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Chapter Text

Isha

Jinx was in a good mood today, and Isha was determined to make sure it stayed that way. 

Jinx’s new plan was simple: Isha would sneak into Piltover and spy on Vi and Caitlyn, and then report back to a hidden Jinx. 

Isha gulped as she crept around, getting closer and closer to her target. Jinx had told Isha how much she believed in her, how much she knew she could do this. The weight of these expectations threatened to slow her steps or make them shake, but she couldn’t afford to disappoint Jinx, not now, not ever. She knew Jinx was likely more forgiving than the old bosses Isha had once labored under, but the idea of disappointing her, or worse, upsetting her, was an ominous shadow over Isha. While Isha didn’t think Jinx would ever beat her for failing like a classic Zaun boss would, Jinx’s temper was still a terrifying thing to witness. And in matters of her sister, that temper tended to bubble close to the surface. Jinx’s intense feelings of love and agony around matters of her sister bloomed like a bruise, just barely under the skin. Isha didn’t want to see-or feel-what it would make her do next. 

Isha found herself in front of the building she’d been instructed to go to. She slipped inside, and found that, ultimately, finding her target was easier than she’d thought. Vi and Caitlyn were not easy people to miss. Dark auras of strength and power surrounded them both like storm clouds. Their eyes were heavy, grim, shadowed from lack of sleep. Caitlyn wore a look of grim determination, whereas the look in Vi’s eyes was a little harder to place. 

Isha, in her Undercity vocabulary, almost wanted to call it the look she saw in the eyes of drunks or Shimmer users. The look they get when they’re standing at the edge of addiction. 

But it was not quite that. 

Isha almost wanted to call it madness. 

Isha reported back swiftly to Jinx, who praised her with hugs and treats and a celebratory fight between Stink Maw and Scuttle Butt. 

Slippery as an eel, Jinx called her. She would continue to call her this after she sent her back on more spy missions to creep around Vi and Cait, again and again. 

Chapter Text

Vi 

“Fuck.” Vi whispered. Her head was spinning, her stomach roiled. She should not have had so much to drink tonight, especially not the night before another mission. If Cait found out how much she’d really been drinking…

“Failure.” 

Vi wasn’t sure who had said that. The voice sounded like a fusion of multiple people she knew, as if Powder, Caitlyn, and Vander, had all spoken at once. 

“Shut up,” she grumbled. She looked at the ground and focused all her energy on getting back home from the bar. If she could make it back to Cait while walking in one straight line, she was probably sober enough, right? 

Sober enough to go back to being an Enforcer. 

Sober enough to hate herself every damn time she put the uniform on. 

Sober enough to hate herself for not doing enough to save Powder. 

Sober enough to hate herself for every disgusting thing she’d done-or had done to her-while in prison. 

Sober enough to-

“Do you need help?” a voice asked. It was a man, stepping out of another building, a lit pipe still in one hand. The smoke that emerged from it was pungent, terrible. The smoke clouded his face, making him look much more ominous than he probably intended to be perceived. 

“Nah, I’m good.” 

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” he asked again, stepping closer. 

“Do I know you?” she asked. Fuck, she sounded really drunk right now, just those four words came out all weird.

He watched her from his pipe-smoke haze, and she could now see that he had a prominent nose and a gaunt face. He looked like- 

“Silco?” 

“What?” He stepped back, shocked. She heard now that his accent was different, but she was still instinctively riled up. Silco’s face flickered in her vision, as if her drunk brain painted it over the true appearance of the other man. 

“Silco,” she growled.

“No. I swear I’m not. He is dead, madam. I can call some help for you-” 

“Don’t call me madam. Fuck off. You even talk all slimy like he does.” she punctuated her words with a shove to his chest. She shoved him with enough force to knock him to the ground, making him drop his pipe and shout in alarm. As she hurriedly staggered off, she heard him brush off his coat and mutter in a pitying voice about the terrible toll Silco’s reign had taken on those poor Undercity folk.

–

Piltover, Vi decided, was creepy at night. The huge buildings and their ornate decorations cast long, odd shadows. As a Zaunite, it should have been something she was used to, but she wasn’t used to these streets, to what enemies might be lurking in the dark. It was too quiet around here at night, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the old buildings and statues themselves were watching her. Turning their noses up at her.

