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

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Panory said:
Lux put on her best seductive gaze, whatever that meant, and said, "I don't blame whatever chewed on those circus tent pants. I also want to go down there myself and start eating."
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Lol she totally bombed this!
I can imagine Seraphine's magic feeling active and angry from afar at someone making a move on her girl!

[X][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero
 
I wish I could write in or else I would offer to bring them over to where we keep "The good stuff".... Aka a lovely little ambush.



Or else zap one and try and taunt them into following her into an ambush.
 
Randino Treviani said:
I'd expect it to more like "Then I went ZAP, and he went all bzzaahh! then ekko says-"

Ain't Enough Hours in the Day (+2)
Sometimes, okay a lot of the time, Jinx says things. Things mortal minds weren't meant to understand. Things there aren't enough hours in the day to unravel. Your glad to be one of the people who figured that out, for your own sake as much as Jinx's.
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True. Jinx's storytelling probably involves a lot of chaotic mile a minute madness mixed in with the casual ultra-violence.

Panory said:
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I laughed.

Jinx: Wow, Lux. You don't have any game!
Lux: Hey! I was trying to start a serious relationship with you, not play some kind of game...
Jinx: ... You're lucky you're so cute.
Lux: Like you have any room to talk. Remember how you replied the last time I tried hitting on you?
Jinx: You asked if that was a hexstrap in my pocket, or if I was just happy to see you. Of course I had to explain that what was in my pocket was actually a polyvalent phased rune array. Duh.
Lux: You're also lucky that you're cute.

WhatWasRandom said:
Oh Zeri exists! Nice
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She'll definitely feature as a name to be dropped as a Firelight member, at least. Not sure if she'll get any focus beyond that.

WhatWasRandom said:
changed my name? Not your?
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Dang typo. Fixed.

WhatWasRandom said:
Good talk with Ekko. Too bad even with relatively sane Jinx, he likely best friend'zoned, maybe. I ship Jinx with Lux or Seraphine.
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Ekko's a very solid guy who's a good friend to have, for sure. I think shipping-wise he works a bit better with Powder than Jinx, but it's not like TimeBomb is bad or anything.

ColdGoldLazarus said:
Ekko is probably the only person right now who could say that and get away with it, anyone else would be looking down the barrel of Zapper for that lol
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One of the perks of being Jinx's best friend is being able to get away with saying stuff to her that would get anyone else blasted to bits. Probably also helps that Jinx knows he doesn't really mean it, he's just giving her a hard time. Like I said earlier, teasing and sassing is practically her love language (which puts a new light on how she became a full-on sass queen while dealing with Vi in S2E5).

ColdGoldLazarus said:
Awwww, this whole scene was really sweet.
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I did like writing it. Ekko's a solid friend for Jinx, because he's got a grounded perspective that can help with her tendency to get a bit too lost inside her own head.

ColdGoldLazarus said:
That's definitely a euphemism for domestic abuse statistics, so yeah, I'd say so.
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Definitely part of it, yeah. Though the long hours and burnout are also a factor, along with the usual terrible ways people try to self-medicate for those things (like becoming an alcoholic). It's a job that already has a lot of attraction for terrible people, and makes the people who try to do it earnestly worse.

ColdGoldLazarus said:
PFFT
Somehow I forgot he hadn't been turned into a Shimmer RoidRage monster in this timeline, though clearly his mental faculties have only degraded over time anyway. (Not that he was ever the sharpest bulb in the shed to begin with lol)
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Pretty much all we know about his pre-Shimmer self in Arcane is that he's kind of an idiot thug, whose main use to Silco was being expendable enough to be used as a Shimmer test subject. Petty gang leader who thinks he's a total badass while looking like an idiot douche feels like a pretty likely trajectory for his life to take if he wasn't becoming a Shimmer test subject.
 
Chengar Qordath said:
Pretty much all we know about his pre-Shimmer self in Arcane is that he's kind of an idiot thug, whose main use to Silco was being expendable enough to be used as a Shimmer test subject. Petty gang leader who thinks he's a total badass while looking like an idiot douche feels like a pretty likely trajectory for his life to take if he wasn't becoming a Shimmer test subject.
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Innnnteerresting. I know it's kinda bad form to speculate on out of story QM posts, but to me this implies Silco is either slowing his roll on Shimmer testing or has a more reliable stream of test subjects.

[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls

Id rather start blasting, but if we're gonna try talking might as well help it out

[x] [X][Gang] Start blasting
 
Why does everyone want to start fighting? That's very obviously the goal here.

Deckard's an idiot, but Silco wants to cause trouble for Jinx and Piltover. Messing up the delegation is a great way to do it, since the blame would fall on the Council.


