Stepping from the shadows of the dock, a thin man wearing an ornate opera mask emerged into the pale light with dramatic, almost dance-like swaying. The polished barrel of his smoking gun remained raised, still pointed toward where the Enforcer had vanished into drifting red petals.
"Such a beautiful death," he hummed appreciatively, his voice smooth and delighted as his masked face slowly tilted toward them.
"Is he with you?" Vi whispered cautiously.
Atlas immediately shook his head.
Jhin? Atlas thought, his mind buzzing uneasily. Why the fuck is he here?
The masked man ignored them at first, staring instead toward the distant waters where Stillwater's alarms continued to blare.
"This..." Jhin sighed theatrically, lowering his weapon slightly. "This was not part of the performance."
His head tilted upward.
"You three have ruined months of preparation. Careful staging. Wonderful tension. The audience was almost ready..." His fingers flexed lightly around the gun. "And now I must begin again with fresh pages."
"Why did you kill him?" Vi suddenly asked.
Atlas's head snapped toward her with an immediate what the fuck expression.
"Were you trying to break someone out of prison too?"
For a brief moment, silence hung over the docks.
Then Jhin chuckled.
"Red is such a bold color," he mused pleasantly, turning toward Vi as though she had asked something profound instead of insane. "Passion. Violence. Love. It commands attention from even the dullest audience."
The masked killer slowly spread one arm toward the prison behind them.
"And yes... quite a few someones." His tone grew almost dreamy. "A proper performance requires a large cast. Heroes, villains, victims, witnesses..." His masked gaze settled upon Piltover's distant horizon. "My patron has envisioned a grand play for this city."
Atlas felt his stomach tighten.
Patron? The only ones I can think of who would orchestrate chaos here would be the Black Rose and Ambessa...
"I must admit," Jhin continued softly, "your little improvisation was entertaining..." The gun in his hand clicked sharply when he pressed a mechanism. A large brass casing spun through the air before clattering across the dock.
"But art is delicate."
With smooth, practiced movements, he slid a fresh round into the chamber.
"And disruptions," Jhin whispered, raising the weapon toward them once more, "must be punished."
Atlas moved instantly. He grabbed Vi and Jinx by their shoulders and threw himself forward with them toward the fencing. Little did he know Jinx had already quick-drawn, and the deafening shot beside his ear echoed almost at the exact same time as Jhin's gun fired.
A sharp whistle screamed past Atlas's head before a metallic ping echoed from a nearby crate. Then another whistle followed immediately after as the bullet ricocheted again somewhere deeper into the docks.
"Hm?"
A genuinely puzzled sound escaped behind Jhin's mask, seemingly uncaring that he had just been shot at.
Atlas glanced back just long enough to see the masked killer tilting his weapon downward slightly, inspecting it with confusion before slowly raising it again.
"Run!" Atlas shouted.
Two more gunshots echoed through the docks as Jinx fired several more shots back at him. The bullets ricocheted wildly around them instead of striking true, glancing off steel beams and cargo containers as the three sprinted through the fencing and into the outer maze of crates.
Turning the corner between towering cargo stacks, Atlas risked another glance backward. Jhin stood in the distance, elegantly lowering his gun from the sky toward him again.
"One!" he shouted dramatically.
The final shot sounded less like a gunshot and more like an explosion. The impact wave after striking the crate beside Atlas sent him stumbling violently forward and crashing into the ground.
"Atlas!" Jinx ran back, grabbing at his arm and trying to pull him back to his feet. "Come on!"
All three of them paused for a brief second to stare at the crate.
Its steel frame peeled apart into a drifting mist of crimson petals, the metal itself eroding away piece by piece as if it were being stripped apart by the wind. Each petal dissolved moments later into faint glowing dust before vanishing completely.
Was that how Jhin's weapon worked?
Atlas felt a cold shiver crawl up his spine.
In the distance, even Jhin remained motionless for a moment, staring at the dissolving remains of the crate with unnatural stillness beneath his mask.
------
Gasping for air, the three of them finally stopped in a narrow alley several blocks away from the docks. Stillwater's alarms echoed faintly through the city while distant shouts from Enforcers carried through the streets. Atlas bent forward with a grimace, one hand braced against his knee while the other instinctively hovered near his chest. Every breath burned through his chest after being thrown by the blast.
Alright, let's think for a second. Jhin in the comics came here because of his conflict with Zed and Shen. But not to break people out of prison.
Which means this is a separate gig. Commissioned to create chaos from the sounds of it which means he might be working for Ambessa?
"Why would you ask him that?" Jinx panted incredulously, staring at her sister like she'd completely lost her mind.
"I thought he was doing the same thing you two were!" Vi shot back defensively. "Why else would someone be trying to get into Stillwater?"
Vi glanced toward Atlas before looking back at her sister.
"Hey, better question," she said, pointing vaguely back toward the docks. "What the fuck was that?"
"Magic bullets," Atlas replied while forcing himself upright.
"Magic?" Vi repeated with disbelief. "In this city?"
"Times are changing, sis," Jinx muttered, adjusting her gun against her shoulder. "The apartment we broke into as kids belonged to this city's Wonderboy."
Vi frowned. "So all that stuff I heard in prison about Hextech is actually real?"
Both Atlas and Jinx nodded.
Vi rubbed her forehead slowly before gesturing back toward the docks again.
"So let me get this straight. Powder's helping Silco, there's magic crystals in Piltover now, and some theatre freak with flower bullets just tried to kill us?"
"Pretty much," Atlas answered, catching Jinx's subtle gaze shift when Silco was mentioned.
Vi stared at him for a moment before exhaling sharply.
"Great," she muttered. "Good to know prison wasn't the crazy part."