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When the bombs go off, Vi is launched off of her feet.
She crashes straight into the hard ground, and her arm twists painfully. When she tries to lift her head, it throbs horribly. All she can hear are terrified screams, a little girl begging her mother to wake up, and all she can see is smoke.
She wasn't sure where her team was, the people she came with were no where to be seen, dead if they were lucky, and she was alone. She had been terrified when the parachutes dropped down, knowing all too well. Even though she did not know that Piltover would drop these bombs, she knew they were nothing good.
When she eases herself up, her cheek is bleeding, deep enough that it will likely scar, and she feels fatigue in every limb of her body, but she preserves. It's all she can do at this point, maybe all she knows how to do.
She pushes through the crowd of topsiders, shed of their usual elaborate makeup and fancy clothes, looking more like real people. She doesn't know where she's going, but she has to find Cait.
They had said goodbye back in District 13, with a tearful kiss, and she's been the star of Vi's thoughts ever since. Vi knows that she has to be somewhere here, because they wouldn't miss out on the chance to have such a brave fighter with them, someone that would know what to do.
Just as she's reaching the gates of the mansion, a massacre of corpses and the few that are still alive, but wishing they weren't, either heavily injured or lost their loved one, she catches a glimpse of blue within all the grey.
A bright blue braid against the standard medic uniform stands out so harshly against everything else. Vi heart drops, and she rushes forward. After all, who else could it be? That's not possible, she tells herself. Powder's only thirteen, she's not old enough to be on the front lines, no matter how much she begged to be doing something important, she was too young.
But it is. The blue haired girl's head whips back, the braid falling to her shoulder, and sure enough, the face in front of Vi is her baby sister. Her blue eyes are wide with fright, and Vi's heart clenches. Her face is uncharactistically clean, free of any smudges, and someone must have done that braid for her.
She walks faster, not caring who she shoves out of her way. Her face scrunches with confusion. Powder can't be here. Not only because it's not safe, and now she's in the midst of everything Vi had tried so hard to protect her from, but because she's to young to be a front line medic, and Vi can't think of who would authorize this, because someone must have.
"Powder!" She yells, and her sister's eyes finally meet hers. The shock in Powder's face is easily recognised. Vi continues moving forward, each step taking her closer and closer until she only around ten feet away.
"Powder!" She shouts again, and Powder's lips form something that Vi thinks is her own name, but she never figures out what Powder is saying. "Pow!"
The second round of bombs go off, and Vi is blown onto her back.
She drifts in and out of consciousness, the flames still licking at her body, covering every inch of her body in agony, but she barely feels anything but her agonising grief. She tries so hard to close her eyes, to just go back in time a few seconds to save the only person who really mattered. The person she was meant to protect. What purpose does she have now, that her sister is gone?
Please, she thinks. Take me now, take me with you, she begs to the wisps of long blue hair and numb blue eyes floating around in front of her. When she reaches out to grab them, they dissolve into dust, and Vi is left with nothing but torment.
She had only been a few feet away. How could fate be so cruel, to not take Vi too? To take her thirteen year old sister away from her? Everything she's done, everything she's done, the hope of seeing a better world, a new world that her sister will never see, was all for nothing, because Powder died anyway.
This continues for what feels like hours, a mocking voice in her ear, air blown into her eyes, making them water, but she can't find the energy to close them. She can't, not yet, not when her little sister is still with her, still talking, and Vi can't say goodbye yet, not when this one is forever.
At some point, she feels someone pick her up gently and carry her off, but she's too out of it to register who it is or where their taking her., and she can't bring herself to care.
The next time she wakes up, she's in a lumpy hospital bed. Her throat is so dry she thinks she's lost her voice. She assumes she's back in District 13. Ekko is standing over her, gently applying cream to the numerous burn marks all over her body. She can feel them now, along with the wave of rushing agony when she remembers why she has these burns.
"Ekko," she rasps, the singular word feeling like she had gotten stabbed in the throat. Ekko glances up at her, and his eyes are so sad and bloodshot Vi feels a wrench in her chest, and she knows immediately, but she still asks. "Where's Powder?"
Ekko's face crumples, and he looks back down without a word to finish bandaging her arm. Vi's breath hitches, and she closes her eyes. All she can think about is her little sister. The girl she sang to sleep after she had a nightmare. The girl who she took care of when she was sick.
She wants to scream and sob, as if that will do anything to help her, but her throat hurts so much that she can't say another word.
She keeps replaying it in her mind. She was right there. All Vi had done to protect her, and she still failed. What is she, if not a big sister? She isn't ready to find out.
But now, she has to accept what she is. A badly burned girl with no wings, no purpose, and no sister.