[X][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down
[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls
 
[X][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down

[X][Willpower] Spend One for +3 to Rolls

My reasoning - we are trying to not display the divide between the two sides that blatantly and Jinx is still seen as Vander's kid.

Talking first then fighting fits him. And we want to keep that connection to Zaun.
 
[X][Gang] Try to Talk Them Down
[X][Willpower] Spend Zero

Attempting negotiations will probably make us look better to Lux, and do we really need the element of surprise? This guy's a tool
 
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    • Scheduled vote count started by Chengar Qordath on Mar 15, 2025 at 5:55 AM, finished with 61 posts and 53 votes.
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    A Light in the Darkness 4 New
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    • A Light in the Darkness 4​
    [X][Gang] Start blasting
    [X][Willpower] Spend Zero

    "Screw that." I whipped out Zapper and blasted this wannabe badass right in his badly tattooed chest, dropping him like a sack of potatoes. It was hard not to laugh at the dumb look on his face as he started twitching on the ground like a fish out of water. Lux hadn't done that when I zapped her, but then I'd hit her with a lower setting.

    Not that I'd cranked Zapper all the way up to max power, so Deckard should be fine. Eventually. Unless he had some kinda heart condition. Or brain condition. Or ... well I was still pretty sure that he'd probably be okay. And if he died, would it really be that big of a loss? The guy wanted to shake down a charity convoy giving away food to starving people, Zaun could do without him. Yeah, yeah, all human life was precious and he had a family and all that, but was this time and this guy really the place where we wanted to stand on principle?

    While Deckard was on the ground groaning and twitching the rest of his gang charged in, only to get intercepted by the Firelights. I was in the middle of drawing a bead on the guy who was trying to knock Ekko's block off when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye: Lux getting out of the wagon and drawing her sword. "Nope. Nuh-uh. Sit that cute butt of your back down and let us handle this, Lux."

    Lux frowned at me, stubbornly shaking her head. "I can fight. I didn't take all those swordplay lessons with Aunt Tianna so I could sit on the sidelines and do nothing when we're being attacked. I'm going to help."

    "You're the VIP we're supposed to be protecting," I pointed out. "If you get scuffed up in a street fight with some wannabe gangbangers the Council's gonna be after my ass. Not to mention whatever your parents are gonna think about me getting you messed up in a fight."

    From the way she set her feet and the pout building up on her face, I could tell she wasn't gonna accept that. I wanted to be annoyed by that, but I couldn't blame her. Normally I wouldn't be too bothered over hacking off the Council or some fancy nobles either. Of course, there was another good reason to keep her out of the fighting. I dropped my voice to a careful whisper. "I know you wanna be a light in the darkness to Zaun, but think about how messy things could get if you're a little too worked up once the fighting gets going."

    I didn't know a ton about how mages and fighting worked, but I was gonna bet that once her blood was up and things got intense it'd be a lot harder for her to hold her magic back. Not to mention if some bad guy got the edge on her and she was in a tight spot she'd break out her magic to turn things around. While basting some goon with magic was obviously better than letting herself get shanked by some no-account ganger, it would cause a whole heap of trouble I'd rather not have to deal with.

    She grimaced but didn't argue the point further, which meant she knew I was right. I got it, I'd always kinda hated not being able to contribute whenever Vi got into a scrap with some of the other kids in Zaun. Sure, they were all bigger than me and would've kicked my butt if I'd tried, which was why I usually hid or ran away, but I'd always hated having to do that instead of being able to have her back.

    Lux sat back down, and I took that as a signal that it was safe for me to jump back into things. I was impressed by how well Ekko was holding his own in his fight, but maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. All that time training with the Firelights was bound to pay off sooner or later. "Hey, Ekko! Is this one of those times where you want everyone to sit back and handle your fight by yourself to prove you can win things fair and square?"

    "Hell no!" Ekko grunted as he caught a kick to the ribs, countering with a punch to the face that sent his opponent staggering back, while Ekko hopped away to create more distance between them. "Shoot his ass!"

    I shrugged and didn't waste any time doing exactly that, dropping the guy Ekko had been up against with a single shot from Zapper. "You're welcome!"

    Ekko rolled his eyes. "I was gonna say thanks once I caught my breath, but if you're gonna be like that I won't even warn you about the guy on your left."

    I grinned and ducked away just in time to avoid getting clocked by the guy flanking me. I wasn't a close-quarters brawler like Ekko was, or Vi had been, but I knew some moves. I kept dodging and dancing away from the big muscle-covered grunt, waiting for him to get pissed off and make a mistake. It didn't take long for him to get mad and come after me a bit too aggressively, leaving himself wide open after he swiped at me with one of his massive paws. He'd have to do better than that if he ever wanted to hit me.

