Vi knew that Pow- Jinx, was broken in a way that there just wasn't any way to fix. She had seen it back in Stillwater. Prison was a place that broke people down -- it could be because of their fellow inmates sensing weakness or it could be from the Enforcers preying on them and treating them like a party favor. Some people just couldn't take the abuse and pressure and something deep inside of them just… cracked in a way that couldn't be put back together. They didn't all break the same.
Some crafted elaborate delusions, retreating into a make believe world so they didn't have to confront how awful the real world was. Others went batshit fucking insane, only capable of howling and tearing their hair out in clumps. A few embraced that they were broken and didn't even try to put the pieces of themselves back together.
Jinx clung to Vi in her sleep in a way that she hadn't since the days after their parents died when they were kids. Her legs were all twisted up in hers, arms wrapped around Vi's torso hard enough to bruise, head tucked underneath her chin. As if she were terrified of Vi vanishing in the middle of the night.
It didn't matter what she said. It didn't matter what she did. There was just this part of Jinx that completely expected Vi to abandon her again, so she tried desperately to stop her from doing so.
Vi peeled her eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling, feeling a bone deep exhaustion despite waking up. She liked to toss and turn in her sleep, but with Jinx clinging to her like a second skin she couldn't move an inch. She did have a hand free to scratch the gunk out of her eyes at least, so she could see the light streaming through the windows. It was nearly dawn.
Why would she ever willingly wake up at the crack of dawn?
She almost went back to sleep, unable to find a reasonable answer, until it suddenly slammed into her with enough force that she jolted in bed. “Jinx! We need to get ready!”
“Hmmphm…” Jinx just clung to her like a baby monkey, uncaring how Vi sat up or how the covers fell off to reveal that Jinx was naked. Her little sis apparently slept in the nude, and didn't feel like changing that just because they were sharing a bed. Because of it, Vi's gaze flickered down to the blue puffs of smoke that trailed over one side of her body, along her ribs and over one shoulder.
Guilt gnawed at her own ribs, feeling like it was hollowing her out. She knew what the tattoo represented the moment she saw it. A desperate cry for help that had gone unanswered for years because she’d been rotting in a cell. After seeing it, any protest to Jinx sleeping in the buff had died in her throat the first night and Vi knuckled down and got used to her clingy hands.
“Jinx, there is a whole fucking war going on! Wake up!” Vi said, rolling over and half dragging Jinx out of bed. There was a uniform that looked uncomfortably similar to an Enforcer’s scattered on the floor of their apartment in the Undercity, same as the ones all the defenders got so they would know who was who. Pulling on her pants, and tossing Jinx a shirt, Vi just barely managed to escape her grasping hands. “That airship didn't do shit. They're coming today, Jinx, so get dressed.”
“Ugh. Fine,” Jinx sighed, dragging herself out of bed with the greatest reluctance, completely unbothered by her nudity as she wandered the room to pick up the clothes she’d haphazardly scattered. “S’not like the invasion already started or anything. We'd hear the explosions-”
Almost as if on cue, Vi heard an explosion ring out in the distance, and she responded to it by giving Jinx the flattest glare she could.
“Who invades a city before the sun is even up?” Jinx immediately started to complain as both of them hastily got dressed. “That's messed up. They could have at least waited until noon.” Jinx had heavily modified her uniform to the point that the only resemblance was the color scheme. She grabbed her custom minigun that was leaning propped up against the door while Vi secured her hex-gauntlets. Though, calling them gauntlets wasn't exactly right given that they were more like robotic sleeves that ended at her shoulders.
Stopping outside of their apartment revealed that the city was alive despite the early hour. Men and women in similar uniforms were racing through the streets to reinforce the guards that were already in place overnight. Most of them carried a laser or a plasma rifle slung over their shoulder, but neither she or Jinx joined the flow of traffic.
Jinx was fragile and broken in a way that Vi was struggling to come to terms with, so it almost didn't feel real when the once shy and uncertain girl effortlessly flipped onto a rooftop even as she lugged a heavy mini-gun with her. She was surefooted in a way that she just hadn't been when she was young.
