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Everything happened in the blink of an eye. One moment, Vi was about to be killed by her father, the next she was throwing herself through the air to catch her sister’s wrist, acting on some instinct embedded so deeply into the core of her being that she didn’t even have time to think before she was moving.
They dangled in a precarious chain off the edge of the breaking beam. Vi’s hand grasped her sister’s wrist, while Vander - or the thing that used to be Vander, because Vi’s father would never hurt her - clutched Jinx’s ankle. The Vander-creature was no longer attacking, just gasping for breath, having seemingly accepted its fate. Vi grunted with the effort of holding them both up. Even with her gauntlets, she wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to pull her sister back onto the beam.
Jinx’s eyes - no, Powder’s eyes - met Violet’s. She smiled. Not Jinx’s smile, not her taunting smirk that came before an attack or her threatening smile she used when she knew she had Vi cornered. A gentle smile. The one she’d used with Isha. The one she’d used, so many long, painful years ago, with Vi.
“Always with ya, sis,” she said.
And then, before Vi could do anything to react, Jinx detached a device from her belt, twisted it, and dropped it into the Vander-creature’s open mouth.
The explosion threw Vi backwards, forcing her to release her grip on Jinx’s arm. She screamed in agony as the light temporarily blinded her. Vi scrabbled around for purchase on the metal beam, which was creaking even more ominously than before, the explosion having weakened the already failing structural supports.
But Vi didn’t care about the imminent probability of falling to her death. She needed to get to her sister. “Jinx!” Vi shouted into the haze of smoke. “Powder! ”
Her vision was beginning to return. Jinx was not on the beam with her.
Vi’s chest clenched with dread. Desperately, she clung to the edge of the beam and looked into the depths of the tower.
Far below, a streak of bright blue vanished into the smoke.
“NO! ”
All thoughts fled Vi’s mind.
“NO! POWDER! NO!”
She must have leapt onto an adjacent beam at some point, because her feet were now on steadier ground.
“Jinx, no. Powder, please, no, you can’t. No. No.”
Vi’s voice gradually faded from a scream to a whisper as all the fight went out of her.
~~~
It was Ekko who found her slumped on one of the beams, hours later. He dragged her off, presumably to someplace safe. Vi didn’t care enough to look at her surroundings. She knew she’d have to tell Ekko what had happened. She wasn’t looking forward to breaking him as she’d been broken.
It was Caitlyn who told her the news. That the Vander-creature was most certainly dead. That its body had cushioned Jinx’s fall ever so slightly. That Jinx had broken her spine, and most of the other bones in her body, and was lying unconscious in a hospital in Zaun.
It was Mel who accompanied her to the hospital. Apparently, she wanted to take a look around the undercity. She said she wanted to get to know the rest of the city she was fighting for, or something like that. Distantly, Vi felt a spark of hope at her words. But presently, all she could think about was that her little sister was alive. She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
It was Sevika, of all people, who showed her into the hospital and led her to Jinx’s room. Vi repeated her mantra all the way there - she’s alive, she’s alive - but didn’t fully believe it.
Not until the door opened and revealed her little sister, tucked gently under the blankets of the hospital bed, her chest rising and falling ever so slightly.
Vi collapsed into the chair at Jinx’s bedside. For a while, she couldn’t say anything. She just clutched Jinx’s hand and cried. It was all too much. The battle; the loss of Vander; the agony of thinking her sister was dead, then learning she wasn’t, then thinking she was dead again. Too much. Vi couldn’t handle it.
“Powder,” she whispered eventually. “Jinx. Sister. I…” What could she say? What was there to say to this sister who had done so much bad, and so much good, and nearly sacrificed herself? What could Vi possibly say that her sister hadn’t already thought or said to herself a thousand times?
“I love you, sister,” Vi said.
~~~
Caitlyn’s speech went over well, as did the rest of the ceremony. Vi admired how well Caitlyn was dealing with the fact that her childhood friend had vanished into thin air. She was also a little suspicious that perhaps Cait wasn’t dealing with it well at all. Hiding their pain behind a veil of determination was a tendency she and her girlfriend had in common.
The next day, Vi waited on the bridge, fiddling with the edges of a stitch in one of the various wounds she’d received during the battle. The sun was setting over the river, framing Piltover and Zaun in a beautiful golden light. The serenity almost made Vi angry. How could nature be so tranquil when hundreds, maybe thousands, of people had been massacred less than a week ago? When everything Vi knew and loved had just come so close to being destroyed? When her sister lay in a coma from which she might never awaken?
The sound of approaching footsteps lifted Vi out of the misery of her inner world. Caitlyn, Mel, and Ekko were finally here.
“Hey, little man,” Vi greeted, swinging an arm around Ekko’s shoulder. “Mel. Cupcake.” She winked. “How was the Council meeting?”
Mel sighed. “Some people weren’t quite ready to listen and cooperate at first,” she told Vi. “And by some people, I mean everyone besides the three of us.”
Ekko rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be patient, Mel. Sevika has good ideas, but she doesn’t trust the rest of you. That’s why she’s so unwilling to work with you. You have to show her you mean what you say about wanting a better future for Zaun.”
