Chapter 1

"Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooored."

My complaint came off less like a word and more like an animalistic grumble, echoing through the near-empty precinct offices not loud enough to sound like a shout, but just loud enough to cut through the white noise of rain gently pattering on the windows a few feet away. I let my arms hang limply, dangling on either side of the office chair I had made my own, and crossed my legs on the edge of the desk in front of me, pushing the chair back on its wheels until it felt like it would slip out from under me. It did.

I shouted with surprise as the back of my head landed on the thinly-carpeted floor, and for a few moments afterward the sound of the rain was drowned out by a steady stream of heated expletives as I rubbed the back of my head in an effort to make the sudden, throbbing pain stop by threatening the sensation with promises of bodily harm. It didn't make any sense, but swearing made it hurt less, so… go science?

"I've told you a thousand times not to do that," a voice said to me with an air of calm that barely managed to hide the boredom of the speaker. "This is an office environment, not our house."

I got to my feet and righted the chair, the fingers of one hand threaded through the pink dreadlocks spurting like a ponytail from the base of my skull, scratching incessantly. "I still think it's stupid that I have to stick around," I commented with annoyance, firing a glance at the speaker who sat all prim and proper a few desks away. "There's nothing to do but sit here and watch you read case files, and believe me, this episode of 'Cupcake Does Police Stuff' has been nowhere near as interesting as the golden ages of episodes five through eleventy-jillion."

The woman sitting at the desk tore her eyes from the files in front of her long enough to fire me an irritated glare, and it was just the reaction that brought a smile to my face. Sheriff Caitlyn, the woman in charge of the entire police force of the city of Piltover, was a ravishing beauty, with hair the color of midnight that almost looked violet in the right light and eyes of a piercing, cold blue that made her 'serious face' the kind of thing that terrified those criminals aware of her storied reputation. She had a slim figure, the kind that seemed weak until you saw her in action, where her speed and agility betrayed the athletic muscle hiding under her pale skin.

Her lips wore a shade of lipstick just a few shades darker than normal, the sort of thing that accentuated her features without being flat-out garish, and it made them look great even when pursed tightly in either thought or annoyance, as they were now. She turned her eyes back to the case file and brushed at her brow, ever-so-slightly tousling the sheet of her hair that ran down her neck and along her throat, curving softly above her (cough) ample chest. It was the sort of thing that seemed designed to tempt men and women alike, and even as a girl I found it hard to keep my eyes from following that hair down further. In fact, that's exactly what it was- a design, a cultivated, calculated beauty that was every bit as lovely as it could be, which served as a disarming tactic that helped hide the majority of her absolutely vicious and razor-sharp intellect. There was a reason she was the top dog on the food chain around this precinct, and it wasn't her good looks.

"If you want something to do," she said softly, her accent carrying with it an air of class and dignified status, "Then stop hurting yourself on other officers' chairs and come sort through case files with me." Her tone was measured, contained, and perfectly businesslike. Pretty much the opposite of mine.

"But Caaaaaaaaaait," I moaned, "That's the boring paperwork crap. I wanna rough somebody up, shake somebody down, scare the piss out of a jaywalker or a drunk driver or something." I pantomimed air jabs as I did, the movements as natural as breathing, and I could only wish there was someone at the receiving end so that I'd have something to do. Anything at all… excluding paperwork.

"Believe it or not, Vi," Caitlyn responded with that same measured tone, "This 'boring paperwork' is exactly the sort of thing you have in store for you now that you've been appointed to deputy status. Another requirement of the job is that you show up when I show up and you leave when I leave. We've been over this," she added with the tone of an annoyed mother, "Several times in fact."

"And yet you still haven't learned that I don't listen," I sighed as I sat back down in the chair. "What the hell am I supposed to do then, just twiddle my thumbs and wait for someone to show up and say 'please punch me, I stole candy from an orphan'?" I started to lean back again, but when I felt the wheels move the slightest bit I scrambled to regain balance before the back of my head got a sequel to its current pain.

"How much do you remember of your Academy training?" Caitlyn asked as she closed a case file and rested it atop a neat pile of other files on the desk.

"You mean that forced bootcamp you put me through when I signed up?" I asked as I rested my hands on my stomach, my fingers woven together. "The gun training, the grappling exercises- those were a lot of fun- and especially the part on interrogation. Well, the fun parts of interrogation, at least."

"What do you recall of the crime-solving process?"

I blinked. "There's a process?"

