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Vi’s pistol clicks tinnily into the alleyway. She huffs a grunt of disgust and disengages the cartridge, letting it fall at her feet.
“I’m out,” she says.
“I’m not,” Caitlyn mutters beside her, the steely blue of her pistol glimmering in the night air. “But I’m getting there.”
“How many?”
“I fired seven shots—”
“And you carry twelve plus a chamber. So six left.”
“Mm.” Caitlyn flexes her shoulders, feeling her muscles curve against the rifle strapped across her back, and clicks her tongue in annoyance. Pretty much useless at close range. She flicks her eyes over to Vi’s weapon, a thin tendril of smoke coiling from its barrel, wincing at its hollow clicks as Vi jams the trigger frustratedly.
A small furrow creases Caitlyn’s forehead.
Bracing her right shoulder against the dumpster they’re using as a barricade, Caitlyn pushes her purse towards Vi with her free hand. “I have your Hextech dusters in there somewhere,” she says. “Find them.”
Vi blinks. “You just carry those on you?”
“You’re a sloppy shot.” Though Caitlyn’s eyes have now turned back to the alley entrance, where a dark heap lies silent but twitching, her lips curve into a knowing smirk. “Lord knows you need a weapon that doesn’t run out of ammo.”
“Once we make it out of this, I’m gonna make you eat those words.”
“Just the words?”
“Don’t tempt me now.” Violet, who had been hunched over Caitlyn’s purse, straightens triumphantly, knuckles now gleaming in flashes of bronze and whirring blue. “I don’t care about the smell, I will take you against this dumpster right now.”
“And what about our guest?” Caitlyn thrusts her chin towards the dark mound, which has slowly started to move onto its hands and knees. The concrete, which had splintered under the force of its fall, rustles loosely against its rising body. “Surely a voyeuristic Shimmer addict isn’t on your list of bedroom kinks.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t already memorised that list by now.”
“I stand exposed.”
Suddenly, the Shimmer addict utters a loud moan as it lumbers back onto its feet, cutting their banter short. Despite the dimness of the overlying streetlights, they can see the bullet wounds that adorn its torso and thighs, hideously fresh and oozing blood, leaving sapphire-tinted streaks on the fractured ground. Its pinkie and ring finger dangle uselessly from its left hand.
Lurching forward into the alley, the monster howls in frustration as the walls press tightly against its shoulders.
“Nine hits,” Violet hisses, “and the fucker still won’t stay down.”
“A reminder that you only contributed three,” Caitlyn says.
“Duly noted and promptly forgotten. You got a plan?”
“Nothing right now.” Caitlyn fingers the handle of her gun nervously. “It’s different to the normal Shimmer addicts — it’s smarter. Can endure more damage.” As if on cue, the monster gives another roar and leans forward, squeezing its bulk slowly through the narrow entrance. “If I had to bet, I’d say it’s taken some new derivative of Shimmer that preserves more of its baseline cognition.”
“Can’t you just headshot the thing and be done with it?”
“Mm-mm.” Caitlyn shakes her head. “I tried earlier but it’s too clever; it lifted its shoulder and blocked the hit. I don’t have enough bullets to waste on futile shots.”
“Then forget killing it.” Vi’s brain, sharpened to a gleaming point amidst the roiling smog of war, spins furiously inside her head, searching their surroundings for even the smallest possibility of escape. “What if we tried crippling it instead?”
“Fracture a limb? I wouldn’t even bother. That thing’s got more bulk in one arm than we have combined.”
“I was thinking a little more sophisticated than breaking bones.” Sliding her hand up Caitlyn’s leg, Vi withdraws the combat knife that she knows Caitlyn keeps strapped against her inner thigh. Its razor edge gleams wickedly silver in the moonlight. “If you cover me, I should be able to get in close and slice out its Achilles. Then, we can both get out and call for backup.”
“Cover you how?”
“It’s close enough that can hit specific body parts, right? Don’t bother hitting the muscle bulk.” Vi gestures over her own body as she outlines her plan of attack. “Try to aim for the superficial bony bits —collarbone, ribs, sternum. Places where you can shatter bone, cause that shit hurts, and hopefully means you can draw its attention somewhere else.
“Stay above the waist though. I’ll be moving low, and I can’t dodge bullets and that freak’s swinging fists at the same time.” Vi’s eyes scan the space between them and the addict, moving with almost mechanical precision, appraising the alley dimensions and bookmarking any potential obstacles. “I should be able to cover that distance if you can buy me twenty good seconds.”
Caitlyn hums thoughtfully. She turns the plan over in her head. “There’s no guarantee it’ll work. We don’t even know if that thing can feel pain.”
