"I cannot believe you would be so reckless as to blow up Piltover's docks!" Jayce bellowed, waving his arms around in a way that Jinx would have found funny if this wasn't like, the thirtieth time he'd said the exact same words over the last few hours.
Jinx rolled her eyes and turned to Viktor, "Vikky, do you believe I'd be that reckless?"
"Don't call me Vikky, and yes."
Turning to her wife-to-be, Jinx fluttered her eyelashes, "Sunshine, how about you, do you think I can be reckless?"
Lux nodded, "Oh certainly, if the risk is worth the reward. Or if it's funny enough."
Jinx shrugged and turned back to Jayce, "There ya have it, I'm reckless. But really, that's beside the point, since I'm not the one who blew up the docks, you did."
The errant councilman threw his hands up, his eyes wide either rage, disbelief, or indigestion. Jinx didn't really think it was the third one, but hey, stranger things were true.
Jinx blinked, realizing that words were still being said. She turned to face Jayce, walking backwards as she went, "I'm sorry, you were saying something and I totally tuned you out, can you start again from the top?"
Lux and even Viktor snickered as Hextech's poster boy seemed to visibly deflate, "I just want to know, why did you bomb the docks?"
Shrugging, Jinx spun one finger in a lazy circle, "Well, what goes around comes around. The fancy pants blockades and whatnot mean Zaun's growing a little light on food at the moment. Figured I'd just, ya know, spread the joy of imminent starvation."
"That's..." Jayce started, but then stopped, head bowed, "I don't like it, but I understand. It makes a cruel sort of sense."
Jinx nodded, and cracked her knuckles one by one, "Also, like I said, technically you bombed the docks, but the explosives were placed on my order, so I guess we can share that terrorism charge or somethin'."
"On your orders?"
Jinx turned to face Viktor, "Yeah, my orders as Chem-Empress... did I not mention that? Sunshine, did we forget to mention that?"
Lux rubbed one temple while Viktor and Jayce picked their respective jaws off the floor, nearly stumbling to a halt entirely as the implications of what Jinx just casually admitted rattled around in their minds.
Lux just smiled absently and nodded, "I suppose we did, my heart. To be fair, it's a rather new development for us all."
They continued to walk in silence, part awkward and part comfortable, for another few minutes, before Viktor cleared his throat, "If you don't mind me asking, where are we going?"
Nodding, Jinx gestured wildly, "We're going to get lunch. Thought maybe we could swing by someplace nearby, or see if Jericho's is open, but right now I figured we'd just go back to the Last Drop, get all the displaced Pilties in one spot, ya know?"
Shaking like a dog throwing off water, Jayce boggled at Jinx, "Wait, so more mages fled? How did they get across the barricade? Is it anyone we know?"
Jinx rolled her eyes, "No, they didn't, and yes, in that order." She paused, then shuddered, "Oh gods, if Vi turns out to be a mage, I owe Ekko another two gears."
Lux raised an eyebrow, and clicked her tongue, "Sunflower, have you been making more ill-advised bets against Ekko? Don't you already owe him four gears?"
"It wasn't that ill-advised!" Jinx wailed, "He argued we'd both be mages cause we're related, but I know cause you know that magic doesn't do it like that! It's totally random bullshit!"
In eerie synchronicity, the three other mages shrugged, and lapsed back into that half-awkward silence that seemed so pervasive. Jinx grabbed one braid and began to swing it as she walked, but before long, she paused, bringing the little group to a halt.
"What is it?"
Lux turned to Jayce, a pithy rejoinder on her lips when Jinx shushed them all, cocking her head this way and that. Lux's hands fell to her weapons, and Jayce pulled his hammer from where he'd hung it on his back. Even without a Hexgem animating the bludgeon's more enchanted qualities, the hammer was, after all, still a hammer.
Viktor, in the same moment, raised the Hexcore tipped cane, and a thread of glowing purple light trickled from the bulbous arcane rock into the Hexclaw, animating the contraption as surely as a Hexgem would have.