Caitlyn's groan of frustration was almost too quiet to hear, but I still heard it. She was trying really hard to not let it get to her, and despite her cast iron will, irritation was chipping away at her. "Your job was to punch criminals in the face, Vi," she said in an attempt to appeal to my base instincts, which was a resounding success.

"Correct," I replied with a grin.

"How do you think I decided who to send you after for the past few years?" she asked in as leading a question as she could manage.

I knew where she was headed, but why ruin the fun by playing along? "I dunno, spin the bottle?"

I could almost see a vein in Caitlyn's temple start to bulge. "Come over here, Vi." Her words were tight, restrained, and clipped very short. I smiled, got up and walked over obediently- hey, I may be snarky and sarcastic, but I'm not stupid enough to disobey Caitlyn when I've already been bugging the hell out of her. What do you take me for? "Since you're so eager to do something," she said as she thumbed through the numerous manila folders on the desk, "I want you to take a look through these files and choose one that you'll investigate starting tomorrow. I won't let you leave- or sleep here- until you've chosen one to my discretion."

My expression settling into something resembling a death row inmate awaiting execution as Caitlyn sorted out the case files into two separate stacks and pushed one towards me. "But Cait-"

"No complaining, Vi," she interrupted, her voice allowing absolutely no budging on the matter. "This is the sort of thing you have to learn sooner or later. Investigations aren't all action; believe it or not, occasionally there's police work involved."

I frowned as I pulled a chair from a nearby desk belonging to another absent officer who had vacated the precinct at the end of his shift like I wished I could do. We weren't in Caitlyn's fancy sheriff's office due to some recent fumigation, and mine… well, if you could wade through the trashed paperwork and discarded car parts I'd dragged in to tinker with, you were free to use the desk if you could find it under the rubble. So we sat in the main office area among the rows of detectives' desks, using their chairs and writing with their pens like we owned the place. It wasn't nearly the power fantasy I had hoped for.

Grumbling loud enough for Caitlyn to hear, I grabbed the top file on the stack, opened it, skimmed it just long enough for my brain to hurriedly verify that, yes, there was paper in there, then closed it and plopped it back down on the desk. "I'll do this one," I said with no small amount of annoyance, as if Caitlyn was asking me to do something terribly painful and unexciting, which was absolutely true.

The sheriff met my gaze evenly, and I saw a smile creep over her mouth. "Which case would that be?" she asked quietly.

"Hit-and-run," I answered shortly, trying to make it sound like I totally understood what I had read and wasn't just bluffing out of my backside. "I'll run the plates and see what vehicle it's registered to, and then nab the guy for questioning." I wasn't sure of half of what I had said, but I remembered Caitlyn saying it before, so I ran with it.

She couldn't hide the amused glitter in her eyes, which let me know how completely wrong I was before she said anything. "Is that what that file said?" she asked warmly as she reached over and gently uplifted it from its resting place amidst the other files.

"Yeah, I read it," I lied.

"Interesting," Caitlyn replied as she held it ready to open, but kept it closed between her thumb and forefinger. "I could have sworn the first file on that stack involved a series of safety violations at the Yordle Academy involving golem programming and the use of research that likely originated from Zaun and is therefore highly unethical and illegal to use in construction." She loosened her grip and the file fell open to the front page, as if she had mentally commanded it to do so. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. "Oh, what do you know? I was right."

I jutted out my lower lip in a frown that threatened to suck my furrowed brow and narrowed eyes into my nose. Caitlyn seemed unfazed and instead returned the file to the top of my stack and let the smile emphasize how little she cared for my perceived torment. "You have a job to do, Vi. One case, and you have to be able to explain it to me."

I snatched the file from the top of the stack and glared at it as if I wanted it to burst into flames. At the top of the first page, printed in big bold letters that I wouldn't have missed had I cared in the first place, read 'CASE B-1784: INFRACTIONS RELATING TO ZAUNITE RESEARCH PRACTICES AND HAZARDOUS GOLEM CONSTRUCTION'. Damn it, I hated being called out. I looked up to see the slightest hint of smug satisfaction on Caitlyn's face, but when I opened my mouth to shoot something back at her I realized she had taken my ammunition. The sheriff was too damn smart for her own good sometimes, and it pissed me off.

I spent the next ten minutes glazing over the various case files (despite being only half of the files on the desk it was quite a large stack), and after reading through various reports of taggers, dime-store robberies and scientific disputes I finished off the pile and immediately wanted those ten minutes of my life back. "Nada," I said pointedly as I dropped the last file onto the desk with the rest of the messy heap, "Not a damn thing worth doing in there."

