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Footsteps approach the cell, and Vi’s knuckles are throbbing.
It’s Caitlyn, it has to be—all the guards are at the Hexgates, and there’s no one else that’d know—
“Damn, what happened to you?”
Vi spins around, fists already raised, and deflates just as quickly when she sees a familiar ginger standing on the other side of the bars. She wracks her brain for a name to go along with the hair and, quite frankly, the annoying accent, and sighs as it comes to her.
“Maddie,” she returns, lacing her fingers together behind her neck and sliding down the wall, knees drawn to her chest. The clinking of keys echoes around the empty cell, and then Maddie is there, sighing and sitting down next to her. Vi shouldn’t question how Maddie knows she’s here—she’s seen the glances at Caitlyn, the uncomfortable atmosphere between them, and Vi’s not stupid. At least not when it comes to this. “Caitlyn send ya?”
“Something like that,” Maddie hums. “Jinx escape again, or did ya let her go?”
“The second thing,” Vi admits and doesn’t raise her eyes from her knees. No point in lying anymore. “I really thought she’d changed.”
“Yes, well,” Maddie sighs, then cracks her neck, “the dangers of sentimentality, I suppose. No room for that in war.”
Vi snorts in spite of herself. For a moment… “You sound like that war lady, Ambessa.”
“Funny,” Maddie laughs, then sobers up quickly. “You know, I have to ask… what did you say to Cait to change her mind about General Medarda?”
A pang of jealousy, bitter and potent, echoes in Vi’s stomach at Maddie apparently being familiar enough with Caitlyn to use that nickname, but she grits her teeth and powers through it. She’s made her bed.
“Nothing,” Vi says, shrugging her shoulders. “One minute she was makin’ me eat dirt, and the next… well, you said it yourself, I guess. Sentimentality, huh?” She tries to smile; it feels like a grimace.
“Right,” Maddie says, as if Vi has given a credible answer. As if Vi can do anything right these days. “Well,” Maddie says, leaning up on her rifle to stand up, “wouldn’t want our best fighter to catch a cold because her ass was on cold concrete right before the battle, so up ya go.”
She offers a hand that Vi reluctantly takes and lets herself be pulled to her feet; the ginger is deceptively strong.
“After you,” Maddie gestures with a flourish, allowing a small smile to crack through. Vi doesn’t return it; she can barely keep herself from crying right now, so she just walks past Maddie and heads towards the door.
“Thanks, I guess,” Vi mumbles, rubbing her eyes. What does it fucking matter if she catches a cold, what does it matter if she fucking dies tomorrow; her sister is gone, lost more times than Vi can count, and Caitlyn probably hates her now too—
It happens quickly: sudden movement in the corner of her eye, a loud crack, pain in the back of her head, and then—
Nothing.
Vi has disappeared.
Caitlyn can’t say she was surprised when she arrived at Jinx’s cell to find it empty, only… disappointed, she supposes. And somewhat resigned to the emptiness of that cell migrating to her ribcage and settling there, achingly cold and desolate. Nothing surprising about that.
Vi loves with her whole heart, Caitlyn knows this. Knows Jinx—Powder, both, whichever—to be Vi’s last remaining family, and Vi is nothing if not loyal. Of course she’s chosen Jinx, Caitlyn had counted on it; she just hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. It’s Vi’s bleeding heart, kept under bloodied wraps and a sarcastic veneer, that made Caitlyn fall in love with her in the first place, and so it makes sense that it’s the reason Caitlyn’s own heart ends up broken.
She walks like a ghost back up to her room from the cell.
People stop her on the way up occasionally, last-minute questions of tactics and decisions and Caitlyn nods to them all, murmurs words she doesn’t recall only moments later, and continues up, until the door of her room closes behind her with a soft click and then she’s finally, blessedly alone.
She doesn’t cry.
Someone’s cleaned her uniform and armour, her boots, her mask, and they gleam on her bed—a shiny mess of leather and metal, polished to perfection. Her rifle lies in its case on her desk.
