The Good Life: Much Worse (ch. 133) (Patreon)

Jinx knew she needed a finale. A big fat exclamation point to mark the end of her little game with her dear big sis. She just had to find something good. Something that would make Law raise his eyebrows. So he would give her a pat on the head and tell her that he was impressed and that she surpassed his expectations. 

Tifa played into it. A prelude of sorts. But Jinx had broken enough girls back in Final Fantasy to recognize all the signs of what Vi was doing. Just turning her brain off to suck and fuck and feel good more than she feels bad. A little disappointing, honestly. Jinx always thought her sis was made of sterner stuff. She’d really thought she would need to put in some elbow grease to break her down, but it was disappointingly easy. 

So, she racked her brain for something, anything that could serve as the cherry on top to Vi breaking in all the right ways, just how Law liked them. For days, it felt like she had a whole lot of nothing. It wasn’t a good feeling. Almost as bad as she felt when she just happened to see a familiar face in one of Law's windows he used to watch the war unfold. A big fuzzy mutt that Singed was experimenting on. 

Without the shadows of a dim, dark, and damp cave… 

There was no doubt in her mind this time. All it had taken was a hop and a skip after, shaking down Singed with some explosives, to get the full story. A question that she never brought herself to ask -- not to Silco, not to Singed, and definitely not herself. What was done to Vander's body? 

Was it buried? Tossed out to sea? Shoved down into the garbage pits like so many others? Jinx didn't want to know. She couldn’t handle the answer. Or, at least she hadn't been able to. It really was crazy what enough time could do. Even the most ragged and raw wounds on her soul had mended with time and getting her brains fucked out on the regular. 

The truth of it was, Silco wasn't one to waste anything. A habit from the rough-n’-tumble days of his youth when there just wasn't enough to go around. He took one look at Vander, at the creature he had become, and gave him to Singed. Not quite dead, but not alive either. Singed, for his part, just experimented on Vander's body. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that he learned that there was anyone home behind his eyelids. From there, Singed had trained Vander to be his personal attack dog just in case he and Silco were ever on the outs. 

Jinx absorbed all the information and, taking a step back, she saw it all in perfect clarity. 

Law knew, of course. He was sparse with details about his power, but she’d learned a thing or three about it in their long years together. How he played with emotions like they were instruments. How he could teleport. But she never knew just how vast his range was -- that was real hard to pin down. She only got a clue when she looked at those little windows that displayed all the comings of goings all over the city. 

When Jinx finally found her answer she found it by realizing how she had been broken. 

Vi's ‘unexpected’ return. Silco's death at her hands, which Law was ‘just out of range’ to stop. She’d jumped on his cock because he was the only thing that felt good in a world gone rotten. Then he whisked her off to another world, half to give her a fresh start and half so he could piece her back together how he liked. 

There was a proper reaction to that revelation. A sane one. Horror. Anger. Screams and tears and revenge. 

Instead, she found inspiration. 

Vi roared at Warwick, blood red lasers cutting through the air as the hulking wolfen beast roared right back far more impressively, lunging at her sister. Half a dozen lasers scoured Warwick's hide, polluting the air with the scent of burnt hair before Vi blocked a swipe from his claws with her laser minigun. The microfusion cells within it detonated, throwing them both back with Vi nearly going over the side.

Jinx stepped forward, the barrels of her own minigun spinning in anticipation. Warwick, with his claws buried in the floor to catch himself, looked up at her. Despite herself and however far gone she was, there was a flicker of… something, then. Maybe hope. For what, not even Jinx knew. She just knew there was nothing in the beast's eyes. Nothing but a savage bloodlust cultivated with violence. There wasn't even a shadow of the man who used to sing to her when she had a nightmare, or would hide little treats in the places he knew her boundless curiosity would take her. 

The creature before her wasn't Vander. Wasn't her father. Not anymore. 

Warwick roared, readying to pounce, and just as he leaped into the air to tear her throat out, Jinx pulled the trigger. A wall of gunfire, each bullet tipped with microexplosives, was enough for Warwick to bounce off of it. His flesh tore, chunks of meat splashing out with every impact, but steam erupted from his wounds. They weren't healing faster than she could make them, but the margin was thin. 

Vi rushed forward, trusting that nifty little shield built into her armor a lot more than she should. Cooking back a fist, she slammed it into Warwick's face, shattering his jaw with teeth and blood flying in an arc. Bullets struck her shield, but it held, leaving Vi free to lay into Warwick with her power fists. Or whatever Vi was calling them. 

The response was violence in its purest form. With her explosive bullets still taking chunks out of him by the second, Warwick lashed out with all the strength he could muster. A left, right, uppercut combo that Jinx would recognize anywhere, even if the attacks were bestial. Wild. Rather than delivering punches that could pulverize bone, Warwick tried to cut Vi into ribbons. 

It was almost like sitting on the couch, watching them spar again. It was an old combo. One that Vi reacted to with as little conscious thought as Warwick when he delivered it. There was no hesitation on her face when Vi countered by side-stepping the lunges before pulling his ribs and power punching his leg near the knee. 