She hurried all the way home, trying to disguise the fact that every odd noise made her jump and stumble, and could have sworn she saw faces peering out of dim windows or from the shadows. 

– 

I am sober. Vi  thought to herself as she crept back inside. I. Am. Sober.

Since it was very late, Cait was already fast asleep, which was a rarity considering the stress-induced insomnia that had wreaked havoc on their sleep schedules lately. Cait barely stirred as Vi laid down next to her. 

The last thing Vi saw before she fell asleep was a little blue haired girl, watching from the corner. She shut her eyes, willing the drunken vision to go away and let her rest for once. 

When she woke up the next morning, sunlight stabbing into her eyeballs, she noticed a stray strand of blue hair resting on the carpet. 

Her stomach dropped. 

Chapter Text

Caitlyn

“Vi, this is, what, the third time in two weeks?” 

Caitlyn was standing, but she resisted the urge to slump back into her bed, the bed she shared with Vi.

“I’m telling you Cait, I saw her. She was back here, again!” 

“And just to be clear,” Caitlyn closed her eyes, fighting off the urge to massage her temples. “You saw Powder, not Jinx.”  

“I know it sounds crazy, and I don’t actually know what I saw, but regardless of what you think, someone was here. Somebody has been watching us, and I guarantee you they have ties to Jinx.”

“Vi, Vi.” Caitlyn put her hands on her shoulders. “Listen to me. I believe you. I believe that you think Jinx is somehow spying on us-how else would she have ambushed us the other day? That’s why we’ve increased security measures all over Piltover. I believe you, okay? But,” she lifted one finger. “I don’t think the girl you’re seeing is Powder, because that is not possible. I think you’re seeing someone who looks like her.” 

She stroked Vi’s cheek. “I know how much this is weighing on you. But Powder is gone. Your sister is Jinx now. And we’re going to clean up Jinx’s mess, together.” she pressed her forehead to Vi’s, and Vi stunned her by pulling her in for a kiss. It was warm and heady, but unmistakably tainted with the taste of strong, strong liquor. 

Well, Caitlyn thought. Now I know that Lisa wasn’t lying.

Jinx wasn’t the only one who had been doing some little spying. Vi had been creeping off in the evenings, doing who knows what. At first, Caitlyn had let her have her space. But then, she crawled back into bed at odd hours, her breath reeking of strange things as she muttered about prison and Powder and her brothers before passing out. Vi made the bedsheets reek. One night, Caitlyn had sworn that she smelled distinctly of Zaun, and it had shot cold fear through her. 

Is she going back to Zaun? Is she doing drugs down there? Is she secretly colluding with Jinx or Zaunites behind my back and pretending to be stinking drunk to hide it?

 So, Caitlyn had hired a girl, a cute little thing named Lisa, to watch Vi and see where she went at night. Lisa swore up and down that all Vi was really doing was letting off steam at various bars and clubs. She wasn’t faking her drunkenness, she really was just getting that shitfaced as she staggered around telling her sob story to various bar-patrons, occasionally fistfighting them in wild fights that made people howl and bet money. Once, Lisa even claimed she’d seen Vi cry into the arms of a prostitute who painted a look of doting concern on her heavily made-up face. Caitlyn had gone hot with jealousy, but Lisa assured her that Vi had turned down the prostitute’s offer of intimacy.

Vi ended the kiss. Caitlyn pulled away, studying her face. Alcohol use was a strange beast. Vi somehow managed to actually look somewhat put together in the day, despite her wild and hideous nights. It’s like she was a shapeshifter or something. 

But Caitlyn supposed that was fair. This was Piltover. Everyone was two-faced or hiding some inner demons to some degree. 

Caitlyn just couldn’t have Vi hiding anything from her, that was all. 

Chapter Text

Isha 

“Great job, Isha!” 

Isha laughed as Jinx pulled her around in a dance. 

“You’re the best apprentice I ever could have asked for.” Jinx ruffled her hair. “I wish my big sis had done fun stuff with me when I was your age, she doesn’t know what she’s missing out on. Well, she will eventually. She’ll see. They’ll all see, won’t they, Isha?” 

