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“Janna, I know you’re there! Come on, I’m just trying to chat!”
you know this is dumb, right?
Jinx scowled at the jagged outline of Claggor, “Look, I’m having a crisis here, can you be sentimental for a fuckin’ minute?”
no
Groaning, Jinx dragged a hand down her face, heedless of how the motion pulled down and exposed the inside of her eyelids to Zaun’s gray. The fog was packed with more toxic chems than usual, so Jinx was the only person wandering around the afflicted fissure at the moment.
Given how a bare second of exposure to the gray had bloodied her eyelids and she was going briefly blind about every half hour, Jinx decided that was for the best.
She’d volunteered during the last few gray-outs like this to patrol the affected areas, on the grounds that she could technically survive it with no ill effects and without burning out any respirator filters, win-win. Not like she really cared about anyone dying for being dumb enough to get caught in the gray, but it helped Silco’s image if his daughter seemed so willing to try and help during gray-outs.
The reality, of course, was a lot more selfish. Jinx wanted a friend that would last, someone she could count on even when centuries had passed them by.
Maybe more than a friend, but that was a dangerous thought for future Jinx to have "fun" defusing.
“Janna, where are you? Stop avoiding me! I even brought sunflower hearts! Come on, let’s have brunch!”
she’s not actually a bluebird jinx
Adjusting how the sack of husked sunflower seeds fit under her arm, Jinx rolled her eyes, “Yeah, duh, I know, she’s a goddess.”
… so why the sunflower hearts?
Pausing to cough up what was probably a chunk of her lungs, Jinx looked around to see if anyone actually needed her help before continuing to walk around the neighborhood.
“Well, if she takes the shape of a bluebird, she must like what bluebirds eat. If she wanted like, I dunno, cheese she’d take the shape of a mouse, and if she liked mice she’d take the shape of a cat, so on and so forth.”
i hate that i can follow that logic
The sound of coughing caught Jinx’s ear, and with a sigh, she altered course. A block away, a young man lay on the ground, the filter cartridge of his respirator faintly smoking.
“Sheesh, what factory blew up to make this round of the gray such a shit show. Hang on there dude, don’t breathe in, or this is gonna sting,” Jinx grumbled, dropping a backpack onto the ground. The man quickly nodded, eyes watering behind his protective goggles.
Warning delivered and received, Jinx quickly pulled away the man’s mask, and replaced it with one from the backpack she’d set down a moment ago. “Okay, you’re all set, though that beauty has a pretty limited filter life. Can you get inside somewhere in less than 30 minutes?”
The man nodded again, so Jinx shrugged the backpack on, pausing only to reach down her top and fish out a small pendant with a bluebird on it. Disentangling the necklace from the other twenty or so took another moment, but Jinx managed. The young man regained his feet just in time for Jinx to thrust the pendant into his hands, “Here, you look like you could use a little luck. If you see Janna, tell her Jinx is looking for her? Toodles!”
Turning around on her heel, Jinx started skipping off, shouting into the uncaring fog, “Come out, come out wherever you are! I’ll build ya’ a freaking church to you if you don’t~”
don’t make threats you won’t follow through on jinx
Cackling madly, even as a particularly gritty chunk of air caught in the back of her throat, “Oh, you think I’m bluffing, huh Claggor? I’ll show you, I’ll show them all!”
////
this is at least partially, if not mostly your fault, claggor
fuck me, i didn’t think she’d do it…
Jinx stood at the pulpit, grinning at the congregation before her, “Thank you for coming brothers and sisters! I am glad to see that I didn’t build too few pews, truly I have been blessed to help so many fellow believers give thanks to Janna.”
“Thanks be to Janna,” the crowd intoned, and Jinx felt something suspiciously like joy at the sight of so many smiling faces. She’d left her hair down for this morning, and while she hadn't changed out of her traditional street clothes, she made sure to put her bluebird pendant on the outside of her shirt.
While not every pew was full, each one had at least one occupant, and as Jinx led a meandering sermon touching on helping their fellow Zaunites and ushering in the winds of peace and change, she got most of the heads in the crowd bobbing and smiling.
