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A place like Zaun was the home of unfulfilled dreams, dangled above their heads by rich criminals and their brutal army just close enough to taste. This was a truth Sevika learned quickly as a child, watching as her parents’ hopes were crushed and exhaustion clung to their bones with every new order and wicked lie from Piltover’s councilors. Countless dark mornings, Sevika would awaken to the sound of her parents whispering to each other as they shrugged on their mining uniforms, trying their hardest not to wake her with their worries.
“The union needs us, hon,” her mom had murmured, zipping up her jacket. She’d looked to Sevika then, and Sevika had squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to get caught. “We need money, and the quota’s only gettin’ higher. We don’t even have ‘nough as is.”
Her dad responded as he always did with his gruff voice and hushed tone, “enforcers arrested a good dozen of us already for the strikes; what good will we be locked up in Stillwater?”
Silence took over then, daring any of them to speak of better things again. Quietly, her mother would make her way to Sevika’s cot, pulling the blanket up and carefully tucking her back in. “Momma loves you,” her mother would whisper, bestowing a kiss on her forehead before walking away again.
Sevika wouldn’t open her eyes again until she heard the harsh, creaking metal door open and shut as gently as her parents could make it.
At her young, tender age, Sevika was more than capable of getting a job, helping the family get by—and Janna, she craved to put her soft hands to work. She remembered asking her parents everyday for weeks when she could get her job—mines, refineries, anything really—but her mother wanted her to be a kid where she couldn’t, and her father feared the dangers that work could expose her to.
Sevika didn’t understand it until one day her father came home without her mother. She could remember it in clarity unknown to the polluted undercity, how her father smelled of the gasses of the Fissures and how his face was caked in soot besides a few long lines going down his face. Running up to greet him, she’d been met by his anguished eyes and one of the last hugs he’d ever given her.
Sevika didn’t need to ask what happened, the sinking feeling in her gut explained it well enough. It wasn’t until years later she’d found out exactly what happened.
It was one of her first days working the mines with nothing but weak arms and determination. She’d been making her way down to the lower levels, stopped by a hand that grabbed her. They only talked for a minute, stopped by the manager as soon as they saw they weren’t working, but it was enough time.
There’d been a strike, her mother went, an insult was hurled, a gun fired, a body dropped.
Enforcers.
Sevika could’ve laughed at all the things the enforcers took from her and her family—how much those blue pigs could get away with down here that they couldn’t Topside. They thought they were so tough, so protected that nothing could touch them, and that they were free from consequence.
And over the years as whispers went around of an independent nation, well, Sevika was her mother’s daughter.
——
The bridge went horribly.
They barely made it onto the bridge before enforcers started barking at them to disperse and go home, gesturing with their loaded guns. There shouldn’t have been any way the enforcers knew about what they’d planned unless someone had snitched on them and betrayed Zaun; how could they have known before they’d even stepped one foot onto the bridge? They had barricades set up to keep everyone back. Sevika remembered someone from their side throwing a molotov towards the enforcers, and almost immediately after that guns started shooting and bodies dropped to the ground.
Most of it was a blur now, the memory hazy from the red smoke and her mind trying to protect itself from the horror of it all. Bodies upon bodies of her people—the ones she’d shakily let in and call allies if not friends. Felicia and Connel were among the dead with gaunt eyes and an open mouth. Silco stood shakily near them, fear finally setting into his being as he stared forward shocked. Vamder was beating the enforcer who’d done it—killed his sister-in-arms and her husband. And Sevika?
Sevika was lying against one of the support beams, a firm hand pressing down on her opposite arm, the blood that was oozing out of her at a pace she hadn’t recognized before. She was thankful her mom had been killed quickly, without realizing the burning heat and throbbing sharp pains that came from being shot.
They weren’t going to win.
They wouldn’t be getting their promise of Zaun, a nation free from a privileged council that never stepped foot down here
Out of the corner of her eye, wading through the red were two girls Sevika had grown to know from all the meetings at the Last Drop. The older one, Vi, held tight to her sister, eyes flicking around to each body with a hope Sevika knew would get crushed and an innocence that had yet to be beaten out of her.
