Steeling the Shadow

"Ugh... rich people," Jinx groaned internally, suppressing a grimace at the taste of champagne as she glared out from behind Renata Glasc's eyes at the wealthy and well-off of Piltover. "If I wasn't busy dealing with other shit, I'd love to pop something other than just the champagne bottles... next time, maybe."

It had taken some finesse, but thanks to Renata's contacts in the business world, Jinx had managed to not only learn that House Ferros would be hosting a conference at their mansion, but even secured herself an invitation. _"And all I had to do was promise things that the good Miss Glasc is sure as hell not gonna follow through on,"_ she chuckled.

For now, though, she needed to find Camille, the Intelligencer of House Ferros. Jinx had only encountered her once before, and had just barely managed to escape her deadly blade legs that time - Renata hadn't been wrong when she figured that the so-called 'Steel Shadow' would have the best chance of tracking down Jinx for Noxus. However, Renata's train of thought had been interrupted at that time - when Jinx later followed up on that idea, with Renata's brain no less, their combined intellect came to the conclusion that Camille actually wouldn't take the bounty, and would instead seek to eliminate the source of the problem in the first place.

Which is was brought Jinx to the party tonight, still inhabiting the skin of Renata Glasc, and doing her magically-assisted best impression of the businesswoman - all while keeping an eye out for Camille. "Hour 3 and no sign of her... guess I shouldn't be surprised if she doesn't show, being a secret agent and all that..." Jinx's borrowed eyes started to wander, and she noticed a door that hadn't been opened all night - one which (assuming the building made any sort of architectural sense) should lead further into the house, and possibly even towards some private quarters. But to make it in unseen, she would need...

"A distraction," she mused, and smiled behind Renata's breathing mask as she felt in her pocket for a small vial of one of Glasc Industries' latest off-the-books experiments. Designed for chemical warfare, it was meant to **** enemy combatants into a frenzy, such that they would ideally start to eliminate each other, or at least become less coordinated (and therefore easier to defeat). The vial Jinx carried tonight hadn't fully achieved that outcome, but a drop or two in someone's drink should be enough to get people's attention for a bit.

Jinx smirked as she pulled out the vial and hid it in a small compartment in Renata's prosthetic arm - vaguely, she could recall a memory of Renata having this very same idea years ago - and started making her way over to a businessman who already looked a little drunk, some trading baron who'd tried courting Renata a few years ago, to which she'd felt next-door to zero attraction. "Least I can do for letting me borrow you tonight is making this asshole look like an idiot," she chuckled.

"Baron Xavier, aren't you a sight for sore eyes!" she said as she approached him, drawing his drunken attention.

"R- Renata!" he smiled as he turned his whole body towards her, clearly too dazed to remember her rejection all those years ago. "My goodness, what b- *hic* brings you here tonight?"

"Oh, you know, just hoping to catch up with some old friends," Jinx remarked, keeping her eyes locked on his while subtly tipping the vial over his drink. "I do hope you feel the same, of course?"

"Ahh, absolutely!" the man chuckled, utterly oblivious for a few moments until his brain catches up. "I- wait, are you... are you saying that we're... friends?"

"Am I?" Jinx replied, quirking an eyebrow, before leaning in to whisper. "Why don't you find me later, and we'll see just how friendly we can be?" With that, she turned and strode away, leaving the poor fool to his delusions. "And now... we wait."

Sure enough, only a couple minutes later Jinx watched with a smile as the baron, his cup now empty, started trying to throw hands with anyone who got close. "Trying" being the operative word, of course - the man was too drunk to even get close to landing a hit, but it was still enough of a distraction to draw the room's attention, just long enough for Jinx to slip through the door on the other side of the room, surprisingly unlocked.

On the other side, she found that it did indeed appear to lead further into the Ferros mansion, and luckily there didn't appear to be anyone around. "Now, if I were a scary cyborg assassin, where would I be?" Jinx mused, starting to make her way down the hall. She tried a couple of doors, finding they led to either cupboards, empty bedrooms, or small studies, until she rounded a corner and saw a light shining from behind a slightly-ajar door at the end of the hall. As quietly as she could in Renata's heels, she made her way over to the door, and gently pushed the door open to reveal a library, walls lined with what appeared to be either very old or very rare books... and seated at a desk right in the center of the room was none other than Camille Ferros herself.

"Took you long enough," Camille remarked as she glanced up from her book, her voice underlined by a mechanical timbre. "I suppose you felt you had to cause a distraction - unnecessary, I assure you, the guards wouldn't have stopped you, but I do hope you at least made it an entertaining one?"

Jinx steadied herself, immersing herself in Renata's personality, before stepping into the room. "Baron Xavier, gave him a little something to bolster his fighting spirit. Unfortunately for him, he'd already had one too many glasses, and likely hurt himself more than anyone else." Camille huffed some air through her nose, probably the closest she ever came to laughing, as Jinx sat herself down in the empty seat across the desk from Camille. "You were expecting me, then?"

"Of course," Camille remarked, turning a page in her book before sliding a bookmark in and setting it down. "It's not every day the esteemed Renata Glasc deigns to grace Piltover with her presence. I assumed there must be some ulterior motive." She stood up, showing off her impressive 7 foot height, and strode over to a small table off to the side, upon which sat a teapot and two cups. "Would you like some?"

Jinx nodded, and watched as Camille began pouring two cups of steaming hot tea, before bringing them back over to the desk. "The honor is mine, I assure you," Jinx said, doing her best to channel Renata's ruthless confidence. "I assume you've heard about our northern neighbors' recent troubles?"

"Mmm," Camille hummed as she sipped her own tea, her cyborg body evidently making it no big deal to drink scalding hot tea. "Yes, it seems they've become very invested in Piltover's larceny laws. And as they so often do... they have to make it everyone else's problem as well."