Isha nodded eagerly. Isha was just as determined as Jinx to make Piltover see-and pay for-the wrongs they’d done. That required a lot of steps, like getting through to Vi. Vi was in Caitlyn’s lap twenty four hours a day, seven days a week (well, except when she was getting drunk). If Vi fell, Caitlyn would destabilize, except Isha was starting to sense that Caitlyn was being pulled down her own path, especially by that other woman, what was her name? Ambrosia? Ambessa, that was it! 

Well, from what Isha saw, Ambessa was plenty scary, but her job was continuing to spy on Vi so Jinx could thwart her missions with Caitlyn and plan on how to convert her back to the Zaunite cause. If Vi joined them, they’d be a force to reckon with, capable of crumbling Piltover once and for all. 

At least, that was what Isha believed. She’d seen how formidable the other woman was, capable of throwing a mean haymaker even when she was a wretched mess. In another life, Isha might have wanted to be Vi’s apprentice instead. 

But with Jinx happily dancing with her, that was a downright blasphemous thought. So she went back to focusing on what was in front of her-Jinx’s proud and smiling face. 

Chapter Text

Vi 

“Tell me you saw her, Cait! Tell me!” The ornate decorations of Caitlyn’s room were practically spinning around her. She couldn’t tell if it was from alcohol use (she wasn’t that drunk), recent exposure to the Gray, tears in her eyes, or rainwater from the still-raging storm that had soaked her on her way home tonight. Had somebody punched her at the club tonight? Or was that some pain acting up from trying (and failing) to release the Gray today. Somebody had tampered with the mechanisms, and she’d bet anything that it had been Jinx. She’d relented to her inner demons and drowned more of her insecurities in booze tonight, making it home in the pouring rain only to catch the face of a little girl with blue hair out of the corner of her eye.

“Vi, please. You are drunk.”

“You saw her too just now, right? Right?”

Caitlyn rubbed her eyes and sighed. 

“I don’t know what I saw,” Caitlyn said eventually, with great diplomacy. It made Vi want to smash something. Caitlyn was using her Piltie voice. Her I’m a Councilor’s daughter voice. 

“Don’t use that voice with me!” Vi snapped. “Don’t talk about me like I’m just a mess for your servants to clean up!”

She wouldn’t have to if she didn’t have to scrape your sorry ass off the floor all the time. sneered a voice in Vi’s head. It wasn’t a hallucinatory voice, but rather the quiet, persistent voice of her insecurities. It sounded like the Warden at Stillwater prison. 

“Vi,” Caitlyn said, more gently this time. “Go to bed and we’ll talk about this in the morning, after I meet with Ambessa-”

“Ambessa? Really? Is she the one who advised you to have that little brat trail after me at night? Advising you to breathe down my neck at all times?” 

“What? No!”

“No? So you just did that of your own free will?” 

“Vi, I’m sorry, I just thought that maybe- maybe you were going to the Undercity at night, or meeting with Jinx-how did you find out about Lisa anyway?” 

“Caitlyn.” The blurriness in Vi’s eyes was definitely caused by tears now, hot and bitter. “Do you even trust me anymore? Have you ever trusted me?”

“Of course I trust you, it’s just that we’re surrounded by so much danger now I didn’t know what else to do. I want to trust you, but with the situation that we’re in-I didn’t know what else to do! I won’t send Lisa after you anymore, I promise.” 

Vi took several deep heaving breaths. She turned around a little, unable to bear looking at Caitlyn or the bed they had shared. 

Lightning flashed, illuminating the silhouette of a little girl crouched on the windowsill in the rain. Her soaking wet hair was bright, bright blue. 

“You sending her after me too? Playing mind games with me, Kiramman? Lying and just pretending you don’t see her?” Vi pointed to the window, too full of rage to bother being concerned for the safety of a girl who may or may not be real. 

Another flash of lightning illuminated the appearance of the girl again, and Caitlyn screamed. 

Vi hated the saying they looked like they saw a ghost. In her experience, people who saw ghosts didn’t go white as sheets, or scream in terror. They got angry, bitter, pained, trapped in their own heads. 

But Caitlyn, though? 

She lived up to all the stereotypes.

In that moment, Vi saw all the blood drain from her face. Caitlyn screamed like a woman onstage putting all her effort into making sure everyone in the back row heard the full volume of her screams.

