Jinx sighs. 

"I'm almost sad that they're so far away because it means I can't go fuck them up."

"I'd be really worried if you went up against Emperor Siurek's court, honestly, he's got some terrifying people on his side."

"And I have Pow-Pow." Jinx pats the minigun. "You still haven't seen her in action, have you?" 

"I haven't, no. But, well - the issue isn't so much whether you'd lose as what would happen if you did."

"... Yeah, I get that. I grew up in Zaun, remember?"

"I don't remember you mentioning a place by that name, actually."

"It's Piltover's shitter cousin and Noxus' dumping ground for all the shit even it finds politically toxic. The air tastes like death. You couldn't pay me any amount of money to go back to that shithole."

"Sounds charming. Remind me not to go there."

Braid braid braid.

"I mean, not everything and everyone's awful. I knew some good people back in Zaun. Getting some of them out and into Piltover is part of how I got my rep here. On balance though, really rather would've been born here."

"Yeah."

Braid braid braid.

"I really like your hair."

"Thanks. I take a lot of time on it. Reminds me... Reminds me I'm me."

"Well, it's very pretty. And soft." Braid braid braid.

"Flatterer."

Ruava giggles.

Braid braid braid done!

"There you go!"

Jinx flips the braid around to examine it, and smiles. "Nice! You're good at this. You're good at everything. Guess it's time to add another skill to your long list, huh?"

"I like being good at things!"

"I mean, who doesn't? But yeah, take a seat and I'll give you that Hextech gunsmithing lecture."

"You have my attention," she says, sitting down.

"Alright, let's start with the basic components. Power crystal, grip, rails, trigger mechanism. When you pull the trigger, it jars the crystal and makes it release a bit of stored mana, which escapes down the enchanted rails which shape it into essentially a pulse of controlled ball lightning. The range of the piece is dictated by how long the containment holds, and longer, chunkier rails mean you can contain the pulse for longer and aim it more accurately, but obviously the longer and fatter the Zapper the more of a pain it is to haul around, so there's a tradeoff there. You can try upping the power to compensate, but that can make your Zapper have inconsistent results where it's neither a properly nonlethal weapon or a properly lethal one 'cause it depends on the range you hit your target at. I've got some custom tunings on my own that outperform the stock design, but they're pretty complex 'cause it's a balancing act between range and consistency and accuracy and size and not something we wanna start with. For your first one we'll just put together a kit." 

"Ooh," she says. "Engineering."

"More like kitbashing. I don't know how the rails and crystals work, I just know which ones do what and how to massage 'em a bit and jam 'em together to get them to do what I wannem to. That's why I dunno what's up with your special piece with the switch." 

"Amateur engineering. Still fun," she says with a shrug.

"Still fun! Watch closely now, I'm gonna disassemble this and then you can try and put it back together. Locking pin for the crystal is here, they're designed to be replaceable when the old one runs low, but to separate the rails from the trigger and the trigger from the body we're gonna need a screwdriver." 

Jinx frowns. "Wait a second, I just had a thought. Speaking of the weird Zapper, can I see it again?"

"Yeah, sure—" Here it is.

Jinx looks for the locking pin, and finds a screw. 

"... This Zapper's built so that you have to disassemble the entire thing in order to reload it. What the hell."