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“...That which inspires us to our greatest good, is also the cause of our greatest evil.”
In every explosion there’s a momentary lapse, an absence of sound, a reprise. It’s always followed by the violence of the spreading chaos that inevitably accompanies such a force of destruction. It is in that moment that your heart pumps blood into your whole being, before your body flies away, hitting the ground hard.
Is in that vacuum that VI turns Jinx’s body away from the heat of the wave, protecting her smaller frame from the worst of the damage, both flying away propelled by the explosion’s wave. They fall onto the ground; their ears ringing, dust and dirt piling up on their faces, in their noses. It is unclear how much time they stay there passed out surrounded by the dead and the hurt. A cacophony of cries, whimpers and pained moans fill their ears.
A sudden rush of blue in her periphery makes VI regain part of her conscience, lifting herself as she cradles Jinx to her body to watch Caitlyn awkwardly stand in front of her and her sister, her rifle pointed at the horizon. Rolling part of her body to the side she catches a glimpse of a bulky shadow in the smoke of the aftermath.
“You will regret betraying me,” Ambessa says as she holds Rictus’ body in her arms, her eyes fixated on Caitlyn. Two of her bodyguards flank her, ready to launch themselves should the occasion arise.
The Commander stands her ground, her lips pursued into a tight line. “The blade cuts both ways.”
A deep frown surges in Ambessa’s face, her eyes firing up with repressed rage. “Retreat and regroup! Now!” With a last look, she turns around and starts walking back to the Noxian camp, her silhouette disappearing in the horizon.
Jinx stirs in Vi’s arms, awakening, her voice hoarse. “Isha?”
Caitlyn turns toward the voice of her. She aims her rifle low, ready to shoot as Jinx pushes Vi from her and spurs into action, getting up. “Isha??” She stumbles towards the hulking figure of Vander laying on the floor surrounded by millions of blue sparks. Part of his torso is missing and blood soaks the ground that surrounds him.
Vi raises up Jinx drop on her knees, a hand on Vander’s leg, the other raised up, palm open up as she catches the sparks that slowly fall and disappear onto the ground. “There’s nothing…” she says, her vision moving between Vander’s body and the floating lights. “No, it can't be!”
A crack. Jinx's hands raise to her head, tears freely flowing from her eyes onto Vander’s blood. Her body twitches.
Vi walks slowly towards her sister, holding onto her bloodied torso. “Jinx...I’m so, so sorry,” she extends a hand towards her sister but is quickly snapped away. Two frenzied pink eyes turn to look at her.
“She is not dead. They cannot be dead...Shut up! Shut up! Shut-up!!” Jinx pushes Vi as she lunges forward, her body stumbling towards her pistol and grabs it, emptying of the three spheres.
“Jinx…” Vi tries again to make contact but she’s instantly rebuked. “Jinx, please!” Tears drop from her face too, but cannot – will not – mourn now. Not when she’s losing her sister all over again. “I am here!”
In the back, Caitlyn stares in silence, rifle still in hand but aimed to the floor.
Looking from the pistol to the falling sparks, a wail breaks from Jinx, raising up to the ceiling like a thrown spear, shaking the core of the few present. Her body twitches again as she reaches for Isha’s helmet, holding it close to her body as she breaks into a frantic run, away from the bodies, from the battle leaving bloody footprints behind her.
---
They make good time back to the surface, Caitlyn lugging Vi on her shoulders a reversal of their previous roles when Jinx bombed the Council. It didn’t take them longer than an hour but the damage is obvious as the reach the first checkpoint, signals of a fierce battle left behind.
“Halt!” A man’s voice stops them on their tracks, multiple rifles pointed at them. They slowly fall when they see who they are aiming at. “Commander? We though the worst!” Heavy doors open in front of them, Enforcers flooding out and helping them inside. One of them salutes Caitlyn. “The Noxians betrayed us, they started attacking all of our security points and then retreated.”
