1 A Caged Life
by moissanitej@gmail.comWhisked back to a beautiful environment she had once seen before. Beautiful, natural, and nothing like Zaun or Piltover. Familiar. Nostalgic, but with a sense of that sick nostalgia. That nostalgia that screamed ‘been here a few minutes and it was the scariest time of my life’.
“Nice outfit. Nice and clean. Presentable,” the Meddler said to her as he locked in her handcuffs that connected her feet to her hands. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t bag the new time machine Ekko had, and now it’s gone. Anyhow, no matter.” He pushed her along. “Just be good. If you take off before I get you to the cages-”
“Sir!” Someone was coming toward them. “You are not allowed to be here during this time. You are causing a paradox. Another you tried this area last time.”
“Oh.” He didn’t seem too bothered by it. “Yeah, but I didn’t sell anything or stay. The pesky things on sale messed everything up, but it’s still fine. That old me will shove off in a bit. I don’t even need new paperwork, I recovered both of the merchandise so this works. Just wait a little bit.”
Both? Captain Teemo. That poor little guy got reabducted too? He helped free her last time. He had remained on her mind all those years that the moment a child landed on her with his same kind of helmet? She let loose. She kept Isha, took care of her, showed her the thanks she couldn’t show him.
But in the end? Nothing changed. Nothing helped a bit. We both still ended up here. She continued to walk with him. It was all worthless. All for nothing.
Then? She felt something tingle and she looked back.
Her. As Powder. Stared right at her, with eyes of fear.
She remembered that feeling. That same feeling. She remembered thinking ‘she’ll never escape. Her eyes are empty. Full of acceptance for anything’. That had scared her so much.
It had only been a small glance back as she continued to walk, but it was fresh now. That feeling? Remembering how those eyes looked? That was the moment she would do anything to escape back then, and seeing herself, ready to accept whatever future had in store. It was too much.
This. She drove herself, to this. Jinx had now gone full circle. A pathetic has-been that was ready to give up.
“Build something new.” Ekko’s voice rang in her head. “Someone worth building it for.”
I ignored this future my whole life. Now, I’m here. How do I build something new, Ekko?
Jinx look around. Were there any ways out of there? Where were they exactly? How far from home were they?
And could she escape? She heard a ruckus behind her, and heard some yelling. Yep. Her younger self was now gone. Anything that happened now was up to her. The future was no longer clear.
Mylo: Just give up, you belong there.
Claggor: Yeah, give up.
Silco: Give up, Jinx.
She struggled in her chains. What were they made of? How could she break them? More than that? If she just escaped, he’d be out there again. How do I kill him once and for all?
“Don’t start, there’s no way you are getting out. You just need to get tested to see if you went up another level. Another level means more money.”
Mylo: Just give up and make it easy.
Claggor: Accept your fate.
Silco: This is your future.
Yeah, she remembered Captain Teemo and the other yordle talking about that. She bit into the cuffs. Yeah, her teeth couldn’t do anything, but she was feeling into crevices with her tongue. Maybe she could dismantle it?
Mylo: Give up, Jinx.
Claggor: Give up, Jinx.
Silco: Give up, Jinx.
Why would Claggor ever have called her Jinx? These didn’t sound like the usual voices in her head. “What’s going on?”
She was brought into a tent and had three people in front of her.
Then? She saw him again. “Hello again, Captain Teemo.” She went over toward him. “You look smaller than I remember.”
“Nah, you just got bigger, Powder,” he complimented her. “It’s not Captain anymore, It’s just the leader now.”
“It’s not Powder anymore. I turned it into Jinx.”
“It’s not Captain anymore, it’s just leader now,” he repeated dully.
Hm? “Caught it the first time,” she said. “Sorry about the downgrade. I’ll still call you Captain, Captain Teemo.”
“I did? Sorry. For some reason, my memory isn’t what it used be. Anyhow. You were really smart, Jinx! You deceived him a long time, and when he did find you, he just couldn’t find a way to take you on. You changed so much, I really thought this meeting wouldn’t come again.”
“I . . . could only hang on for so long. I needed people. Friends.”
“Oh.” Captain Teemo seemed to get it. “Sorry. I guess to hide, you really had to hide yourself.”
“Changed everything about me,” she said sadly. “It’s okay though.” Powder? Wasn’t screaming in the well anymore. She was up, right beside her.
“Good call,” one of the people said to the meddler. “Yes, she isn’t half as bad as she pretended. She was trying to hide behind madness. Her intellect is sound though, and she created a lot of interesting things. She definitely went up several levels. There’s a good chance her time distortion sensing might have gone up to, we will need to check that out.”
“Ooh!” Captain Teemo grabbed onto his hat. “I’m so sorry, Powder!”
“It’s okay. Maybe higher levels are better.” Maybe not. She didn’t care about that. She only cared about killing this guy and getting-
“Is that the fabled Jinx you have?”
