There's seemingly always a point when I'm writing where I know where the story is, I know where the story is going next, and I have NO idea how to get it from the former to the latter in a smooth way. Several stories I've really enjoyed writing and people have enjoyed reading have effectively died because I couldn't navigate that gap. Have always never really been able to. Until NOW. THIS chapter of the story is/was that murderous gap. And it's been damn well JUMPED. I do not own Arcane or League of Legends. This is purely fan work. Please, feel free to comment, criticize, and above all, enjoy!
Chapter 11 - Understandings and Effective Violence
Caitlyn had spent the whole rest of the night helping with first aid. She'd wrapped up bandages and applied gauze. She'd help set broken limbs. She'd applied salve to burns. So many burns. She'd helped dig bullets out. She'd helped hold down people in agony while work she didn't know to do, or work she couldn't do, was done. Everyone had seemed surprised at her medical capacity. But she'd received extensive first aid training in the Enforcers, and she had a doctor for a father.
Mostly she was, if anything, trying to prove something to herself. That she was capable of more than maybe-empty promises of a better future, while only actually able to inflict pain. That her hands were good for more than violence, than killing-
'And then I remember that I still don't know if you didn't know or didn't CARE that you were gonna kill a little girl with your own two hands.'
Caitlyn's face screwed up as the old accusation rang through her whole being once again. The girl, Isha, had been running all over to help. Getting supplies, helping when needed, providing comfort. She was doing almost as much Caitlyn-
The same copper-fingered hand slapped against her shoulder a few times. Then it dragged her up and away when she didn't move fast enough for it's owner's liking.
"You've done enough, CaitCup." Anyone else might've assumed Jinx's tone was accusatory. But Caitlyn had heard Jinx directly accuse her before, of what the mad bomber probably considered a far greater crime. What Jinx had just said, was maybe an attempt at… comfort? Caitlyn wasn't sure if that was more disturbing to her.
"We gotta figure out how to respond, but first, all us important people gotta try and fail to get some sleep. And before THAT, you and I need to have a serious talk."
Jinx paced and sighed, looking every bit that she knew she had to say what she had dragged Caitlyn off to say, but would rather say or do anything else in the world.
"Guess we better harpoon the Fissure Fangler in the room first, yeah?" Jinx posed rhetorically as she toyed with a braid. "I… I didn't know your mom was in there, when I… I mean, even now, I don't know that that would stop me. It sure as shit wouldn't have stopped me then… But all the same… I didn't know, and I'm… I'm sorry I did that, to you…"
Caitlyn folded her arms and tried to keep the sheer world-shattering implications of Jinx apologizing for killing anyone from showing to closely.
"I've been thinking, a lot, bout that sorta stuff, with Isha in the picture. Silco was the second Dad I'd killed, and that just… broke me, for a bit. Sure, he couldn't possibly love in a way that was healthy, for me or Zaun,"
Jinx whirled, talking as much to herself as to Caitlyn then. Seeming to finally vocalize thoughts and feelings she'd clearly been working in her head for most of the last year, maybe longer. "Cause he DID love us. But he couldn't love in a way that wasn't toxic, anymore. He could only encourage what was wrong, paint over what was broken; not love what was right, foster what was good. But he still loved me. And I still killed him. And I needed to take that pain out on something. Someone. And I had the most powerful rocket ever built, and there was a clear shot at the people who were responsible for poisoning and beating us down since before I was even in my Bio Dad's sack, so… So I took it out. On all of 'em."
"…We have that in common, I suppose. Amongst other things." Caitlyn admitted as the silence went from awkward to painful. Jinx's head snapped up, and there was no sadism or victory in her smile; just sadness and pain and understanding.
"Crazy, isn't it? That we both have to take our grief and hate out on absolutely everybody else? When we become our Worst?" Jinx said it like it was a definite, understandable, codified concept. Maybe it was; Caitlyn instantly understood what she meant.