“You’re a damn good actress, Kiramman. That scream,” Vi shook her head with a morbid chuckle. “Amazing.”

Caitlyn shouted and swore, and ran frantically for the window. 

“How do I get her in here without accidentally knocking her off the ledge?” she swore again. “Vi, get somebody to go outside and help her down from there! If we don’t do something soon she’ll fall!”

“Wait, so she is real? And if she is, you didn’t put her up there on purpose?” 

“Why would I have a child stand outside my window in pouring, freezing rain? How insane do you think I am?”

“Do you need help, Enforcer Kiramman?” came a gasp from the doorway. An infuriatingly familiar, high-pitched young voice. Lisa. 

“Lisa, there’s a little girl outside my window in the rain. Get her in the building without her falling and hurting herself. Summon backup Enforcers if you must.” Lisa was merely a paid maid, but Caitlyn still addressed her as if she was a fellow Enforcer, which led Lisa to flash her a hurried Enforcer salute, perhaps out of some kind of instinct.

“She’s here,” Vi panted. “She’s here and she’s real and she’s not getting away this time.” 

Chapter Text

Caitlyn 

“I’m sorry. We searched everywhere, even tried to track muddy footprints she left in the rain, but we couldn’t get far. She’s tricky, this one.”

“So,” Caitlyn looked the lower ranking Enforcer-she couldn’t remember his name- in the eye. “You are saying she got away.” 

“Yes.”

Caitlyn returned home hoping to get some comfort after today’s failure. She got none.

“Want to send Lisa after her?” Vi whispered, a low sneer. 

Vi was sober right now-Caitlyn had locked all the doors and windows last night to make sure of it-but she was still acting drunk. Perhaps the toll of lack of sleep, lack of food or water, and lack of success in finding Jinx or utilizing the Gray was taking a toll on her. With so many malfunctions in the Gray, they’d had to resort to more…hands-on methods of clearing the streets. That clearly made Jinx angrier. Caitlyn never saw her, but she knew her temper was rising as if it was a shift in the atmosphere itself. The Zaunites got riled up. The graffiti on the walls itselves seemed to watch you. Angry whispers seemed to come out of every shadow. 

Caitlyn wasn’t free from these angry whispers in her own home, it seemed. Vi regarded her with one, bitter bloodshot eye. 

“You never did tell me how you found out about Lisa.” Caitlyn said. 

“I’m a Zaunite, Caitlyn. You think I don’t notice when somebody tries to discreetly follow me, especially with a regular pattern. Come on. How stupid do you think I am?”

“I do not think you’re stupid-” 

“And,” Vi rolled her bloodshot eyes. “I would’ve noticed her anyway. She flirted with other girls at the clubs and bars we were at. The night she confessed to following me was the night I swooped in and saved her from a real creep. She was so scared, and so grateful, that she just broke down and confessed the whole truth on the way home. Heh. She nearly tried to flirt with me, after that. Batting her long lashes at me and talking all sweet, looking at my muscles and tattoos. She’s a bit too young for me though. Makes me wonder why you even sent a dainty little maid like her after me when you thought I was headed to damn Zaun. At night.” 

“Lisa,” Caitlyn whispered. “Is not really a maid. In fact, her name’s not even Lisa.” 

“Oh?” 

“She’s a Noxian. She may look sweet, but her proficiency with the knife hidden under her clothes is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I’m surprised she didn’t turn that bar into a bloodbath when someone unsavory approached her.” 

“I,” Vi was visibly thrown. “I thought you said that Ambessa didn’t know about your plan to spy on me.” 

“Well, I came up with it, she just supplied me with Lisa to help out.”

“That damn pig,” Vi spat.

“Vi,” Caitlyn said slowly. “Right now, it’s a choice between protections provided by that pig or getting gutted alive by Jinx, who will send us into an all-out war one day soon. I don’t want to have to do this. But I have so few choices now.” 

“Few choices? You want to talk about having few choices? Growing up, I had to choose between stealing or death. You had to choose between whether or not you wanted your new rifle in silver or gold.” 

“It’s not like that anymore!” 

“Oh yes it is!” 