The meddler went toward someone. “Yes.”
“What can she do?” he asked.
“She can sense time disruptions longer than fifteen seconds.”
“No, she did it literally within a second. I just tested with the yordle.”
“Ooh.”
“She can see through glamour.”
“What’s glamour?”
“You know? Past the magic of yordles?”
“They don’t have anything like that.”
“We sure don’t,” Captain Teemo interrupted looking at Jinx. “Someone’s been meddling with stuff. Including my history too! I can feel it. Last time I went to Bandle City, I found out apparently that not only am I not Captain Teemo? I am very interested in planting special mushrooms and I get upset when someone steps on them.” He didn’t look happy about that. “I don’t go into Zaun and get special mushrooms to create a poison to make sure the yordles stay protected or anything. No, I’m a very old and scenile yordle that plants mushrooms!”
Hmm. “They messed with a friend of mine too. When he was a real small kid, he made a time machine. They made him forget about it. Made another one somewhere along the way, but they made him forget it too. They messed with my sister’s mind too.” No shame. “Who’s messing around like that and why?”
“Pricing,” one of the people said in the room. “Which is going up severely for you.”
“Yes,” the meddler said through gritted teeth. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Jinx didn’t back away as he came closer to her.
“You are really the biggest ticket item this year, the cute little time machines are adorable, but there are way better ones out there. I just knab them like someone offering a candy bar.” He got closer. “You though? You sense the distortions. The more that is changing in this world? The more time fugitives get around and mess things up? The higher your price is going to go!”
“Your breath smells like you drank straight from the sump,” she answered honestly. “All the technology in the world and you can’t give yourself better breath?”
He didn’t like that and grabbed her chain. “Don’t test me. I know what you are doing. There is a reason you are strapped on the hands and feet. None of that shimmer will do you any good.”
“Oh, who is that?” Another person peered into the tent.
“What? Do I have deal written on my face somewhere?” Jinx asked them. Two people just walked in like they already wanted her when they never even met her.
“I love the not playing games side of her. She’s tough,” the woman said.
Yep. “I’d be happy to slap ya around, you just gotta get the meddler to take these bad boys off.” Jinx gestured toward her cuffs.
“Oh no, no. I like this, this is good. Will you hold her for a deposit?” the woman asked.
“I was here first,” the other one complained.
The meddler just rubbed his hands together.
This was just nuts. Just, great. Did her best to make them stay away. Instead, they wanted her even more.
“It’s the lack of time distortion in you,” Captain Teemo said to her. “I have it a little, but not fully. I don’t know what my real history is completely, but I know I’m more than a scenile guy giving out scout biscuits.”
Umm? “Yeah, probably not. If a human eats anything from Bandle City, the taste will stay with them for years as the best thing they ever had. That’s what you told me. It wouldn’t make sense to just hand them out like that. At least, not without one ridiculous price tag that no one would pay and they’d try to kill you for instead.”
“Really? See, I don’t know that. Mainly, I know me. I’m wrong. My history is wrong. But? I didn’t even sense anything about that. Selling goods that are that strong to humanity wouldn’t be good,” he agreed. “That means our food must have lost a lot of power, or changed in power.”
“I will put a heavy deposit on her,” the woman insisted.
“I will put a heavier deposit on her,” the other customer complained to her.
On the bright side, it looked like the chances of her getting eaten or skinned alive were slimmer.
“Is this where the sale of the woman named Jinx is taking place?” Two more people came into the tent.
“We’ll pay the price in full, now,” the other stated. They looked at her. “You will get the best care. The same food we eat and drink. You’ll travel the world with us.”
Ooooh. “The world?”
“Yes. These ‘changes’ that are happening are all over Runeterra over different timelines.”
“Like, different universes?”
“No, our original universe is changing what should be,” the other person with them said. “There are these . . .” She scowled at the meddler. “Time fugitives that have joined forces with others, to take things down that once were prosperous. Such events are changing everything. The outcomes are all over the place. Now, we can refix these by also going back in time. However?”
“The biggest hurdle is we don’t know exactly what’s changed,” the man explained. “Finding people who can actually notice the time differences is very important.”
“Not really?” What did they mean? “I only noticed stuff changing around me. I wouldn’t know anything about anything else.”
“Several of us fighting back to know the truth have taken machines they seem to use they called Waybacks. We have used them to try and see what changed, but when we awaken again, it’s always gone.”
Oooh. “You think I might remember what’s being shown in that Whatsis machine?” Jinx asked. This? I mean, it didn’t sound like too bad of a future of her choices.
“They tend to hit certain individuals the worst. With your documentation, we could have some control over knowing what is changing and when.”
Huh. “Where are you from?” Jinx asked.
