Get Jinxed: A Tale of Mental Instability and Poor Decisions (Arcane/League of Legends)

It'd been way too long since I'd been properly out and about in Zaun during the daytime. Between Academy classes, setting up the water plant, and everything else I'd been up to there'd just been too much going on in Piltover. Plus with Silco running things most of my trips to Zaun actually involved just heading to the Fireflies' HQ to hang with them. I didn't want to risk a run-in with Silco's goons, after all.

At first I thought that at least Zaun was still the same as ever, but the more time I spent here, the more I realized things had changed. Zaun had always been a rough slum, that was what made it Zaun in the first place. But all the bad parts of it seemed a bit worse than I'd remembered. The streets seemed dirtier, the buildings a bit more run-down, and the people leaner and hungrier. For every person who met us with a happy smile, another had nothing for us but a suspicious glare and muttered comments. It wasn't like the city was in total decay or anything, but now it felt like it was decaying. When Vander had been around, there was a much stronger sense that even if things were rough, we were all in this together and trying to lift our poor city up.

I quickly discovered one big problem with my whole elaborate plan of participating in Lux's whole food giveaway and charity drive. Looks like four years hadn't been enough for everyone to completely forget about me, or rather the old version of someone they thought was still me. "Is that little Powder? Look at you, all grown up and fancy! I bet Vander would be tickled pink if he could see you now." The old lady raised a fist in an old revolutionary salute. "Zaun stands."

"Yeah, Zaun stands, but it's Jinx now." I didn't have it in me to stop and explain to every single person who still used my old name why I'd changed it up. I'd barely even explained it to people like Caitlyn, Ekko, and Seraphine who'd been there for the whole thing. Why did everyone wanna talk about Powder all of a sudden when she'd been dead and buried for years? Though I guess that was gonna happen when I started talking to Zaunites who'd never gotten to know me but still remembered when I was Vander's little kid.

If that had been the worst of it, maybe I would've been okay. Too bad it wasn't. I was in the middle of helping Lux hand out some more of that brown Demacian bread and something called salt pork (which I somehow figured out was some kinda pork with lots of salt in it) and corned beef (which confusingly didn't have any corn in it) when things took a really bad turn. Some weedy-looking guy who I vaguely recognized from The Last Drop smiled at me as he took his supplies. "Did Silco send you, Powder? He's been doing a great job keeping things running since the Pilties killed Vander. Yes, a very great job." Weedy Guy did this weird kinda twitch as he started walking off with his food. "Great man, Silco..."

I wanted to scream. Or blow something up. Or set it on fire. Preferably all three at once. The only thing worse than knowing Silco had gotten away with killing Vander was how so many people in Zaun seemed to think he was some kind of revolutionary hero who was carrying on Vander's legacy. Someone even put up a big graffiti mural of Silco's ugly mug, carrying the flag of Zaun with Vander walking behind him, smiling approvingly. It was like seeing Vander get killed all over again, except worse. Silco hadn't stopped at murdering him, now he was trampling on his legacy and ruining everything he'd ever stood for.

I growled and passed my care package over to Lux. "I'm gonna go check the perimeter for a bit. Lemme know if you need anything." I didn't wanna lose my cool and ruin everything she was working so hard to accomplish.

The worst part was that I couldn't even really get mad at most of the people talking to me. Yeah, it pissed me off that they were buying all of Silco's lies, but how were they supposed to know any better? Despite everything the Firelights had been doing to fight back Silco still ran the streets. A lot of people didn't know any version of events other than what they'd heard from him and his goons. How could they when only me and the Firelights knew the truth? As long as Silco kept the bad people rich, the good people scared, and everyone else ignorant Zaun would belong to him.

I started checking down alleyways. I wasn't sure if we needed to worry about Silco sending goons to jump us, that would bring a lot of heat down on him, but I didn't want to take that risk if I didn't need to. You never wanna look like an easy target in Zaun, or someone will take a shot at you just for the hell of it. Especially when we were giving away food that someone could be selling for money. Silco might be smart enough to think about long-term consequences, but there were plenty of desperate people who couldn't afford to worry about the long term. Who cares about what'll happen in a week when you might starve to death tomorrow?

I was gonna go looking for something to do to blow off a little steam when I spotted that weird weedy-looking guy from earlier. He had his food tucked under one arm, while the other was digging around in his jacket for something. After a few seconds, he finally found it, pulling out a vial of...

Vander dropped the flask. What came out of it didn't look like any drink I'd ever seen before. It was bright pinkish-purple, not the brown or clear color booze usually was. From the way Vander started gagging and how his veins started turning purple,

In an instant I'd crossed the distance to the weedy guy and snatched the vial of pinkish liquid out of his hands. "What the hell? Where did you get this?!"