Soon enough, the impromptu worship broke up, and Jinx took a moment to shake a few hands, pass out a few more pendants, and accept some tithes of all things.
“Wait, I get paid for doing this?” she murmured after the last few followers left the church, staring at the collection plate full of copper washers and silver gears. “I mean, I’m not gonna break even for a while at this rate, but like, damn, I thought I was just pissing away a few sacks of gold hexes. Huh.”
not every church has a prime minister for a dad jinx
“Sucks to be them,” she cackled before pouring the coins into a sack being held out by, “Hang on, who the fuck are you?”
The mammoth of a man tipped the tiny bowler's cap sitting on his head. Grinning with teeth made of various precious metals and gems, the chem-tech powered metal armor encasing his body hissing with mildly acidic steam as he bowed.
“I’m Coop, the local kingpin young Jinx, you really should know me. Old friend of your dear father dontcha know?”
Jinx turned her head a bit, looking to Mylo and Claggor, whispering “You guys remember this dude?”
no, and you’re about to get sucker-punched dummy
“Huh?” was all Jinx got out before the prophesied sucker punch hit her in the side of the head, sending her crashing through several pews. One board snapped in such a way that it punched into her abdomen, piercing muscles and organs like a fine Ionian blade.
“The finest rot-wood, folded over a million times by master plank-smiths…” Jinx burbled, hot blood flowing over her lips as her weight pushed the board deeper and deeper and
Jinx opened her eyes.
She flopped onto her back, her resurrection having pushed her off the wooden spar she’d been impaled on.
“You know, I wasn’t in the crowd when you were executed, but I see the rumors are true,” guffawed Coop, stomping over to where Jinx lay. “Now, seeing as you’re about as fragile as a pile of eggshells, and I’m armored to the nines, do you feel like talking about what sort of arrangement we will have going forward?”
“Okay, not to be that girl, but my dad is gonna fucking kill you.”
maximum 'that girl' energy there jinx
Coop lit a cigar using one thumb, shaking his hand to snap the built-in lighter closed. Leaning down, he blew the smoke into Jinx’s unblinking eyes. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Silco needed a, let’s say, presentable face to point to and say, oh look, I’m not doing crimes anymore, I’ve gone legit.”
Jinx arched one eyebrow, “Really?”
Nodding and smiling, Coop blew another plume of smoke into Jinx’s face before standing up. “Well, it's more like he pointed to me as being an example of what Zaun should no longer be, that we must rise above our image as gangsters and criminals blah blah blah.”
The man took a few steps back, his face a picture of sneering arrogance, “But that really just made it clear that I was the top dog of the underground now, and who's gonna talk back to the top dog?” he laughed, before lunging forward, lashing out as Jinx was pushing herself up. The kick took her right in the abdomen, and she flew into the wall of the church, feeling her back hit an instant before her head snapped backward and
Jinx opened her eyes.
load-bearing wall, your head hit a stud jinx
“I ain’t hit him yet, and he’s not a stud, even if I was into dudes,” Jinx mumbled, pushing herself up from where she’d revived. Reaching up to her neck, Jinx felt the bluebird pendant, running one thumb over the hand-carved wood. “Janna, please give me a sign. Is it acceptable to commit an act of violence in your space? To take a Zaunite life when he can do me no lasting harm?”
Laughing, the kingpin grabbed Jinx’s hand and pendent, wrenching her off her feet to examine the necklace, “What, you really believe this junk? I figured you were just doing it for a lark, or as a cover for something shifty. Are you really Jinx?”
jinx just kill his ass
“But Mylo, I gotta ask Janna, I built this place for her!”
oh cripes, you’ve got a nail stuck in your head, no wonder you’re dumber than usual
“Oh, you gotta ask Janna something? Lemmie help!” Jinx was airborne again, thrown from one side of the church to the other, rolling to a stop as she crashed through more pews and slammed into the far wall.
Groaning, she looked up, at the window sill just above her. If she’d just flown a little higher, she wouldn’t be in Janna’s space, she coulda fucked this guy up.
But, she would have hit the cute little bluebird sitting on the sill, and that woulda made Janna sad.
