AN:

Hello, to whoever navigated your way here. This is my first upload of anything to anywhere, and I'm a little scared, frankly. Don't hesitate to PM me or review or anything; feedback and criticism is the lifeblood of writers.

Also I feel this is important; this story links with my other two, which are orientated around Jinx and Ekko; without reading all three, you will miss a lot, but I've split them up nonetheless so you can get only a certain set of characters if you want.

Without a further ado...

When Vi was young, she had lived. Well, lived more than she was now; at least, the way she told it. When Vi was young, she really lived very little. At just ten, between scavenging and hiding from gangs looking to extort and recruit, Vi had almost no free time. The little she had went into personal hobbies; mainly punching things and tinkering with any Hextech she could find. The former came in handy countless times over her life, the latter when she was twelve. Vi was in trouble; she'd stayed one too many minutes in the same place. There was an underground fighting ring in the basement of a pub, and the owner gave Vi a place to live and two square meals a day; all she had to do was beat up any chump who wanted to take her on. The owner pocketed a healthy profit from the bets, and both were content to keep working together. Unfortunately, one member of a gang of street toughs took offense to Vi's ability to kick the crap out of him, and he had a lot of friends. She was backed into a corner, with no weapons. She wished her sister was here to back her up. Grimly, she took a fighting stance, and as soon as they started to circle her, she lunged at the closest. One of the earliest things she had learnt was to always, always, go on the offense. After all, it was the best form of defence. Probably.

To his credit, her target at least managed to yelp before the fist broke his jaw with a thundering haymaker. After that, she dived for a narrow gap between two others, shouldering one and tripping the other with a sweep of her leg. Coming up from the sweep, she ducked under a swing and returned the favour; three down.

Just as she was really starting to get stuck in, a yell rang out:

"Leave her!" Vi threw her latest opponent, a skinny young girl with a shard of metal as an ersatz knife, into the wall. The rest backed off, and before Vi realized they had her surrounded. She panted, knuckles bleeding, and turned to face the speaker. They were old; at least, by a ten year old girl's standards.

"Hello there, little girl. Glad to meet you." Vi glared, biding her time.

"You see, I'm very interested in a girl who can, single-handed, take out at least a half-dozen members of my gang. And with only her fists! Truly, a sight to behold." From behind, a boy charged Vi, yelling. With barely a pause, she twisted and kicked him in the back, letting him stumble and fall to the feet of the gang leader. He raised one foot and slowly pressed down on the boy's head, and then Vi realized it was the prick she had beaten in the ring.

"And another. I'll have to start keeping score at this rate… Though, actually, I'd rather that instead of you knocking out my other underlings, we come to… An agreement. You see, you have attracted an awful lot of attention. And not all of it is from me. Many others have their eye on you, a young, promising brawler, who will no doubt grow up to be something... Spectacular." Vi lowered her fists, rolling her shoulders with a series of pops. Examining the bruised flesh of her hands she eyed him, and the rest of them. They looked well fed. Clothes which were mostly intact. Only a couple had injuries, and that was probably from herself. She turned her gaze back to the leader, and he smiled. Vi whistled a little tune of her own devising, and the leader's smile slowly disappeared. Vi walked up to him, and replaced his foot on the chump's head with her own, though unlike him she pressed down until his screams drowned out her tune. After a few seconds, her foot rose. And, staring the boss in the eyes, she slowly, slowly, nodded. Even if she never went on the defensive, that didn't mean the offensive was a good choice.

Skip forwards a year. The stuff that happened in it was boring, anyway.

Vi lounged on her hammock. She'd gone through over a dozen, but this one was definitely the best. It was a light purple, and was juuuust long enough for her. That would probably change, but for now… Bliss. Swinging gently, she almost managed to drown out the sound of the buzzer that she'd installed as a doorbell. Almost.

"Vi! Vi, get out here. It's time for the briefing." She sighed, rubbing her sore eyes. After a few seconds, she jumped out and cracked her neck, pocketed an object the size of her fist, and walked to the door. It rung again as she opened it, and didn't stop even as she stared the perpetrator in the eyes. After a few seconds, they both grinned at each other, though Vi was significantly shorter.

"Good to see you, Shin. How's everyone?"

"Meh. Top is stressing out about the heist, Rane is making fun of him, and personally I- awh fuck it. We're all just waiting to see what you have that'll crack that vault. Now come on, we're waiting." And suiting actions to words, he turned heel and Vi jogged to catch up, and to keep up, since her legs were a lot shorter than his. When they came to the common room, the other two dozen members were waiting. She knew them all by name, and by skill. This gang was small because it didn't rely on extortion and racketing like others; they didn't need sheer numbers to control their territory. They worked with lots of irregular, and highly lucrative, jobs.

