A few days passed in the blink of an eye.
With Lux overseeing the big picture, no Earth-shattering events occurred.
For middle-aged men like Toomes, who had been driven to a dead end by life, as long as the pay was sufficient, there was no overtime in this World they wouldn't work. As the first advance bonus was steadily deposited into their accounts, Toomes and the others completely regained hope in life.
With a stable job, paying off the mortgage was within sight, and he could even buy some decent small gifts for his wife and children. But in such peaceful days, there was only one thing that still made Toomes feel a chill down his spine—
And that was their little boss, Jinx.
That's right, it's me (smug face).
This girl didn't just have an eccentric temperament; her way of doing things was also very bizarre.
She particularly enjoyed doodling on those priceless high-tech alien instruments, drawing things that were hair-raising: eerie smiling faces with bright red lips, skulls marked with an 'X', and even a strange monkey.
What was even more terrifying was that Jinx often talked to herself.
Sometimes she would argue angrily with someone invisible, and other times she would clutch her head and wail in pain.
Working late several times at night, Toomes had been scared witless seeing the blue-haired girl muttering neurotically in the corner. If not for his fear of that omnipotent Mayor Fisk, he would have wanted to pay out of his own pocket to hire a priest from Hell's Kitchen to perform an exorcism on this girl...
It was just so gloomy...
"My daughter is still the cute one..."
Whenever he watched Jinx go into a frenzy, Toomes would mutter to himself, and the filter through which he saw his own precious daughter grew a few layers thicker.
In comparison, Herman was much more honest.
This Black fellow upheld the highest professional standards of a worker—don't look too much, don't ask too much, and don't think too much.
Every day, he would dutifully hunker down at his workbench, wearing goggles and helping Jinx dismantle alien equipment.
As for Mason, after just one week of interaction, his attitude toward Jinx had done a complete 180-degree turn. This was because he was shocked to discover that the 'ghostly scribbles' on the blueprints Jinx casually tossed to them could actually perfectly stitch alien technology and Earth's heavy industry together to create physical objects.
This caused Mason to throw all his prejudices about Jinx's weird temper to the back of his mind—she was a genius, so what if she had a bit of personality?
Wasn't he also a man of such temperament?
This afternoon, Mason excitedly held a newly assembled 'Shocker Gauntlet' prototype and trotted over to Jinx.
"Boss! Take a look! It perfectly adapts to the secondary output rate of the Chitauri energy core. The power is incredible!"
Mason's face was full of expectation, with 'praise me' practically written on his forehead, looking even more like a young girl than the gloomy Jinx.
Jinx was fiddling with a detonator without looking up. She glanced with her peripheral vision, curled her lip, and perfunctorily spat out a sentence.
"Oh, not bad."
And then... there was no 'then'.
Mason froze in place, feeling a wave of disappointment in his heart, like an elementary school student who didn't get a gold star. He held the gauntlet, preparing to slink away dejectedly.
Just then, a crisp and sweet voice rang out.
"Wow! Uncle Mason, this gauntlet is so well-reproduced... I mean, so detailed! You're really amazing!"
Lux, dressed in bright casual clothes, leaned over with her hands behind her back. Her opening words were full of sincere praise, and her eyes, which seemed to speak, were sparkling.
This sudden emotional validation completely healed the disappointed old man.
Mason's old face flushed red, and he scratched his head with a silly grin.
After soothing the 'beast of burden,' Lux leaned close to Jinx, half-hugging her from behind and whispering secrets into her ear that only the two of them could understand.
Only at times like these would Toomes and the others be surprised to find that Jinx, who wore a gloomy face all day, would actually have the corners of her mouth turn up slightly, and occasionally be coaxed into a few heartless laughs.
Regarding the relationship between these two girls, the middle-aged uncles had always been full of gossip and suspicion in private.
Could these two be biological sisters?
Lux and Jinx in Toomes' eyes...
After all, their names were far too consistent.
One was Jinx, the other was Lux. Both 'nx' and 'ux' ended with the same sound in Chinese.
With such symmetrical names, Toomes would be the first to disbelieve that they didn't have some blood relation.
However, this was clearly just a preconceived misunderstanding by outsiders.
The names were just a coincidence, and the fact that they were both summoned as Villainess incarnations by Su Modie was also a coincidence.
In fact, although they both came from Runeterra, their backgrounds were poles apart.
Jinx was born in the dark, damp, gas-filled, and crime-ridden Undercity of Zaun, an orphan who lost both parents at a young age.
She had nothing except her sister.
What about Lux? She was a glamorous noble of Demacia, the young lady of the 'Crownguard Family,' which held the greatest power outside the royal family and commanded the military. Not only were both her parents alive, but she had a sister-complex older brother who was best friends with the current Emperor.
Behind her stood a large number of powerful confidants.
Ironically, however, these two girls who seemed to have no intersection shared one thing in common—they both once had the most beautiful intentions, and then...
They used those beautiful intentions to kill countless people.
Jinx initially just wanted to use her homemade 'Monkey Bomb' to rescue her sister and companions. She fully expected to blow up the bad guys, but the explosion backfired, instead killing her friends and foster father who were just about to escape to safety.
They really 'went to heaven' then...
The bad guys, on the other hand, were perfectly fine...
Talk about a mess...
As she grew up, fate toyed with her, and in the midst of chaos and collapse, she accidentally shot and killed her foster father... well, her second foster father...
She was even more of a 'Father Slayer' than Thanos; there was no denying it.
She had lost three fathers by the time she was in her teens.
She wanted to save people, but instead, she ended up jinxing almost everyone she loved.
In this process, she was seen by everyone as a star of calamity, and even she herself felt she was a total Jinx.
This was the origin of the name Jinx, and also why she was antisocial and rejected Toomes and the others as helpers.
However, while the whole World treated her as a lunatic and a calamity, Lux alone would not.
Even though Lux had already learned about Jinx's past through shared thoughts and memories.
There wasn't a hint of fear or disgust in the look she gave this crazy girl, only a sense of shared suffering. That was why Jinx, who usually resisted contact with others, was only willing to let Lux hang on her back like a koala.
Occasionally, she could even mess around heartlessly with her.
Besides both being incarnations with connected hearts, there was another very important point—
After all... in Lux's eyes, the things Jinx had done were nothing compared to her own.
So what if she killed a few people?
She, by her own strength, had almost caused a powerful kingdom's lineage to break!
Okay... just kidding.
In truth, Lux was just beautiful and kind-hearted. Plus, she called the other incarnations'sister' this and'sister' that every day; having a little sister to take care of naturally meant she would give her extra attention. That was all.
Yes, just taking care of a little sister, absolutely no other reason (
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