“Vi, I know I forced the badge on you initially, but you still had a choice to walk away. You did not. And now, what do you think will happen to you if you try to ally with Jinx or Zaun again? They’ll eat you alive!” 

“No, the Undercity will eat you alive! You don’t understand what you’ve gotten yourself into by angering them!”

“I will protect us both.” Caitlyn said sternly.

That seemed to soothe Vi a bit. Her breathing slowed and her protesting quieted. 

Caitlyn was glad. Vi had gone with so little protection all her life, Caitlyn knew any taste of it must have been tantalizing for her. It was heartbreaking, really. Caitlyn wished, not for the first time, that they lived in a better world. Or perhaps that this was a horrible nightmare, and she would awake to a peaceful world bathed in sunlight.

Sadly, she only woke up the next day to more rain. 

Chapter Text

Isha

Isha swore internally as her footsteps pounded against the dirt. This damn rain, she’d leave footprints. She couldn’t have that happen again. She’d managed to wipe off her feet and escape last time, but Isha knew better than most people that luck was not meant to be pushed. If she could just get far away enough from the Kiramman property, if she could just-

Someone tackled her from behind. 

Isha hit the ground yelling, kicking, and biting. A pair of pale, painfully familiar arms pinned her own to her sides. 

Caitlyn didn’t seem happy about tackling her and taking her prisoner, but she did it anyway. 

Chapter Text

Vi

Seeing the little girl up close really just hammered home how young she was. It twisted Vi’s heart as the girl struggled in Caitlyn’s arms. The girl, still trying to bite, was handed off to other Enforcers, instructed to keep her in a temporary holding cell. A gentle one, on holding cell standards. Her hair, freshly dyed bright blue, and her eclectic outfit, meant her pro-Jinx loyalties were on full display. That made her ability to sneak in and out of Piltover-and the home and bases of Caitlyn Kiramman herself-even more miraculous. 

“I’ve sent a message to inform Jinx that we have this…accomplice currently in custody. Even if Jinx herself doesn’t come for her, someone will.”

“She’s a child, Caitlyn,” Vi whispered. 

“I know,” Caitlyn whispered back, low and miserable. “I wish none of this had ever happened.”

–

Numerous people tried to put on friendly faces to get a confession out of the girl-Caitlyn forbid them from physically harming her-and it immediately became clear that the girl could not speak, and couldn’t sign without having her arms unbound. 

“Free her hands,” Caitlyn ordered. 

“But she might attack us-” an Enforcer protested. 

“I said free her hands. If she can sign, we need to give her a chance to tell her side of the story.”

Not a minute after the girl’s hands had been freed, a metallic clanging sound rang through the air. There was a hiss, and then the hall of the jail filled with purple smoke. 

“JINX!” multiple people screamed.

Guns were drawn as hearts pounded, but as the smoke cleared, there was no one and nothing in sight but a piece of paper that had been slipped inside some sort of smoke releasing device. 

The handwriting made Vi’s heart jump, and the numerous, painfully familiar doodles around the words make her twist up inside.

BRING THE GIRL TO THE BRIDGE. NINE O’ CLOCK TONIGHT. LEAVE AMBESSA OUT OF THIS.

• JINX 

There was a scribbled out word  before Ambessa’s name, as if Jinx had thought about writing a nickname instead, but gave up halfway through.

“Do you think this was really sent by her?” Caitlyn asked Vi as Enforcers swarmed away from them, trying to find the source of the smoke device. 

Vi swallowed hard. “That’s her handwriting, all right.”

Caitlyn nodded solemnly. 

Chapter Text

Vi

There was only one bridge that Jinx could possibly be referring to in her letter. The bridge between Piltover and Zaun.

They waited in silence. The only sound was the girl’s breathing as she tried to keep it controlled, trying to sound braver than she felt as she stood wedged between Vi and Caitlyn with her hands still tied. It hurt Vi’s heart to hear. 

It was only a minute past nine when Jinx emerged from the shadows. 

No bombs, no smokescreens, no theatrics. Just pure, silent malice as she strode forward from the dark, a gleaming gun visible at her hip. Her Shimmer-pink eyes glowed faintly in the fog. 

Jinx silently extended one hand. 

“The girl. Now. No funny business.” 

With a rapid slash of a knife, Caitlyn cut loose the ropes around the girl’s hands. She then stepped back and nodded. 

