of Atlas Gauntlets to bust out some fellow miners in an tunnel collapse, killing the evil chembaron mining boss once she got everyone out. At which point the Enforcers were like "Hey, you! Wanna get PAID to beat up crime bosses? Cause you're REALLY good at it!" and Vi responded "FUCK YEAH!" Thus many jokes about police brutality that have aged like milk were written and recorded.
And for a long while, I had the rough scene in my head; Vi saves another group of miners from a tunnel collapse with her new Wild HexTech arms, beats up the boss who had them mining where they shouldn't, kinda Robin-Hood's the crowd of angry employees and friends/family with the boss's cash, refuses to elaborate and leaves. But the specifics and details were never quite there, and then Act 2 showed us that basically ALL of Vi's parents were miners at one point or another, and I realized that was a real emotional angle I could add.
I got more general with the rest of her rep-building than I initially meant to, but I think it helps the flow and pace of the story overall. This and Chapter 7 were meant to be, like, a short summary from Vi to Caitlyn, taking up maybe a fourth of the chapter after Make Up. Now look at 'em. I'm also frankly way too proud of myself for the "Vi misses the taste of magic mutation and tumors in her food." bit.