Caitlyn, who seemed to have quite enjoyed the silence that diverting my attention had caused, offered a soft smile. "It's all worth doing," she responded sagely, "But I never told you that you'd enjoy it."

"Are you kidding me?" I asked rhetorically as I held up a file at random and shook it for emphasis. "This is beat cop work! Three or four of these were traffic violations!"

"The job isn't about glamour," Caitlyn said in terse response, picking up a file from her stack as she prepared to get back to her reading. "It's about protecting the people. Upholding the law." I glared in her direction, and realized she didn't notice- she was busy scanning the file, her features unreadable. So I decided I'd snag a file from her stack, the ones she hadn't let me read through. That got her attention. "Vi!" she snapped with surprise, but I had already gotten an eyeful before she was able to snatch the file from my fingers.

"Oh I see," I said with childlike glee, "You were hiding all of the good stuff in your stack, Cait!" As the file slipped from my fingers I was already grabbing another, and the grin on my face threatened to split my head in half starting at the corners of my lips. "Let's see here, domestic assault-" I began as she ripped the file away and I snatched another, "-ooh, this one's got murder written all-" and again she ripped it away and I grabbed another. This time, I distanced myself so that she'd have to run around the desk to get to me.

"Oh hey!" I said with excitement as she rounded the desk, "Armed robberies, my favorite!" Caitlyn darted towards the file but I planted the palm of my hand square on her forehead, keeping her at arm's length as she tried to get her fingers on the file. She may have been quick and agile, but I was taller, stronger and had longer limbs that she did. Hell, I was a strong enough girl that I could have done the same to most of the men in the precinct, too. "Why didn't you tell me about this one, Cait?" I joked as I skimmed the file with one-hand, poring over the details until I found one that stopped me dead.

The file listed all sorts of information, including the exact address of the banks hit, information on all of the witnesses present, and a list of suspects. It was the last one that froze the blood in my veins and sucked every ounce of fun I was having out of the moment. I felt the pressure against my hand slacken, and I turned my head to see Caitlyn regarding me, her blue eyes defeated but still calculating, sizing up my reaction. "You must have grabbed that one," she commented softly. "That's why I was keeping it."

"Cait, you had better be kidding," I said slowly, my brain struggling to wrap around the idea of what I had read. "Why is my old crew listed as suspects?" I didn't know how to feel- not betrayed, I had put my allegiance to them behind me a long time ago, but… confused, surprised, angry, all were valid emotions wrestling for real estate on my face. I slumped back down into the chair and Caitlyn returned to hers, her expression growing increasingly grim.

"We don't have any leads on this one," she said softly, deliberately, as if she had taken an hour to carefully choose each word she spoke, "But the modus operandi of the thieves matches that of-"

"The M.O. we had," I interrupted, my words growing hotter as I spoke them, "Was me punching a freaking hole in the wall."

"You weren't the only one with distinctive habits," Caitlyn replied calmly, reaching over to a side pile and grabbing a thick file with a list of names printed on the outside. My name was in the middle but had since been crossed out, the word 'REFORMED' written next to it in black ink. I didn't open the file; I knew the person behind each name more intimately than what a sheet of paper could convey. "They all had traits to their craft, signs of which are evident in the three heists we've been able to tie together so far."

"This can't be right," I said with disbelief as I tried not to see the pieces fitting together. I didn't want to think that the crew had gotten back together, not after all my efforts to stop what they had been doing. But like Caitlyn said, it looked like their work, and that was something I had trouble denying. "There has to be an explanation." I could feel anger beginning to boil in my gut, barely-contained hate for the people I had turned away. They had gotten every choice I'd had to change, and they hadn't. They didn't deserve my mercy. Even then, it didn't seem right. It had been ten years since I split off from them, since I had made the best choice of my life. A few years of interference on my part and eventually they fell off the map. The idea of them popping back up out of nowhere just… didn't click with me somehow. I didn't like what it could mean.

"There are some inconsistencies that have kept me searching for clues," Caitlyn said matter-of-factly. "The crew, excluding yourself, was five people. Eyewitness reports described two robbers at each heist. While they wore masks, the height, weight, and gender of at least one of the robbers changes depending on which witness from which heist you talk to." She crossed her arms and frowned slightly. "It doesn't add up, which means we don't have the whole picture."