“Well, we’re gonna have to try something.” Vi motions towards the beast, which, despite its grotesque size, has somehow managed to worm deeper into the alley, blocking the exit with its mishappen back. Its purple eyes flash hatefully at the two women. “I’m guessing we have just under ninety seconds before that thing tears us into confetti.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s say you manage to get in close and not die,” Caitlyn says. “How’re you going to cut out the back of its heel? I don’t think its going to just open its legs for you.”
“Yeah, sadly not everyone takes after you.” Caitlyn’s immediate blush opens a spurt of triumph in Vi’s chest. “That’s when you can aim below the waist. “I’m going to go for its right leg; once I’m there, I want you to shoot out its left knee. Hopefully, that’ll bend its leg, and I’ll be able to shove an arm through and cut out its ankle that way.” Vi waggles her eyebrows teasingly. “That won’t be too hard a shot for you, will it?”
“Shots rarely are.”
“Oho! I am loving this confidence, cupcake. You need to save some of that for the dumpster.”
Caitlyn flashes her tooth gap (and Vi’s heart melts) before it disappears again behind a frown. “Okay. Alright. Back to your plan. It…” she gestures helplessly, “it’ll be difficult. But it could work.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Vi looks around them one last time. “The way I see it, outside of one of us suddenly growing wings, it’s probably the only chance we have of getting out of here. The walls here have nothing for us to climb onto, and the alley’s too narrow for us to sneak beside it—”
“So our only option is to take it head-on.”
“Bingo.”
“Alright.” Caitlyn breathes deeply. “I trust your judgement. Let’s do this.”
“Nice.” Vi takes Caitlyn’s hand in hers, the steel of her duster clicking against the butt of Caitlyn’s pistol. When she leans forward, lips pressing softly against Caitlyn’s, she lets her eyes close for a single quickened heartbeat. “You better not miss,” she whispers.
“You better move quick,” Caitlyn replies. “If you can’t shoot and you can’t run, then what do you really have to offer?”
“Touching words to end on.” Turning on her heels, Vi tenses the muscles in her legs, preparing to vault over the dumpster. Her hands are slippery against the sticky metal. “We go on three, ready?”
“Ready.”
“Alright. One.”
The addict roars, as if issuing a challenge. Vi snarls back.
“Two.”
Caitlyn adjusts her grip, letting her fingers fall back into their familiar grooves. Its hefty weight, though lighter than she’d prefer, soothes her.
“Three!”
Bang!
*
Vi is a demon. A tightly woven maelstrom, whirling neatly between the raindrops, Hextech dusters glowing an ominous blue as she tears down the alleyway. Every sneakered step seems to be timed perfectly, and Caitlyn watches as Vi darts nimbly between the puddles, before coming to a sudden stop under the shadow of a small overhang.
The rise and fall of her chest is mesmerising.
God, Caitlyn thinks. I love her.
Caitlyn aims her ironsight at the monster’s right hand, which has tightened into a fist and looms like a guillotine against the oncoming pink threat. Exhaling slowly, she curls her toes inside her boots, feeling the weight of her body pressing solidly into the ground, and imagines her legs hardening into stone.
You’re a statue, she can hear Grayson saying. You are a statue and everything is still. Nothing moves. She can still feel Grayson’s warm hand on her shoulder. Take a deep breath in. Hold it. Hold it. And only on the out are you allowed to—
Then, Caitlyn tenses —the granite twitches— and the recoil of her second bullet jerks her gun back.
Her shot is good.
Her bullet, hissing thinly through the air, tears into the monster’s right hand, skimming shallowly across its knuckles before lodging into the shaft of its first finger. The energy carried by the bullet’s sudden stop translates into a contained explosion, bursting two of the addict’s fingers into broken and bloody bone.
Caitlyn almost winces.
The monster pauses, its upstretched arm wavering. Caitlyn watches as confusion writhes across its face, slowly processing the mauveine feelings dripping down its wrist and onto its toenails, thick flakes of muscle and flesh sloughing off into its palm.
An agonising second passes.
Then, it screams, cramping down and clutching its twisted hand into its chest, and Vi seizes the opportunity to dart those final few metres, rapidly closing the gap with six well-placed steps.
The monster, sensing Vi’s approach through its haze of red, instinctively closes its legs, blocking the alley entrance with a wall of maligned flesh. Caitlyn re-aims, pivoting through her hips to keep her stance locked, and fires two shots in rapid succession, listening for the characteristic lub-dub as they land home in the monster’s left knee. The monster teeters, but doesn’t fall, keeping its legs pressed tightly together.
Out the corner of her eye, Caitlyn can see it regaining some semblance of alertness, its bloodborne Shimmer overriding its pain sensors and reorienting it towards the target at its feet.