Jinx turned around, head still tilted to one side, and frowned, "Do you guys hear, like, rope?"
Jayce and Viktor groaned, but Lux's head snapped up, eyes glowing like miniature suns as she looked into the gloom and smog of Zaun. Distantly, and growing closer, the rasp and hum of something descending a rope at a rapid pace became audible.
Lux looked to the rest of the party, and screamed, "Mageseekers, RUN!"
Jinx snarled, and hefted Pow-Pow, but Lux caught her by the arm and began to drag the Chem-Empress along by raw force.
"Sunshine what gives, we can take 'em!?"
As if to punctuate Jinx's declaration, bolts of ash-colored wood snapped out of the darkness, stitching a line of white and silver into the cobblestones.
Viktor, the slowest to move, stumbled away from the crossbow bolts, his strides regaining power as he ran from the descending hunters. "Petricite, the bolts are made of petricite!" he shouted, shoulders hunched and head held low.
Lux lead them further away from the sound of leather on rope, and an instant later, the rag-tag group could see the white-cloaked killers drop behind them, hand crossbows and short swords held at the ready.
"Targets sighted, bring them down!"
"Fuck that noise," snarled Jinx, and in a blur of motion, she pulled two fanged grenades off her hips, ripping the pins out with her teeth. Her eyes glowed a manic pink, and she whipped the two spheroids down the alleyway, their little painted-on eyes glittering in the chem-tech lights.
The Mageseekers ducked and wove around the incoming projectiles, but the snapping jaws of one Chomper caught the short cloak of one unlucky soul.
Jinx watched with wide eyes as the snared Mageseeker threw aside his weapons, and with a cry of "For Demacia!" wrapped his cloak around himself and fell on the grenade. The explosion was muted, muffled by body armor, guts, and bone. The Mageseeker died instantly, his entrails smeared across the cobblestones and filth of the alleyway, but the squad survived with only a moment's disorientation.
It was enough time for the four to turn a corner, and Jinx tapped the hand Lux had latched around her arm in a death grip.
"Okay, with ya now Sunshine, time to run and hope Sevvy has that megaminigun set up."
Lux let go, and Jinx spun on one heel, quickly taking the lead of the pack, "Time for a shortcut, come with me if you want to live!"
The way that Lux had been leading them was the right way to the Last Drop, but it wasn't the fastest way. Jinx quickly found a stairwell down, and slid down the rusty banister, feeling the old iron shake as each of her party jumped on too. It was especially obvious when Viktor latched onto the guardrail, never mind the screeching wail of metal on metal as he began to slide.
Jinx shook the image of nails on a chalkboard out of her mind, and jumped clear of the railing just before reaching the end, landing in a crouch and rolling to bleed some of the momentum. She popped up to her feet and moved to the side, just in time for Lux to leap clear of the banister, rolling to a stop where Jinx had been moments before.
Jayce and Viktor landed with much less grace, but got to their feet gamely enough.
"Comeon, this way, mind the wire," Jinx called, even as she finished lashing a chomper to a support strut, threading a length of thin metal wire through the grenade's pin.
Gingerly, they moved into the alleyway, past Jinx and her improvised boobytrap. Securing the wire so that the next person down that alley was in for a nasty surprise, Jinx took one more instant to throw a second grenade at the base of the stairwell.
"Right, right, then left, then up, let's hussle!" she called, as the live grenade behind her began to belch neon blue smoke.
With Lux at the lead, the four mages continued through the underbelly of Zaun, ducking steam pipes and jumping over chem-powered cables that hissed and sparked, all while Jinx threw the last of her smoke grenades down random branching paths.
Before long, the tilt of the corridor slanted upward, and the lighting grew from 'dim un-used passageway' to 'frequented residential and shopping district'.
"Almost there, just a lit-"
The instant she saw the bleached white cloak, Lux had Zapper and her sword in hand, moving like chained lightning.
The Mageseeker had just enough time to turn toward the source of the Lux's words, and so caught the first round in the side. It was a weak shot, however, the sorcerous beads of starlight dispersing like the mists of a hot summer morning before they even made contact with the man's breastplate. But the lead of the round itself bit deep into the metal armor, a welter of blood boiling out of the pinkynail-sized hole.