The two young girls stepped farther down the bridge, stopping abruptly at the first familiar and safe silhouette they found. Vander turned to them, the enforcer’s body dropping limply to the ground. Sevika blinked wearily, pushing harder on her left arm, as she tried to stay awake. Her field of vision soon got blocked by a skinnier body who spoke to her in quiet, gravely tones, broken up by the clash of something heavy and metal to concrete.
——
Rumors spread in the Lanes faster than they could be made, and it made sense, talking to one another about outsider problems was what helped keep them all safe. It gave them time to come up with lies to tell enforcers or wannabe Zaunites, get their affairs in order in case of illegal searches, and check in with loved ones before shit hit the fan. And, well, given the trigger finger of the armored pigs, bullshit was bound to happen one way or another even if it weren’t for Vander’s four little brats.
If she’d seen the kids prior to enforcers marching the streets, she could’ve almost thrown them a snide compliment for causing ruckus up topside despite all the bullshit going on because of it. They had some balls to not only steal from a Kiramman workshop, but to blow the place up; it was a behavior she’d readily encourage.
Really, this was all to say that Sevika was not having a good week with enforcers up her ass about information and conducting almost hourly searches of her person. She had shit to do, people to see, the whole works of running a tight-knit group of thugs while having time to play cards and have a drink or two.
She’s heard enough excuses from Vander—years worth even—and frankly Sevika was getting sick and tired of waiting for him to make any kind of move. The first couple of years she could understand with all of Zaun grieving those lost to the bridge, and she could find some way to excuse the usual lack of enforcers unless something big got blamed on them, but it’s gone on too long.
Sevika abruptly stood up, her chair scraping against the bar floor as she slammed her fist onto the table. “We should hit them back. We’ve got the numbers to beat ‘em,” she snapped, looking at Vander as he leaned against his bar, looking infuriatingly unimpressed. Another Zaunite yelled out his agreement followed by more than half the bar, which momentarily cooled her temper. But of course, Vander had to ruin it by lighting his pipe and opening his mouth.
“You sure that’s what you want?” he asked. Sevika had half the mind to slap that tired look off his face. “We crossed that bridge once before, and we all know how that ended.”
Yeah, as though picking a bridge of all locations was the best place to fight in the first place. Where they couldn’t make safe escape routes, had little to no cover, and walls of enforcers ready to shoot them where they stood. Her lips pulled back and her eyebrows furrowed together.
“You’re just protecting your kids,” someone behind her said. She glanced to her side to see who it was and was met with a man her age riddled in cuts and bruises; he must’ve been the one they were talking about that got thrown through a window just earlier.
It wasn’t like it wasn’t true. The kids were huddled by the door to the living portion of the Last Drop, and Sevika could make out their guilty faces in a second. None of that mattered to Vander, who pushed himself off the bar.
“I’m protecting our people. I’d do the same for any one of you,” he argued, looking around the room at all the rest of the patrons. “We look out for each other. It’s the way it’s always been. This will blow over. We just need to stand together.”
Bullshit, she thought, shaking her head and walking up to him. What good would sticking together make this sort of thing blow over? They’d deal with it until Piltover gave up and the enforcers got bored of beating them senseless. “The Vander I knew, the one who built the underground, wouldn’t be afraid to fight.”
That got Vander’s attention, and Sevika watched as he sauntered up to her, taking a drag of his pipe, blowing the smoke out before getting close to her face. “Do I look afraid?” he asked hotly.
Sevika could’ve scoffed at the ridiculousness of it all. “No,” she answered, keeping eye contact with him as she moved closer. “You look weak.”
——
It was honestly impressive how many of her friends she’d led to Silco didn’t have the nerve to tell her about the bullshit decisions made while she was unconscious and down an arm, and if she didn’t lose some of her muscle mass from lying in bed for a few weeks or was a bit more used to having one arm, she would’ve beaten the shit outta them for the nerve. Granted, they were scared of her anyway—and especially now with the cuts on half her face—but they should’ve been the type of scared to give her the information she wanted, not the type to direct her to the Last Drop, which had conveniently been overtaken while she was out of commission.