"Give that back!" From the way he was glaring at me and clenching his teeth I wondered if he was gonna try to attack me. I pulled out Zapper, cranking it up high enough to deal with him if he tried anything.

"They call it Shimmer." Ekko stepped into the alleyway, gently putting a hand on my outstretched arm and pointing my gun away from Weedy Guy. "Silco's been pumping the streets full of it lately. Nobody knows exactly what it is, but it's one of the most popular drugs on the market right now, and Silco's the only one making it." Ekko sighed and turned to Weedy Guy. "Huck, I thought you said you were gonna quit and get clean."

"I was," Weedy Guy, Huck, complained. "I was just gonna take a small little hit. You know, to take the edge off, and keep the shakes from getting too bad."

Ekko sighed and shook his head. "You think you're the first Shimmer-head to use that excuse? Take the food, find somewhere quiet to hole up, and ride it out cold turkey. The sooner you get that junk outta your system, the better off you'll be."

Huck slumped down and slowly started wandering off, pausing to throw one last resentful glower back at us as he retreated. Once I was sure he was safely out of earshot, I turned to Ekko. "This is the same shit Silco dosed Vander with years ago. The stuff that made him go berserk and take out half the Enforcers in Piltover."

"It doesn't make people go crazy and sprout huge muscles," Ekko pointed out. "So I don't think it's the exact same. He's probably been tweaking the formula since then. Or he's just not selling the version of it that makes people into supersoldiers. This stuff just gets people high and hooked." He grimaced and added. "And since it's Silco we're dealing with, probably a lot of other stuff we don't know about. We don't exactly have the scientific know-how to figure out everything about how it works."

I thought it over for a second, then tucked the vial away in a secure pocket. "I might be able to figure something out or find someone else who can do it." Drugs weren't exactly in my usual research wheelhouse, but there was bound to be someone at the Academy who studied medicine, organic chemistry, or whatever science you needed to figure out Shimmer. Or I could just do some studying and take a few classes to learn it myself. What was the point of going to a fancy Piltie school if I never learned anything new?

"Right." Ekko seemed to hesitate for a second before clearing his throat. "So, uh, you good? You kinda bailed on us pretty suddenly."

I groaned and leaned back against the alley wall, slowly running a hand down my face. "Just got a lot going on right now, and the current state of Zaun isn't helping. At least it's not all bad, I knocked Marcus's block off on the way over here."

"Badass." Ekko grinned at me. "You gonna get in trouble for that?"

"Nah, he was being an asshole who had it coming." I scoffed. "Maybe Mrs. Kiramman will give me a lecture about keeping my cool, but she'll rip him a new one when he hears what he said to deserve that punch. She'd probably wanna smack him too, if not for all that pesky Council protocol. It's everything else that's got me down."

"Yeah, I get that." Ekko sighed and leaned against the wall next to me. "Feels like no matter what we try, Zaun's slipping away from us. Especially now that I'm having to step in more and more for Benzo."

I flinched. "I thought he was bouncing back from that whole heart thing he had last year. Do you need me to try to get more pills?" It'd scared the crap outta me when he just fell down clutching his chest one day while I was hanging in Firefly HQ. I'd gotten a weird look from the Kirammans when I'd tried to ask about what kinda meds would help with that, but once I explained everything they'd eventually helped hook me up.

Ekko shook his head. "I don't think it's pills or anything, I think it just kinda made him feel his years a bit more. By the time he bounced back from being sick he'd been stuck in bed so long he'd lost a lot of muscle, and at his age once you're out of shape it's a lot harder to get back into it. Especially when he still needs to take it easy on his ticker." He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "He can still keep things running back at home base, but he says running around getting into gang fights is a job for young men and women. Scar helps out a lot, but you know how he is, one of those strong silent types."

"Don't worry, you got this." I grinned and punched his arm. "Nobody's gonna mess with you when they know you could kick their butts. Especially with your new, not at all suspicious tallness."

"I'm barely taller than you," Ekko pointed out. "Really, if you wanna talk about tallness, you should take it up with the Kirammans. I don't think either of us stands a chance of catching up with Caitlyn."

"The freaky tall person genes do seem to run in that family." I chuckled and shook my head. "I've been thinking about getting a giant hat, but that would help me fit in more or just make it more obvious I'm shorter?"