There’s a change in Caitlyn’s stance. Her back straightens and her voice gets cold. She carefully hands Vi to one of the enforcers that’s been working on patching up their comrades. “Get her medical help.” The medical enforcer instantly switches to Vi, cutting her bandages up and checking her wounds. Vi flinches when she feels alcohol on her open torso, but keeps quiet as she watches the scene unravel.
“Officer, sound the alarm immediately,” Caitlyn speaks to the first enforcer that addressed her. She keeps talking as she walks up to an improvised chest and grabs a new grenade for her rifle and two more that she hangs on her belt. “The Noxians are officially traitors to Piltover and are to be treated as such.” A couple of metallic clanks and her rifle is safely hung on her back. “Close all entrances to the city. No one, and I repeat, no one is shall come in or out.”
A chorus of affirmations and salutes precedes to a chaos of people moving back and forth. Vi quietly curses as her wounds are covered in clean bandages. “It is not a deep cut, but you shouldn’t be-” the enforcer is pushed aside as Vi gets up and follows Caitlyn who’s started walking towards the city center. “Yeah whatever you say man.”
She walks behind Caitlyn, knowing the path that leads to her house by heart by now. Along the path multiple enforcers stop and salute at their Commander.
There’s voices inside the house when they reach the front door. A heated discussion can be heard from outside clearly.
“We need to send a party to look for the Commander.”
“First we need to secure the city! We can’t let them-”
Caitlyn opens the door with intent. “That won’t be necessary officers,” she walks in, towards Maddie and Steb who remains stunned at her sudden presence.
“Commander!” Maddie is the first to recover, her body itching to give Caitlyn a salute but knowing to keep it professional when she’s got that face. The face of The Commander she would recognize anyway, a face that she’s used to see more than that of Caitlyn’s. She finally sees Vi coming inside. “Vi?”
“Hey Maddie, Steb. Long time no see.”
Caitlyn heads into the office room she keeps her investigation board in and places her rifle on one of the green velvet armchairs that her mother used to enjoy reading on so much. The rest of the group follows behind, Vi leaning against the wall to support herself. It’s up again to Maddie to break the silence.
“What happened, Commander?”
Her back turned to the others, she pins a new face to the board, Ambessa’s. She pointedly ignored Maddie’s real question.
“The city is closed. We are at war with the Noxians,” she turns to the enforcers. “You’re both to round up all the higher officers and inform them of an urgent meeting in the morning. Until them, they are to double up the patrols.”
Both officers nod and salute, their faces serious. Caitlyn reciprocates, a sliver of pain showing in her face from the movement.
“Commander, are you hurt?” Maddie steps forward with worried look on her face.
Caitlyn raises a hand towards the girl, stopping her in her tracks. “You’re dismissed.”
Vi watches as both officers look at each other, conflicted between their duty and their worry but finally they turn towards the door. The Commander’s voice stops them before they can leave.
“Officers, Noxian soldiers are raised in blood and battle. They will not hesitate to murder us.” A hard look. “Do not take them from granted.”
Steb and Maddie nod in silence, closing the door behind them as they finally leave.
“No one like you to know the Noxians, huh?” Vi crosses her arms as she addresses Caitlyn, a hand resting over her wounds.
Caitlyn eyes narrows at these words. “I’ve trained with Ambessa, learned part of their ways. Of course I know.”
Snorting, Vi leans up from the wall. “Yeah no shit, how long were you sidle up with that self-serving war pig?” Her tone raises in volume, accusation painted on her face.
Teeth gritted, Caitlyn hands tense, the leather of her gloves creaking.
“She oinked poison in your ear-” Vi points a finger at Caitlyn, “-and you just ate it!” The last words are not spoken, they are spat onto her face, just like inside Ambessa’s tent.
Sometimes fires up in Caitlyn. Her hands move to one of the armchairs and with a force she doesn’t know she possessed she throws it onto the ground, the floor cracking under the weight. Her breathing gets heavy, eyes wide and teeth bared. “I know!”
Vi recoils surprised at the sudden act of violence. “Then, why? Why do it?”
Caitlyn slides a hand over her face, closing her eyes. “I did what I had to do to protect my people.”