Their Worst. Their lowest, most destructive, obsessed and hateful selves, formed from tragedy and pain and a need to hurt back in response because they couldn't live if they didn't hurt back. Jinx had become such when she fired the rocket. Caitlyn had spent days becoming it over the strikes into Zaun with the Grey, and stayed there for almost a year, as she almost killed a little girl for the sake of her vengeance; hit and abandoned the love of her life because she'd dared point out how far Caitlyn was falling from her own ideals and standards; punished and brutalized an entire city for the crimes of a single woman. The woman before her now, who she was engaged in a mutual psycho-analytical forgiveness bombing with.
"It's curious," Caitlyn offered. "We both inflict ourselves outward, and Vi… I'm fairly certain the only person she was truly, deliberately trying to kill during her time in the Pits was herself. Even if that wasn't quite how it played out." Jinx hacked out a laugh at that observation.
"Yeah, that's my big sis, alright. Endlessly self-sacrificing and shouldering all the responsibility. And guilt. Fuck, this whole hold-hands-and-trust-in-goodness-and-maybe-kill-some-assholes-together plan of hers is just her trying to write that instinct large and get the rest of us to maybe help carry the burden a little. Which, good for her for finally figuring that out…" Jinx trailed off as another thought worked its way through her mind.
"S'why we need them. People like 'em. Vi and Isha and… all the rest." Jinx said softly. "We need people who draw us back out of the monsters we can become. And they need us, to do all the things they can't or won't, but that need doing anyway." Caitlyn nodded.
"Well, impossible as this seemed even months ago… I think we understand each other?" Their eyes met; bright blue against glimmering pink. Jinx snorted and scoffed with no real anger behind either action.
"I don't actually have jackets for the C.U.G.C, but I honestly would make some, if you're interested. Be worth it just to see the looks on Vi and Sevika's faces…"
"Can't believe I got the number of council seats wrong…" Caitlyn groaned as she settled into bed. Heimerdinger pointed out the error in her counting earlier in the day, as things calmed down and victims of the assault pulled through or passed. It was, true, a small thing. But it was on the small things that history turned. "Wrote it out thirty bloody times, my mother was…" She stopped at that, had to. Even if there had been some sort of reconciliation, an understanding on a level she previously would never have believed possible, her mother was still…
Vi's hands rubbed against her shoulders, then reached to encircle her. Even past her arms, she wasn't as warm as Caitlyn recalled. But that warmth had not been replaced by cold metal and crystal as it seemed it ought to have been. It had been replaced by an… energy. The air hummed pleasantly around the brawler, a subtle undertone of constrained power that was almost a warmth, when felt long enough. It made for a pleasant sensation in its own right, besides.
"Everyone got the point, Cait. Sides, we'll have bigger things to worry about tomorrow. Everyone's gonna want blood for today." Vi buried her head against the back of Caitlyn's neck, her tone dropping.
"And they shouldn't? You don't?" Caitlyn asked more than a little incredulously.
"Part of me does, yeah. And where has listening to that part of ourselves ever gotten us? Right here…" Vi paused, and Caitlyn could picture her face scrunching up in worry. "Not, like, us personally, right now. As a bad a thing. Cause it ain't. I mean, like, us in the big, city-wide, cultural sense…"
Caitlyn couldn't help but giggle. She knew exactly what Vi meant, but that Vi apparently feared she might grossly misinterpret it. Just adorable. Truly.
"Fuck you." Vi groused out, giddiness and affection sticking up out of the surface of her tone.
"Oh, please do."
Jinx could clearly see something in the two of them as they approached the tables, a wicked smile practically cracking her face open as she gave them two exuberant thumbs up. Though Jinx covered that exuberance as she hurled a large clump of patchwork leather at Caitlyn's face. Caitlyn pulled the rough ball off and unfolded it, scoffing happily at the revelation. A jacket of dark blue leather, with black and red patches roughly sewn into and onto it. A scrawling font likewise sewn into the back and on the left upper breast beneath her name; C.U.G.C. Crazy Ultraviolent Girl's Club. Looking over the jacket's shoulder, she could see Jinx and Isha both had jackets of their own, though Jinx's and Isha's were a brighter blue, with black and pink patches.
"Did you get any sleep last night?" Caitlyn called in humored disbelief across the tables.
"I dunno. Did you?" Jinx raised a downright sadistic eyebrow to cap her question off.
"Okay," Vi's tone left no possibility of that particular line of conversation continuing as she took her seat. "Anyone have ideas on how we respond? Cause, I have some, but, I don't wanna rush over anyone else."