Of course, it was only natural that she'd get better at street running with age, which just drove home how much of Jinx's life that she had missed.
They leapt from building to building with practiced ease, and they weren't the only ones taking the thieves’ highway to the sea. Off in the distance, Vi saw flashes of red and green light from the floodwalls turned defensive embankments. And when she landed heavily on the final building overlooking the embankment, standing next to a team of snipers that had a better vantage.
What she saw made her stomach clench.
As far as the eye could see, there were Noxian warships -- they were practically buildings floating in the sea with high decks that lowered rowboats by the dozen to carry squads of Noxian warriors towards the embankment. Those soldiers had their shields raised high and overlapped to protect those that were rowing from an onslaught of lasers and plasma bolts.
Blood red lasers traveled better than the plasma, and in concentrated bursts, the shields of the rowboats were targeted. With a few hits, they glowed red hot. Most ended up dropping their shields from the heat, but a few managed to grit their teeth and bare the pain. At least until their shields melted into slag, or were punched through to deliver a bright red laser to the chest. One would put them down, even if it didn't kill them outright or get through their armor.
When one fell, the formation would close ranks, but it was sloppy. Sometimes two or three shields would falter at once, or sometimes a stray hit to their wooden boats would see the timber ignite. Lopsided casualties had rowboats colliding into each other.
It slowed them, even as their losses were replaced and they pressed on through a haze of smoke that smelled like charred flesh and burnt hair. With a insane single minded determination, the detachment of the Noxian army pressed on and were greeted by the slower but far more devastating plasma bolts.
Unlike the lasers, the green bolts just punched right through their metal shields and usually into the armor behind them. Red hot metal fused to flesh and from where Vi stood, she saw some soldiers get completely reduced to green goo that splashed over the water and their comrades. The source of the explosions she heard were revealed to be a minefield floating in the sea that revealed themselves with explosions of plasma that vaporized everything they came in contact with.
“It's not enough,” Vi muttered, her hands curling into fists. The Noxians were racking up a butcher’s bill, but they weren't stopping. They weren't retreating. They pressed onward, almost heedless of the losses and they were closing the distance to the embankment fast. For every one that died, five more were pushing forward to take their place.
It wasn't that long before the embankment started being steadily abandoned with the firing squads retreating to their secondary positions. By the time the first row of Noxians arrived, only to fall under the combined fire of those that had retreated to the buildings to shoot from the windows or from cover in the streets. Still, more replaced them and the Noxians carved out a foothold for themselves, then more. Like ants, they started to spill forth and revealed their own counters to the expected urban warfare.
Men ferried barrels of gunpowder forward, stacking them against the sides of buildings to destroy them and kill anyone who was inside. Explosions rang out across the battlefield, some buildings collapsing inward while other explosions wiped out companies of Noxians when stray plasma bolts hit a barrel on its way up. Or from the large catapults on the warships that flung burning fuck-off sized rocks through the air that smashed through fragile brownstones like they were a house of cards.
The Noxians were stuck in, and that meant it was time for her to act.
“P-Jinx. Be-” Vi started, glancing at her sister before she got ready to throw herself into the fray. Only to be cut off when Jinx took a step closer, her hands on Vi's cheeks before she leaned in.
Jinx's tongue was already in her mouth before Vi even registered the kiss. Every thought she had came to a screeching halt.
Her first reaction was revulsion. Her second was horror. Vi was so far past confusion that it didn't even register.
Her third thought, however, was that if she rejected Jinx right now then the fragile connection between them that Vi had managed to rekindle would shatter to pieces. So, Vi didn't pull away like her instincts were screaming at her to do. She didn't scream ‘What the FUCK’, even if the words were crawling up the same throat that Jinx was determined to stick her tongue down. Vi stood rigidly still, the sounds of battle and screaming falling away into a white hum that drowned everything out. She didn't kiss back, but she didn't pull away either.
It lasted all of five seconds probably, but it felt like hours before Jinx pulled back.
