Chapter Text
All Vi wanted was a day off.
Just one day where she could slip off her gauntlets, put up her feet, and relax. Maybe she would let Caitlyn take her out to one of those fancy Piltover spas that he had always talked about. They were a bit too frivolous for her taste, but if it would make Caitlyn happy, she’d allow herself to get pampered, albeit begrudgingly.
But today, like always, was not a relaxing day.
Another criminal had been found dead in the deep, twisting depths of Zaun’s system of alleyways. This usually wouldn’t have raised many red flags. It was Zaun, after all. In fact, Vi wouldn’t have cared less if some disease-ridden shimmer dealer had dropped dead.
Except this was the third dead criminal this week, all killed in the same manner.
When Vi saw the first corpse, it took her a few moments to even register that the pile of guts, flesh, and torn clothing once could have been a person. Others chalked it up to a shimmer deal gone bad, and Vi would have done the same if it wasn’t for the two other bodies found in the exact same condition.
“Oh… this is awful.” Caitlyn said, as she and Vi arrived at the scene far before the officials eventually would. She covered her mouth with a glove and averted her eyes. Vi remembered her girlfriend’s somewhat sheltered upbringing, and didn’t judge her too harshly for it. These sort of sights weren’t something that she was used to.
But even after living in Zaun, growing up on the streets and witnessing the violence that took place there, Vi wasn’t even sure if she could handle staring at the mutilated body much longer.
Vi took a deep breath in, and then let it out rather harshly.
“You don’t have to look at it,” She said to Caitlyn, as she placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’ll look at the body. Can you look around and see if you find anything else?”
Caitlyn didn’t look at Vi, but she nodded, and began to tread around the perimeter of the alleyway. Vi watched her walk away. Then, she crouched down next to the body and began to examine it. At first, she tried to figure out what wound killed the man, but she soon gave up on that. Half of his chest was torn to shreds. It was useless to try to pinpoint one thing as his cause of death.
The other bodies looked like this too. Shredded, mangled, like a wild animal had gone after them.
“What are we thinking, Cupcake?” Vi called out to Caitlyn. She peeked her head around the corner, with one resting firmly on her chin, deep in thought.
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but…” Caitlyn said slowly. “This is going to be a very bad, quite inappropriate comparison to make, and I apologize in advance.”
Vi raised an eyebrow towards her, somewhat interested in seeing what Caitlyn thought could be inappropriate in this situation.
“When I was younger, my family used to take me into the woods outside the city on hunting expeditions-”
“You mean you didn’t just pay to have butlers shoot the deer for you?” Vi teased. Caitlyn shot her a look to tell her off, but she smirked anyway, before continuing her thought.
“Sometimes, after leaving the trails, I would wander deeper into the woods. When I was very young, I stumbled across the carcass of a rabbit,” Caitlyn slowly and carefully explained, as she walked up and down the alley. She kept her eyes on the walls of the alley, purposefully keeping the corpse on the ground out of sight. “Some animal had killed it recently, and it’s insides had been torn out and scattered across the ground.”
Vi caught wind of what Caitlyn was trying to say, and scratched her head.
“You think an animal did this?”
“I’m not sure, Vi. I just don’t know if I can think of a kind of weapon that would leave a person looking like that.”
“What if it was someone on shimmer? I’ve seen that stuff-”
Vi suddenly stopped mid-sentence, as her words fell flat on her lips. Memories of that day came back to her. Seeing that creature brutally kill Grayson from her hiding spot underneath the antique shop, and then seeing Vander fight that monster later, those memories had lived in her nightmares for years, and haunted her days when she couldn’t sleep in her cramped prison cell.
And then seeing Vander-
“I’ve seen what that stuff can do to a person.” Vi said, pushing that thought out of her mind. She didn’t want to remember him like that. She would remember him as the kind, warm-hearted man he was.
“Vi, I think I found something.”
Caitlyn’s voice took her out of the unsettled state of mind she had fallen into. She whipped her head around toward the sound of her voice. Caitlyn was staring at the wall just behind the corpse. Vi squinted her eyes in an attempt to see what it was.
Just before she could, a squeak from the entrance of the alleyway caused both women to leap up into the air, startled by the sudden noise. Vi readied her gauntlets, but then stopped.
A familiar woman stood at the entrance of the alleyway, holding a rubber duck in her palm. She flicked her long blue braids behind her shoulders, and then began to giggle.
“Oh man! You shoulda seen the looks on your faces!” Jinx said with a smile, before squeaking the duck a few more times. Vi grit her teeth at the sight of her sister, although she was at least somewhat happy to see her.
Caitlyn, however, was not in the slightest bit excited by the woman’s presence.
“You little…” Caitlyn grumbled, as she tried to regain her composure.
“It’s just a joke, Caity! Come on, lighten up!”