The cry of alarm that was on the Mageseeker's tongue never made it past his lips, pinned to the roof of his mouth by Lux's sword.
She ripped the blade free from the dead man's mouth, and then cried out in pain when a dagger sank to the hilt in the meat of her thigh. Between Jinx's party and the Last Drop, dozens of Mageseekers and Home Guard were turning to face the hostiles suddenly in their midst.
"Lux!" screamed Jinx, and in a blur, she was standing at her soulmate's side, giving Lux something to lean on. Veins of chem-enhanced blood stood out in Jinx's other arm, and her eyes began to shine like pink floodlights. With a roar, Jinx raised Pow-Pow one-handed, and squeezed the trigger tight.
The Mageseeker who had thrown the dagger died in a hail of lead, and the other white and gold armored hunters scattered like frightened quail, while the Home guard scrambled for cover that would protect them from Jinx's rage. As Jinx and Lux limped forward, Viktor and Jayce followed. Jayce lent Lux an arm, and between Jinx and him, Lux was all but carried onward, giving her freedom to take pot shots with Zapper.
Beams of vibrant purple energy flickered and lashed out from Viktor's Hexclaw, but the petricite-laced armor of the Mageseekers dampened and deadened those blasts, rendering his attacks ineffective. Changing tracks without a moment's hesitation, Viktor began to put the cutting energy beam to work, slicing free chunks of walkways above the Mageseeker's heads, forcing them to run and dodge falling masonry and rusted metal pipes.
The Last Drop loomed large in front of the quartet, every smashed-out window bearing a firearm, and every corpse surrounding the structure a battered and broken thing, chem-punk, Home Guard, and Mageseeker alike.
As Jinx, Lux, Jayce, and Viktor half limped, half sprinted for the shelter of The Last Drop, a member of the Home Guard rose off to one side, shielded from Pow-Pow or Zapper by Jayce's not inconsiderable bulk. In one of the Home Guard's hands, they clutched a tightly wound bundle of mining explosives, the fuse already lit and spitting sparks.
"Die, monster!" they screamed, cocking their arm back to throw the weaponized industrial tool.
From the third floor of The Last Drop, a shot rang out, a line of purest blue cut through the air, coming to a stop in the mining charge. The resulting explosion was red and orange, chased through with flicking motes of blue.
"Stop trying to blow holes in the fucking city!" screamed Caitlyn, a note of pleading in her voice even as the sound of a fresh round being chambered echoed over the killing field.
Jinx wasted no time in the stunned silence that followed that particular demonstration of marksmanship. Dropping Pow-Pow on her sling, Jinx scooped up Lux in a bridal carry, and moved like Shimmer fueled lightning bolt, a flickering blur of motion, leaping through one of the broken-out windows on the ground floor of The Last Drop.
"Jinx, what in the fuck is going on!? Where did the Pilties find a fucking spine, and all these white and gold assholes?" snarled Sevika, flicking her wrist to sheath the sword housed in her arm.
"We're under attack, durr, and the spine and fresh blood came from Demacia, less durr."
Jayce and Viktor rolled through the window shortly after Jinx cleared the way, scrambling on hands and knees to get out of the line of fire.
A dull silence, or as close to silence as one could get in Zaun, fell over the embattled bar and its surroundings. Home Guard and Mageseekers cocked crossbows and chambered fresh rounds, while Lux began patting her pockets, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as blood continued to drip from the wound in her leg.
"Here, looks like you need these more than me this time," Vi said, crouch-walking over to the blonde, a partially used roll of bandages dug out of her own belt pouch.
Lux let out a small snort of amusement, but accepted the bandages with a smile.
As Lux started to tend to her wounds, Vi gave Jinx a small wave, then blinked and felt her jaw drop, "Jayce?! What in the fuck are you doing here?"
Jayce sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, "Um, seeking sanctuary from being stuck in a gilded cage? Oh, brought you these by the way, though you'll have to ask Jinx for a power source."