Like this one.

It was daring. It was… Frankly, likely to backfire. There was a lot of things that could fuck up, but let her be damned if Vi was going to back down from anything because it was risky. Of course, the worst part was that a lot of the risky shit was resting on her shoulders, mainly the device she clutched in one small hand.

"Alright everyone, Vi is here, so let's get this show on the road. Gather round, and we'll go over the plan one more time." The group stepped up and clustered around the large square table in the centre of the room, not unlike drones gathering around a queen. Top gestured to a crude representation of a building, made of matchsticks, complete with panicking civilians, courtesy of Vi. The next hour was spent making sure everyone completely and totally understood everything that was going to, could, and just maybe possibly might happen – and go wrong. But there was a point where everyone was staring at the little circle representing the vault, and then slowly shifted their gaze to the youngest of their members who was slowly tearing apart a stickman. Top coughed and Vi jumped, sending the hapless matchstick person over her shoulder to shatter on the floor into tiny, pitiful shards. The same thing happened to the construction on the table when Vi rolled the contraption in her hand across it, thoroughly destroying several hours of hard work. Since it was hers, Vi didn't think it counted. It came to a stop at the entrance to the vault, and then started beeping. Vi grinned, and everyone knew what that meant. Everyone dived under cover, all apart from Vi, who laughed and grabbed a platter, holding it up in front of her face as the shaped charge detonated and entirely obliterated the sad remnants of the building, along with the table and a small part of the ceiling. In the ensuing silence, Vi could only barely hear the sound of laughter over the ringing in her ears.

Skip forward another four years. Some interesting stuff happened in there, but a lot of it involves explosives and money and… Stuff Vi can't remember. Maybe drinking… Yeah, probably drinking.

This part of town was a little weird; in the entire sector, there was only a single alleyway. The rest of them had been boarded up, though many were covered in scorch marks where they had been demolished, hastily, and with lots of gunpowder, before being rebuilt. In that single alleyway, there was two doors. One led to a large room, equally covered in scorch marks, which further split into a few dozen rooms, each with one or two inhabitants. The other door, however, led to a rather small room, barely fit for one person; however, once your eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, it became apparent that the room was significantly larger than it seemed, but was simply filled to the brim, and more some, with utter junk. Pieces and scraps and chunks and bits and fragments of… Well, basically whatever crap Vi got her hands on. Some of it was useful, Hextech, and most of this was fashioned into little devices. Self-winding clockwork robots, flying machines that couriered objects, and some forgotten explosives, of which over time only a couple had prematurely detonated. Vi was proud of that, though Top had told her that any was too many. Vi had shrugged, and hid her grin. Either way, the girl in question was grabbing everything vital. That top she likes, one grenade she could find, and her pink tutu. It fit nicely with the top, almost making it into a dress, whilst still being able to wear trousers for practicality.

After making sure everything fit nicely, Vi left her apartment, wrapping her fists in tape as she walked across the alley. Upon knocking on the door, it opened, before she entered. There were too many people for her to really know whether everyone was here; Shin was, Rane was, and Top was, and that was all that really mattered to her. The rest were new faces, either because their new members were starting to outnumber the old, and that the Factorywood Fiends were also all present. The plan was easy, they were going to hit the most lucrative mine in the entirety of Piltover and Zaun. Unfortunately, that meant it was highly sought after; and highly protected, not to mention that the men there were soldiers, not bored, lazy guards. Zaun could attack at any moment, and the mine was well defended to stop them. This extended to attacks by gangsters punching above their weigh, which is where Vi came in. She'd examined the layout of the mine, and found out that several of the walls that led straight to the railroad which carried the gems and other minerals to the surface; and those walls were thin. At least, thin enough to get smashed into rubble with the correct mode of… Persuasion.

"Alright, so let's go over it one more time…"

Skip forward a few hours. In this case, the most exciting thing happening was lunch.