"I'm taking this case," I said abruptly as I closed it and stood, tucking it underneath my arm. I made a move to head for the door, but Caitlyn was having none of it.

"You absolutely will not," she replied, standing as well with a hand out towards me. "Give me the file, Vi."

"No way," I responded, my eyes narrowed. "I'm going to find out what's going on here."

"You will have nothing to do with this case," Caitlyn said bluntly. "And that's an order."

"Screw orders," I retorted, "This is my crew we're talking about here."

"That's exactly why you'll have nothing to do with it," Caitlyn explained. "It's too personal for you. You can't look at it objectively." I could see it in her eyes, she was set in stone on this one. Dammit.

"Come on, Cait," I pleaded as she stepped slowly around the desk, "I know these guys better than you do, I can help on this one."

"Give me the file, Vi."

I looked Caitlyn dead in the eyes and found nothing but a steely resolution. "Cait, I-" I began, but felt the words catch in my throat. It felt like she was going to arrest me if I kept getting in her way, and even though I knew she wouldn't, the old fears it brought up within me were strong enough to make me wonder if I was wrong about her. I tried to fight it, but experience told me that once I had let the fear grip me, I had lost any say in the matter. This sort of emotion wasn't something rational. It was a childlike fear, the sort of terror that only came from monsters under the bed and had no basis in reason. It was a fear borne of a life spent on the wrong side of the tracks, where an entire subset of people- the same people who now employed me- existed just to ruin my life, to send me running whenever I saw them come knocking. It had been a long, long time since I had well and truly felt that fear, but every once in a while Caitlyn was able to evoke a semblance of it within me, to make me feel like a terrified child at the interrogation table, perhaps because of any officer I'd ever met, she had been the scariest. Honestly, I didn't expect her to get in my head like this, especially over something as trivial as a file, and it scared me just as much. Damn it, she was too good at her job sometimes.

"Here," I said quietly, "Take it." I let the file slip from my armpit into one hand, and I hesitantly moved it into Caitlyn's grasp. She didn't snatch it away from me this time, just accepted it with a businesslike politeness, her eyes never losing that iron willpower that scared the living daylights out of me. She was in absolute control of the situation, and she didn't need to say so or behave in a way that indicated it in order to make it abundantly clear to me. It was a feeling we were both familiar with, Caitlyn in charge and myself following orders no matter how I felt about them, and I felt like beating my head against a wall for the helplessness of the situation.

"Thank you, Vi," she said calmly, and placed it down on the desk with the others. "Head home, I'll see you there in an hour or so. We'll talk about it tomorrow."

I wanted to say something, anything to get myself on that case, but the words would form in my head and my mouth would refuse to say them out of fear. A swirling cauldron of emotions brewed in my gut, boiling hate and chilling fear mixing and bubbling away with nothing I could do to let them out, and for all it did to chew away at me I couldn't go against Caitlyn. If I asked, she'd probably say it was for my best interests, and she wasn't just saying it, either. I almost wished I hadn't seen the file, seeing as it would be the dominating topic on my mind for the next week.

I walked around the table wordlessly and left the precinct, stepping out into the cool rain without a hood or an umbrella. Even in a normal situation, I wasn't one of those girls that gave a crap about messing up makeup or hair. I found my bike in the parking lot, a custom job that was as much machine as it was experiment at this point, and made my way back to Caitlyn's mansion-like home (that's right, I live with the sheriff, great idea for an ex-con, right?) in the downpour.

I got in and parked my bike in time to see the door open, held by a diminutive yordle- a race of fuzzy squirrel-people that originated from Bandle City before many of them migrated to here in Piltover- that was the butler, servant and primary housekeeper of the estate. His bushy white eyebrows furrowed around his black-rimmed eyeglasses as he took a good look at me, and I noticed his equally-bushy, equally-white mustache twitch as he realized how soaked I was, and what that meant I would track through the entire house. I caught a glimpse of him adjusting the tie of his adorably small tuxedo and take off his white gloves, and knew he was preparing himself to clean up yet another one of my messes. If I hadn't been so emotionally drained, I probably would have smiled just from the thought of it.