"Simple." Sevika growled out. "We gather up everyone we have, we fight across the river, then we keep fighting until they know they've lost." Her eyes narrowed at Vi's unspoken reaction to the plan. "And of course you aren't on board with that. How in the Void did you manage to go so hard and get so fucking soft at the same time?"
"Cause killing till we win means we won't win. Not for long. We'll just making a bunch of new Us's up in Piltover, people who hate us and want us beaten and broken because we've hurt and killed them." Vi sighed deeply, and propped her head up in her hands. "I want blood, too, but JUST blood won't get us what we need. We need them to see that they've been wrong, that we're people, and they can't just push us around. We need them to see that a lot of them AGREE with us on that. And we need to make sure that bright, shiny future you were offering," Vi turned her head to look at Caitlyn, eyes full of faith tempered by tactical understanding. "Doesn't get snatched away."
Vi reached into the bag she'd come in wearing, drawing out a large map, various spots marked in rough pencil and marker.
"You oughta be proud of yourself, you little sumprat," Vi called over to Isha. "About half of this plan came from you." She smirked as Sevika groaned in disbelief and exasperation.
Vi sighed as she watched the movement, the rush, the prep. Jinx had had to bodily carry Isha back to the workshop at least three times, almost literally growling after the most recent return.
"I know you wanna come, I know you always try to, and usually do. But you aren't coming this time. It's STILLWATER." Jinx's tone finally brooked no argument in a way she never did, and while Isha didn't look happy about it, she finally stayed put.
Ekko had passed by with a mass of Firelights young and old. He hadn't been happy about his assignment, but he understood it from a tactical standpoint. He and his crew were the best suited of all of them to fly and skirt along the high windows and rooftops of Piltover, smashing in windows and jetting off with now-freed hostages and now-secure VIPs. He'd wanted Stillwater, but even he had had to admit that Jinx was the better fit for busting open the most secure prison in Piltover, once Vi had told her all she could remember about it's layout, and Caitlyn had mapped out the changes she'd had made, and the locations of high-priority rescues.
Heimerdinger had put together the scrap boats in a downright magical amount of time, just enough that Vi and Caitlyn and their group could paddle across the river under cover of night rather than fight across the Bridge. The plan was to use the broadcast warning system Caitlyn had installed on the anniversary of the Memorial Attack to send a very different sort of message, and attract as much attention to the control station as possible. Caitlyn had stayed up all night recording her speech.
It all OUGHT to work. Draw the attention of the assholes with the seizure of the broadcast control station, use that to keep attention away from Stillwater and the upper districts so Jinx and Ekko could do their work, hopefully she and Cait would have time to hit Kiramman Manor to take Tobias off the board as a hostage to be used against them (assuming he hadn't already been put in Stillwater himself). Sevika was on standby on their side of the river to help bail them out if crossing back became a problem.
It all OUGHT to work. Which was just why Vi was so-
Caitlyn pressed herself against her and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
"What was that for?" Vi asked, only turning to look at her as the woman threw an arm over her shoulder.
"I could see you starting to spiral. It's a good plan, Violet." Vi simply hummed in response, unconvinced. "And yes, not everyone is happy with their assignments, but they're all going to do them anyway. Because they believe the plan will work, and they see the wisdom of it. They believe in you, and see your wisdom. I believe in you. So stop doubting yourself so much…"
Another kiss, this one on the lips, followed.
Caitlyn could see her encouragement had worked at least a bit as they broke the kiss, as Vi's expression shifted from one of worry to a cautious optimism.
"Bet they could all use a little pep, still, yeah?" She asked, and Caitlyn nodded. Vi rose, walking towards the main staging area… and started whistling. It wasn't an aimless whistle as Caitlyn had often indulged in in her earliest days as an Enforcer with no meaningful tasks; there was a clear rhythm and cadence at work, even if she, nor the other Enforcers she'd brought with her, didn't recognize the song. Every Zaunite did, though. Everyone who could hear, which was increasingly becoming everyone, joined in as Vi ran a second verse of the whistling, as they all transitioned to a very similarly-noted hum. Caitlyn recalled just enough from various music lessons she'd taken before her mother had acquiesced to her love and talent for shooting to be able to identify the notes.