She was looking so intently for Vi's reaction, wanting to capture the exact moment when the pieces started to click together, that she nearly missed it when Warwick swiped at the smoldering chunk of what was Vi's minigun. With deliberate intent, he sent it right at her, forcing Jinx to bat it to the side with her minigun. 

It was just pure bad luck that when it sailed over her shoulder, it struck the steering wheel to make them list dangerously to one side. 

“Fuck!” Vi shouted, her feet skidding, and she lost her balance when Warwick struck her with a wild haymaker. Her guard was up, but the shield she relied on shattered even before her airship struck the side of a building. Bricks rained down on the streets below as they were dragged across the street. Vi almost fell alongside them until she dug her hands into the floorboards, much like Warwick was with those oversized toenails of his. 

Warwick turned his attention to her as she calmly landed on solid ground with a flip, ready to continue. He roared in her direction while Vi screamed after him, trying to bring his focus back on her. It made butterflies flap in her stomach. It really did. Vi still cared…

Even though she really shouldn't. 

Warwick threw himself at her, and maybe there was some bestial intelligence left in him. She only noticed one of her barrels was bent from impact a second too late, meaning the gun in her hands was useless. As a gun, at least. Raising it to block a slash, Jinx felt the raw power behind the strike, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She got the good stuff flowing through her veins, after all. 

Not that Vi knew that. “Get away from her!” Vi screamed, running up the falling deck with more willpower than sense. She didn't see how effortlessly Jinx dodged and blocked the flurry of swipes. She just saw her baby sister in over head. “Powder!” 

Warwick stilled. Jinx barely registered it before Vi came in with a flying tackle, the ship crumbling apart underneath their feet. But it was there. A flicker of that something. Something that belonged to Vander. 

Both Vi and Warwick were lost in a cloud of dust when her airship crashed at the end of the block, hitting a building as much as it did the street. There was a flash of heat on her face when the fusion core was breached, sending up a mushroom cloud. Jinx was already gone by that point, paying no mind to the sounds of chaos or the Noxians shouting. She dove into the dust and smoke, looking for- 

She found it. 

Vi stood over Warwick, her arms and face covered in blood, but there was an expression of dawning horror on her face as the bestial corpse beneath her began to recede. Vi knew who it would be even before his face was revealed, Jinx saw as she approached. But all the same, when Vander's face appeared when the bestial features faded… she dropped to her knees in disbelieving horror. 

In that moment, Jinx knew her sister was broken. Broken in the same way that she was. 

And it was as Jinx stood over the sight, a tragedy of her own making… 

It was only then that Jinx truly realized how broken she was.  

…

“God damn, that bitch is craaazy,” I muttered under my breath, watching the entire ordeal unfold. Vi was virtually catatonic when Jinx picked her up, fleeing from the Noxian soldiers that swarmed over the remains of the airship to finish off the survivors. 

I knew Jinx was crazy. Hell, I had no small hand in crafting her madness. Still, that girl really just straight-up arranged for her sister to kill their adopted father. Purely for my approval. In that moment, I genuinely couldn’t tell who was more monstrous -- Jinx, for going through with it, or me, for setting her on that path. 

In either case, full marks across the board. I couldn’t stop smiling. The rest of the war was almost boring in comparison, even if parts of it were delicious. Another screen showed an increasingly desperate Caitlyn leading from the front, shouting orders that she never thought she would give in her worst nightmares. 

The sweet and genuine Enforcer was becoming something she couldn’t recognize by the second. She spent lives as currency, trading them for time and territory. The High Councilor sent waves of suicide charges from our resident super soldier program, which mostly consisted of pumping fatal amounts of Shimmer into people before pressing a knife in their hands and telling them to go nuts. Which they frequently did. Most managed to get about a dozen kills before they were shot to pieces or hacked to bits. Or some combination of the two. 

Every death visibly weighed on Caitlyn, but she was convinced that the cost was worth it. Either by her own conviction, or from Cinder whispering in her ear. 

Rumi on the other hand was pure self-indulgence. She fought freely, without reservation, tearing through Noxus like a blade despite everything Swain was throwing at her. Mundo’s healing factor was being pushed to its limits, and his acting like a punching bag was the only reason why Katarina and Riven were still alive. She was finally being the person I knew she could be.

She was letting go of all those preconceived notions of heroism and restraint. She was learning to accept that she could just fight when she wanted to fight. Sure, it was a change fueled by some chemical help, but murder was a bit like a potato chip -- it was hard to stop at one. 

I was curious how she would feel when the dust settled, but even if she did have regrets, it was still a massive step forward to finally bringing Rumi onto my side of things. 

As for the war itself -- it was at its climax, or thereabouts. Swain was already a good general. With that demon arm, he became a great one. He knew just where to poke for maximum effect, and despite all of Caitlyn’s moral sacrifices, Noxus had blitzed through Piltover. The only thing keeping them at bay was my warship and Caitlyn pulling back to the Hexgate. The fighting was fierce, with Piltover knowing that they couldn’t retreat another step and Noxus knowing that they just had a little more to go before they could win. 