She pushed open the door to Silco’s new office, a slight limp in her gait as she watched him look up from his paperwork. It was done up differently than she remembered it being when Vander was living here, not that she really cared one way or another, but Sevika took notice of some familiar drawings littered on the furniture of the room.
“You’re awake,” he greeted, leaning back in his chair while throwing a hand out to the new plethora of seating choices. She ignored them, preferring to go up to his desk, putting her right hand on the table, and staring him down.
“Awake and without my arm,” she snapped, “what the fuck happened?”
Silco frowned, but Sevika really couldn’t give a fuck. She was missing a limb for Janna’s sake, and no one seemed to be inclined to give her any answers. “Do you not remember?”
Sevika scoffed, her eyebrows knitted tight together, “Oh, I remember something exploding just fine. But apparently something else happened, and none of your idiots are giving me answers.”
That made him cut the bullshit, and he stood up to meet her gaze head on. “One of Vander’s children—the blue-haired girl—she was the cause of the explosion.”
Her hand quickly turned into a fist. “And?”
Silco started walking around his desk, moving to a red couch with cigars sitting on the coffee table in front of it. “And…her sister betrayed her. Left her for underestimating the power of her bomb and killing Vander and the two boys.” He gestured for her to come sit with him again, and he was lucky that her legs were on the verge of giving out on her.
“Vander’s dead?” Sevika asked, tone even despite an uncomfortable wave of shock running through her. That made Silco the last of the revolutionary leaders, nevermind the fact that she’d kicked Vander off that list after the fiasco topside.
“A…regrettable outcome,” Silco explained, taking one of his cigars into his hand and lighting it. She watched him take a drag. before continuing. “I had hoped to sway him to work together again.” He handed her the cigar, which she reluctantly accepted.
“And his daughters?” she asked, lead dropping in her stomach immediately after she asked. The dread of possibly having to deal with those two brats again was enough to make her wish she’d stay in a coma. After taking a few drags herself, she passed Silco his cigar back.
“I’ve been informed that the older one died shortly after our encounter,” Silco answered smoothly. He paused for a moment, staring at Sevika like he was trying to figure out if he was going to continue. A second or two passed before he continued, “the blue-haired girl, however, is staying with us.”
The fuck she was. There was no way in hell Sevika was going to be around the little shit who blew off her arm. “And why is that?”
That garnered her a crude mockery of a smile to which she sneered at. Whatever he was about to say was definitely going to piss her off. Oh, and how it did.
“I thought Vi was the treasure of her mix-matched family, but the girl…she’s something else. She knows the taste of betrayal, and has an anger we can use,” Silco explained, growing more relaxed with each minute Sevika wasn’t on the absolute verge of strangling him one-armed and all.
Sevika shook her head, standing up and enjoying the flinch Silco tried to hide. He was lucky she found merit to his plans, or she would’ve killed him on the spot for putting her back in the same situation as before. She made her way back to his door, glaring back at Silco briefly as she opened it up.
“Don’t call me for the next week,” she barked, stomping out of his office and slamming the door behind her. It was the same motherfucking shit again, and Janna grant Sevika the patience to go through with Silco and his plans for Zaun.
——
His chair was glaringly empty, staring her down with the same fervor he had done countless of times. It wasn’t fair. After everything she’d done for the cause, for Zaun, Silco had to up and die. It didn’t matter to her that Jinx had been the culprit; in fact, she’d expect nothing less because at the end of the day the only one who could’ve gotten close enough to kill him would’ve been Jinx. Even with Finn, Sevika had already known where she’d stand. Silco, who’d seen her anger and her demands, and who’d seen what she could do and utilized it well—no, it never would’ve been her. Certainly not for the other Chembarons at the very least. She scoffed, lighting up a cigarette and leaning back against Silco’s desk.
Smeech thought he was hot shit, the top dog of the Undercity, when he couldn’t even rally Zaunites to his cause. Turn in Jinx? He was out of his goddamn mind, too high off of the mad doctor’s products to put together a coherent thought.