Methodically, mechanically, she undresses—boots, socks, turtleneck, pants. She’d take a shower, but she still sometimes flinches at blue-haired ghosts in the steamed-up mirrors when she does, and she doesn’t particularly want a reminder of Jinx right now. Instead, she pulls on her uniform and armour—trousers, shirt, belt, boots, and one clasp of armour at a time, until she’s nothing but a collection of black and blue and gold. She leaves her mask aside.
The rifle is… well, perfectly polished, truly, but Caitlyn takes her kit and sets to taking it apart, one bolt after another; it lies on her desk, a mess of gleaming parts as she begins to clean it methodically, mind devoid of any thoughts of Vi and Jinx and her mother.
The candlelight flickers and glints as the city outside her window begins to wind down and darken, one distant light disappearing after the other. Time passes without any awareness of it on her end. Her rifle sits assembled on her desk again, cleaned and tightened and deadly again.
Caitlyn doesn’t go to sleep. Today, she prepares for battle. Afterwards, she grieves.
A punch. Another. Another.
The last one knocks out a molar that’s been loose since Stillwater, and Vi groans; spits it out to land at the feet of some random Noxian bastard, whichever one it was that stepped in to replace the big bearded fucker that almost killed Cait.
“My— my sister, please—”
“What’s that?” Ambessa asks from the corner where she sits, arms crossed as she leans forward.
“I— please, get my sister,” Vi rasps, and shit, even Stillwater guards gave her some time to breathe between punches, if nothing to give her hope that the beatings were over before they’d start all over again; sick amusement and all that. “She— she punches harder than this fuck.”
“Funny,” Ambessa says with a nod towards the veritable Noxian mountain standing over Vi, and he rears his arm back for another punch. “You know, Violet, you don’t just have information that I want—”
The punch lands as the last word leaves her mouth, and fuck, there goes another rib. Bruised at best, broken at worst, and Vi doubles over—or, she would, if her hands weren’t restrained behind her back. No handcuffs this time; Ambessa’s learned her lesson. As it stands, Vi’s head hangs low as she tries to breathe, tries to grit her teeth and centre herself with the pain soaring through every single nerve ending in her body.
It’s nothing. It’s just another day at Stillwater. Just another day. Just—
“Fucking get on with it,” Vi groans, the taste of blood long-familiar as she swallows, “and get to the fucking point.”
Ambessa stands, walking leisurely around the tent as she picks up some things that Vi can’t discern from how swollen her left eye is. At a sharp tilt of her head, the Noxian soldier salutes with a fist to his chest and exits the tent. Guess the boss bitch wants to get her hands dirty, then.
“As I was saying,” Ambessa murmurs as something small and metal clinks as it lands on the ground behind Vi, where the hearth is, “it’s not just information you can give me.” She drags a chair over, the one she was sitting in just moments before, letting the feet slide across the ground.
“Sorry lady, but my heart’s promised to another, and I don’t do threesomes,” Vi says, grinning as sleazily as she can with a mouth full of blood and a split lip, staring up at Ambessa as she takes a seat right in front of Vi.
Ambessa smiles, a cold and dangerous twitch of her mouth that freaks Vi out more than any punches before it had.
“Yes, young Ms. Kiramman, isn’t it?” Ambessa says conversationally as she twirls a glinting, golden knife she’d put in her lap around her fingers. “I’d warned her of the dangers of professional entanglement, but at least it was my agent she was getting entangled with, no? You, however… well, neither of us would be in this situation if you’d just stayed away like a good pup.”
She punctuates the statement with a casual flick of her wrist, an afterthought of a movement that sends the blade in her hand slashing across Vi’s biceps. The line she leaves blossoms with red immediately, and Vi sucks in a sharp breath but otherwise lets out no sound.
“P-pup, huh? That a— a kink, or something?” she mumbles through gritted teeth. Just another day in Stillwater. Just another day.