“You are free to go,” Caitlyn said, pointing to the girl and then at Jinx. 

Vi’s jaw nearly dropped as the girl bolted into Jinx’s waiting arms, and Jinx squeezed her in a tight hug, burying her face in her shoulder and audibly murmuring to her. This kind wasn’t just some Jinxer grunt, she really did mean something deeply personal to Jinx. 

Jinx and the girl kept hugging, the girl was rocking back and forth a little. After a long moment, Jinx finally broke the embrace and went back to scowling at Vi and Caitlyn.

“Pleasure doing business with ya. But we’re not done just yet.”

“Not done?” Caitlyn demanded, voice fraying. “You’ve been sending that girl to spy on us, gathering intel to thwart our missions-which worked, by the way. The mechanism that releases the Gray doesn’t even function because of you, and we’ve had to resort to more physical methods of getting people out of the way. You’ve been getting endlessly under our skin, how can you not be done?” Caitlyn’s voice was raw, it almost sounded like she was trying not to cry.

“Well, about the Gray- you should’ve thought of that before deciding poisoning people’s air was the way to go.”

“The Gray operation was being handled by a strike team meant to only search for and target you. Did your little spy not tell you that? I was doing everything in my power to keep civilians from being harmed, and you only made things worse!”

A look of shock and guilt flickered across Jinx’s face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m the only person making things worse around here, princess.” Jinx spat the odd nickname like a curse. “Tell me, even after you started using more physical methods to clear the streets, did it feel good to make Vi do the dirty work for you? Did your ego just love the feeling of knowing you could turn Vander’s daughter against her own people? Did you like keeping the successor to the Hound of the Underground on your damn leash, turning her into your attack dog?”

Vi’s stomach roiled. 

I’m going to die. She thought suddenly. She was hungry, thirsty, sleep-deprived, and probably messed up from some remaining after effects of alcohol too. Something deep in her gut was telling her that whatever was going to happen right now was going to unravel her. Undo her. 

She was so focused on keeping a straight face that she almost missed Caitlyn’s next words. 

“That’s not true! The only reason she even sided with me at all is because-”

“Because you and your little Noxian friend pressured her?” 

“Because she’s afraid of you!” Caitlyn shouted. “You’re dangerous, Jinx, and everyone knows it. You know it most of all.”

A glowing pink dot-Jinx’s eye- suddenly locked in on Vi for the first time. 

“Is it true?” Jinx’s voice was soft now, but still audible in the deathly silence of the fog-covered bridge. “Do you really fear me more than you hate them?”

Them. The Enforcers who killed their parents. The people who poisoned their food and water and air. The people who exploited their labor and left them with nothing. The people who had thrown Vi into a prison where she was a number, not a name, and kept her there for years all on a corrupt sheriff’s whims.

But Caitlyn isn’t like them. Caitlyn is gentle and kind, and she protects me, and she wants to protect other people too.

It had been her argument for herself for a long time. But that was before Caitlyn started releasing the Gray, using a disguised Noxian to spy on her…

Vi’s heart was pounding. She was so, so scared. 

“Vi?” Jinx asked softly. 

“Jinx,” Vi whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Jinx demanded, taking another step closer. “So-so you really are rejecting me. They really did turn you against me.” Jinx’s breathing was speeding up, Vi recognized the horrible sound that likely preceded an episode. Jinx was going to start hallucinating any second now if she wasn’t already. “First the Pilties took my parents, then my childhood, and now my sister. Is there anything you bastards won’t claim for yourselves?” Jinx’s head whipped around suddenly and she snapped, “Stop talking, Mylo!”

Jinx’s head turned again, slower this time, back towards Caitlyn and Vi and she made her way slowly towards them. 

“Vi. Remember when you said you wouldn’t abandon me again?”

“Yes,” Vi croaked. “I do.” 

“Well, I feel the same way. I didn’t give you enough of a chance to try and prove yourself to be an ally to me. So, I’m extending my hand again. Take off your badge and uniform, come with me and Isha, and we can simply clean up this whole,” she gestured vaguely with one hand. “Piltie mess. It will be over, Vi. No more Enforcers, no more Gray, things will be better for us all.”