“I’m sorry Janna, I’m bad luck. Your space is getting smashed up,” Jinx told the bluebird, tears pricking the corners of her magenta eyes. “I just wanted a friend, I wanted to have a forever friend,” she cried as a warm wind blew through the open window, as the bluebird chirped at her.
In the distance, Coop was picking through the rubble of his passage, collecting odds and ends Jinx had decorated the church with. A scrap metal bird with some semi-precious gems in the eyes, a few silver gears arranged in the shape of a woman's face, bits of blue stained glass in a copper wireframe.
Tributes, tokens, bribes Jinx had made or paid for, a desperate attempt to entice the goddess into showing herself.
With the snap of bones un-breaking, and the clatter of a nail falling out of her brain, Jinx stood up, pulling out Zapper from the holster on the small of her back. She looked at the bluebird again, "I'm really sorry, but I can't let him take that stuff, it's for Janna, and I… I gotta stop him. I'll try to be non-lethal about it, but I really wanna pop him in the head so it might get a lil-"
"It's fine, beat his ass already!"
Jinx turned her head, "Mylo, dude, chill, I'm trying to ask a goddess for forgiveness here!"
wasn't me, the fucking bluebird said it
Hair whipping around, Zapper clattering to the floor in her shock, Jinx stared at the little bird, which lifted one wing to point to Coop.
"The fuck are you waiting for, break that dick heads legs!"
Her heart thumping like the latest Pentakill album inside her chest, blood fizzing and burning in her veins. Air, sweet glorious air filled her lungs, and Jinx shouted, "Hey Coop, did your momma name you that cause you're so chicken shit?"
The armored power suit hissed as Coop twisted around, his bag of loot on one shoulder, cigar smoldering in one hand. "You say something you little bit-"
He got no further than that, Jinx's flying knee strike crashing into Coop's exposed jaw hard enough to shatter a dozen teeth and her tibia.
“Not just fulla chicken shit, are ya Coop, you got shit for brains too!” Laughing like mad, Jinx snatched the cigar from Coop's hand and jammed it into one eye, his howls of pain muffled by the knee she kept firmly pressed against his bloodied maw.
Jinx cheered, smashing her knee into Coop's face half a dozen times in half as many seconds, a blistering assault that left him reeling, until his balance failed and he started to tip over.
Wrapping her right arm around his neck, heedless of how the metal framework pinched and burned, Jinx threw herself off of Coop's back over his right shoulder, speeding up his fall. "And here comes the Loose Cannon, flying in off the top rope!"
The pair landed roughly, floorboards cracking under the force, and Jinx briefly screamed as her arm was crushed by the weight. With another scream, Jinx tore her arm off at the elbow, leaving the trapped appendage behind.
i'm gonna be sick, what the fuck jinx?
Jinx swayed, woozy as her blood fell out of her arm stump, "Janna said to break his legs, can't break his legs if I'm pinned."
The little bluebird landed on Jinx's head, nestling into her hair, "I mean, I did say that…"
Even as the bones in her knee reset themselves, and her arm started to regrow, Jinx limped toward the pulpit, "So is that a no on the leg-breaking?"
"You crazy bitch," slurred Coop around his broken teeth, "I'll kill you, I'll kill everyone who was here today! I'll burn this piece of shit church for a piece of shit goddess to the ground with you in it, and I'll piss on the ashes!"
With a roar, the kingpin rose to his feet, blood sluicing down his chin, staining the chest piece of his armor.
"You know what," the bluebird said, flapping their wings to stay balanced as Jinx bent down to fuss with the pulpit, "no, don't break his legs."
Jinx paused, arms deep in the guts of the wooden box she had preached from not so long ago, "No?"
The bluebird, in utter defiance of how beaks worked, grinned with wrath flashing in their tiny eyes, "Yeah buddy, TAKE them instead."
Laughing together with the little bird, Jinx heaved Boom-Boom Jr. up on the swivel mount she'd built into the pulpit, the barrels already whining as they started to cycle, ammo belt clinking as fresh rounds were pulled up from underneath the floorboards and fed into the diminutive auto-cannon.
"You got it friendo!"
The roar of the cannon and detonation of the rounds fired combined was not enough to entirely drown out the sound of Coop's screaming.