Vi glanced between the three of them. “So… it didn’t go well?”
“We didn’t say that.” Caitlyn rested her hands on the bridge’s railing beside Vi. “We have a basic reconstruction plan in place. Long-term solutions and policies might take a few more meetings to be agreed upon, but I’d say we got off to a promising start.”
Ekko nodded. “I still think you should’ve been on the Council, Vi. You’ve always cared about the undercity.”
“Just because I care doesn’t mean I know what’s best for our people.” Vi shook her head. “You and - I never thought I’d say this, but you and Sevika were the right choices. And hey, maybe if Zaun’s population grows, we’ll need another seat of representation on the Council someday.”
Mel leaned over the bridge on Caitlyn’s other side, and the four of them stood together quietly, watching the sun set over their city.
~~~
Vi visited her sister every day, sometimes for hours, other times only for a few minutes. Ekko visited almost as often. They frequently sat together in Jinx’s room, offering comfort or telling stories. Vi got the feeling there was something Ekko wasn’t telling her, but she didn’t press him. They all had their personal burdens to carry, and she certainly wasn’t ready to talk about her own. They’d have conversations about everything someday.
But the day it happened, Ekko was in a Council meeting, and Vi was alone with her sister. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, illuminating the cards and flowers and gifts that the citizens of Zaun had brought for their hero. Vi was admiring one of the cards, featuring a lovely drawing of her sister in that giant balloon machine, when a stir of movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Jinx’s eyes blinked open.
“Vi?”
Violet was at her sister’s side instantly. She cupped Jinx’s face ever so gently. Her sister gazed up at her, confused.
“What happened?”
“You…” Vi choked on her words. Tears spilled from her eyes, obscuring her vision. “Oh, Powder, it’s really you. You’re awake, Jinx. You hit the ground and you’ve been unconscious for weeks, and I was scared - I was so scared you weren’t going to wake up, but you did. It’s okay, Pow-pow, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Jinx extricated one arm from the bedsheets and wrapped it around Vi’s bicep. “And you’re okay?” she asked, her voice raspy. “Everyone’s… alive?”
Vi didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, no. A lot of people died in the battle. But you, me, Ekko, Caitlyn… we all made it out.” She swiped fiercely at her tears. “I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But I don’t want to overwhelm you.”
Powder - Jinx - Vi’s sister frowned. “I’m still a criminal,” she said, as if realizing it for the first time. “Am I in a prison? This looks like a hospital.”
Vi shook her head vehemently. “You’re not going to prison. We have a new Council now. Ekko, Sevika, and Cait won’t let you be arrested.”
“Sevika’s on the Council?” She managed a weak laugh. “Didn’t see that one coming. Ekko doesn’t surprise me, though. And of course your girlfriend’s still in charge.”
Despite everything, Vi blushed. “She’s not in charge. There isn’t a head of the Council, not yet.” She sighed shakily. “Oh, Powder, Ekko’s going to be so happy. We’ve been visiting you every day.”
Violet’s sister looked away. “I’m not Powder anymore, Vi. I haven’t been that girl in a long time.”
“Well, you’re not Jinx anymore, either,” Vi insisted. “You’ve changed. For the better. You might deny it, but I can see it as clear as day.”
“If I’m not Powder, and I’m not Jinx, then who am I?” Her eyes were wide and afraid and so, so tired. Vi wanted to hold her in her arms until she never felt that fear again. “I don’t think I know myself anymore.”
Vi took her sister’s hand. “You have all the time in the world to figure it out. And I’ll help you. I know you.”
“Oh, do you?”
“You’re my sister.” Vi looked down into those eyes, so familiar despite their change in hue. “You’re a genius - way too smart for your own good. You’re brave, and spontaneous, and a little too willing to throw yourself into danger. You’ve done things you regret. You’ve done things to try to make up for those regrets. You have a big sister, and you had a little sister, and you tried to do right by them, but you blamed the rest of the world when things didn’t work out, and then you blamed yourself, and neither of those things were right.” Vi squeezed her hand. “You are powerful. You are a fighter. It took you a long time to figure out what to fight for. But when you finally made the decision you knew was right, you fought until the very end.”
Her sister was listening intently, and Vi realized just how badly she’d needed to hear this from her. Vi continued. “You are a blue flame that keeps burning hotter than everything else around it, no matter how many people try to extinguish the fire. You are the lights in the windows of the buildings in Zaun that shine even when the pollution is so thick it’s hard to breathe.”
Powder didn’t look fearful anymore. Jinx watched her sister with a calm, trusting expression. “Vander named me when I was born,” she said. “Silco named me when he reshaped me. So, Violet, now that I’ve come back to life, what will you name me?”
Vi remembered the first time she’d seen Ekko again, after all those years in prison. She remembered the tree, the children playing, the brightness and joy of it all. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to feel hope for a peaceful future for the undercity. Now, as she looked down at her sister, that same hope reignited.
“You should be the one to make the final decision,” said Vi. “But if it were up to me, I would call you Firelight.”