The lot of them gathered around a small crevice in the sheer cliff face. It was small, but big enough for their needs, and the main caveat being it was unguarded, they all slipped in, one by one. At the end was a small cavern, and they wasted no time in getting Vi to plant her… Persuasion. One incredibly agreeable conversation later, the wall was gone, and the moved through the hole onto the next, which, faced with Vi, shared many of its predecessor's views on suddenly exploding. The third and last was even less of an issue; it seemed the instability caused by the other walls disappearing had led to it crumbling. They slipped through, and the wealth on display in those carts was practically blinding. Many of them stared in awe for a moment, before the bubble broke and they rushed forwards in a mob, yelling and grabbing everything that would fit in their packs and pockets. This goldlust lasted for a few minutes before their exultation was met with the miners inside rushing forward to protect it, poor brave fools. The gang members split into two groups, one gathering the fortune, the other protecting them; and they were far better equipped. The miners had picks and rocks, the thugs knives and pistols. They stood no chance, and that was when someone thought it would be an amazing idea to break the 'off' switch on a Chem mining golem, and aim it at the fancy, suspended house the owner of the mine lived in. It tore through the house, then the wall behind it. The ensuing gore and chaos was… Brilliant, and horrifying. Vi looked on, unsure how to react. The miners fled in terror, many of their number lying dismembered and dying. Vi's ears rung, though not from the sheer annihilation. Screams echoed through the cavern, and the pack in her hands slipped from slack fingers. Blood raced through her head, pumping… And when she opened her eyes, her gang was fleeing. Rock fell from the ceiling in chunks, and she could hear Shin yelling for her to leave. She turned to the exit, but the miner's panicked yells suddenly clarified in her mind.

"Go! Get out! The tunnel is collapsing!"

"We can't! The way out has already caved-in!" Vi turned, and she could see the miners trying desperately to break through a wall of stone and earth blocking the railroad's path. Her gang had already left, and Shin was still in the entrance, waving and yelling. The earth above him started to shift, groaning, and Shin dived through the way out, narrowly avoiding being squashed. There was still a gap. More and more rock shed off the ceiling in increasing quantities. She turned her back on Shin and the rest of them, facing towards the miners. They paid her no attention; focusing on clearing the blockage. She, and they, could already tell that it wouldn't work. The roof was collapsing far too fast, but that didn't stop them. Vi scanned the room. She needed something powerful. The mining golem would work great, and she didn't have any better ideas. So she started scampering about, trying her best to ignore the pieces of miner spread about. After a minute, she found it, mostly crushed by the rockfall. The main body, the part the driver would operate from, was completely destroyed. She turned her back to the ruined machine, yelling in frustration, and in her head an idea exploded into being. Rushing from the room, she dashed to the nearest miner, who was kneeling in front of the collapse, digging with his hands. She grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking it to get his attention. He turned to her, and the panic in his eyes turned to anger.

"You! You were one of those thieves who doomed us all! What do you want, you little rat?!"

"Shut up. I need a 5.5 star Hexwrench. It's the only way out of here. Where can I get one?" He frowned at her, but frankly him being angry wasn't going to get them out, so, turning back to his digging, he nodded in the direction of a small building, fashioned from stone.

"Workshop. If it isn't there, it isn't anywhere." Without an answer, Vi turned and ran like Hecarim was on her tail. Crashing through the door, she startled a man cowering under a metal table. Staring for a second, she ignored the craven miner and jumped towards the nearest tool chest, throwing open the drawers and pouring the tools onto the floor. It took several drawers, chests and lockers to find the one she needed; it was a pretty special tool. Dashing back out and finding the wrecked digger, Vi set to work dismantling the two whole pieces from the rest; the massive, Chemtech gauntlets mounted to the front, made to shake and dislodge solid rock even more effectively than explosives. And Vi knew her explosives.

When the little girl stepped up to the men gathered at the collapse, the foreman thought he'd gone mad. Pink haired, with a tutu the same colour, she had apparently torn the fists off one of those mining rigs and… A flood of hope poured through him, and with a grin he grabbed his whistle and got the men to clear out. They obeyed, just as he'd trained them to, and the girl nodded to him as she walked by, raising one fist, almost the size of her entire body, back over her head. The fist hissed and shook as the pressure built up behind the pneumatic piston built into the metallic knuckles of the destructive technology, glowing a sickly green as it heated, tanks bubbling and pumping, and she threw her fist down with a total lack of finesses and grace, every miner covering their eyes as-

Blinding, deafening annihilation erupted in a wave of excessive force.

The boulders shattered into pebbles, loose earth spilling from packed solid to a tide of dirt that flew outward.

The flash flood of debris spilled out and over the floor, a few miners scrabbling out of the way.

And then, after a second of stunned silence, they poured forth in a writhing sea of humanity.