“Don't die, big sis,” Jinx uttered before pulling back, tossing her a wink, before swan diving off the fucking building into the battlefield below.
“What the fuck…” Vi heaved, bile churning in her stomach. “What the fuck!” She didn't shout. She didn't scream. She just whispered the words that were lost in a sea of chaos called war.
Because all of a sudden, Noxus coming to raze the city to the ground seemed like the least of her problems.
…
Ambessa stood on the walls that were meant to guard Piltover from the north. A wall that ran the length of the city that was connected on the Northern continent. The side that Noxus was on.
Heimerdinger was a fool for all his brilliance, but even he had known that it was only a matter of time before Noxus looked in Piltover's direction. Over generations, some two hundred years, the city’s fortifications had been built up in the hopes that they would be enough to forestall any attack.
They were not.
Ambessa had paid close attention to Swain. Even without his supposed defeat of the Black Rose, he would have been worth observing as he had the ability and talent that would see him rise to the highest peaks within Noxus, had Noxus truly lived up to its ideals. Both as a general, and as a man.
As a general, Swain was almost startlingly ordinary. He was not like herself, preferring carefully measured bold action and guile. He was not similar to the Du Couteaus, either, who decapitated their enemies’ leadership in the dead of night and fought them in ambushes without ever engaging in a clear battle. He possessed no signature style. No particular flair. Save, perhaps, his ruthless use of every resource at his disposal.
If Ambessa had to describe him with a single word, it would be orthodox. He waged war in a straightforward manner. A slow advance with careful considerations to minimizing casualties and risks, to slowly build the pressure on the enemy. Eventually, the enemy would snap under that pressure -- how varied depending on who he was fighting, but they could flee or throw a desperate blow, and it would be then that Swain pounced. A single death blow to end things in a clean and concise manner.
That was what she was seeing now, standing in a tower with her arms resting on stone warmed by the bright afternoon sun. The walls shuddered with every impact from the cannons that bombarded them relentlessly, but she paid that no mind, because she knew that they weren't the threat. They were a distraction for those on the walls to contend themselves with, wasting precious ammunition.
To attack the walls openly would be costly. Far more so than Swain would accept. The attack from the sea was a similar distraction meant to spread Piltover's already thin forces even thinner. If they took the Undercity, that would open a new avenue of attack, but Ambessa knew that it was not the priority. Securing the Hexgate was their goal, as they wanted to prevent anything that could deny the asset to them.
“It should begin soon,” Ambessa ventured, knowing what resources Swain had available to him. Fifty war mages. Individually, they were powerful but not insurmountable. They alone wouldn't turn the tide of a battle from raw might. Instead, what they offered was utility. And, in this case, a means to go beneath the wall rather than over it.
Behind her in the distance, Ambessa heard the echoing explosions. A glance over her shoulder revealed a green plume and a rising mushroom cloud. She was not the only one with spies inside of the city, after all. Even if Swain had lacked his own, then Noxus would have plenty for him to borrow to enact sabotage or assassinations.
It was a tried and tested tactic. A steady build up of threats that would force the enemy to react. When they over extended, Ambessa had no doubt that Swain would be there to punish the mistake severely.
She watched it, making no move to interfere or to correct the mistake that Piltover was making when they had teams scurrying off the wall, deducing that they were at lesser risk, to salvage what they could from their armory. It was a natural mistake to make. It was the microfusion cells and the weapons that they powered that allowed Piltover to entertain the belief that they could somehow withstand the assault. Ambessa stayed where she was partly because her own plans hinged on Piltover making those mistakes, but equally because any aid offered would be unwelcomed.
For all of Mel's smooth talking and assurances, the Council of Piltover didn't trust her enough to hold a critical position. It was understandable. Unwise, but understandable.
“There,” Ambessa uttered, feeling the slightest of vibrations under feet. A warning of what was to come.
Piltover scorned magic. A result of Heimerdinger's fear. Perhaps, one day, Hextech and fission technologies would bridge the gap, but it hadn't yet and the result was that Piltover was unprepared to fight mages. They didn't understand what they could accomplish when directed and working together.