Without further ado, Jayce unslung his backpack and dug out the Atlas gauntlets from within, tossing the blue and brass mining implements to Vi.
"Aww, and here I was, thinking I'd have to make do with harsh language alone," coo'd Vi, slipping the gauntlets on with a savage grin.
Jinx stuck Pow-Pow out of the same window she'd leapt through, but while the motor whined and spun, no bullets issued forth.
"Fuck me with an ack!" Jinx snarled, then yelped as petricite bolts and piltovian lead thwacked into the windowsill and whistled above her head. "Sevika, pass me a canister of ammo for Pow-Pow, I know I left some here!"
A chem-punk cried out as three inches of Demacian steel tore into his arm, the dagger sitting hilt-deep in his shoulder. Sevika moved forward, her augmentic arm held up like a shield for her head and neck, wincing when another dagger clanged against the chem-hardened metal. Wrapping one hand around the downed punk's uninjured arm, she started dragging the man out of the way.
"Little fucking busy here, Chem-Empress! Go get it yourself!"
Jinx rolled her eyes and began to crouch walk away from the window, "Fuckin' fat lot of good being empress does me. Can't outlaw the word ahem, can't order people to bring me bullets, can't engage in diplomacy... wait a tick."
Spinning on the ball of one foot, Jinx quickly moved back to her window, and began waving one arm in quick bursts of motion, "Hey-o! Piltie people and to a much lesser extent, you creepy mage killers, anyone want to parley?"
The desultory exchange of gunfire and crossbow bolts came to a stuttering stop, and Jinx risked a quick glance, grinning widely at all the shocked expressions outside. "So is that a yes on the parley? Come on, give peace a chance or something!"
A wiry figure, tall and rangy, slowly stood up from behind a sheet metal barricade, "I am Lieutenant Jothan Sneed. I presume you are Jinx?"
Jinx wrinkled her nose, and stood up more fully in the window frame, "That's Chem-Empress Jinx to you, Louie-tenent. I'm new to this whole 'talking it out' thing, so why don't you lead off with what we can do to convince you to fuck right off?" Jinx snorted, then cackled, "I mean, aside from killing you all."
Sneed drew himself up to his full height, clasping his hands behind his back and puffing his chest out. "I could say much the same to you, criminal scum, but in the name of honoring the call for parlay, I will resist such childish commentary."
Stepping from behind the barricade, Sneed waved one arm as if conducting an orchestra. "You are surrounded, your other strongholds, such as they are, are under siege, your docks seized by Piltover's Home Guard, which in turn renders your vile terrorist attack fruitless. In summary, your position is hopeless."
Jinx turned back to the assorted criminals and miscreants huddled in the bar, whispering "Hey, we did send out, like, a runner or something? Help is coming, right?"
Sevika shrugged with a look of bored disdain on her face, but Vi piped up, "Yeah, Lailha, Abigail and Cameron all made a break for it before the cordon was complete. I gave them directions to reach the Firelights, so we... should be getting help? Maybe?"
Jinx blew out a sigh, then turned back to the Mageseeker outside, "Okay, let's gloss over how you're really, really bad at this, and get back to the point of what can we do to get you to piss off? Seriously this time, throw me a-"
"You surrender the Piltovian defectors in your midst for judgment. You turn yourself in to face Piltovian judgment," the lieutenant snapped, standing ramrod straight but vibrating with righteous anger, "and you let Lady Crownguard go free from whatever foul sorcery you've enchanted her with."
"Oh come on, how do I work with that? Ugh," groaned Jinx, slumping dramatically against the window frame. "Okay, counter-offer, I throw like, a whole sackful of gold hexes for you to go have a night on the town, and you fuck right off?"
If looks could kill, Sneed's expression would have blasted Jinx to ashes and charcoal, "You dare to ask a Mageseeker to let their quarry go? You would dare to bribe a Demacian soldier with coin, to abandon his duty?"
Jinx nodded, smiling wide, "Yeah, is it working?"