' B'
Vi's plan would work. It had to. Caitlyn smiled, as the song transitioned from another round of humming to short, meaningful lyrics. As she heard Vi's wondrous singing voice rise to lead what must have been an old mining work song, now expertly repurposed into an anthem of revolt and change. She was so much more than she'd ever let herself admit, and Caitlyn hoped that, once they'd won, once they'd made all the necessary changes and improvements, she'd get to spend the rest of her life helping Vi see that, admit that, to herself.
Caitlyn ducked a riot baton and swung with the stock of her rifle, knocking back the… they STILL hadn't decided what to call the faction of Piltover in revolt against her, aside from Zain's nonetheless correct assessment of 'assholes.' A shot to his shoulder sent him sprawling backwards, incapacitated by the pain. Suddenly, one of Vi's forcefields burst into being along the length of the Bridge. Caitlyn thought she could see a bright impact within it-
Another forcefield, that same strange brightness, that seemed to be moving towards-
"CAIT-" Vi's voice ROARED from her left in warning, and for a second molten metal filled her vision before-
Her head snapped back and her ears rung and she couldn't see, she couldn't see on her left and her right eye had slammed shut as AGONY flared from her eye and her head and bile and blood BURST and she was sure she felt something IN her head, maybe JUST her head crack before she tumbled down to the stones of the bridge-
"CAITLYN!" She'd never thought Vi could sound so-
CRACK!
Her head slammed against the stone, and everything went even blacker. Everything went empty, and silent.
So, I'm usually not that MEAN with cliffhangers. At least intentionally. But I realized what I COULD do, and I knew I HAD to once I realized. I'd say I'm sorry, but… well, that would imply guilt.
Man, did I run a LOT in this, and man, am I happy with how I pulled it ll together. Caitlyn desperately performing first aid for the reasons of 'I need to prove I can do more than just shoot people right now, entirely to myself." Made a great transition. I DO hope I was able to work out my own rough thesis on how Jinx and Caitlyn are able to reconcile in this story as compared to Canon.
Where there, it was them bonding over the fact that they both frankly felt redemption that they did want was fundamentally unreachable. Here in The Fractured Reunion, I tried to make it as; they realize they have far too much in common as people to be able to keep hating each other for what they hate each other for, and realizing that commonality, they can also both start to really forgive each other for what they hate each other for. At least, that was the idea. Hope it got across. Silco only being able to love toxically is a personal thesis of mine, and I'm SO happy I was able to have a character in a story actually have a reason to verbalize it, to say nothing of the fact that it was JINX, and she's saying that partly as a way to show how far she's come now he isn't lovingly poisoning her. The same, too, can perhaps become true of Zaun itself...
Caitlyn freaking out about getting the number of Councilors Zaun would get wrong is a bit of meta commentary. Cause I got that number wrong last chapter, if it was meant to guarantee equal representation between Piltover and Zaun. Though Heimerdinger and Vi have the right of it; everyone knows what Caitlyn means, no on actually thinks she's trying to short-change them.
Yes. Jinx KNOWS they fucked, and she DID make jackets. Maybe Vi will get one too. And transitioning from that to discussing 'how do we respond to the attack that just happened?' Almost proved the near-fatal gap, until a much more deadly near-fatal-gap reared it's ugly head.
The PLANNING. Vi's reprisal scheme. Or rather, her explaining it. THAT was the true almost-uncrossable gap of Where Story Is, and Where Story Needs to Go, that I was able to supplant and overcome by… not writing the actual laying out of the plan actively. Vi reminding herself of everyone's roles to reassure herself, as people get ready for those roles took most of this whole week to form and work itself out, but it DID. And so The Fractured Reunion LIVES! It just felt so… out-of-character and rote and Not Good for Vi to just… EXPLAIN all of that, to everyone. So, while she technically did, she also didn't. And that was how I was able to get over the Gap.
Finally, can anyone guess the song Vi got going at the end? Curious to see if anyone can get it from the notes and context clues… Though the notes may not be 100% accurate. But I spent a whole night finding custom sheet music and something that would translate written notes to literary notation, so… I did my best?