Ekko shrugged. "No idea. Though the other day Zeri was telling me I should try to grow a mohawk to help me look a bit bigger." He chuckled and shook his head. "Speaking of the K's, are they still treating you good? You know if things ever go south with them, you've got us. I know you never officially joined up or anything, but as far as I'm concerned you're a Firelight, and I'm pretty sure everyone else agrees."

"The Kirammans? Yeah, they're good." I wanted to just leave it at that, but with everything that had been going on lately I kinda needed to bend someone's ear about it, and Ekko was about the safest person in all of Runeterra for me to talk to. "Though, uh, speaking of them, something did come up the other day. They, uh, they said they wanna adopt me."

Ekko frowned and cocked his head to the side. "Didn't they do that four years ago?"

I groaned and waved his question away. "Nah. They took me in and everything, but there was never an official formal adoption with all the paperwork and legal stuff saying I'm a full-on member of the family. It changes everything."

"Does it?" Ekko stopped slouching against the wall, standing up straight and facing me. "You think of Vander as your dad, and everyone calls you one of his kids, right?"

I scoffed. "Yeah, hearing that from everyone who recognized me is half the reason I'm out checking the perimeter instead of shaking babies and kissing hands or whatever Lux is doing right now. Why?"

Ekko let out a soft snort and smirked at me. "Now Jinx, I know you've gone all soft and Piltie on us, but do you really think Vander went into a courthouse and filed a bunch of legal paperwork to say that you, Vi, and the others were all legally his adopted children?"

"Of course he didn't." I sighed and started bouncing one of my braids between my hands. "But that's how things work in Zaun, nobody bothers doing things the official way. It's different in P-town."

"Maybe if you're a lawyer fighting in a courtroom," Ekko agreed. "Otherwise? I'm not so sure. A couple of minutes ago you sounded pretty sure the Kirammans would have your back after you punched out the Sheriff of Piltover. Dunno about you, but that sounds like some real mom and dad stuff to me."

It wasn't that simple. "But what about—"

Ekko cut me off. "As far as anyone in Zaun goes, none of us care what the law says one way or the other. The people who think less of you for living with the Kirammans won't give a damn if you're not officially one of them, and nobody who's cool with it is gonna change their mind. I know you say things are different in Piltover, but I snagged one of their papers when they were celebrating you opening up the water plant, and that paper had your name as 'Jinx Kiramman' right there in plain black and white."

"Apparently that's what my name was in all the official paperwork they sent to Lux and the Demacians too." I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "So … what? You're saying it doesn't actually matter if I get adopted or not because everyone is gonna assume I'm a Kiramman either way?"

Ekko smiled and gripped my shoulder. "No. If it matters to you, then it matters. What I'm saying is that you should pick whatever answer seems right for you. You don't need to worry about me, it wouldn't even be the first time you've changed your name since we became friends."

I glowered at him. "I'm not changing my name to Lady Beatrice Eleanor Priscilla Kiramman. If I change it at all, it'll just be Jinx Kiramman."

"That's… extremely specific." Ekko shook his head. "My point is, whatever you do, don't do it because you think it'll change how anyone in Zaun or Piltover or anywhere else is gonna look at you. Do it because it's what you want. It's your name, if you're not happy with it, what's the point? If anyone else has a problem with that, they're probably not worth worrying about to begin with."

Huh. That wasn't half-bad advice. It was like Ekko was my best friend who really got me or something.

As we started heading back to the convoy, he had to go and ruin the moment. "So what's the deal with you and this Demacian princess anyway? 'Cause call me crazy, but it seems like you two have a bit of a vibe going on."

"You're crazy," I deadpanned. "There's no vibe. And she's not a princess, just a duke's daughter." Sure, she'd maybe flirted with me once or twice, but I was pretty sure she'd just done that to mess with me. No way anything would come of it.

"If you say so…" He smirked and lightly elbowed me. "So does that mean I've got a shot, then?"

I scoffed. "With me, or with her?"

He shrugged. "I'm flexible."

I snorted and punched his arm. "You're an asshole, is what you are." I threw an arm over his shoulders as we headed back to the convoy.

I was back at Lux's side a few minutes later, helping her hand out food. From the way her eyes flicked over towards me a few times I knew she had questions, but was probably saving them for when there weren't any people around.

Those suspicions proved accurate, because as soon as we were done with that round of handouts and we'd mounted up in the wagons to head to the next location she pounced. "Is everything alright? You seemed a bit upset when you left so suddenly, but I wasn't sure whether you wanted me to come after you to check on you, or give you some space to handle things on your own."