Sections of the walls began to sag inward, their foundations collapsing from underneath them as the mages tunneled underneath. The walls tried to maintain their shape, only to reach a breaking point and the cut stone began to fall apart in a wave. For Piltover, it was entirely unexpected. The men and women on the walls screamed on the way down before vanishing in a plume of dust and falling silent. A silence that did not last long as Rictus brought a horn to his lips and blew into it, giving the signal.
The soldiers of her house, all those who had followed her in exile, rushed forward to fill the gaps. Their formation was seamless, their shields raised and spears leveled while some were in the buildings behind, armed with laser and plasma weapons. Despite large swaths of the wall falling apart, the trembling underfoot didn't yield, even if the source of it changed.
Swain had commited his forces, marching them forward in a steady column. They marched in perfect harmony, their shields raised to defend from those on the walls that were still shooting.
It was exactly what they had been waiting for.
From deep within the city, airships rose up and began to drift forward. Alongside them was the lone gunship. The other had been sacrificed to learn what counter measures to it Swain had access to, which amounted to sending a highly skilled team into the air to board it. Though, they weren't the only countermeasures that he had with the cannons tilting up to fire at the airships that sailed overhead.
One ignited into flames, a cannon ball tearing right through it, and sending it crashing down. The other half dozen pressed on, sailing over the battlefield to deliver their payload -- dozens of bombs fell from the cargo holds, raining down upon the battlefield. Most missed, hitting in the general vicinity of the army, but that still sent stone shards and bursts of flames that sent the army into a state of disarray. That, in turn, allowed the gunship to do what it was made for.
The orderly march collapsed in seconds, but how fast they responded told Ambessa that this possibility had been expected. They broke formation, becoming squads that rushed towards the gaps in the walls, assuming that the airships wouldn't fire upon them if there was the possibility of friendly fire.
Or, that was Ambessa's initial assumption, only for the buildings behind her forces to begin to collapse inward. The mages who had hollowed out the foundations of the walls hadn't stopped. And they did more than just hollow out the foundations, as through the dust, Ambessa saw Noxian warriors streaming out. Tunnels. They’d used tunnels to avoid the airships.
“So you do have a few tricks,” Ambessa mused with a thin smile, her own forces caught between them. The battle for the walls was lost. It was a battle they never had a hope of winning in the first place, but she would have liked to see them do a bit more damage before they managed to get inside the city.
Reaching down to her belt, Ambessa put on her war mask and hefted her weapons. The signal to Rictus that they would be joining the fray to pull off a fighting retreat deeper into the city streets. They had fall back plans. Strategies within strategies. Swain had gotten the upper hand today, but he had no way to prepare for what was coming.
But not all strategies go to plan as from the corner of her eye, Ambessa caught a flash of movement, which was just enough to keep her from losing her head. Her blades came up, blocking an overhead strike that was delivered with enough force that her bones rattled. The assailant landed lightly on the embrasure that Ambessa had leaned against seconds ago.
Her would-be assassin was not a young woman. Her hair was stark white, but age hadn’t touched her face. It was the eyes that gave it away. Brilliant unnatural blue that carried a weight of a long life full of a lot of living and burdens. There was a gentle hum coming from her body, particularly her legs, but when the assassin rose to her full height…
‘A machine,” Ambessa concluded instantly. Or, rather, a ‘cyborg’, to borrow the word that Law used to describe what Viktor was turning himself into to save his own life. Only his body was designed to allow him to live a normal life. The woman before Ambessa had been transformed into a living weapon.
“Lady Medarda,” her assassin greeted her, her tone polite despite nearly taking her head off. And upon further inspection…
“Camille Ferros,” Ambessa identified her. The famed left hand of the Ferros family. An assassin that had killed hundreds to further her brother's ambitions. “Shall I take this as an indication that Clan Ferros has betrayed Piltover?”
“Take it however you please. It makes little difference to a corpse,” Camille replied, and Ambessa smiled.
“I'll be sure to tell your brother the same.”
This war certainly just got a lot more interesting.