    I kicked his knee as I danced back, making him stagger. I didn't have the muscle to snap his leg or make it bend backward or anything cool like that, but then I didn't need to inflict any kind of massive damage to win. Just making him slow down for a second while he had to get his balance back gave me more than enough time to back off and bring Zapper to bear, ending the fight.

    I took a moment to metaphorically pat myself on the back for handling a close-quarters fight before taking stock of the wider battlefield. Well, maybe that's giving our little gang brawl a bit too much scope and grandeur. I could help Scar out, but it was always hard to get a read on that guy. Plus he was already winning, so I'd just be getting involved for the sake of saying I contributed. Ekko was kicking butt against one of the second-string gangers, plus I'd already helped him out once before.

    That left Zeri. She was good in a scrap, from what I'd seen of her sparring practice she was quick enough that I would have a hard time keeping up with her, but right now she was having a rough time of it. Probably because between muscle and fat the guy she was up against weighed three times as much as her. Speed's great, but eventually you gotta have the muscle to hit hard and take hits back. Or just be like me and shoot the big guys.

    I drew a bead on the guy and waited for a good opening. "Zeri, dodge left!"

    An instant after I pulled the trigger Zeri darted to the side, placing her and her yellow-green pigtails in the line of fire. I groaned as the bolt left Zapper's barrel, "No, your other left!" She wouldn't take a direct hit, but Zapper's bolts tended to arc towards anything nearby even if they would be a direct hit.

    I was about to let out a few very colorful curse words when something unexpected happened. When Zapper's electricity hit Zeri, instead of dropping her to the ground like it had anyone else, it kinda just passed through her, then went straight into the big slab of muscle she'd been up against. I could swear the lighting had changed from the usual Hextech blue of Zapper to more of a yellow-green color too.

    Whatever it was, it must've made the blast a lot stronger, because when it hit the thug it didn't just stun him and drop him to the ground like the guys I'd shot before. Instead the guy let out an utterly blood-curdling scream as he fell to the ground, and I could see smoke coming off of him as he twitched. The lack of groaning and moaning also wasn't a great sign. At least that seemed to take a lot of the fight out of the rest of Deckard's gang, letting Ekko, Scar, and the others mop them up.

    Once that was settled I went to check on Zeri and the guy she'd been fighting. Zeri looked okay as far as I could tell, but I'm an engineer, not a doc. "All your insides still in one piece?"

    "Yeah," Zeri grimaced, looking over at the guy she'd been fighting. "Is he…?"

    I went over for a look, but I didn't need medical training to figure out the answer to her question. "Oh yeah, this guy's definitely cooked."

    I spotted Zeri's face turning green, and just barely managed to dodge out of the splash zone before she puked. The Firelights had been in scraps before, but one of the unwritten rules of gang fights in Zaun was that you didn't make things lethal unless the other guy crossed that line first. Like most of Zaun's rules, it was really more like a vibe than an ironclad law, but it was still a line the Firelights tried not to cross. Killing people was how blood feuds started, and if every scuffle between two gangs started one of those Zaun would rip itself to pieces.

    Once Ekko was done calming Zeri down, cleaning up the barf, and reassuring her that she was gonna be okay or whatever, I spoke up. "I'll take care of the blood money. I pulled the trigger." I didn't love the idea of having to pay out to Deckard of all people, especially when this fight started over him trying to extort us, but I didn't want Ekko and his gang having to pay for it, or being stuck in a blood feud.

    Though come to think of it, I still had no idea what had made Zapper's bolt act that way. It was like when it hit Zeri it passed through her and got powered up somehow. Maybe it had something to do with Zeri? Did she have a lot of copper in her diet or something?

    As I puzzled over the mystery of why this guy was dead in the first place, the smell of the fried thug reminded me that it had been several hours of work and one pretty serious fight since breakfast. Then my mouth started moving without consulting my brain first. "Speaking of cooked, wonder what he'd taste like?"

    The sudden silence after I spoke was deafening. I turned around and found everybody staring at me with varying levels of concern on their faces. I groaned and rolled my eyes. "Oh come on! I'm not some kind of psycho cannibal or something, I'd never actually eat another person. I was just… you know…"

    Ekko sighed. "Jinx? You know that thing most people have in their head that tells them, 'Hey, maybe I shouldn't say that out loud?' I think yours is broken."