“Or something,” Ambessa murmurs, something like amusement colouring her voice. “I let you live because you weren’t a threat when you were at the bottom of the nearest bottle, but now I fear you’re dealing with far bigger things—”
“Ha, that’s— that’s what she said—” Another cut, this time across her cheek; right through her tattoo. A few droplets of blood fall onto her already ruined shirt. Fuck.
“—far bigger things than you can comprehend,” Ambessa continues like she wasn’t interrupted. “Unfortunately for you, Kiramman is needed for those things, and you’re far too big a liability to release. Nothing personal, child, you understand.”
Ambessa stands, walking around Vi and returns only moments later, holding a different, larger knife; the blade is so heated it nearly glows white, and the air around it swirls from the heat. Vi’s heart drops to her stomach; she grits her teeth.
“You can still provide information—tactics, numbers, unit positions—and I’ll consider leniency. A painless death.”
Just another day in Stillwater. Just another—
“Now, let’s see if you are—how did you put it?—worth my time.”
Fucking Maddie.
That traitorous, conniving little…
Caitlyn should be worried about the gun pointed at the back of her head, should be listening to Ambessa narrating what is no doubt meant to be her execution, except—
Except Ambessa’s soldiers are dragging someone up the stairs to the plaza, someone in ripped black jeans and with a bag over their head. But there’s a strand of pink hair peeking out from under the sack and— and tattoos up her arms, which are mottled with bruises and cuts, tied behind her back and oh, God, her shirt has bloodstains on it, and her feet are dragging in a way that seems like it’s painful to move them and oh fuck, oh fuck.
The back of Vi’s shin is kicked by the soldier leading her and she falls—crumples—to her knees, a muffled whine of pain Caitlyn can hear from all the way over here and then Caitlyn’s moving, pure instinct and fear fuelling every move because they can’t have her, not her, never her.
Caitlyn twists, lightning-fast, expecting the gunshot from Maddie in response but she’s directed it away already as she grasps the barrel of the rifle firmly, bringing it back hard on Maddie’s nose with a truly satisfying crack. The other woman stumbles back but Caitlyn’s already pushing up to her feet, reloading with a flick of her wrist and raising the rifle—
Sharp, searing pain in her side and Ambessa’s there, quick as a snake as she brings the blade firmly into Caitlyn’s stomach.
“Desperation is the doorway to oblivion, child,” she says like she’s imparting some great wisdom. Caitlyn needs her to shut the fuck up.
At least she keeps the blade in, letting Caitlyn fall to her knees with a hand around the small, metal hilt of the blade. So, she won’t bleed to death here, only have her head gain an extra hole. Maddie wipes her face of blood with a sneer, her nose crooked.
“I did appreciate your warmth,” she says, as if Caitlyn gives a fuck what she appreciated or didn’t. Across the plaza, another Noxian soldier raises a rifle and puts it to where Vi’s temple is beneath the sack, and Caitlyn’s heart begins beating in her ears in a panicked drumbeat. She can’t die, Caitlyn’s already let her go, she was supposed to go and live—
A minuscule shift of air from the barrel moving caresses the back of her neck and oh, she vaguely realises, Maddie’s not aiming for the head. No quick death then, but choking on her own blood. Well. Insult to injury, then.
She waits for the shot, powerless to fight her way to Vi, powerless to stop this. Memories begin flashing through her head—that’s what’s supposed to happen before you die, right? Warm memories of her mother, her father, Jayce, Vi; stealing pastries from her kitchen to bring back to her room, infectious giggles with her best friend in his lab, stolen kisses in a damp, dark place just before she fucked up. They could have had so much more time.
The tightening of Maddie’s finger on the trigger is almost audible, or maybe Caitlyn imagines but—
Two shots ring out.
There’s no pain.
There— there should have been pain.
