"So this is how you spend your time, really?"
"Mmm-hm."
"Don't you have a criminal empire that needs attending to?"
"Probably."
"Maybe some orphans to force into a factory somewhere?"
"Nope, just a meeting with the other barons tonight."
"How can you sleep at night, knowing-"
"Look, I know we're just waiting for the twins to get back here with lunch, but hurry up. Are you going to call, raise, or fold?"
Caitlyn eyed her cards one last time before throwing them down on the table. "Fold. Go on, take your stupid gears."
"Don't mind if I do," Sevika chuckled before sweeping the small pile of gears and washers to her side of the table. She tapped her cigarillo on a nightmarish ashtray, some sort of off-green stone covered in Jinx's trademark graffiti.
"Say, Vika,"
"Don't call me Vika, pup."
Vi rolled her eyes, and accepted her new hand of cards, "Right, fine, Sevvy, why did you put a hit out on Jinx anyway?"
"You've asked me this, every day, for over a week now. Can't you just be grateful for a roof over your head and stop pestering me?"
"Yes, but actually no. Seriously, why? I'm not even gonna hit you if it's a dumb reason, honest."
Sevika finished dealing out the round of cards to Caitlyn and Lailha, cigarillo rolling from side to side in her teeth. In a cloud of smoke, she looked at her own cards, and sighed. "I thought it would help us, help Zaun."
Caitlyn blinked, and exchanged a look with Vi. "I... I was under the impression that you didn't care for her on a personal level. Oh, and one card, please."
Sevika snorted, and flicked the Sheriff a card. "Of course I don't like her, the brat's a loose cannon, hence the fucking moniker. But personal distaste didn't have me set aside seven hundred hexes, common sense did."
Vi shuffled through her cards, frowning, "So she's a little unstable sometimes-"
"A lot unstable based on the stories, two cards," chirped Lailha, lighting her own hand-rolled cigarette. Sevika snorted, and flicked the ex-assassin two cards.
Vi growled, "Okay, fine, she's had some bad days while loaded down with more heavy ordinance than most Enforcer precincts have. My question was why try and get her axed anyway? Seven hundred hexes for 'common sense' is a bit thin ain't it?"
Sevika glared at Vi, and the pink-haired trencher flushed, "Oh, two cards. Please."
Dealing the requested cards, Sevika smirked, "I'll stay with what I've got. And as for your sister, common sense was that if I could bury her it would reduce tensions all around, win fucking win."
She sighed and tossed five washers back into the pot, "Once she made moves for Wrencher? That option went right out the window. The fact she hasn't sent me a box of chocolate-covered chompers says good things about her stability, so far at least."
Caitlyn nodded as Lailha matched Sevika's bet, "Her soulmate is doing her quite a bit of good. Scuttlebutt is that Glasc has also made peace with our favorite little terrorist climbing the ranks. Raise," she finished, tossing a silver gear into the pile.
Vi tossed in the last of her remaining gears, scowling at her hand, "So now what? Most of the shooting has stopped, no one has crossed the Pilt in a week and change, and Jinx-"
The whine of a chemtech motor spinning up wasn't loud enough to drown out the chem-punk's frantic scream, "She's here!"
Sevika's eyes went wide, and throwing her hand of aces and eights to the side, sprinted for the door, roaring "Stand down, stand the fuck down!"
Vi, Caitlyn, and Lailha scrambled to catch up with Sevika, running through the swinging double doors. Vi burst outside, and was greeted with a strange sight.
Jinx was wearing Silco's coat, the fans on the large board she stood on making the edge flutter and snap like a corsair's flag. Along one leg, a tubular weapon of some sort was holstered, and around her waist, a half dozen of her infamous chompers.
Behind her, piloting the techno-sorcerous marvel of engineering, stood Lux, resplendent in some nicely fitted black slacks, a collared shirt of the same make, and her cuirass, expertly burnished, albeit with a few doodles in pink and teal decorating the metal. Zapper sat on her hip, and her fancy metal stick of a wand spun lazily in the palm of her off-hand.
"Hey Sevvy! Thought I'd pay my favorite ogre a visiiiiiit..."
The tubular weapon leapt into Jinx's hand, spinning a complete circle on one finger before aiming square at Sevika's head. Everyone took two large steps back, the chem-punk manning the minigun going as far as to simply raise his arms and walk away entirely.
"Sevvy. What in the good godsdamn fuck is my sister and the fucking Sheriff of Piltover doing here?"
