Chapter Text
The television glowed against the concrete walls of the Piltover SDN break room, its polished studio lighting a sharp contrast to the grit most people associated with Zaun.
“Good evening,” the anchor said, voice calm and authoritative. “We interrupt regular programming for breaking news out of Piltover. After years of negotiations, setbacks, and open conflict, Piltover and Zaun have reached a historic agreement that will fundamentally reshape the future of both cities.”
Behind her, the screen shifted to aerial footage of the bridge, once a symbol of division, now lined with banners and security drones.
“Effective immediately,” she continued, “Zaun has been formally recognized as an independent city-state, ending its long-standing status under Piltover governance.”
A graphic appeared: THE ZAUN–PILTOVER ACCORD.
“But independence comes with conditions.”
The image changed to the familiar emblem of the Superhero Dispatch Network.
“As part of the agreement, Zaun has consented to the establishment of a Superhero Dispatch Network branch within its borders, operating under joint oversight. The network will coordinate hero response, crisis management, and villain containment, bringing Piltover’s structured emergency infrastructure into Zaun for the first time.”
The anchor turned slightly, listening to her earpiece.
“We now go live to Councilman Jayce Talis, also known publicly as the hero Hextech Man, who helped broker the final terms of the accord.”
The feed switched.
Jayce stood at a podium outside the Council Hall, hextech circuitry faintly glowing along the seams of his armor. Reporters crowded behind the barricades, flashes going off in rapid bursts.
“This agreement is about balance,” Jayce said. “Zaun has fought for recognition for generations. Tonight, that fight is honored.”
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
“But independence does not mean isolation. It means responsibility to your citizens, to your neighbors, and to the future. The Superhero Dispatch Network ensures that no matter which side of the bridge you live on, help arrives when you need it.”
A reporter shouted, “Councilor Talis! Is this a concession to rising villain activity in Zaun?”
Jayce didn’t flinch. “It’s an acknowledgment of reality. Emergencies don’t respect borders. Neither should protection.”
The anchor’s voice returned. “As part of the accord, Zaun has also agreed to cooperate fully with Piltover authorities in resolving several outstanding security concerns.”
The screen cut to grainy footage: a warehouse explosion, a streak of pink, enforcers diving for cover.
“One of those concerns involves the notorious Zaunite criminal known as Jinx.”
The footage froze on a frame of grey hair and wild eyes.
“Zaun officials confirmed earlier today that Jinx was formally surrendered into Piltover custody in connection with the theft of a hexgem, an incident that nearly derailed negotiations during their final stages.”
Another clip played: handcuffs snapping shut. A mask is removed before the face gets censored.
“She is currently being held pending interrogation and review under the Network’s rehabilitation statutes.”
Jayce’s image appeared again, his expression somber.
“No one is above accountability,” he said. “Not heroes. Not villains. This accord only works if justice applies equally.”
The anchor nodded gravely, “Zaun leadership has released a brief statement in response. We now go live to Silco, acting representative for Zaun during the final negotiations.”
The screen shifted.
Silco stood in a dimly lit office, the city’s toxic glow bleeding through tall windows behind him. His hands were folded neatly on a cane, his expression composed, almost serene.
“Representative Silco,” the anchor began, “how do you respond to critics who say Zaun paid too high a price for its independence?”
Silco opened his mouth to speak.
The television went black.
The sudden silence was violent.
“Hey!” one of the enforcers barked. “What the hell, Crimson Fist?”
Vi stood in front of the screen, hand still hovering near the power button, her jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might crack.
“I don’t need to hear him explain it,” she said coldly.
The room buzzed with unease.
Vi turned away from the blank screen and headed for the door.
Boots echoed sharply against polished tile as Vi moved down the corridor toward the observation wing. The hallway was too clean, too bright, with white lights reflecting off the metal walls, making everything feel exposed. Her fists were clenched so tightly her knuckles burned, the ache grounding her, keeping her from thinking too hard about what waited at the end.
Every step felt heavier than the last.
Not because she was tired.
Because this building had a way of reminding you when you were walking toward something that could break you.
The observation wing came into view, its glass walls stretching the length of the hall like an accusation. Vi didn’t slow, didn’t hesitate, even as her pulse hammered in her ears. If she stopped now, she wasn’t sure she’d start again.