    I shrugged. "Yeah, probably. Just be glad I'm not letting the intrusive thoughts win." Which just reminded me of how a couple of weeks back I'd come up with an idea for a bomb where I'd take two big chunks of unrefined Hexgems and use some conventional explosives to ram them together super-fast. I wanted to crunch the numbers and see how that'd work, but I think if Jayce ever saw that math he'd have a heart attack.

    "Anyway, let's deal with Deckard." I turned around to have a word with the gang leader. That was when I discovered we had a much bigger problem on our hands now.

    Deckard wasn't lying on the ground anymore. Instead he was being held in the air by one of the biggest people I'd ever seen, if they even were a person. Whoever it was, they were wearing a set of chemtech-enhanced armor that put all the steel platemail that the Demacians were wearing to shame. Though Demacian armor didn't usually involve so many spiky bits. Whatever they were looked a lot closer to a massive steel golem than any kind of person, especially with the helmet completely covering their face.

    Of course, a golem would mean magic, and there wasn't any of that involved in this being. I could see tubes running all through the armor, visible wherever joints opened up, all feeding from two canisters on the thing's back. Judging by the colors from the feed lines one was for chemfuel and the other was for Shimmer. Which at least confirmed that there was someone alive in there, probably. Whatever was going on with the whole thing, it was clearly bad news. Not to mention extremely strong, judging by how it was able to easily hoist Deckard up into the air in just one of its massive mechanical gauntlets.

    "Shit," Ekko hissed under his breath. "It's The Tank."

    "The Tank?" I whispered back.

    "That's what we call them. Nobody knows who's in that giant suit. They just showed up one day and started kicking all kinds of ass. The only reason the Firelights are still around is that we've never had to go up against The Tank." Ekko answered. "What really matters is that they're Silco's number one enforcer. Which means…"

    "Deckard, Deckard, Deckard…" the voice that had a permanent place in my nightmares hissed, and a second later Silco stepped out from behind The Tank. "I gave very simple orders. The convoy from topside was supposed to be watched but allowed to proceed unmolested. But you just had to get greedy and try to shake them down anyway. Did you think I wouldn't know? Zaun is mine. Now look at what you've made me do…"

    He twitched a finger, and The Tank brought their other massive gauntlet down on Deckard's head. The result was very obviously lethal. Well, so much for having to pay blood money to Deckard.

    Silco sighed and flicked a tiny remnant of Deckard's skull off of his suit before turning to face us. "Firelights, shall we call a food and water truce for the moment? Now is not the time to settle our differences."

    Ekko's eyes lingered on The Tank for a long moment before he reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, we won't start anything if you don't."

    Silco nodded, and the two leaders approached each other. Silco reached into his jacket, and I tensed up ready to shoot him until he pulled out a flask and handed it over to Ekko. For a second I feared he was gonna try to to dose Ekko with Shimmer the way he had with Vander, but Ekko had the sense to pour a little out onto the ground instead. Once that was done, Ekko handed over one of the loaves of bread from our wagons.

    Lux watched it all play out, then turned to me and whispered. "What's going on? He called it a food and water truce?"

    "It's an old gang custom," I explained. "Basically, anywhere that serves food and water is always supposed to be neutral ground for all the gangs. Nobody wants to get on the bad side of the guy serving drinks or serving up the best seafood you can get in Zaun." Like most gang customs in Zaun, whether people actually respected the rules could be a bit spotty. "It kinda mutated a little, so now anytime you swap food or eat and drink together it's taken as a way to signal you're serious about not fighting each other for a bit."

    Lux's eyes lingered on The Tank. "Good thing there's not going to be a fight. That thing looks horrifying and very hard to kill."

    "I wouldn't be so sure we're out of the woods on a fight." Silco must have had some kind of truce with Vander when he'd dosed him with Shimmer and killed him, after all. People broke Zaun's rules all the time, they just made sure they could get away with it first. All it took was eliminating all the witnesses or being strong enough that nobody would dare to call them out for it. Planning to kill us was completely in line with how Silco operated, and if he killed off the Firelights who'd even be left to call him out on breaking unwritten rules?

    Silco smiled as he stepped forward, the expression more like a wolf that just spotted vulnerable prey than anything conveying human warmth. "I apologize for that unpleasant business." He nodded over at Deckard's corpse. "Now then, Miss Kiramman, Lady Crownguard, if I could have a moment of your time?"


    Current Stability: 0
    Willpower: 2

    How Does Jinx Respond to Silco's Request to Talk?

    [ ][Silco] No Talking, Only Shooting.
    No Roll Needed

    [ ][Silco] Talk to Him
    Issues: Trauma (-3), Abandonment (-3) Vi (-5) Daughter of Zaun (-1)
    Failure Result: Jinx cannot control her temper.

    Willpower

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