////
Jinx sat on the stoop of her now slightly demolished place of worship, the magical-probably-actually-Janna bluebird still sitting in her hair.
Nearby, three paramedics, one in Firelight leathers, struggled to treat Coop. Not only was the armor proving difficult to take off so they could administer aid, but since he'd lost both legs around mid-thigh, even with a shot of medical-grade Shimmer serum to stabilize him, he was slipping in and out of consciousness.
Chief Constable Ekko tapped his notepad, "So… can you walk me through this again, Jinx?"
Blowing her signature lock of hair out of her face, Jinx rolled her eyes, saying “I gave a sermon at this church I built because Claggor said I wouldn’t, and people liked it which was really nice, the sermon was about Janna by the way, this church is hers. So I’d gotten some money from the offering plate, but then that dickass,” Jinx paused to point at Coop, “took the money and killed me a couple of times too.”
Ekko nodded, “Okay, with you so far, creepy how this is literally word for word what you’d said earlier by the way.”
She smiled brightly, “Thanks, I practiced it a lot while waiting for y’all to arrive. Anyway, so I was getting upset, so I begged Janna for a sign that it would be okay to kill that overgrown cumstain. Then I got thrown into the opposite wall, which means I hit both walls today not under my own power, which once I get, but twice is just boring ya know?”
Ekko was following Jinx’s rant, mouthing along one word in advance each time. “Last time I said-”
“Jinx, focus,” and she snapped her fingers for emphasis. Nodding to herself, “Like that, then I said right, sorry, so then I saw Coop was gonna leave with all the offerings for Janna, and I was gonna just dome his ugly potato head.”
Silco gestured with the loaded revolver he had in one hand, “And this is the part when you took out your revolver and started aiming at Coop until I asked you for it. Thank you for handing it over, dearest.”
Jinx smiled even wider, today on the whole was feeling pretty good! “You’re welcome pops! Anyway, so then this bluebird, who is almost certainly just how Janna wants to appear, told me to break his legs. I did a whole bunch of cool moves to get set up to break his legs.” Jinx paused and looked at Ekko expectantly.
Rubbing his eyes with one hand, the Chief Firelight Constable groaned, “Is that when he pulled your arm off?” Ekko shuddered as Jinx’s next words already resonating in his head, saying,
“Nope, I got it pinned under him when he fell, so I tore it off myself. Then he said a buncha mean shit, so Janna walked back the leg-breaking, and told me to TAKE his legs instead! So I used Boom-Boom Jr. to do just that. And then I waited for the auto-cannon fire to get called in, and now we’re here!” Jinx threw her hands up, “The end! How’d I do?”
Ekko just shook his head and put his notepad away, “You got them all, one hundred percent word for word accuracy, what the fuck.”
Jinx threw her hands up, “Thanks be to Janna!”
“You’re welcome,” the bluebird said.
Silco and Ekko both screamed, Coop screamed, the EMTs screamed, even Jinx screamed, crying out “Why are we screaming?! I told you the bird is secretly Janna?!"
There was a sputtering noise from both Ekko and Silco, the Firelight leader looking to the Prime Minister before facing Jinx with a flabbergasted expression, "Uh, not for nothing there Jinx, but when you point to a bird and say, 'look, the incarnation of our city-states guardian deity', not a lot of people are gonna believe you."
Jinx opened her mouth, whining tone all dialed up and ready to go, when the bluebird spoke up, "No, no, he's got a fair point buddy, that story is a bit off the beaten path of sensible. Only the faithful or the insane would have believed that I am actually Janna."
"Well I'm both," whined Jinx, unwilling to just bottle up her whine and shelf it, "and you ARE Janna… right?" she finished, somewhat plaintive, craning her neck backward to try and look at the bluebird.
Maybe-possibly-Janna fluttered her wings and settled on Jinx's forehead, sighing as birds cannot normally do, "Well, you did go through all this trouble, and it is nice to have a proper church again and not just a bunch of shrines made out of scrap…"
There was a bright flash of light, a sudden sense of weight on Jinx's head, of pressure around her neck and
Jinx opened her eyes.
Her head was being cradled in a lap of softest silk, silk which hid the muscles of someone who would run from one end of Zaun to the other for their loved ones.
