While the Undercity smoldered, Silco stood over Vander's cooling corpse. His mismatched eyes were fixed on the spot where we had vanished.
"Where did that mage come from?" Silco's voice was like grinding stones. "He actually pulled her out."
His thugs could only shrug, still blinded by the afterimage of the blue light. Silco didn't care for excuses. He twisted his neck, the leather of his coat creaking. "Vander is done. This city belongs to me now. And as for that boy... I'll find him. Nobody steals from me twice."
The Price of a Crit
"Hiss—"
I woke up to a world of white-hot agony. Every nerve in my back was screaming. It felt like Silco's blade was still vibrating in my spine.
"Did I... did I respawn? Am I in a new save?" I wheezed, clutching my head.
"You're awake? Try not to move, unless you want your stitches to pop like party favors."
I blinked, my vision slowly focusing on Halde. The old man was sitting by my bed, his mechanical eye clicking as it scanned my vitals. I was back at Clockwork Sundries. My Teleport had worked—it brought us right to the anchor I'd set.
Halde crossed his arms, looking more like a disappointed father than a shopkeeper. "You took a fatal crit to the back, kid. You've got the combat skills of a caster minion, yet you're out there playing tank for the Black Alley crew. If you died, who was going to calibrate the gear-springs in the shop?"
I felt a wave of guilt hit me harder than the injury. I'd ignored his warnings and run headfirst into a blender. Yet, he'd still paid the Alchemist Hospital's extortionate fees to keep me in the land of the living.
"I'm sorry, Halde. And... thank you."
"Don't give me 'sorry,'" he grunted, though his eyes softened. "Medical alchemy in Zaun isn't cheap. You're going to be working double shifts to pay off this debt once you can walk again."
"Deal," I whispered.
Halde nodded and headed for the door. As he opened it, a flash of blue hair scurried back. Powder had been eavesdropping. Halde just gave a faint, knowing smile. "Go on in, little one."
The Two-Faced Girl
Powder walked in, her footsteps silent. We didn't say anything for a long time; we just looked at each other and smiled. It was the smile of two people who had survived the end of the world together.
She sat on the edge of my bed and leaned in, touching her forehead to mine. It was a mirror of the gesture Halde had shown me earlier—pure, raw affection.
"From now on," she whispered, her voice trembling but certain, "you're my only family."
My heart did a triple-take. My main champion—the girl who would eventually become the face of League of Legends—was acknowledging me as her world. I felt my face turn bright red, my temperature spiking so fast I thought I was proccing Cinderhulk.
"Are you running a fever?" she asked, pulling back with a worried frown.
"No! No, I'm fine. Just... healing," I stammered.
She looked normal. She looked like the Powder I wanted to save. So, like an idiot, I tried to fix the unfixable. I tried to bridge the gap between her and the sister who had just broken her.
"You still have one more family member, Powder. You have Vi."
The change was instantaneous. It was like a server lag that suddenly snaps into a chaotic teamfight.
Powder's eyes went wide. She clutched her head, her fingers digging into her scalp. "What Vi? I don't have a sister! She's not my sister! SHE'S NOT!"
She let out a guttural roar, her hands covering her face. When she peeked through her fingers, only one eye was visible—and it wasn't Powder's eye. It was cold, manic, and jagged. She tilted her head at an impossible angle, staring at a corner of the room as if she could see ghosts there. Then, she started to laugh.
She grabbed her satchel and slammed it against the floor with a violence that shook the room. "SHE'S NOT! SHE'S NOT!"
Before I could call out to her, she turned and bolted out of the room, her twin braids flying behind her like fuses.
I slumped back against the pillows, exhausted. "I was too late. She's already half-gone."
The Reality of the "Jinx"
The trauma had already done its work. Between the explosion she caused and Vi calling her a "Jinx," the girl I knew as Powder was being overwritten by a defense mechanism—a second personality.
Halde walked back in, looking confused. "She ran past me crying. What did you say to her?"
"Is she okay? Where did she go?" I asked, panicking.
"She's hiding in my room, sobbing into a pillow. She didn't leave the shop. What's the story, Chen? And don't give me the 'it's nothing' routine."
I trusted Halde. He was my only anchor in this world. So, I told him everything—the heist, the Shimmer monsters, Silco's betrayal, and the explosion that claimed Vander and the others.
Halde listened in silence, his expression darkening with every detail. When I finished, he let out a long, heavy sigh. "She's a child of the Sump. They all have scars, but hers... hers go all the way to the bone."
"Her mind is fractured, Halde. When I mentioned Vi, it was like a trigger. From now on, we don't mention the Black Alley. We don't mention the sister. We just keep her safe."
I looked toward the door, my mind racing. I had saved her from Silco's knife, but now I had to save her from the voices in her head. And I still had a "Grasp" to stack if I ever wanted to survive a second hit from someone like Silco.