It's a Lovely Day in Piltover (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 8: The Tragedy of Hindsight

She didn't like him. And it wasn't just his condescending attitude, or the way he acted like he was somehow better than her and Powder or like he knew her at all or anything about her, though those didn't help.

It was the way the world had broken around him. He'd said he hadn't shattered time, but Lux could see that that wasn't fucking true. Her Light could feel reflections off pieces of something around him, pulsing washes of the kinds of light that normally couldn't be seen, hissing reflections of other hims, other versions of them, like pieces of magic mirrors into other worlds, and his every motion shed them like fucking scales from a fish, like he was swimming through broken ice.

Just being near him set Lux's teeth on edge and pressed a headache against her temples. She kept her hand tight around Powder's blazingly warm skin, pressed against her side, the straps of the backpack cutting into her shoulders as they climbed a set of rusted stairs in the side of some abandoned, long unused pipe, the air somehow both more and less rank than it had been on the rooftops.

"Home stretch now." Powder murmured for her, smiling. It looked soft but Lux knew what Powder's soft smiles looked like - like moments lit by tools on her workbench with crinkles by her eyes and a little tilt to the mouth - this was brittle, and hiding pain and once again she wished she could just kill the boy in front of them.

Maybe later. The Illuminators do want me to destabilise Zaun and Piltover, and what's more destabilising than killing the Boy Saviour? No, Powder wouldn't want that - we could maim him at least, burn him for hurting her - no! No - no hurting. No matter how tempting it was.

Can damage his operations at least. Do it in a way that sets him against a Chembaron with ties to Piltover so both start squabbling with each other. Will keep my chain loose, for a while. She shuddered at that thought, and Powder's hand squeezed hers tighter.

They came up to a massive shutter that was more like a pair of doors made from repurposed sheets of metal, bars and hinges welded and stapled on. The boy looked back at them, then knocked on it - it was too precise to be anything but a code - and it started shuddering. Surprisingly quiet for what looked like it had rusted years ago.

And inside -

"Wow."

It was beautiful. But it was also... sad. Maybe to someone who hadn't grown up around what nature could really look like - what unfettered, unhindered trees nestled to each other with thick soil and the distant chirp of birds and hum of insects -

It felt like a pale shadow. Like the conservatory gardens in Piltover she'd wandered into briefly - well, that was a little unfair. Better than them. Wilder, closer to how it should be but still just... a shadow. A reflection of what the city should be.

"Heh. All those chemicals in the water were good for something. Just... wasn't the people." Powder sighed, adjusted her pack, and put her arm around Lux's shoulders. "Might be worth it to run a pipe to feed the tree... then again, might kill it, given everything that's in the water."

"Yeah, I was joking about the water being good for its size. Think it's just hardy, like people down here are."

Right, people. There were... a lot of people, looking at her and Powder. Muttering.

Maybe it was just the tiredness from her nighttime excursion and then the damn nightmare she'd had after she'd got home, but part of her wanted to let her Light loose and really let them run in fear.

Powder jostled her slightly, tugging her towards something as a pair of people - guards, probably - shut the doors behind them. She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. "Mural's over here."