When everyone had escaped, Vi rolled her shoulders to relieve the ache from continually hefting the gauntlets, before trudging off in the direction of Piltover, far in the distance. The gauntlets clamping onto her wrists would soon start to become unbearable, but for now, she would deal. It would be a long walk, but Vi was nothing if not stubborn. However, before she could get even a dozen metres, a voice rang out above the general chaos of emergency services and exultant families:

"You there, the little rascal with the pink hair! Stop, in the name of the law!" By the time Vi had heard the word "stop" she was already sprinting, sparing only to glance back to see a young woman, dressed in a fairly scandalous purple dress, sporting a large top hat and raising a rifle to her shoulder, looking down the sight so she could-

Vi dropped to the ground as the shot flew over her, jumping back to her feet and getting round a corner to break line of sight, home free.

It took three hours for Vi to get back home. The rest of the gang was waiting for her. They admonished her for risking her life for the trapped fools, but that was quickly overridden by their amazement at her gauntlets. Her arms were almost pulled from her sockets at this point, but she still grabbed her fair share of the loot and in minutes had packed a bag full of the essentials; tools, scraps, one little machine she'd always had, a few sets of clothes, and, hoisting her gauntlets onto her arms, she walked to her door. By the light switch, a small lever awaited, and she'd only almost pulled it once. It was a good thing she didn't, though in this case she did it all on purpose, turning off the lights to conserve energy and leaving, one step at a time, towards the inner city. She didn't look back when her room collapsed through the floor, the foundations suddenly missing entirely, years of work buried under debris. The two were practically indistinguishable before, and now they were just one miserable pile of scrap.

Skip seven years. I know, that's a lot, but past the first few gunshot wounds, broken limbs and crumpled street toughs, it gets pretty repetitive. Basically Vi spends this time tinkering with her gauntlets and other shit, beating the crap out of criminals, taking their stuff, and then using it to beat up other criminals, taking their stuff, in a never ending cycle of punching, scavenging, and evading police units. Which, speaking of, had risen massively in effectiveness and number; a new innovative policing system had come into play, the Sherrifs. An elite corps of detectives and investigators, skilled in combat, interrogation, and mostly loyal to the Wardens, not the Houses.. Whenever she heard the name, it inspired both awe, fear, and hatred. There was a few, the most promising, that operated mostly in Zaun, to take the offensive against the criminal element of the Chembarons that ruled there. Vi was pretty sure that these Sheriffs were the only ones that offered a real threat to her, but she respected and, to an extent, admired them. They took her most idolised tenet of 'aggro' to heart, and besides, they were the only ones to have ever come close to stopping what she liked doing best; punching people. And objects.

Yeah, anyway, back to seven years of pink punk pugilation. Vi was living it big; at least, as big as she'd ever had it. A real house, a girlfriend – and/or boyfriend, sometimes at the same time - or ten over time, and enough money to buy whatever she needed, including the parts for a few specialist pieces of gear. Most of it was to do with punching stuff… In fact apart from the hexplosives, it was all punching stuff. New reinforced boots, upgrades to the gauntlets, which she'd gotten pretty attached to, and a nifty piece of handmade armour… She wasn't sure if the fact that a tuft of her tutu stuck out a small gap was intended, but Vi thought it worked for her. She had turned a new leaf; now, the only people who she beat up and stole from were other lowlifes, and she imagined that was the only reason why she wasn't in prison; after all, she was reducing the work the police had to do. Either way, she had avoided being locked up, though it had been close several times, and was now living life properly.

That changed when she got cornered like an idiot in an old warehouse.

She'd busted in on a pair of the Chembaron's henchmen in a deal, and with only a few minutes of carefully applied total destruction, they were lying in heaps, along with their product. She laughed at them as they groaned, most sporting broken limbs, a few crying pitifully. She enjoyed the scenario for a minute or two, grabbing whatever cash, guns, and useful tools she could find, and then a booming voice, one now very familiar to the pinkette, rang out through the hole in wall where the door used to be:

"Alright, girl, this is your only chance. Come out with your massive hands up, and we won't hurt you! I just want to talk!" Vi snorted, hefting her gauntlets as they vibrated, glowing cherry red. Talking was for chumps. And people who couldn't bust down walls with their almost-bare fists. Sometimes she just knocked down the supports, burying everything inside, but in this case there were people here too, so she couldn't… Well, shouldn't do that. Luckily the police were just outside; they'd deal with all this stuff. She walked up to the furthest wall from the entrance and delivered it one sharp punch; the whole thing collapsing instantly. Chuckling as dust flowed outwards, the laugh slowed and died painfully as she regarded the blockade of cars and, more importantly, guns, facing her. Steam flowed from her fist as it cooled, the Hextech jewel in the centre buzzing as it charged. Luckily she had the other, though… That was a LOT of guns. And in the middle, kneeling right on top of a riot response van was that posh prissy bitch; Caitlyn. She sighed. They must have recorded her voice to play, and set up this ambush. She stepped backwards slowly, but the sound of booted feet and radio chatter meant she didn't even bother turning around as they surrounded her. She thought of a similar time, long ago, and how she'd talked to their leader, joining them.