"Why do I feel left out?" mumbled Lailha, very nearly drawing a snort of amusement from Vi.
Shaking her head, Caitlyn stepped forward, "Travel across the river has been stopped, and the orders make it clear that it's shoot on sight. We didn't get out in time to duck past the cordon."
Jinx's eyes narrowed, but she lowered the weapon. "Sis, anything you wanna add to that?"
"Vika's on the up and up, Jinx." Vi said, before blinking and looking the older woman up and down. Turning back to Jinx, she shrugged, "Well, as on the up and up as a drug peddling cyborg can be."
"Brats, the both of you," Sevika growled. Taking her cigarillo in one hand, she blew a plume of smoke out of her nose, grumbling, "We had some misunderstandings, but it doesn't do Zaun any good to have ANOTHER Sheriff turned into mincemeat on our turf."
"By the by, still upset that your men tried to herd us into a blockade of lethal force," Caitlyn murmured out of the corner of her mouth.
Sevika shrugged, "Hey, I figured they wouldn't shoot the Sheriff, but I can understand not wanting to take that chance. Can't blame me for being optimistic, can you?"
"I'll manage it, thanks."
Vi waved at her sister while her soulmate and Sevika traded veiled and not-so-veiled barbs. Slowly, the hoverboard came to a rest near the Last Drop, Jinx jumping the last few feet before Lux had finished setting them down.
Vi took two steps forward, met by Jinx halfway. She wrapped her sister up in a hug, going so far as to swing her around a few times, provoking some giggling from Lux and Caitlyn.
"Glad you're okay, Jinx."
Her little sister flushed, "Yeah, yeah, same to you ya big galoot. Come on, let's get inside, we got business to discuss."
It was a very quiet bar they re-entered, as just about every chem-punk or Zaunite who'd been present seemed to have vanished into thin air. Sevika growled when she looked behind the bar, "I'm gonna find whoever took the till, and I'm gonna throw their fucking carcass down the fissures."
Lux sighed and set her backpack down, "Please don't. We already get all sorts of rubbish dumped into our territory, bodies would be even worse."
"Dump 'em in the Pilt?"
"Sure, fish'll fuckin' love ya," snickered Jinx as she pulled up a chair at the card table. She peaked at Caitlyn's discarded hand and tsk'd, "My arrival ruin this round? Damn shame, damn damn shame. Well, on to matters at hand."
Lux pulled a sack out from the backpack, and set it down with a jingle in front of Sevika. The chem-baroness looked singularly unimpressed.
"I am opening precisely nothing from you, Jinx."
"Open the bag or I'm taking my bribe back."
"You wanna bribe me, you open the bag."
A staring match ensued for another minute, and Vi nervously eyed the rough sack sitting on the table. Caitlyn shared her look, while Lailha and Lux just looked bored.
"Oh, fine, spoilsport," grumbled Jinx, pulling her knife out. With a single fluid motion, she cut open the side of the bag. Golden hexes, glittering gems, and three palm-sized paint canisters spilled out onto the table. In flashed the knife, and Jinx tied off the wire arming system that she'd threaded into the drawstring, pocketing the paint grenades.
"Called it," Sevika said with an air of smugness. Reaching one hand to play with some of the coins, her eyes turned flinty, "So, you said this was a bribe?"
Jinx nodded, smiling manically, "Sure is! Step one, call off the bounty-"
"Already done. As of, what, almost a week and a half ago now."
Jinx blinked, and looked to Lux, who shrugged. "I had credited our fight against the Home Guard and subsequent, erm, redecorating of Glasc's spire to why there were no competent attacks of late." The tall blonde shrugged again, and smiling, nodded her head at Sevika, "Regardless, our thanks for your show of restraint."
There was a long, lingering pause, interrupted when Lailha's cigarette burned down to the filter, singeing her fingers.
"Ow, sonnova!"
Sevika blinked, and nodded her head back at Lux, "Yeah, don't mention it. The old rules were chem-barons don't swipe at chem-barons, and I'm struggling to get a few of these knuckleheads to remember we need to be in lockstep," Her eyes sharpened again, casting a somewhat disbelieving look at Jinx. "You know how to even DO lockstep, brat?"
Jinx cackled, "Who me? No, not a chance."
A snarl pulled itself free of Sevika's throat, but Jinx held up her hands, "Whoa now, easy there tiger, we're still talking, right? No need for my Sunshine to put a hole in your guts, right?"