Ropes, dozens of ropes dropped from above, and Jinx's smile fell clear off her face as the brave Demacian souls began to slide down through Zaun's everpresent haze of smog and grit. One landed right next to Sneed, and seemed to whisper something into the taller man's ear. The Lieutenant grinned savagely, and raised one hand like an executioner's blade.
"No. Seize the witch!" Sneed roared, bringing his arm down to urge his fellows forward, before ducking and rolling away from Caitlyn's snapshot, prompting the sniper to curse as her perch was plinked at and pockmarked by crossbow bolts and rifle rounds.
Even as the assembled chem-punks fired wildly into the crowd of soldiers and assassins, like a tide of white and blue, the Demacians surged forward, some hoisting the bodies of their fallen as shields, or carrying the impromptu barricades forward wholesale.
"Alright, you wanna play, let's fucking play!" howled Jinx, kicking Fishbones up into her waiting hands. The weapon howled in time with Jinx, and in a flash of burnt chems, a rocket bearing Jinx's manic grin slashed out into the crowd of Demacians, exploding a dozen souls into paste and giblets.
"For Zaun!" roared Lux, plugging away with Zapper, the magical munitions failing to react more than half of the time. But the lead never failed to find flesh and bone to rend.
The first Demacian to climb through a window had but a bare second to appreciate their accomplishment before Sevika's blade, humming with chem-fueled power, bifurcated them at the waist. "A gold hex for every Demacian scalp!" she screamed, and the few chem-punks still standing moved with frenzied greed, switchblades and gutter knives plunging for the seams of armor, while point-blank pistol shots ripped and tore through muscle and metal alike.
A Mageseeker moved from one window, leaping and sticking to a wall on hooked and barbed boots. They threw themselves at Jinx, their visage warped into a bloodthirsty smile as hidden blades erupted from their wrists.
A death-hungry grin that shattered like fine porcelain when Vi crashed into them, one Atlas gauntlet extended in a vicious right cross. Teeth flew one way, and the Mageseeker flew the other, crashing into the far wall with enough force to break another dozen bones.
"For Zaun!" Vi bellowed, her gauntlet's flickering with steel-blue light as she drifted around the barroom brawl, powered or unpowered as she neared or strayed away from petricite-carrying soldiers.
Lux heard Jinx launch another rocket, and flipped Zapper around in her grip as she pulled her sword free from a fellow Demacian's guts. Whipping the pistol in a short arc, she brought the metal handle down with bone-cracking force, smashing another soldier's nose flat, blinding them with blood and pain just before her sword tore open their throat.
The sheer density of Demacian Vanguard and Mageseekers was beginning to tell. No matter how many Sevika disemboweled, or Vi bludgeoned insensate, two more stormed through the windows, blades drawn and hand crossbows readied.
Lux wasn't sure how long she stood on that blood slicked dancefloor, how many of her erstwhile countrymen she butchered like pigs, how many glancing blows her cuirass and vambraces absorbed, or how many scratches and bruises she accumulated.
But over the roar of blood in her ears, over the sound of Caitlyn continuing to take pot shots from the top floor, Lux heard the sound of hoverboards, and the thump and boom of grenade launchers.
"Firelights! The Firelights are here!" she crowed, and fought on with renewed zeal.
Just as suddenly as the hoverboard-equipped gang appeared, the constant flow of Demacian reinforcements ebbed. Lux gained a second to catch her breath before the next soldier attacked her, then two seconds to rest her sword arm. Before she knew it, all that was left of the ferocious assault were corpses.
She looked around, relief warring with adrenaline in her blood. Relief that died the instant she took stock of who was left standing. Deep in her soul, she felt pain, terror, and rage. Lux trembled, and ran to a window, peering out into the perpetual gloom of Zaun, watching the last of the Demacians vanish up their ropes, or tear down an alleyway, hounded by the Firelights.
Turning, she looked to Sevika, to Vi, to Caitlyn marching stiffly down the stairs. Tears began to fill her eyes, and she gasped,
"Where's Jinx?"