She pushed through the door.
The room was already occupied.
Caitlyn stood closest to the glass, her posture straight in that way that meant she was holding herself together by force of habit alone. Her mask, usually locked in place, a symbol of authority and certainty of the hero Pulsefire, hung at her belt instead, forgotten. One gloved hand rested against the edge of the console, fingers curled just slightly, tense.
Jayce stood beside her, broader, heavier somehow in the quiet. His arms were crossed, but his shoulders sagged beneath the weight of everything the night represented: politics, promises, consequences. His eyes never left the interrogation room beyond the glass.
The woman was seated at the metal table inside.
Powder.
Not Jinx.
No mask. No grin. No grey hair.
Just short blue hair pulled back unevenly, strands already slipping loose. Her hands were folded neatly on the table, wrists still red where restraints had recently been removed. Her gaze was lowered, but not unfocused, sharp, aware, cataloging every sound, every shadow. The posture of someone who had learned, long ago, that stillness was survival.
Vi’s chest tightened.
Caitlyn glanced over her shoulder as Vi stepped closer to the glass. Her voice was soft, careful, as if speaking too loudly might shatter something already cracked.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Vi didn’t answer right away.
The reflection in the glass showed Powder sitting alone at the metal table, smaller than she ever looked on the streets, shoulders tight but unbroken. Vi’s jaw set as she watched her breathe, watched the way her eyes never entirely stopped moving.
Jayce shifted beside Caitlyn, finally tearing his gaze from the interrogation room. There was a weight in his expression, familiar, complicated.
“Vi,” he said gently, “the Council can assign another handler. Someone more… neutral.”
Vi stopped beside the window.
“No,” she said immediately. No hesitation. “This is mine.”
Caitlyn drew in a slow breath. “If this goes wrong, if she spirals, if she feels cornered-”
“We’ve made deals with worse people for worse crimes,” Vi cut in. She turned then, finally facing them, and the raw edge beneath her steady tone was impossible to miss. “We let monsters walk free because they were useful. We rehabilitated a werewolf who used to tear through city blocks every full moon because… he's family.”
Jayce winced slightly.
Vi didn’t stop.
“You’re telling me we can’t try with Powder?”
Jayce exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face as if weighing more than just policy. “This isn’t just about what she’s done,” he said. “It’s about where you’re putting her.”
Vi frowned. “Meaning?”
Jayce gestured vaguely toward the future, toward Zaun. “The dispatch team opening there isn’t a quiet post. It’s… stacked.”
Vi stayed silent, listening.
“A performer whose voice reaches millions.”
Caitlyn’s eyes widened slightly at that. “Seraphine?!… She’s really joining?”
Jayce nodded. “She insisted.”
Caitlyn tried and failed not to smile. “I have all her albums.”
Jayce gave her a look. Caitlyn cleared her throat and straightened.
“There’ll also be two locals as part of the accord,” Jayce went on, more serious now. “Both are brilliant in their own ways. Both from Zaun. Both have crossed paths with your sister before.”
Vi stiffened,” Little Man and his girl really going to be a part of the team?” Vi’s eyes flicked back to Powder through the glass.
Jayce continued, quieter now. “There’s also a swordsman trying very hard to outrun the damage he’s done. A sentient slab of stone who barely understands people but protects them anyway. And a fox-like vastaya who’s lived long enough to regret more than she admits. Finally, you’ll have someone with royal blood from another nation,” Jayce continued. “Sent here because she trusted someone too much.”
The room felt smaller with every word.
“That,” Jayce finished, “is the team she’ll be dispatching. These people will trust her with their lives. Their timing. Their eye in the sky.”
He looked at Vi not as a councilman, not as a hero, but as someone who remembered a younger version of her behind reinforced glass.
“You really want to put your sister in that position? Put other heroes in that situation?”
Vi didn’t answer immediately.
Beyond the window, Powder shifted in her chair. Just a slight movement, adjusting her posture, lifting her head a fraction, but her eyes snapped toward the door with uncanny precision.
As if she could feel Vi standing there.
Vi watched her sister for a long moment.
“She listens,” Vi said finally, her voice low but unshakable. “She adapts. She always has.”
Jayce searched her face. “That’s not an answer.”
Vi turned to him fully now.