Vi couldn’t explain why, but something in Jinx’s words and mannerisms were now eerily reminiscent of Silco. 

Silco. 

Thinking of him and what he’d probably done to Jinx while keeping her under his wing for years hurt as much as if Silco himself had stabbed Vi with the knife he was wielding the night of the explosion.

The only reason my sister is standing here imitating Silco is because I got captured by Marcus before I could save her.

And she’s giving me a chance to make it up to her. 

Vi took a large step towards Jinx. 

“Vi,” Caitlyn croaked. “Vi, don’t.” 

Vi felt like she was going to throw up. She squeezed her eyes shut. 

A cold wind blew through the night. For a few seconds, Vi could have sworn she heard a voice, the eerie low rasp of Silco himself, and she couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside or outside her own head. 

Who will you choose? Whispered the Silco voice. The Piltover girl who showed you kindness, who fought for you to enter her home and stand alongside you, only to turn it all into a gilded cage? Or the sister who you swore to protect, who has been changed into someone almost unrecognizable?

Who do you love more? 

Who do you fear more?

All my life, Vi whispered, in her head, to the Silco voice, I just wanted to protect others and be protected. But I will never be safe, not in this world. If I choose Caitlyn, I have to face the wrath of the Undercity I betrayed. If I choose Jinx, I have to deal with the wrath of Piltover. 

Ah. said the Silco voice. So it is merely a question of who you’d rather have by your side as you fall into the jaws of waiting wolves. 

That’s a bit more poetic than how I’d put it. But yeah. 

Well, child, the Silco voice said, and for a second Vi could have sworn the sound of the rushing river below them grew louder. You do not have all night. 

Vi swallowed. She took another step towards Jinx. And then another. 

“Vi, please.” Caitlyn whispered. “No.”

Chapter Text

Isha 

It happened very quickly. Isha saw Caitlyn begin to slowly reach for her hip, as if reaching for a gun, even though Isha could’ve sworn she didn’t think Caitlyn was armed earlier. In response, Isha yelped in panic and grabbed a smoke bomb from Jinx’s belt and detonated it, filling the air with blinding, pungent purple haze. It was impossible to see anything, there came the sound of frantic, moving bodies. Two people collided into each other, there was the sound of hyperventilating. It was Vi. 

“Vi? Vi!” Jinx shouted, drawing her pistol. Someone knocked it from her hand. Someone else coughed. There was the clatter of the gun hitting the concrete, a hand scrabbling for it.

Vi emerged from the haze, holding the gun with a shaking hand and hyperventilating. She was pointing it at Jinx’s face, although Isha was unsure if this was intentional, because she lowered it slightly as soon as she saw it was Jinx she was pointing at. 

Isha saw Jinx’s eyes light up with an idea. She whispered something to Vi.

She grabbed the gun from Vi, then fired two shots in the air while detonating another smoke bomb at the same time, screaming the whole time.

Chapter Text

Caitlyn 

By the time Jinx’s smoke bombs and the fog cleared, Jinx, Vi, and the girl, Isha, were gone. 

Vi had stepped towards Jinx, but moments later, Caitlyn saw her point the gun straight at Jinx. She’d been blinded by the smoke bombs again seconds later, but she’d heard gunshots and Jinx screaming in agony. Did Vi shoot Jinx? Due to the lack of blood, Caitlyn was tempted to think Vi had merely fired but missed. But had she done so deliberately or accidentally?

Those gunshots kept ringing in her head. Had Vi fired at Jinx? How could Vi ally with her while also shooting at her? 

Which side had Vi ultimately chosen? Jinx’s or Caitlyn’s?

“What is the truth, Ambessa?” Caitlyn lamented in the room where she and Ambessa sparred. “And don’t say it doesn’t matter, because it does matter, tremendously.”

“Oh, I agree,” Ambessa said. “We must find Vi and determine her motivations. To do so, we may have to wage a full assault on the Undercity.”

“No!”

“There remains little choice, Caitlyn.” Ambessa intoned. “If Vi chose her sister, she has now given valuable information to our biggest enemy. If Vi was taken by force, she is being held hostage in the Undercity.”

“You may not be certain of Vi’s loyalty to you anymore,” Ambessa said. “But you can be certain of mine.”