Chapter Text
Caitlyn and Vi tore through the alley, their boots slamming against wet pavement. Murky puddles splashed up their legs, soaking through their trousers with substances better not thought about. The sound of their footsteps echoed, amplified by the claustrophobic walls around them. Giving the illusion that there were more to their numbers than two.
Their target was fast, too fast. Every twist and turn through away from the cookhouse in pursuit of her seemed to only put more distance between them. But Piltover’s finest weren’t about to let her slip away again. Not this time.
Vi stumbled over a rubbish bag in her haste. She caught herself before Caitlyn could react, shoving herself off the very wall she was about to crash into. Her gauntlets were heavy enough to crack the bricks they collided with. A door burst open behind them, angry shouts flung their way, following them as they continued to run. Caitlyn made a mental note to come back and pay for the damages.
The alley suddenly narrowed, buildings pressing close and forcing them into single file. The air reeked of motor oil and acrid chems, burnt their noses. Vi took the lead, Caitlyn falling in step behind her. It was too hot, stifling almost. A storm was coming.
“There!” Caitlyn shouted, pointing up. The flicker of movement was barely noticeable, just a shadow against the backdrop of looming buildings. But she saw it.
Vi shot her a glance before following line of her arm. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to pinpoint the source of Caitlyn’s attention. Just in time, Vi caught a glimpse of their mark, a fleeting silhouette darting between abutting angular rooftops.
Alerted to their proximity by Caitlyn’s cry, Margot spun to face them. She wasn’t running anymore; the cat had her cream. She sauntered over to the rooftop edge, stiletto heels punctuating each step with a sharp click. A chem-powered sign flickered on the rooftop across from her, bathing her in neon green light. There was a flash of perfect teeth as her dark lipstick curled into a smug grin.
“Easy girls,” she purred, loud enough for them to hear the taunt. “There’s plenty of me to go around at The Vyx if you’re truly that interested.” She tossed her hair back and laughed. The sound lingered in the hot air, sultry and challenging all in one.
Caitlyn’s jaw tightened, her fingers instinctively reaching for the stock of her rifle still holstered on her back. She was carrying non-lethal shot—at least it would be if Margot would stop scaling the damn rooftops. Her eye pinned the figure with growing frustration, she could feel the strain pierce something sharp against her other eye, shielded by her eyepatch.
Her rifle was loaded with cartridges containing electrified nets that expanded the moment they met their target. Something she’d picked up from the great wolf herself, Ambessa Merdarda. The wolfs lessons had not been without merit. Even if it pained her to admit that on occasion.
Although the nets Caitlyn now wielded had been modified, outputting enough voltage to incapacitate, but not enough to burn the skin. A somewhat humane modification to the version she had armed Vi with during her big distraction in Ambessa’s tent.
Vi wasn’t quite as composed. Not after their last encounter. Not after Margot had left her trademark lipstick on Caitlyn’s cheek. It still made Vi’s blood boil to think about. “Why don’t you come down here and say that!” She barked up, her voice echoing off the alley walls.
Margot tilted her head as if considering the challenge. She perched low on the edge of the rooftop, like a cat ready to pounce. Vi tensed up, raising her fists and Caitlyn pulled her rifle forward. Margot’s leg stretched to the side, her slick black leather of her trousers catching the neon green light in sharp highlights. She planted one palm down for balance. The other hand lifted lazily to her lips.
Then, with a smirk she blew Vi a slow, She mocking kiss.
Too slow. It taunted.
Vi’s fists clenched so hard; the metal of her gauntlets groaned. “Oh, you’re smiling now!” Vi yelled up, relishing the way her gauntlets hissed as they powered to life. “Wait till I get my hands on you.”
“Not sure she’d appreciate it.” Margot teased, inclining her head toward Caitlyn.
Caitlyn had had enough. She lifted her rifle and snapped it into place against her shoulder. If she shot now, Margot would fall backwards onto the roof. It might be a while before they could get up to her but that was the price she would have to pay. But Margot’s eyes were keen, she caught the glint of the rifles barrel and before Caitlyn could aim, Margot slunk backwards, disappearing out of sight.