Her hair was being stroked by hands that had never known toil in the fissures, but had never failed to rise in defense of the fissure folk.
Her eyes stared up into
"Whooooa momma, I'm feelin' thirsty~."
Janna pushed Jinx off of her lap, which had the direct consequence of also rolling the young woman down the last few stairs of the stoop.
"I'm okay," Jinx shouted, voice muffled by blood and concrete, "my nose broke my fall."
Sitting up, Jinx twisted her nose back into shape, before grinning at Janna, "Um, sorry about that. I just didn't figure you'd be so…"
Janna arched one perfect blonde eyebrow, her elven ears twitching in what Jinx hoped was amusement, "Busty?"
She did not stand on the stoop, but rather hovered in place, airborne by just a few inches. Her hair blonde, her eyes a sky blue, her toned midriff bared, and her three measurements worthy of worship alone.
Jinx realized she'd been staring only when Ekko slapped her upside the head, hissing "Jinx you useless lesbian, stop drooling!"
"Ow! Oh, um, sorry Janna, you're just really super pretty, and um…" Jinx floundered, before hopping up and rushing around the side of the building.
"Gentlemen, goddess, would you all be so kind as to turn away from Mr. Coop for a few seconds? And cover your ears please."
Silco's voice was not menacing, nor cold, nor impolite. His request was, in fact, the very model of civility and grace.
The fact that every person and deity present did what he asked as a chill ran down their spines, well, that was an unrelated manner.
Three gunshots rang out, and when Jinx came back to the front of the church, a burlap bag carried under one arm, she beheld an interesting tableau.
Coop was crying, his ruined armor preventing him from cradling his gunshot mangled crotch. The emergency aid givers looked very shaken, but were doing their best to stem the bleeding. Janna and Ekko were both somewhere between frowning and scowling at Silco, who was wiping down Jinx's revolver and his hands with a special chem soaked handkerchief.
"There you are my dear, thank you for letting me hold onto this," Silco said happily, handing Jinx back her handgun.
"No problem pops! Oh, Ekko, I'm super duper sorry, I forgot to mention something when I reported what happened!"
Ekko sighed and pulled his notepad back out, "Do you want me to just write in the three gunshot wounds to the groin, or do you wanna ramble about it a little?"
i can't tell if ekko is being really good at his job or really bad at his job right now
"Mylo," Jinx gasped, "so rude! Ekko is an excellent Chief Constable! And if he feels it necessary to charge me with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, that is his prerogative! Because I’m totally the one who shot Coop in the dick and balls, one hundred percent pure Jinx move right there."
shouldn’t wink at the cop you’re actively lying to jinx
Ekko finished scribbling in his notepad, tucking it away again with a sigh, "Frankly, you've been doing so much good lately, the fact that you didn't kill this guy goes a long way towards making me feel lenient."
Hopping back on his hoverboard, Ekko waggled a hand, "Just, keep doing your gray-out patrols and church services, don't go picking fights, and we'll just call this justifiable self-defense." He gave Silco another slightly dirty look, "Not like anything else would fly in court. Later Jinx, be good! And good day Prime Minister, be less fucking evil." And like that, off he flew.
As Coop was bundled into a wagon to trek to the nearest hospital, and Silco left to attend to the affairs of state and finish washing off the gunshot residue on his person, Jinx was left standing with Janna.
"So," the buxom elfin figure said, "now what?"
Jinx smiled, wide and happy, and held up the bag of husked sunflower seeds she'd picked up from the shed behind the church. "Brunch?"
Janna looked flatly at the bag, then at Jinx. "Are you really offering me sunflower hearts, for brunch? Are you actually trying to be my friend?"
Lowering the bag, Jinx's lower lip wobbled, and her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, "I'm s-sorry, I, I t-th-thought you'd like-"
Janna pulled the bag from Jinx's grip and tore it open, tossing a handful of the sunflower hearts into her mouth, barely pausing to chew as she said, "Buddy, you got me sunflower hearts. SUNFLOWER. HEARTS. In ZAUN. If you'd asked me to eat this out of your cooch I'd fucking do it."
"Hold that thought, lemme find a funnel."