“All over. We are a full coalition from all over Runeterra, trying to set things right again.”
“Hmm. Fascinating.” Jinx smirked. “But once several things have changed, things like people being born and not born gets involved, right?”
“Changing the actual past is last resort,” one of them said. “If we can fix things just by knowing it in the present, it is easier with less repercussions.”
“But we will do what is necessary to fix whatever people are doing.”
“Including . . . buying off those same people?” Jinx couldn’t help but call it out as she saw it. Yeah, it’d hurt her in the end, but she wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t call out the hypocrisy.
“We just want to get things fixed,” one of them insisted. “Sometimes, you have to play into the enemies hand to get what you want. But we will do what is necessary to fix whatever people are doing.”
“Including . . . buying off those same people?” Jinx couldn’t help but call it out as she saw it. Yeah, it’d hurt her in the end, but she wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t call out the hypocrisy.
“We just want to get things fixed,” one of them insisted. “Sometimes, you have to play into the enemies hand to get what you want.”
As long as they understood that. She watched as the meddler talked to them. He also put some kind of locking device on her neck. “Bombs are my specialty, this is just plain stupid.”
“Try to open or break it, you will be blown to smithereens,” he warned her. He also clapped on the same smaller versions to her wrists and ankles. “These can only be opened by me.”
“Don’t you mean by my new owners?” Suspicious.
“Rental only,” he insisted. “Too many people want you, I can’t risk anyone simply buying you. You can see whatever machine they have, but you aren’t leaving.”
Ugh. Fine. She still wouldn’t give up. She’d rather blow up than stay there like that.
“We will pay you greatly for her release.”
“No way, she’s too important. You can rent her for each new mission you want from her. No exceptions.”
Jinx felt so delighted as a very big, very ballsy guy in the group grabbed Meddler.
“Better deal,” they demanded, while that meddler was just swinging in mid-air.
“Look, she’s not an innocent woman, she is Jinx! You don’t want to give her too much freedom, she is an anarchist, unsuitable for longtime freedom!” Meddler yelled out, trying to save his butt. “She even hears voices of the people she kills.”
But yeah, of course, that kind of worked. And? Proooobably true. Maybe. She didn’t really know. Hang on. Did he just mention her voices? How did he know about that?
“Oh my goodness, what a cutie!”
Jinx watched as someone moved quickly toward Captain Teemo.
She read his tag. “Teemo. Yordle. Scenile. Plants mushrooms.” She had a very weird kind of grin. “Where do you like planting mushrooms?”
Captain Teemo’s eyes widened as he moved away from the side of the cage she was on. “You don’t feel safe, so you better back off.”
“Oooh, look at his hot little tempery attitude.” She tried to move to the other side of the cage and tried to reach in to touch him.
These bars might have power against magic stuff, but Jinx had to risk it. Once she grabbed a bar and nothing happened, she grabbed the woman’s other hand and yanked it onto her cage, pressing down.
Oh did she scream. It was glorious. From the electric bite against magic the cage held that the woman mainly got, to the fact she broke her arm to get her hand through that way.
And suddenly the offers were changing, along with the kind of creatures making them. Jinx had seen different species besides hers, but usually not this different, everywhere. She actually felt like the only human there.
Although, funnily? She wasn’t considered one. After the arm thing she lost her designation of human and became Wild Animal in her classification. Unfortunately, the really nice trip with other humans was out too, but so what? No guarantee they would treat her any better just because they looked less like animals.
And now, they had to follow new rules with her. Rules that they would follow when managing a beast that couldn’t be tamed. Her arms stayed in cuffs. Most times, she stayed in her cage unless she was being guided somewhere, or within an area that was deemed ‘leash safe’, usually around her ‘owners’.
Heh. Whatever. Human or Beast, either one suited her fine. Beast was probably safer than being seen as some frail human anyway.
“Thank you,” Captain Teemo said to her, also unaffected by her status change. “That woman, she wasn’t good. You may not be considered human anymore, but you were more humane than she’ll ever be.”
“They all want to buy us. No decent people are going to do that,” Jinx said to him. “I don’t mind the rebranding.”
Of course the meddler was mad about the rebrand too, but who cared? What was he gonna do, kill her?
“Oh, so sweet!” Two women that looked exactly the same came over.
“He is so adorable. He talks too, Honeybee, he talks too. He would be the perfect little pet.”
Jinx watched the other one move closer to her. Come on, get in closer.
“But this one is cute too,” the other woman said. “Hmm. Yordle and wild animal. What wild animal-”
“Incompatible!” Captain Teemo screamed. “Yordles have too much magic! Check the facts, she’s classified wild animal but her species is stil human!”
“Very spicy, Dixie.”
“I have noticed, Diana.”
“Hey, Dixie. Diana.” Jinx laid next to the fenric iron again. “Nice to meet you.” She stuck her hand out.