“That’s what I thought,” Vi shouted, “run!”
Margot listened.
The sharp click of stilettos echoed between the tight alley walls. Then a sudden grunt, the sound of effort. Margot was running. Vi’s gaze snapped up just in time to catch the shadow of her lithe figure as she leapt across the alleyway, landing on the next roof as if she was not wearing heels that would break most ankles with a single misstep.
The chembaron did not look back. She didn’t need to. She knew they’d follow.
Vi gave chase, sprinting to the end of the alley just as it spilled into a bustling market street. Heaving stalls lined the road, traders called out their wares and the sound of sizzling street food cut through the sweat of the crowd. The crowd itself moved as one mass, slow and sluggish in the thick heat.
Before Caitlyn could rush forward, Vi’s arm shot out. Her gauntleted fingers catching her waist in a gentle grasp but one firm enough to stop her in her tracks.
Caitlyn shot her a confused look, then caught sight of the market and pressed herself back into the shadows.
“On the job I see,” Vi quipped. A second reminder of darker times. Their roles reversed from a lifetime ago, outside of the commune when Caitlyn had been the one to hold Vi back from stumbling headfirst into Ambessa’s war camp.
Caitlyn didn’t respond but the smirk tugging her lips up betrayed her amusement.
“You think she’s in there?” Caitlyn asked, eye scanning the crowd. The pain behind her eyepatch only seemed to sharpen. She could feel sweat beading around the fabric, dripping over the scarred tissue that always felt more sensitive when it was too hot or too cold.
“Nah,” Vi muttered, retreating back into the alleyway, “not her style.”
Caitlyn turned toward Vi, her frustration mounting. “She’s going to get away.”
“Not for long.”
Vi’s eyes flicked to the rusted fire escape bolted to the wall beside them. She gestured toward it with her gauntlet, and Caitlyn followed her gaze. The ladder danged uselessly several feet above the ground, swaying slightly as a gust of dusty wind funnelled through the alley. It carried the scent of meat that Vi was surely going to want when this was over. Caitlyn almost rolled her eyes at the thought but then the whole structure groaned and she tensed. Vi wasn’t going to—
Vi approached it, reaching up toward the swinging ladder with a gauntleted finger. Climbing it would be a gamble, and not the fun kind.
“Don’t even think about it, Vi” Caitlyn warned, catching her gaze.
Vi huffed. “Wasn’t planning to.”
Caitlyn shot her a pointed look.
“Okay, fine— maybe a little.” Vi rolled her shoulders. “But lucky for us, where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Caitlyn watched Vi approach the rundown building Margot had disappeared onto moments ago. The windows were dark, bricks weathered and mottled with mould. If anyone had lived there, they hadn’t for a long time.
“We’re going through,” Vi declared.
Caitlyn exhaled sharply. “Of course we are.”
Vi flexed her fingers, and the gauntlets hissed, expelling air as the metallic joints clicked together. The hexgems pulsed blue as she activated the hydraulic system, power thrumming through the metal and across her skin. She rolled her shoulder, braced herself and prepared to strike.
Caitlyn shifted behind her, lifting her rifle, ready to cover Vi in case someone was waiting on the other side.
Vi struck. A deep crack splintered through the brickwork on impact. Above them, the fire escape rattled, shifting just enough to make Caitlyn tense.
"Vi," Caitlyn warned, unease lacing her voice. She wet her lips and took a step forward, one hand on her rifle, the other primed to grab Vi’s jacket and pull her backwards. Away from the fire escape should it come tumbling down upon them.
Vi’s gaze flicked up towards the trembling structure. It was more unstable than it had been, but it had plenty more to give. At least, enough for one more hit. Vi just had to make this one count. She set her jaw and focused, inhaling through her mouth and exhaling through her nostrils before she drove her fist in again.
The bricks gave way, caving inward with a resounding crunch. Red hued dust exploded into the air, swallowing the pair in a choking haze. It saturated their uniforms. Caitlyn would be complaining about that when they got home.