“Cover me!” Vi yells. At her call, Caitlyn swivels her aim upwards, and launches two more bullets into the monster’s neck, where its collarbone strains against its thin skin. One of them misses, burrowing into the discoloured flesh just above its pectoral, but the other lands true, shattering the monster’s left clavicle as if it were bird bone.
As Caitlyn re-adjusts her grip to go for its right side, she hears the unmistakeable whirring of Vi’s dusters —the high-pitched whine of Hextech powering up— and then an earth-shaking bang that echoes throughout the alleyway.
Almost comically, the monster’s right leg gives way and it collapses onto one knee, hunching forward onto its one good hand. Without a moment’s pause, Vi reaches through and slashes out its left heel, feeling the corrosive tingle of hot blood on her hand, before rolling rapidly backwards towards the dumpster.
The monster crumples face-first onto the rain-slicked concrete. Its scream, whistling piteously through broken teeth, fizzles out into a puddle.
Vi and Caitlyn watch it for a stunned second. The monster’s laboured breathing press against the narrow walls. Then, Vi, wiping the bloodstained knife on her jacket, vaults over the dumpster and straps it neatly back against Caitlyn’s thigh, while Caitlyn slides her pistol (sans bullets) into the holster at Vi’s hip.
Their faces, separated only by raindrops, are inches apart.
“I’ve still got two shots left,” Caitlyn murmurs.
“You really are an excellent shot.”
“And you can, it seems, run quite fast.”
“Only if it’s away from you.” Vi’s wicked grin is joined by Caitlyn’s own, and the two share a single entwined heartbeat.
Their revelry is broken, yet again, by the moan of the dark mound at the other side of the dumpster.
“We should go,” Vi whispers.
“Agreed.”
“Ladies first.”
Caitlyn rolls her eyes. “You almost sound like a Piltie.” Taking Vi’s hand, Caitlyn vaults over the dumpster and onto the monster’s back, landing neatly on the balls of her feet.
Vi pauses to grind her heel into the monster’s scalp.
Then, it’s a hop, a skip, and a jump, and the two are pelting madly down the open road, following the trail of flickering streetlights away from that accursed alley.
*
“We probably need to call someone,” Caitlyn says, as they turn left towards the central districts. The streets, cracked and scattered with potholes, are thankfully deserted.
“Who would we call?”
A pause. “The Enforcers?”
Vi scoffs. “Like they’ll be able to do shit.”
“Not unfair. Jayce?”
“I’m gonna repeat my previous sentence.”
They zigzag their way through narrow side lanes and back alleys, ears pricked for the sounds of a lumbering pursuer. Caitlyn’s pistol feels woefully light at her hip. Vi’s fingers, still tucked into her dusters, hum with a muted glow.
“Well then,” Caitlyn says, as the dazzling facade of Piltover’s city centre comes slowly into view. “Do you have any ideas?”
The gears in Vi’s head turn. She’s silent for a long moment, mentally fingering through her options, before responding. “How about… Maybe Ekko? He might have some ideas, or if nothing else, might have some leads about where this new Shimmer—” Suddenly, a bush rustles behind them.
Vi starts and skids to a halt, fists flashing fire as she turns towards the sound. She senses Caitlyn do the same beside her, rolling her shoulders and fluidly unslinging her rifle from her back.
The pair stand stock-still, eyes trained towards the offending bush. Out the corner of her eye, Caitlyn sees Vi subtly trace a circle in the air and she nods, tearing her gaze away to peruse the surrounding terrain while Vi keeps her attention focused on the bush. The darkness, broken up by flickering cones of streetlight, holds its breath.
As Caitlyn turns to inspect the space behind them, staring closely down the barrel of her rifle, she feels a bead of sweat roll down her neck. Her vision sharpens, blurring the distant lights of the city into hazy flashes.
Once Caitlyn’s swivelled through a full circle, she draws a horizontal line with the flat of her hand. All clear.
Vi nods. Continues to wait. Fingers the charge button on her dusters with her thumb.
Just as Caitlyn begins contemplating whether she should fire a warning shot or not, the bush rustles again. One rustle. Two.
Then, a small grey cat darts out from behind the bush. Vi starts, fists and face recoiling in surprise, while Caitlyn keeps her gaze locked coolly still. The cat meets eyes with the pair for a fleeting instant before dashing into the next street, mewing softly as if in apology.
The women turn back towards the bush. Another minute passes, broken only by the gentle whistling of the wind. After another negative channel sweep, the pair face each other, shrug, then turn and continue running.
“That was a waste of time,” Vi says.
“I saw you flinch just before the cat ran out. You nearly pile-drived a stray animal.”
Vi winces. “God, I know. That would’ve haunted my conscience forever.”
“This coming from the woman who, only five minutes ago, practically annihilated another human’s knee.”