Jinx chuckled, lifting Renata's mask slightly to take a sip of her own tea (and finding that, at least on Renata's tongue, she didn't hate it). "Indeed... I don't suppose you have any plans to 'assist' them with their woes?"

Camille raised an eyebrow at that. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean by that, Miss Glasc."

Jinx met her stare for a moment, before sighing and setting down her teacup. "Shall we speak plainly, Lady Ferros?" Camille paused, seemingly trying to discern her intentions, before nodding. "Some very powerful people in Noxus are highly invested in whatever our 'Man of Tomorrow' was working on before it was stolen from him, and now they're prepared to make everyone's lives hell until it's back in their hands. I have a... strong suspicion that the thief was Jinx, and I think you probably figured the same. You could probably track her down, but somehow I doubt that you'd stoop so low as to just give them what they want - that would just encourage them to keep coming back for more."

Camille said nothing for the longest time, before finally setting down her own teacup. "...Perceptive of you, Miss Glasc. Indeed, I have no intentions of going after Jinx - more trouble than it's worth, to be honest." (Jinx couldn't help but feel a surge of pride at that.) "From what I've been able to gather, the subset of Noxians invested in Mr. Talis' work do not represent the Empire as a whole, and so their threats do not, in fact, carry that weight. They are powerful, yes, but I believe the simplest course of action is to simply make it too difficult for them to continue operating in Piltover."

Jinx nodded along, impressed by how much Camille had been able to learn (while also being glad she evidently wasn't actually aware of what had been stolen). "Make it, as you said, 'more trouble than it's worth'... A sound plan. Is there, perhaps, any way I could be of assistance?"

Camille quirked the corner of her lips into a small smile. "Do my ears deceive me or is Renata Glasc offering to help a... what is it you say, a 'Piltie'?"

"Simply business, my dear," Jinx smiled, "Right now our cooperation is the fastest path to getting the shipping lanes open again. Rest assured, I still hate you."

Camille chuckled at that. "Of course, I would expect nothing less. Well, I suppose if you're offering, it may be beneficial to find Jinx regardless - even if we don't intend to turn her over, whatever it is she stole must be of some value to them."

"I'll... look into it," Jinx replied, already doing her best to not pass on that memory to Renata's **** mind. "Don't need all of Zaun coming after me when I'm trying to fix the problem anyway."

Camille nodded, before standing up to make her way over to the door. "I suppose that concludes our business, then."

"I suppose it does," Jinx replied as she also stood up, though the sight of Camille's back turned to her, a rare moment of vulnerability, suddenly brought on a new idea, and her hand started creeping towards the costume gun in Renata's pocket. "Although, there is one more thing I'd like to ask, if I may..."

Camille, in the middle of opening the door to see Renata out, started to turn back, asking, "And what might that-" She didn't get to finish her sentence, though, as the *zap* from the costume gun struck her and sent a shock through her cyborg body. Unlike most people, Camille did not immediately deflate - instead, she collapsed to her knees as her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her arms shooting out to her sides and her spine stiffened up, while a thin seam appeared on her back. After a moment, she stopped moving entirely, and the seam on her back appeared to open up... not in the way a skin's did, but more like a suit of armor, ready to be stepped into and close up around its wearer.

"...Huh." Jinx remarked, both surprised and also unsurprised at this turn of events. "Sure, why not." She stepped past the empty Camille to shut the door once more and click the lock, before quickly peeling herself free of Renata's skin, the cold air of the Ferros mansion chilly against her own naked body. She wouldn't be staying naked long, though, as she stepped around behind Camille, being careful not to cut herself on the blade legs, and pried open the seam on her back. The inside of this... "Camille suit" was cold and metallic, unlike the inviting warmth of the other skins she'd worn, but at this point she'd come too far to turn back.

Gently, Jinx stepped in one leg at a time, feeling her legs go numb they sank into the murky blackness, before sliding her arms down into Camille's, and finally sliding her head up into the "helmet". As she lined up her face behind the 'mask', she suddenly felt the seam close up behind her, and a rush of new sensations started to overwhelm her - feelings of cold hextech augments replacing her internal organs, hearing servos whirring and electricity coursing through her body...

Until it all stopped, and she found herself kneeling on the floor of the library, looking down at Renata Glasc's empty skin. The first thing she noticed was that her eyesight was incredible - even better than Caitlyn's had been. Camille's augments had evidently gone above and beyond the standards of human perfection, and for a brief moment Jinx found herself reconsidering Viktor's offer of 'glorious evolution'.

"Heh... maybe not," she chuckled, Camille's mechanical voice echoing through her own head. Carefully, she stood up, leaning heavily on Camille's memories to steady herself on her new blade legs, and gasped at how tall she now felt. "Geez lady, you really just didn't care about emasculating every guy around, did ya?" She flexed her gloved fingers, feeling the inhuman strength that her new memories told her could crush bone and metal alike, and suddenly noticed she could also hear voices at the party down the hall much clearer than her last two pairs of ears could. With each new sensation, Jinx found herself more and more tempted to just stay in Camille's body - "imagine the kind of mischief I could get up to with actual blade legs!"

She relented, though, as she paged through Camille's memories and was reminded of why she'd switched into her in the first place. "Oh, right... the Noxians." Luckily (or perhaps insultingly), Camille had known more than she'd said, and already had a plan of action - she was intending to monitor Jayce's home, knowing there were likely to be agents of this organization on guard around, and she would interrogate some of them to learn where they were operating from. That wasn't the only thing she knew, though - Camille had also come across a name during her investigation, a name that existed in various records throughout history but seemingly never with any sort of concrete description. A name dating back centuries, tending to pop up around major events, but only ever as a footnote - "Black Rose".