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Caitlyn knew better to believe that Vi would side with her again, yet here she sits, hours, maybe minutes before an all out war with the Noxians, and all she can do is clean her gun and listen for the door to burst open. To hear Vi’s voice asking for the atlas gauntlets (and maybe armor, but that’s just more of Caitlyn’s wishful thinking) and telling her that she’s ready to fight to keep her sister alive and Zaun safe.
But as far as Caitlyn knows, Vi is in her apartment down in Zaun, near the pits, where she has seemingly fashioned a new prison for herself. I wish you’d never let me out she’d said to Caitlyn’s face (Caitlyn will never regret that, no matter their circumstances, Vi was always too good a person to have been there) Everything’s my fault, everything’s gone to shit because I let them. Those were her last words before trudging away from Caitlyn. She found and had asked Loris to keep track of Vi ever since they parted ways (since she left her, broken and sobbing), to which he raised an eyebrow breaking the normally unreadable facade of his face but he asked no questions and only said “She’s my friend, I was going to check after her anyway.”
If Caitlyn were more honest with herself, she’d have gone down to the pits, gone down to get Vi out of there before it seeped in too deep into her. But pride and a sickening desire for vengeance had kept her away. Now that she and Jinx were in a touchy truce, all to defeat the Noxians, Caitlyn had sent word to Vi (or at least to her ‘manager’, though he’s more slave master than manager) about the truce, in hopes that Vi will come back and fight alongside them. But the note she had sent was opened, written hastily on and sent back.
‘You don’t need me.’
Disbelief would be an understatement for Caitlyn’s reaction. There were too many words running through her mind: disappointment, exasperation, hopelessness, take your pick. Jinx laughed to her face during their so-and-so battle planning.
“Why the long face, princess? My sister’s answer not to your liking?” Caitlyn merely answered that Vi will not be fighting. “Who? Vi? As if. Fighting is the one thing she’s good at. Well other than taking punches with her face. She’ll come.”
With a shrug, Jinx turns away, shifting focus back to her… gadgets. Ekko’s face remains unreadable, so Caitlyn can’t even gauge whether he thinks Vi will arrive or not.
Which brings her back to the barracks where she currently lies in wait. The Noxians were due to come any minute and Caitlyn isn’t under any false pretense thinking that their small legion of enforcers and the fighters from Zaun were going to overwhelm the orderly Noxians. If anything, Caitlyn fears the bloodbath soon to come. But Ambessa had been unwilling to talk. It was Jinx and Hextech or nothing, even at the expense of thousands. Caitlyn can hardly believe that she agreed with her mere months ago.
She’s set to step out any moment to speak to the force that she’ll be leading in the battle, and outside her door awaits Maddie, Steb and Loris. The glaring lack of Vi’s presence in their strike team looms over their shoulder, as if the space still carries Vi’s presence. She honestly has half a mind to shirk her duties and leave through the window (Vi has rubbed off of her she supposes) and run to Vi all the way down in Zaun to speak to her, but even Vi would call her out on that. So instead she stays here, finishes cleaning her gun, an activity more for her own nerves than out of necessity.
Caitlyn looks down on the note with Vi’s writing, crumpled and dirtied from the trip it made to get back to her, and pockets it inside her armor. When all’s said and done, she will do her damndest to show Vi that she did in fact need her.