“You once looked at a locked cell and saw potential instead of a problem,” she said quietly. “You gave me a chance when it would’ve been easier not to.”
Jayce stilled.
Vi’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’m just doing the same thing.”
Silence stretched between them.
Caitlyn softened, following Vi’s gaze back to the glass. “Are you sure she’ll even listen?”
Vi watched Powder’s reflection in the glass, watched her breathe, watched her wait.
“She’s my sister,” Vi said.
Then she stepped forward and reached for the door handle.
The door to the interrogation room slid shut behind Vi with a soft, mechanical hiss, sealing them off from the rest of the world.
The sound lingered.
Powder sat alone at the metal table, shoulders squared but tense, the overhead light bleaching color from her skin. The room was too clean. Too orderly. Another Piltover box designed to make chaos feel small and manageable.
Chains with better lighting.
She looked thinner than Vi remembered, sharper at the edges, like someone who hadn’t slept properly in a long time.
“Must have been the mask that kept her looking normal,” Vi thought.
Powder’s fingers were still, folded neatly together, but her foot tapped once against the floor before she stilled it. At the sound of the door, her head snapped up, eyes locking on Vi with instant, practiced awareness.
No surprise.
Just recognition.
They stared at each other across the table.
For a heartbeat, neither of them spoke.
In Powder’s mind, Piltover flickered classrooms, hextech diagrams, teachers who smiled when she impressed them and frowned when her ideas went too far. A city that loved her brilliance right up until it became inconvenient. A city that had always felt like it was tightening around her throat.
“…Hey,” Powder said at last.
The word came out quietly. Not weak. Just tired. The sound of someone who’d learned that explosions weren’t always loud.
“Hey, yourself,” Vi replied.
She pulled out the chair across from Powder and sat, the scrape of metal echoing sharply in the sterile space. She didn’t look. Didn’t rush. Just planted herself there, solid, familiar, impossible to ignore.
That was worse.
Powder’s gaze flicked briefly to the faint red marks around her wrists where the cuffs had been removed, then back to Vi’s face. Her mouth twitched, half-smile, half-flinch.
“So,” she said lightly, too lightly. “Guess it finally worked, huh? Zaun gets its shiny little freedom sticker.”
“At a price,” Vi said.
Powder let out a short, humorless snort. “Funny how that always ends up being me.”
Vi leaned forward, forearms resting on the cold metal table. Up close, she could see the tension coiled beneath Powder’s skin, the same restless energy that once fueled wild inventions meant to impress, to prove, to matter. The spark that never really went away, no matter how many times it burned her.
“He promised,” Powder said, voice low, controlled with effort. “Said no matter what happened, he wouldn’t trade people for power. Said Zaun wasn’t worth it if it meant becoming Piltover all over again.”
Her fingers curled slightly against each other.
“I believed him,” she added. Then, bitterly, “Guess that’s on me.”
She laughed once, short, sharp, empty. “Turns out independence looks real nice when you don’t have to pay for it yourself.”
Vi swallowed. The words landed heavier than a punch. “Pow-.”
Powder’s head snapped up. “No.”
The force in her voice surprised them both.
“You were right,” Powder said, quieter now. Her voice wavered for half a second, just long enough for the truth to slip through. “You always said he’d choose the cause over me. I just…” She hesitated, jaw tightening. “I didn’t think it’d be the first big opportunity, not even try to bargain, just agreeing to it.”
The room felt smaller.
The walls closer.
The air was thicker, pressing down on old memories of a warehouse, smoke, screaming, and a name shouted in anger that never quite stopped echoing.
Vi exhaled slowly, forcing the knot in her chest to loosen. “You don’t have to protect him anymore.”
Powder’s shoulders sagged, tension bleeding out of her like air from a punctured valve. “I know,” she said softly. “That’s the worst part.”
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Vi reached into her jacket and pulled out a slim datapad, sliding it across the table until it came to rest between them.
Powder eyed it like a live wire. “What’s this?”
“A deal,” Vi said. “Probation. Full oversight. No cell.”
Powder raised an eyebrow, skepticism immediate. “There’s always a catch.”
“You work for the Superhero Dispatch Network,” Vi said. “The new branch opening in Zaun.”
Powder blinked.
Once.
Then again.
“…You want me answering hero calls?”