Maybe she was just as weak as Vander was, but the brat grew on her. Sure, Jinx was a loose cannon with an overactive brain and a trigger finger, and maybe Sevika had wanted her off the field during drops and transport, but the kid wasn’t all bad. Hell, Jinx would make Jayce Talis look like an idiot with how quick she was.
And then there was something to be said about loyalty.
Sevika wasn’t stupid; she knew when to give up on people. It came easy to her since she was young, discarding those who wanted to play the Pilties lapdog, bootlicking enforcers to stay outta trouble, becoming stagnant when she craved action. Jinx was none of those things. For all the shit Sevika gave the brat, Jinx was like her in a way. And maybe all the years with Silco nagging her about playing babysitter got into her head, but that girl was hers to protect now.
The brat had a tagalong with her, a wild looking thing with Jinx’s energy without all the yapping, and it was like Silco and Vander all over again. Right when they needed to focus most, they picked up a kid.
Her gaze turned to the couch in the corner of the room, where the new kid was sound asleep on Jinx’s lap having run around squeaking and squalling at whatever game the two had been playing. Jinx had one hand running through the kid’s hair, while her other rubbed soothing circles on her back. Sevika wasn’t sure if the brat knew she was doing it or if it came naturally to her.
“We can’t keep her, kid,” Sevika said, keeping her voice low and tone even. A twinge of pain pulled at her chest as Jinx looked up to her, face scrunching up. Before Jinx could open her mouth, Sevika continued, “You’ve got all the Pilties looking for you, and their Noxian friends, and half of Zaun. She’d be better off on her own.”
Jinx shook her head. “She—she’s the one who’s following me. I can’t just make her leave.”
“It’s not safe—”
“Well, she wasn’t safe before,” Jinx argued loudly, her eyebrows furrowed together. A whine from the kid shut her up quick. After waiting a second, checking to make sure the kid stayed asleep, Jinx continued, “And it isn’t all bad here. She’ll have me and you, right?”
There it was.
“I’m not a babysitter,” Sevika sighed, pressing the now butt of her cigarette into Silco’s ashtray. She paused for a second, taking in the designs that had inhabited the space for years now. “Your dad knew that, and you should too.”
“I know, I know,” she shrugged her shoulders, “I just…”
“There’s still work to be done,” Sevika stated, pushing up off the desk. “Kids are a big time commitment.” She would know, having watched Vander turn to full-time barman and father without the part-time revolutionist, then with Silco who’d marked out several hours of the day for Jinx.
“What’s the harm in just letting her do what she wants? Chase who she wants?” Jinx questioned. She seemed uncertain. Good, better for Jinx to slow down and think than act impulsively again.
Still, Sevika frowned. “And when she chases herself into a grave? Will you be able to handle that?”
Jinx shook her head, pulling Isha tighter to her body. “No! No, I won’t let it. We’ll protect her.”
“I can’t always be there to get you outta shit,” Sevika countered, trying to keep frustration out of her voice. She didn’t necessarily want to upset her boss’s—well, Jinx—but Sevika could already see the similarities emerging: Vander with the kids, Silco with Jinx, and now Jinx with Isha. She felt her age then, and maybe even a couple more decades slapped on top.
Jinx’s sad eyes, which she was sure Jinx didn’t even know she was necessarily doing, tugged at her heart. Silently, she cursed Silco for taking her in and making her feel a sort of sisterly-maternal feeling for the brat. “Shit, alright. Fine,” she sighed, “Keep the kid. But I’m not helping. She’s all yours.”
Her eyes seemed to grow sadder.
“I’m not helping out all the time,” Sevika countered, shaking her head.
Jinx’s lips formed a pout.
She was so fucking screwed, getting roped into another kid so easily. Is this how Silco and Vander felt? She didn’t know how they could’ve survived all of Jinx’s whims if this is the face she gave them. “Alright, alright, fine. I’ll help. Whaddya need?”
A long couple of seconds passed of complete silence, then: “Jericho’s?”
Shit.