“And cut out its heel. Don’t deny me credit.”
“Oh, of course.” Caitlyn’s hand flies melodramatically to her breast. “How could I possibly forget.”
“Careful, cupcake.” Vi’s eyes gleam with something wicked. “You keep that attitude up and I might just forget how to control myself.”
Caitlyn smirks. “Just as well there aren’t any dumpsters around.”
*
When they arrive back home, the pale fingers of sunrise already creeping out beyond the horizon, it’s with slumped shoulders and heavy eyelids. Vi staggers in first, her hip banging painfully against the doorjamb, slinging her dusters onto the nearby dresser and eagerly shedding her blood-splattered jacket onto the floor. The couch in the living room groans wearily under the sudden flop of her weight.
Caitlyn follows in afterwards, slender fingers carefully locking the door behind them. Nodding at the triple clicks of brass bolts sliding securely into place, she drops Vi’s jacket into the laundry basket at her feet and covers it with her own filthy coat, methodically unlacing her boots and lining them neatly by the door.
“I’m so tired,” Vi moans, her left arm draped over the couch armrest. “I feel like I’ve run from here to Zaun.”
“You essentially have,” Caitlyn says, as she moves gracefully into the kitchen. “And avoiding that monster’s hammer fists probably didn’t help either.” As she flips on the kettle, new and shiny and miraculously stain-free, she rummages around inside the pantry, emerging triumphantly with a dented cylindrical tin.
“Are you—” Vi cranes her neck up from the divot of the couch cushions. “Are you making tea?”
“It’s late. We’ve had a long night. Sounds like the perfect time for tea.”
“How are you not tired?”
Caitlyn shrugs. She pours the boiled water into two mugs and adds the final touches (a sugar cube for her and a generous slug of milk for Vi), her teaspoon tinkling in smooth familiar motions. “I’m tired but not uncivilised.” She carries the two mugs over to the living room. “I was born better than to sleep without a hot beverage.”
“Where I come from, it’s more common to sleep with a hot babe instead.”
Caitlyn looks away, a prickly flush rising through her neck and cheeks. She passes Vi her cup, deliberately holding the handle to force Vi into cradling the hot handleless curve. “How is your brain still managing corny one-liners at three in the morning?”
“To its credit,” Vi says, gingerly fingering the rim with both hands, “my brain isn’t good at many other things.” She raises the cup to her lips. “Do we have any Tim-Tams?”
“We actually just ran out of biscuits this morning.”
“Well, this evening just keeps getting worse then, doesn’t it.” Vi hisses as her too-large mouthful scalds the roof of her mouth and sets her tea down, flopping back into the couch cushions.
“That it does.” Caitlyn settles herself into the empty space by Vi’s head, placing her cup down onto a nearby coaster. She strokes Vi’s hair with her left hand, running the back of her hand against Vi’s shaved scalp and carding her roots with the tips of her fingers. “It was a good idea going to Ekko in the end.”
“It was, wasn’t it? That little furball friend of his ended up being kind of useful after all.”
“His name is Professor Heimerdinger.”
“Whatever.” Vi rolls onto her side, yielding more of her hair to Caitlyn’s featherlight touch. “He took charge of the case, which is all I care about right now.” She yawns widely. “I feel like I could sleep for a week. And after that, maybe eat about a week’s worth of food.”
“I know what you mean,” Caitlyn says, her jaw stretching as she mirrors her girlfriend. “I’m kind of dying for a burger, but I feel physically incapable of moving back into the kitchen.”
“Then don’t.” Vi’s silver eyes peek out between the gaps in Caitlyn’s fingers. “Stay here.”
“You know I will.”
“Yeah.” Vi’s eyes flutter heavily. “But,” she adds, “it’s nice to hear it anyway.”
“Mmm.” Caitlyn leans over and presses her lips softly to Vi’s exposed temple. “Go to sleep, my love. I’ll probably be joining you soon.”
“Way—” another infectious yawn, “way ahead of you. I’m T-minus thirty seconds from passing out.”
“Which means this lovely cup of tea I made you will go cold.”
“It’ll pair nicely with the horse I’m going to devour in the morning.”
“Speaking of,” Caitlyn says, “I was thinking tomorrow we could do some target practice.” She sees Vi’s lip twitch in anticipation of the jibe that’s coming. “You really need to do better than three shots out of thirteen. And three easy shots at that.”
“And after that, maybe we can do some sparring? My back’s getting sore from all the team carrying I have to do.”
“If you think your back’s sore now,” and Caitlyn’s fingers brush lightly against Vi’s hips, “wait ‘til I’m finished with you tomorrow night.”
“Oh, God.” Vi’s eyes, half-lidded as they are, are two burnished coins in the night. “You are so lucky there isn’t a dumpster here right now.”