“Dispatch,” Vi corrected. “Information flow. Timing. Resource coordination. No field work unless explicitly approved.”
Powder picked up the data pad and scrolled through the terms. Her eyes moved fast, too fast for someone merely reading. Calculating. Mapping. Seeing the angles Piltover hadn’t thought of.
“…You’re serious,” she said.
“Deadly.”
Powder looked up. “And if I say no?”
Vi didn’t flinch. “Then you get processed like any other villain. And Zaun loses the one person who actually knows how its streets work, how its people think. How Silco thinks.”
Powder leaned back in her chair, metal creaking beneath her weight.
“So I’m leverage,” she said.
“You’re a chance,” Vi replied. “For you. For Zaun.”
A long beat passed.
Powder locked the screen and slid the datapad back across the table.
“You really think this’ll work?” she asked.
Vi stood, pushing the chair back gently. “I think you deserve the option.”
Powder looked up at her sister, really looked at her. Not the Crimson Fist. Not Piltover’s golden hero.
Just Vi.
For the first time since the cuffs had clicked shut around her wrists, Powder smiled.
It was small.
Careful.
Unreadable.
“…Yeah,” she said. “Alright. I’m in.”
Beyond the glass, Caitlyn finally let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Jayce nodded slowly, something between awe and dread in his expression. “Well,” he muttered, “that’s one hell of a hire.”
The cell was… nicer than Powder expected.
That alone made her suspicious.
The walls weren’t bare concrete but smooth, pale panels designed to look calming. The overhead light was dimmed to a warm amber, rather than the harsh white used in holding cells. There was an actual bed bolted to the floor, a thin mattress, clean sheets, and a small desk with a fixed chair. Even the door was more glass than bars, reinforced yet transparent, as if they wanted her to remember she was being watched, not caged.
A “comfortable” cell.
Powder lay back on the bed, hands folded over her stomach, staring up at the ceiling. Without the cuffs, without the mask, without the constant hum of adrenaline, the exhaustion crept in fast. Her body ached in places she hadn’t noticed before. Bruises blooming under skin she hadn’t bothered checking.
Tomorrow, she’d be transferred to an apartment close to Zaun.
Tomorrow, she’d become something new. Or at least something with better branding.
A soft chime sounded outside the cell.
Powder’s eyes flicked toward the door immediately.
Footsteps approached measured, unhurried. Not an enforcer’s heavy stomp. Not a hero’s confident stride.
A guard stopped in front of the glass.
He was older than most, face lined, expression neutral in the way of someone who’d learned not to get invested. He checked the tablet in his hand, then glanced up at her.
“Final check,” he said. “You settling in?”
Powder tilted her head. “You offering bedtime stories, too?”
He didn’t react. Just keyed in a code, eyes briefly scanning the room. “Transfer’s scheduled for 0900. Dispatch wing. You’ll be escorted.”
“Mmm.” Powder rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one elbow. “Lucky me.”
The guard hesitated.
That was new.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim, unmarked phone, cheap, disposable. He slid it through the narrow pass slot at the bottom of the door.
“You have one message,” he said evenly. “No calls. No browsing. One text.”
Powder’s smile was slow, knowing. “Council-approved?”
The guard met her gaze. “Approved enough.”
The slot clicked shut.
Powder picked up the phone, turning it over in her hands. No case. No cracks. Fresh. Probably activated minutes ago.
She unlocked it.
One contact. No name. Just a number she knew by heart.
For a moment, she stared at the screen.
Silco’s face rose unbidden in her mind, calm, composed, already spinning narratives faster than anyone else in the room. He’d known this was a risk. He always did.
Her thumbs hovered over the keypad.
Then she typed.
J: Deal went through.
J: Dispatch placement confirmed.
J: Phase one complete. Plan is a go.
She hit send.
The message was delivered instantly.
Powder exhaled, a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
She set the phone back down just as the guard cleared his throat. The slot opened again.
She slid the phone back without comment.
The guard glanced at the screen, nodded once, and pocketed it. “Get some rest.”
“Oh, I will,” Powder said lightly.
The lights dimmed further as he walked away, footsteps fading down the corridor.
Alone again.
Powder lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, a small smile tugging at her lips, half relief, half something sharper.
Tomorrow, she’d walk into Dispatch as Powder.
But Jinx?
Jinx was already right where she needed to be.