"You're good, Ekko came after me." Plus while Lux and I were getting along pretty decently, there was still a lot of history she just wasn't part of and wouldn't get. "Ekko and I go way back, so he's kind of already in the know about a lot of what happened when I still lived in Zaun, and all the stuff that happened to make me leave Piltover. I doubt the Council mentioned any of it in whatever paperwork they sent your way."

Lux shook her head. "It was a single paragraph of information, not a full biography. You were working with Mr. Talis and Viktor when there was a family tragedy, and the Kirammans took you in. The rest of the information focused on your accomplishments as a student and Hextech researcher."

"Sounds like the kind of info they'd send," I agreed.

She sighed and placed one of her gloved hands on top of mine. "Though I can make a guess or two about what they left out. Considering how much you seem to dislike the Enforcers in general and Sheriff Marcus in particular, I take it the Enforcers were involved in the 'family tragedy' the paperwork referred to? And that their behavior was less than honorable?"

"Understatement of the century," I grunted. "Though it wasn't all on the Enforcers. Some of it was an old enemy of Vander's who came crawling out of the woodwork to get payback and a friend we thought we could trust. That old enemy is kinda the top dog in Zaun these days, and he's got a lot of people thinking he's some kinda hero carrying on Vander's legacy."

"If Sheriff Marcus was involved in the death of your loved ones, then I'm glad I supported you against him." She gently squeezed my hand. "If not for all the reasons why that would be an extremely bad idea, I would've been tempted to throw a gauntlet at his feet and demand satisfaction."

"Yeah, we don't do that here." I snorted and couldn't resist adding. "Plus I doubt Marcus has ever given anyone satisfaction. He says his wife died in childbirth, but rumor had it that she actually just ran off with a hunky sailor from Bilgewater after the kid she was carrying came out not looking enough like her husband." I had no idea if that was true, probably not considering I'd just made it up, but the truth had never gotten in the way of a good rumor. And really, there was a chance it could be true, which was almost as good as it actually being true. Plenty of Enforcers lost spouses because of 'job stress,' which I always assumed was some kind of polite code for being a massive asshole.

Lux opened her mouth, but before she could speak one of the Fireflies poked her head in. "We've got trouble."

"Oh great." I stepped out of the wagon and found Ekko facing off with a shirtless guy whose torso was covered in really bad tattoos. Not only had he managed to misspell 'fuck,' he'd done it in two different ways. And then this brilliant example of Zaunite intelligence had that embarrassment permanently inscribed into his skin.

I walked up next to Ekko and whispered. "Who's this asshole? Looks kinda familiar."

"Deckard," Ekko murmured back. "He runs a petty street gang."

"He with Silco?" I asked.

"He pays tribute and does some odd jobs for Silco, but I don't think he's with Silco's organization," Ekko answered. "Just someone who busts a few heads, pushes Shimmer, and collects protection money."

That tracked. It was a lot simpler to let the street gangs run themselves, and just collect tribute and hand out the occasional job to whoever the current top dogs were. Especially since Zaun street gangs got into turf wars and skirmishes that led to them constantly swapping territory and changing in strength.

"Hey, fancy Piltie girl," Deckard smirked and tried to flex his unimpressive muscles to look intimidating. "Maybe the Dumbflies didn't tell you how things work, but if you wanna pass through my territory, you gotta pay the fee." He smirked at Ekko. "It'll be a big fee, Silco's offering a lot for your head, so you gotta make it worth my time." He turned back to me. "Though I doubt you fancy types care about that. Tell you what, we'll give you a discount on the toll if you drop that zero," he pointed at Ekko, "And get with the me-ro!" He grinned and pointed both thumbs at himself.

I let out an incredulous scoff. "Is he for real?"

Ekko sighed. "Unfortunately, he is. We can take his gang without too much trouble, they have a very inflated opinion of themselves."

I snorted, "Ya don't say?"

Ekko let out a quiet chuckle. "Not sure if a fight is the call you wanna make, though. Fights can get messy, and it could get us a lot of attention we don't need. If you wanna try to talk him down, or just pay him off and keep moving I'll understand."

---

Current Stability: 0
Willpower: 2

What Does Jinx Do About the Gang?

[ ][Gang] Start blasting
No Roll Needed

[ ][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down
Issues: Trauma (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Daughter of Zaun (-1)
Failure Result: Negotiations fail, a fight starts without the element of surprise.

[ ][Gang] Just Bribe Them
Issues: Trauma (-3), The Other Side of the Pilt (-1), Daughter of Zaun (-1)
Failure Result: The thugs see Jinx as weak and squeeze her for more supplies.

Willpower

[ ][Willpower] Spend Zero
[ ][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
[ ][Willpower] Spend Two for +6 to Rolls