I didn't blame him. I normally look like a mixture of punk rock and soldier, with pink hair that's buzzed short on the left side, grown to my shoulder on the right side and spills into a dreadlock-like ponytail in the back. The 'VI' tattoo on my left cheek makes me stand out more than most, as if the neck, arm, leg, and back tattoos didn't help, and in addition to having my hair plastered to my face by the rain, my reddish-brown leather jacket was soaked to the point of almost looking black. Underneath that I wore a grey bustier, which functioned less like lingerie or a camisole and more like bulletproof armor, given how much it was padded. My dark blue short shorts and striped tights had been equally soaked, their thin material providing no more defense from the cold and wet than they did from small arms fire (which is why I normally wore large plates of armor around them). As I stepped inside I stepped out of my treaded boots and left them at the door, and I almost missed the look of disgust the yordle shot me as I dripped water along the floor.

"Good evening, Miss Vi," the yordle greeted me courteously. I hated it when he was courteous.

"Hey Jeeves," I responded casually. His name wasn't Jeeves, it was Bradford, but I didn't care.

"Where is Miss Caitlyn?" he asked as I heard him wipe at the floor behind me. I could hear the annoyance in his voice, but he seemed to sense my depression. I didn't like him- hell, growing up on the streets made it impossible for me to adapt to the idea of living with servants in the first place- but that didn't mean he wasn't good at his job. Jeeves was actually a few decades older than Caitlyn, and had served her parents since she was born, transitioning to serving Caitlyn after she moved out on her own, even when I came in like a tornado of bad habits and attitude. He didn't much care for me either, but he was a good person.

"Give her an hour," I said softly, "Then call the cops if she doesn't show."

"That's not very funny," Jeeves commented, but since he had the sense of humor of a wet paper bag, I didn't take it as an insult. I peeled off my jacket, smiling as I heard the wet plop of it falling on the floor and Jeeves' subsequent squeal of indignation, then made my way to my bedroom.

Caitlyn's home is very much a symbol of wealth, and it comes directly from her background- Caitlyn was born to a wealthy statesman and an equally-wealthy scientist, and she's lived in clean upscale homes with servants and silverware sets worth more than some cheaper homes her entire life. Every room in the house has signs of wealth, from the detailed moulding on the corners of the ceilings to the trims on the tables and the flowered plants on the windowsills, kept in perfect health by the two or three servants that roamed the halls and made sure everything was spotless. Every room, that is, except my bedroom and the workshop I'd set up in the garage.

I grew up in the gutters doing whatever I could to get by, and while I've gotten past that, some things just don't go away, like the independent streak I developed in order to be as self-reliant as possible. I've never gotten used to the idea of people waiting on me, and rather than trying to adapt to a life of luxury I got in enough shouting matches with the servants to convince them to give me access to the basement where the laundry is done so that I can take care of my own stuff by myself and keep them from calling me 'Miss Vi' in that way that makes my skin crawl. Well, everyone except Jeeves has decided to cut the honorifics around me. Maybe that's his revenge for me calling him 'Jeeves'.

My room is significantly less glamorous than the rest of the manor. It used to be an elegant guest bedroom, with a four-post bed crafted out of fine cedar, framed by a pair of gorgeous artisan dressers and nightstands, and sitting opposite a beautifully-designed white vanity set complete with a mirror and drawers for makeup and other amenities. On a door to the side was a separate bathroom, complete with toilet, bath, and sink, all of which were of the finest porcelain and marble that you could have shipped into the city. In my first week in the manor I'd snapped the four posts off of the bed, tore down the dressers to use as firewood (I can't remember what for), accidentally destroyed the toilet with a poorly-swung wrench and chucked the vanity set out the window. There's no clever wordplay on that last bit, I literally took the vanity set and threw each individual piece of it out of the window. Ain't no girly-girl crap in my room.

Since my arrival the elegant but subdued wallpaper was covered with posters of various bands, their names ranging from the counter-culture "Rage Against the Hextech" to the more overt "Blood Tsunami" and "Spellfister".The carpet got ripped up when I kept losing screws and nuts in its shag, and the hardwood floors beneath could use some renovation that I would never allow the servants to perform. It was an absolute wreck, a stain on the pristine glamour of the manor at large. But it was my room, and dammit, I liked it.

I tried to sleep, to force myself to unconsciousness, but thoughts twisted and spun in a maelstrom in my head until I felt like I'd never sleep again. What could make the old crew active again? It had been ten years since I'd split off from them, why were they starting back up now? Was it even them in the first place? If it wasn't, who would imitate them? "God dammit," I groaned softly to myself, wrapping my worn-out pillow around my head in a desperate attempt to drown out the questions. It wasn't until I turned on my stereo and put in a loud metal album that I managed to drown out the thoughts, and unlike anyone else in the city, I found it easier to drift off to sleep on a sea of growling vocals and power chords.