“Do not grab that, ladies,” Meddler warned them. “The new sign classification is not wrong, she will hurt you if given the chance.”
“Ooh, mama, that one. He talked.” A little girl dashed to Captain Teemo. “He is like a talking squirrel or a fox. I want this one for a pet.”
“I am not a pet,” Captain Teemo disagreed.
“Mistress Durham?” The Meddler seemed pleased. “By all means, I can discuss options with you.”
“Elise wants an exotic pet. I guess a talking squirrel is fine.”
“You can’t have him,” Diana and Dixie said together.
“My goodness, so many want my sweet little yordle too? I am afraid that he isn’t for owning. Cheaply. Mistress Durham, you could probably try him and see how Elise takes care of a pet before committing to it. You two love the chilly afternoon air, I am sure you could take him for walkies say an hour per day for say oooh . . . what is a fair price?”
Jinx just stared outside her cage. She watched Captain Teemo get carted off a couple of times, but fewer people wanted to bite for her high rental.
Okay, so in hindsight, breaking that woman’s arm in front of people wanting her to travel with them, grade a stupid.
But. If she could do something for Captain Teemo, she would. She was in the shitshow now, but she spent years being free thanks to him. When she watched him return again, he was ready to be a pet forever and he swore he would behave.
But it wasn’t possible according to Meddler. He was too costly. Just like her.
Captain Teemo curled up in the cage.
Jinx watched him a bit. “You okay?”
No answer, but some people came back to his cage, writing stuff down. They were talking back and forth, documenting results.
Yeah. Jinx knew what that had been too. That was surveying for results. They injected him with something. He was being used as a guinea pig.
“Let us know if you need food or drink,” one of them said to Captain Teemo. “What symptoms you are feeling.”
“Using a yordle for experimentation?” Jinx said toward them. “Unless its for yordles, that’s the stupidest thing ever. Test it on a human.”
“No one sells . . . are you human?” one of them asked. “You aren’t classified as human.”
“Jinx, no,” Captain Teemo warned her.
She was in surgery with Singed of all people. Worst thing that could happen is she dies. “Really close to human. I just tend to bite.” She snapped her teeth.
“You can only test things that cannot kill, same as with the yordle,” Meddler insisted.
“I will cooperate with you,” Jinx said to them. “Tell you every tiny little area of pain and symptoms, if you stop using Captain Teemo. If you don’t, I will make you guess whether what I am feeling is accurate or not.” She had on her best cold eyes and a sneer.
“Human is what we need, a yordle isn’t. Nobody sells human though. This is close, and this is bold,” one of them stated. “Why are you being sold?”
“She remembers what cannot be remembered. She is expensive. I would not suggest a switch, if you damage her, you buy her. I doubt you can afford her,” Meddler poked them. “The most I will allow is skincare for her.”
Bastard. He had no problem using the yordle for testing. “Yordles are magical, they are unreliable and unrelatable to how a human reacts to things. It’s just extra pain against him, and a waste of money,” she tried again.
Then, everything changed. Suddenly, she could feel the whole atmosphere change. It was rougher. Alert. More people were running by.
“Oh, not this,” the meddler complained. “Really? Ugh.” He rolled his eyes. “No more sales or rentals, closing up shop.”
That’s when Jinx heard it.
“Stop in the name of Demacia!”
Demacia. Jinx watched as Meddler started to fiddle with a time machine looking thing, and then he and Captain Teemo were gone. Huh. “Well, that’s funny.” His most expensive prize just left behind?
Then, Jinx lost her cool as she saw who had started heading toward her. The thing that bothered about breeding her last time she was kidnapped! She instantly moved toward the back of the cage. “Not you lady, stay away, I will kill you!”
Like a bad dream, she knew that one. Remembered her words oh so well.
“Hmm.” She was looking at the tag too. “Sees through glamour. I don’t know, glamour isn’t going to be a big thing soon if Ri gets his way. Time distortion of fifteen seconds or longer though? Oh, I don’t know. That’s kind of good, but I’d rather have it down to a few seconds. For the price, pretty good.” She smiled at her. “And you’re cute! Small boobs, but pretty hair and eyes. And you’re bound to get even cuter. Oh.” She moved closer to the bars and stared at Powder. “Are you a long-term investment? I forget. Are these abilities inherited? Will your children have them too if I breed you out?”
Jinx wasn’t one to cuss much, but- “Stay away from me, Bitch, I will rip out your throat!” She growled, she hissed, all while knowing she was just a trapped animal in a cage.
“Don’t even think about it, she’s mine,” the Meddler said as he returned.
Jinx felt a huge sigh of relief. It was the first time she felt relief seeing him.
“Forgot I cannot hold onto you as the organic source, for some reason, it doesn’t read you,” the Meddler said to her. “The cage is locked on this time.”