“Calling martial law? Flooding the Undercity with enforcers?” A beat. “Leaving me behind?”
Feeling like she’s been slapped on the face, Caitlyn turns towards Vi. “You weren’t ready to kill Jinx, but she was ready to destroy Piltover!”
“What? That’s not-”
“Do not take me for an idiot Vi! I saw your hesitation. I saw the doubt.”
“There was a child, for fucks sake Caitlyn!”
Engrossed in their argument, both women moved closed to each other, poking and pointing at each other.
“You can lie to yourself Vi, but when I saw you with Jinx I knew I was right. You were never with us, you were never with me. I couldn’t risk your hesitation again!”
“Fuck you! That’s not true. You were out of yourself Caitlyn!”
“Because every time you hesitate my people pay the prize!”
All air leaves Vi’s lungs, Caitlyn’s words reaching and pulling at her heartstrings. Was that true? “No...I wanted to help.”
“You left twice Vi.”
Vi frowns at these words. “And I came back.”
“For me, or for Jinx?”
Silence falls onto both women, only the soft creaking of the fire filling the void left behind. Sighing, Vi pulls up the armchair and sits on it body leaning forward and arms resting on her legs, her sigh focusing on the dancing of the tiny flames under the logs.
“Then why did you help Jinx and I?” Caitlyn’s figure silently moves beside her, taking the other armchair and gracefully resting on it, flinching as her shoulder touches the back of the chair.
“Because if I had a second chance at saving my mother, I would take it,” says Caitlyn as she slips her gloves off and warms her hands with the fire. “Plus, I didn’t fully trust Ambessa. Too many loose strings. Too many open questions.”
Vi smiles at the last addition, accompanied by a small chuckle. “That’s more like you, cupcake.”
For a short moment, Caitlyn enjoys the feeling of that word. The memories of more hopeful times when she felt she could make everything better, fix the city. Make the people happy. Of impossible times.
“Do not call me that.”
Surprised, Vi turns towards Caitlyn and looks at her face, lost in another place the light of the flames dancing on her skin, marred with dirt and cuts.
“Ambessa will not stop at Piltover Vi, once she’s taken everything from us, killed, turned or hung all of us she will go for Zaun” she continues as she leans her head on her hand. “This is Noxus we are talking about. They thrive in war and we...we pull at each others hair like children.”
There’s a hint of tiredness on Caitlyn’s eyes, one that Vi is starting to understand no one is usually allowed to see.
“I am responsible of all these peoples lives, responsible of the problem I created.”
Vi can sympathize with those words. Behind the creaking fire she can see the Kiramann’s blazon, a clear reminder of her own mistakes.
“...She will die under my hands, or I will die under hers.”
Those words cut through Vi like a fine blade. Emotions well inside her, puke raising to her throat. All of this is too familiar, a repetition, a never ending cycle of violence. It must stop. For Vander, for the Kiramann’s, for Piltover, for Zaun. She grabs Caitlyn’s closest hand with her own, the feeling of her callous skin a contrast to how soft they used to be.
“No,” she speaks with determination. “You’re not alone Caitlyn. Let’s stop this together, as we were meant to do. For our cities.”
Finally, there she is. Not the Commander, not the Kiramann heir. They stare at each other as they are; two lost souls in a sea of chaos, surviving the waves onslaught as best at they can willing to risk everything they have to protect what’s close to their hearts.
Caitlyn holds Vi’s hand tenderly, her thumb sliding softly over the back of it. She breathes out, feeling a bit lighter. There’s a lot to fix, a lot of pain to heal but this...this she will take. A start.
“Okey, together.”
They remain silent for a while, enjoying the small contact and the comforting crackle of the flames. A knock on the door interrupts their short moment of peace, with Caitlyn addressing it.
“Yes?”
A nervous voice, sounds muted behind the door. “Sorry to bother Commander Kiramman but Counsilor Talis he…he is back ma’am.”
The tall woman shoots up from the armchair at these words. How? When?
“Jayce?”