But Vi had done it and the fire escape hadn’t even budged. She smirked, victorious, and turned her head around to quip.
“After you.”
But before Vi could step aside, her gauntlet glanced a wire and something else took control.
A searing jolt tore through her body, locking her muscles in place. White-hot pain shot down her spine and her fingers stiffened involuntarily against the metal of her gauntlets. Her breath hitched in her throat, caught somewhere between a gasp and a choke as her chest seized violently, nerves alight in a riot of screaming signals.
Vi wanted to open her mouth and scream but she couldn’t. The pain was everywhere, consuming her whole.
"Vi!" Caitlyn cried out in panic, but her voice barely cut through the haze.
There was the faint sound of something crashing to the floor and then a hiss of pain.
Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me, Caitlyn.
Vi’s jaw snapped shut. So hard that she fell a dull, wet crunch at the back of her teeth. The coppery tang of blood flooded her mouth as her tongue split open against her molars. She couldn’t unclench, couldn’t stop herself from making the damage worse. Her body wouldn’t respond—it couldn’t.
Caitlyn had seen men electrocuted before. Accidents in the Undercity. Interrogations under Ambessa. Executions by order of Councils past. But this was different. The current was raw and unrelenting and Vi was trapped against it.
She knew she couldn’t reach Vi. Couldn’t pull her away from the source without risking herself but she couldn’t keep watching as every muscle in Vi’s frame convulsed, locked into ridged spasms. Her eye darted left, then right, desperate for anything in the alley that might help them.
Her attention was dragged by when Vi’s shoulders wrenched so violently; half trapped in the gauntlets but thrown wildly by the current; they threatened to tear from their sockets. Blood pooled at the corner of her lips, her jaw clenched so brutally that Caitlyn feared she might have shattered a tooth.
If only.
A high-pitched whine roared through Vi’s skull and she wondered distantly if she’d managed to open her mouth and scream at the agony of it all. But the sound just reverberated inside her, like it was burrowing inside her brain and drilling into her spine. Her heart stuttered, then slammed into an erratic, panicked rhythm—beating too fast, too hard, struggling against the electric current hijacking her body.
The gauntlet, still half-buried in the wall, hissed angrily, smoking as the components fried under the surge. Electricity arched over the metal, crackling in the air. It burned Vi’s skin and the smell of ruined flesh rose, joining the stench of melted plastic and charred wiring. But all Vi could focus on was the deafening rush of blood in her ears.
The world blurred at the edges as Vi’s vision started to white out, flashes of light streaking across her retinas. Her lungs burned. A single desperate inhale crackled through her throat, but her diaphragm refused to cooperate, paralyzed mid-breath. The lack of oxygen sent ice through her veins, fingers curling into twisted claws as if trying to grasp at something, anything. Her muscles weren’t her own anymore, twitching and jerking like a puppet with its strings cut.
Finally, her knees buckled when the gauntlet in her other hand hit the ground, forcing the world to tilt on its axis. The sudden dead weight dragged her down as she collapsed against the jagged edge of wall. Sparks danced through her limbs and the last dregs of electricity wrung her nerves dry as her body jerked with the last fading surges.
Somewhere in the haze, she heard the gauntlet embedded in the wall sputter as the mechanisms smoked and shorted out. It disengaged from her hand, releasing her to sink against the floor. Her singed arm followed her, falling limply out of it. She barely felt it until the motion caused the gauntlet to crash on top of her stomach. The metal was still hot enough to sear through fabric.
She tried to move. To push the gauntlet off her stomach, to cough, to blink. Her body refused. Every nerve in her body felt fried, her thoughts sluggish, struggling to reach the surface. She was drowning in her own body.
Caitlyn dropped beside her, hands gripping her shoulders, trying to pull her away from the crushing weight of the gauntlet. “Vi? Vi, look at me!”
Vi tried. She really did. But her vision swam, blurring at the edges as darkness crept in. She barely felt Caitlyn’s grip tighten as her body sagged.
Somewhere distantly, she knew she’d survived but it felt like it would be all too easy to slip away.