“Jinx, what are you doing here?” Vi asked, as she stood up and placed herself between her sister and her girlfriend in an attempt to stop them from killing each other immediately.
“Not much, sis, just heard that you were in town and came to stop by,” Jinx told her, as she gave her a friendly hug. “Now, what’s got you back in these parts, eh?”
Her question was quickly answered, as Jinx glanced over Vi’s shoulder and noticed the corpse lying on the ground. She curled up her nose in disgust, before putting her hands on her hips and biting her bottom lip.
“Huh… has anyone checked for a pulse?” She asked.
“His ribcage is gone, Jinx.” Caitlyn muttered as she placed a hand on her temples. Vi tried to steer the conversation in a more productive direction.
“Do you know anything about this?” Vi asked her, hoping that she wouldn’t, but still aware of the pink pop of color in her irises. Her sister has been unstable before, and Vi wasn’t sure how much worse the shimmer had made her instability. Jinx took a few moments to collect her thoughts, before turning back to face her sister.
“All I know is that the last two murders got the criminals around here pretty shaken up. Another attack like this, and I don’t think we’re looking at coincidences anymore,” Jinx explained. “And as a lady who likes to partake in a fair bit of crime myself, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t a little more cautious than before.”
Caitlyn gave Vi a glare, and Vi could only shake her head in response. Jinx was a problem that would be dealt with eventually, when there weren’t bigger fish to fry.
“Caity, I’m afraid that I interrupted you when I showed up. What were you saying?” Jinx said. Caitlyn cleared her throat, and then tried to regain her train of thought. She pointed to the wall above the destroyed body, past the splatters of blood. About a foot above Vi’s head was a mark in the brick. Vi turned her gauntlets over and then raised the back of her right gauntlet toward the wall. The faint blue hextech cast a glow on the brick wall, illuminating not just one mark on the wall, but five.
Five deep, jagged cuts into the brick, all equally spaced apart.
“What could have done that?” Vi asked.
“Shrapnel?” Jinx suggested, before shaking her head. “No, no, there would be more of it everywhere. Stupid idea.”
“It’s not a stupid idea. We don’t have any ideas either.” Vi told her sister. Caitlyn took a deep breath in, and carefully stepped toward the wall. She made sure to step over the body and not disturb it. Then, she raised her hand up to the intents in the wall.
Caitlyn spread her fingers as wide as she could, and then one by one, placed each finger into the five scratches in the wall. After a few moments, Caitlyn took a step back, and then looked up in the air.
“It has to be an animal. Those have to be claw marks.”
“What kind of animal could do that? A bear, maybe?” Vi suggested, to which Jinx shook her head.
“You couldn’t keep a bear a secret down here. Believe me, I’d know.”
“How would you know?”
“I love animals. I’d find him, and keep him as a pet!”
“Could it be a person on shimmer?” Caitlyn asked, looking back to Vi as she brought up her initial suspicion. Vi fought long and hard about it, but wasn’t able to come up with a definitive answer.
“I don’t know.”
“The stuff’s diluted a ton nowadays. Maybe a few years ago, but not anymore.” Jinx said, which didn’t ease anyone’s worries. In fact, it might have even made Vi’s concerns worse than before. She could deal with threats she knew about, but it was the fear of the unknown that often tripped her up.
But if there was one thing that Vi could do in the face of the unknown, it was do everything in her power to safeguard against it. Jinx’s words about being more cautious than before echoed in her mind, as she stared at her sister, and then at the rest of Zaun around her.
Vi put her hand on her sister’s shoulder, and looked her right in the eyes.
“If there is something going around killing people like this, I don’t want you to be in danger.”
“I kinda know how to handle myself, Vi.”
“I’m being serious. Caitlyn and I aren’t going to leave your side until this gets figured out.” Vi explained. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caitlyn open her mouth to say something, but then quickly shut it. Jinx looked at her sister, then down at the body on the floor, and then back up toward her sister.
“I…” In a warm, innocent tone that Vi hadn’t heard from her sister in quite a while, Jinx’s voice turned into a whisper. “I’d like that.”
Vi pulled her sister in for a hug, and then looked at Caitlyn with a bit of a grimace on her face. She knew that Caitlyn wouldn’t approve, but she hoped that she would understand. Caitlyn didn’t look too happy about this arrangement, but she shrugged.
“At least we can keep an eye on her and keep her out of trouble.” Caitlyn mumbled. Vi let out a sigh of relief. As she and her sister stepped out of the alleyway and into the street, memories of her childhood in Zaun flooded back to her, easily brushing aside most of the bad memories of the past, but leaving one still strong and poignant in her mind.
Vander’s last words rumbled through her mind, as they did every single day since that horrible, dreadful day in the abandoned warehouse.
Take care of Powder.