Something heavy and warm falls onto her shoulder and when she opens her eyes it’s ginger hair sliding down and onto the floor, a bloody trail on her shoulder. Maddie is staring unseeing, blood already soaking the floor, the bullet that was meant for Caitlyn in her head. But Caitlyn doesn’t spare her more than a moment’s glance—her head snaps up and oh sweet Janna, thank you Mel—
The hum of golden energy behind her dissipates, and so does the one around the Noxian soldier falling to his knees next to Vi, whose shoulders are hunched by her ears, likely expecting the same thing as Caitlyn.
Mel is saying something behind her, exchanging words with Ambessa; but then there’s music and a floating contraption hurtling towards them, painted in neon blues and purples and Caitlyn had never thought she’d be glad to see Jinx but guess things really do change. There are explosions and fighting as Zaun joins the fight, clashes of metal on metal and disgusting noises of flesh being torn, gunshots and—
Vi.
Forgotten in the chaos, she’s managed to get her hands twisted in front of her, sack thrown off her head and she’s breathing deeply, looking up at her sister’s flying contraption but Caitlyn can’t focus on anything at the sight of her face, black and blue, nose broken and a cut below her swollen eye that’s bleeding profusely. Vi turns her head then, like she senses eyes on her and when hers meet Caitlyn’s, Caitlyn wants to cry. Wants to run to her, to take her in her arms and kill Ambessa right after, make her hurt the same way she’s made Vi hurt—
Something explodes.
Every bone and muscle in her body aches, but Caitlyn manages to stumble to her feet, hand still gripping the hilt of the blade inside her stomach. She looks at the rubble as the smoke clears; she should’ve known the egg-like thing would be a decoy.
White-golden… automatons? People? Whatever they are, run by faster than Caitlyn’s eyes can track them, and Noxians fall into formation, surrounding them as she hobbles towards where Mel and Ambessa are once again exchanging words, as Mel pleads for her mother to listen to reason.
Caitlyn doesn’t hear the words exchanged, doesn’t care for them at all anymore—as Ambessa smirks again, looks down at her hand wraps and begins to open her mouth for another snarky, cynical retort, Caitlyn rears her arm back—
—and lands the hardest punch she can muster right on Ambessa’s cheek.
“Shut up and fight.”
Vi is screaming.
She thought she was all screamed out, throat hoarse and raw from the noises that left her at Ambessa’s sadistic hands, but for Caitlyn it seems like there’s more pain to feel, more sobs to let out.
“Cait! Cait! No, no, no, no—”
She’s hobbling as fast as she can towards the plaza, all the bruises and cuts and broken bones irrelevant in the face of this because she can’t lose her, not her, never her.
Mel is kneeling on the blood-stained floor, Ambessa’s large body clutched close but Vi pays them no mind, walks around them with steps too heavy for it to be good, to be fixable, but she doesn’t care, she needs Caitlyn, needs to see her, needs—
“Vi,” Caitlyn manages weakly as Vi drops to her knees next to her. She’s deathly pale and oh Janna, there’s so much blood, an angry red line across her left eye and Vi’s seen this kind of injury before, knows at once what this means. And fuck, there’s a knife wound in Cait’s gut, too, more blood pouring over Caitlyn’s fingers as they cover the wound and someone call a medic, please— “You’re safe.”
“Cait,” Vi murmurs, crying again, desperate, heavy sobs that wrack her entire frame. “I’m— I’m sorry, I didn’t leave, I promise I didn’t, I stayed, I’m here. Please don’t go Cait, I can’t lose you again, I can’t—”
“I’m here,” Caitlyn says, then takes Vi’s hand. It’s warm, and she gives it a light kiss—the knuckles are bruised and bloody, and Caitlyn doesn’t know whose blood is on her mouth—Vi’s or her own. “I’m right here, Violet. They’re not taking you away from me ever again.”
The prophet reappears at the top of the tower as their lips meet in a tender kiss and golden tendrils swoop down towards them.