Four pairs of eyes snapped to Lux, who smiled with perfect innocence. From under the table, the sound of a hammer being thumbed back was distinctly audible.
Sevika blew a plume of smoke out of her nose, and leaned back in her chair. "Well shit. Alright, convince me that letting you, the Loose Cannon, keep a seat at the table is a good idea."
Jinx shook her head, eyes wide, "Oh what, no no no, I don't want a seat at the table."
Sevika frowned, and Vi cut in, "Wait, you don't want to be a chem-baroness? So what, you iced Wrencher for his digs..." Vi frowned, nodded to herself before turning to Caitlyn, "To be fair, that place has some really swanky furnishings."
"Darling, please don't excuse murder, it's frowned upon."
Sevika shook her head, "You're not making this easy for me, are you Jinx? Fine, what do you want if it's not the title of chem-baroness, if you don't want a seat at the table?"
She leaned forward, hands gripping the table so hard that the old wood started to creak, "I want a throne. I'm thinking my title should be 'Chem-Empress', gotta nice ring to it, don'tcha think?"
"You're insane," Sevika blurted, heedless of the gun aimed at her stomach, horror warring with awe in her voice.
The edges of the table cracked, and Jinx grinned so broadly that it was a wonder that her head didn't split in half. She threw her hands wide, splinters of wood falling away from her palms, "We're trying to cobble together a government, built out of self-taught criminals or discredited academics. We're trying to take the world's leading economic powerhouse and split it in half. We're trying to make PILTOVER, famously fucking independent Piltover, bend a knee."
Jinx slammed her hands on the table, making coins and cards jump. Her eyes glowed with eldritch light, and faint wisps of smoke and scribbles danced around the room.
"Does any of that sound fucking sane to you, Chem-Baronesss Sevika?"
Slowly, Sevika shook her head.
"So why oh why the FUCK would you want to follow the lead of someone trying to be quote-unquote sane?"
Sevika snorted, trickles of smoke leaking from the corners of her mouth as she sneered, "Okay, so you want not just to join the big girls' table, you want to lead. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but do you have a plan? You're not gonna just browbeat and bluff the Council into giving us half of their precious city."
Jinx pushed off the table, waving one hand airily, "Pfft, of course I got a plan Sevvy, super-duper good plan too! Just gotta get the rest of the crooks and criminals to sign on, and we're good to go!"
"You're not gonna tell me this plan, are you?"
A wild cackle slipped between Jinx's lips, and with eyes of flashing amethyst, her features became a scribbled mess of harsh angles and sharp fangs, "Not on your fucking life, Chem-Baroness. Not yet, at least. Like you said, we need to move in lockstep, one-two, one-two, heh heh heh."
The vision passed, and Caitlyn felt the icy hand of fear relax its grip on her heart. A thought, errant and unwelcome, crossed her mind, and she blurted, "You're not going to go to war, are you, Jinx?"
A sneer, a silent snarl marred her features, and Jinx rounded on Caitlyn, "Could you fucking stop me if I said yes?"
Caitlyn frowned, eyes narrowing, a retort on her lips, when Lux rested her forearm on the table, Zapper pointed squarely at the Sheriff's head.
"The answer you're looking for, Sheriff, is no."
Vi snarled, shooting Jinx a look that bordered on murderous, while Lailha's hands fell to her side, "I thought we were just talking, Jinx."
A pale scarred hand reached out and turned Zapper down, Lux's thumb soon uncocking the hammer. "Yeah, yeah we are. My apologies."
Lux shot Lailha a look, and the gray-eyed woman shrugged and put her hands back on the table. Jinx sighed, and waggled a free hand, "Look, as hilarious as it may seem, I'm not eager for more bloodshed. So let me make you this promise, Sheriff."
She held out that free hand, letting Lux clasp her other hand tight, and grumbled, "I'm not gonna cross the river with anything other than peaceful intentions in my heart, alright? But you gotta acknowledge, that if any more dickheads cross over that watery border, I'm not gonna pull any punches. Sound good?"
"No, it doesn't," sighed Caitlyn, before she reached up and shook Jinx's hand, "but only because I don't expect the Council to toe the line, so to speak. They will come for you again."
Jinx shook off Caitlyn's grip, a smile returning to her lips, "Well, I mean, duuuh."
Ears pricked around the table, and Jinx's smile widened as the sound of a dozen hoverboards filled the air.
"Nice, right on time. Now if you'll excuse me, I got a few other boys and girls to browbeat into, heh, lockstep."