Arcane ~ QUEENDOM (seasons 1 & 2)

XVII ~ Beautiful

~spoilers for Arcane Season 1~

(this is the setting for "Arcade")

The scrapyard was grimy and obscured by omnipresent smog. The filthy display, swarmed by vermin corpses and half-alive insects, was situated in the depths of the Undercity. Nevertheless, a greenish glow and erratic firelights permitted vision among the gruesome and imposing mounds of discarded objects.

Motion came from a pile in particular.

Crouching on a slope of debris, an adolescent girl was scouring through the waste in search of salvageable items. Any piece that could be repurposed into one of her inventions and gadgets, either as a mechanism or a decorative element, found a new home at the bottom of a large brown bag. It was slumped a few feet away from the teen's delicate frame, presently hunched over an array of neglected metallic bottles.

One of her dark boots, which had been scribbled on and splattered with highly colorful paint, accidentally knocked into her bag as she hurried to drop the containers inside of it. Clattering, clicking and the occasional screeching of metal were the only sounds anyone but her would have heard. For a handful of hours, these noises had been her sole companions, or rather, they would have been if it were not for the pestering chatter in her brain. As surely as her vivid blue braids swung around her body every time she knelt to observe a new discovery, voices from her past whispered incessantly inside her head.

Suddenly, a foreign noise disturbed her quest.

Tap.

Within the span of her inhale, she produced her pistol and whirled around silently, with fatal speed, aiming it towards her right. The barrel glinted softly in the semi-darkness, pointed attentively at the edge of the closest mountain of junk.

Jinx's entire body was taut with apprehension, and each of her senses were heightened. Her respiration had ceased, her blue eyes glared hauntingly at the shadows beyond the limits of her vision. As her finger caressed the trigger lovingly, she heard it again.

Tap.

And again.

Tap. Tap.

Steps.

   "Who's there?!" she yelled, menacingly.

Her nose scrunched in dislike and her grip on her firearm only tightened. Jinx could have heard the fluttering wings of a firelight, the crawling of a worm, the flesh of a dead rat detaching itself slowly from its bones...

Tap.

She fired.

The bullet met a stack of garbage in the distance, popping against something metallic before the muffled sound of objects collapsing and sliding reached her ears.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

   "Just a snake."

The cloaked intruder revealed themselves, closely followed by these words spoken in amusement.

The hooded cape enshrouded the newcomer completely from head to ankles. The presumed stranger watched fragments roll down the pile of rubbish and realized the girl had leapt away and was running in their direction. Simultaneously, a chomping contraption struck them in the face, painlessly, underneath the hood of their long cape. Its metallic jaw clung to the nearest side of the garment and instantly released an opaque blast of toxic gas.

The thick substance formed a smokey cloud around their body, penetrating their cloak and covering their snakeskin boots in curvaceous wisps. The individual felt a whooshing presence behind their neck as their hood was being pulled off. They hard shoe soles landing in the dirt as they staggered slightly, coughing and waving their slender arms to dissipate the remaining poisonous gas. It was meant to enervate, disorient and temporarily blind whoever breathed it. It had none of these effects on the mysterious being, however.