The result was pure desperation on both sides. It was everywhere. Men and women fighting in rooms, hacking at each other with blades or beating their heads in with fists or rocks. A street would be taken, lost, retaken, and lost again in the span of an hour. In the fierce fighting, dozens of people were dying every minute. It was an absolute bloodbath with no winners to be found on either side. 

“It’s time,” Robin voiced her verdict, Yoruichi curled in her lap as a black cat, enjoying chin scratches. 

She was right. “I hoped Ambessa would make her move,” I admitted. She remained on the outskirts of the battle, her men assembled, but she didn’t commit. Honestly, it looked like she was gearing up to force Mel back in power. She might have if Mel wasn’t at her villa, talking her mother down from unwanted action on her behalf. 

Mel was a project that was coming along smoothly. After being ousted from power with only a little help from me, she’d let go of Piltover as the foundation of her power. For now, at least. Given Piltover was even more of a ruin than it had been after Asami failed to assassinate me last Progress Day, there was going to be plenty of opportunity to be found in rebuilding. All the more so when Final Fantasy would be making contact in about seven months. 

I was content to let the Medardas do what they willed. 

“A shame about Jayce and Viktor. I thought they would act,” Yoruichi remarked with her freakishly deep male cat voice. I hummed in agreement, a window appearing to display the pair. Or, rather, Jayce as he walked back and forth, torn between inaction and action. Viktor was nearby, but still recovering from his… well, calling it a surgery was a bit of an understatement given that he was a brain inside a mech now. 

“I think if I drag things out a bit more, Jayce would act,” I admitted. He had the right temperament. In particular, he wanted revenge for Noxus’ apparent assassination of Heimerdinger, but that desire was warring with the knowledge that Heimerdinger couldn’t really ‘die’ and the desire to uphold the ideals of his mentor. Even if he didn’t believe in them with the same fervor. 

“But?” Robin prompted, continuing to pet Yoruichi. 

“But, I’ve kept my friends waiting long enough,” I decided. Sukuna and Kaido had been patient on my behalf. They’d let me play my games, so it was my turn to let them have some fun. 

…

Swain overlooked the battlefield with a critical eye. There had yet to be another sighting of the small flying child that had nearly killed him. All the same, he ensured he was covered even at a vantage. It was something of a point of pride that he rarely made the same mistake twice. The battle proceeded according to his expectations, though they were paying a bloody toll for Piltover. Before the day was won, Swain expected they would lose a full third of the army. 

It was a grievous loss. The greatest in his career. However, it was a price that would be paid. Grand General Darkwill had made his expectations plain -- Piltover and the Hexgate would fall to Noxus to facilitate their invasion of Ionia. No other outcome was deemed acceptable. Until the last drop of blood and their final breath, they would take the city or they would die in the attempt. 

Raum proved to be invaluable. Troop movements were carefully observed, as were quiet discussions of tactics and strategy held where High Councilor Kiramman thought none could overhear. He was quite impressed with the young woman who’d had power thrust upon her. When Noxus took the city, Swain would petition that it remain under her capable stewardship.

She embodied the best of Noxus, even if she despised it for invading her home. 

“Victory is ours,” Swain deduced with cold calculation. The Enforcers would break within the hour after they destroyed the warship, which his mages were preparing to do at the very moment. With the icon of their resistance destroyed, their morale would falter, and as it did Swain would order a mass assault. They had fought well, but even brave men knew a lost cause when they saw it. And there was a line between bravery and throwing your life away. 

Yet, almost as if to specifically contradict him, Swain felt it. A stirring in the air came first before every hair stood on end. Then the skies overhead began to darken, a storm manifesting from nothing at all. His eyes narrowed at it, not sensing magics, but… 

Then it came. A wave of power. Swain knew no other word to describe it. Only that it was as if the air itself suddenly grew heavy enough to drive him to his knees, but even as he managed to stand in the face of that weight, many of his attendants faltered. They dropped where they stood, their eyes rolling in the back of their heads, foam rising from their lips.

The sight of a blue-scaled dragon emerging from the clouds was almost secondary. Even as fire gathered in his giant maw, spitting out a fireball that struck his back lines with explosive force. In an instant, three hundred men were gone along with a city block. Solid stone was reduced to molten lava in an instant, leaving behind a steaming crater. 

Through the eyes of Raum, Swain saw that the dragon was not alone. Piltover was not spared the wave of power that drove hundreds, if not thousands, into unconsciousness… neither were they spared when Sukuna the Cannibal emerged from his apparent sabbatical. The four armed man smiled widely, with both the mouth on his face and the one on his stomach. 

He made a hand sign, and in an instant, the raven whose eyes Swain looked through was erased. Alongside hundreds more of his men as another city block was eradicated, leaving behind only dust in seconds. 

The balance of power had reversed drastically. Whereas a moment before, victory was inevitable, now… now the opposite was true. 

Swain gazed upon his foes, weighing the odds of victory and defeat before coming to the obvious conclusion. 

They would withdraw and retreat to Noxus. The invasion of Piltover was their defeat.