"Alright, then, girl. Now, drop those gauntlets. I'm taking you to the station. We're going to talk." Caitlyn dropped from the van, gently stepping towards her, rifle pointed at the floor. Vi glanced around; the police were hyper-tense, ready to turn her into a pincushion at a moment's notice. Vi shrugged, and, staring the chief in the eyes, she slowly, slowly, nodded.

Vi was surprised. They didn't even cuff her. She was highly suspicious; after all, spending your entire life on the streets wasn't conducive for a healthy mental state. The drive back to the station – located waaay out of Vi's territory, so completely unknown to her – was… Awkward. She was in the back, next to another officer, Caitlyn in the passenger seat as a third fuzz drove the vehicle. Every few moments, Vi would glance around her, and the officer next to her would pretend not to notice and tense. Vi couldn't help but notice that despite that she didn't have any cuffs on, the doors were locked. She smirked, and decided the idea of spending the next ten minutes in silence as they drove to their destination was drowning in boredom. So she kicked her feet up and put them on the back of Caitlyn's seat, legs crossed, ignoring the way the officer next to her flinched and reached for their stun-club. A tense silence followed, broken by Vi groaning as blood flowed back into her legs as she leant back with a sigh, the pleasant aching setting in, closing her eyes to relax. She could feel Caitlyn staring at her, and after a few more seconds:

"Just what are you doing, girl?" Vi opened one eye, grinning lazily, though it irked her inside to be called "girl."

"Making myself comfy. May as well. Problem?" Vi found it hard to keep up her smile under Caitlyn's intimidatingly steely glare, but it was when the Sherriff smiled that Vi felt a chill go up her spine.

"Of course not, girl. I was just wondering about something." Vi twitched when she called her a girl again, but it was overcome by her sudden burning curiosity about what the hatted woman was wondering about. The two locked into a staring contest, but far more was at stake; a battle of wills was waged. The war would have lasted for centuries, many lives having been snuffed out, but at that point the car rolled to a stop.

Caitlyn opened the door to her office, resting her rifle against the wall, taking off her hat and resting it on her desk as she sat down. At the entrance to the room, Vi stood, an officer holding one arm to make sure she didn't bolt. Caitlyn raised a perfectly exact eyebrow, and gestured for Vi to take the seat opposite hers. The policeman relinquished his grip, and Vi took a single step into the room, the door closing behind her. She stared at Caitlyn liked she'd grown a third arm.

"Why am I not in prison?" That damned eyebrow again. It looked so… Condescending.

"Do you want to be in prison, girl?" Vi bristled at the aggravating name.

"No. And stop calling me girl." Caitlyn smiled, reaching into her desk to retrieve a small platter. A tea cup and saucer, along with a… Cupcake?

"Well, as much as I'd like to, I don't know your name. Girl." This time, Vi growled. Some part of her knew the refined woman was baiting her, but another part, namely the rest of her, didn't care on little tiny itty bit.

"Yeah, Cupcake? Well, first off, my name is Vi. Second off, I don't why you've got me here and, frankly, I don't care what you have to say. I was doing just fine on my own!" Caitlyn slowly raised the cup of tea to her lips, sipping quietly. Vi realized she had stepped forward, leaning forward over the desk with her fists supporting her, subconsciously trying to intimidate the small woman. Vi, with an obvious conscious effort, sat down, glaring. She couldn't see Caitlyn's smile behind the cup, but she could feel it, and a rouge rose in her cheeks.

"Thank you for telling me your name. Now, Vi, if that is your name, I brought you here for a reason, and whether you want to know it or not, I'm going to tell you." The cup of tea finished, Caitlyn put it down into the saucer with a clink. Once more, she reached into the desk, pulling out a dossier on the pinkette. She threw it onto the desk, a few pieces of paper sliding out. Vi jumped forwards, restraining herself at the last second. She knew what it was.

"Now, I've been watching you for quite some time. You are a… Very interesting young woman, Vi. Targeting criminals only, not to mention your… Unique… Weapons of choice. I must say, I've been looking forward to this for some time." Vi, in a visible effort to regain control and try to relax, put her booted feet up onto the desk, smirking.

"Yeah, well, thanks for thinking I'm cool. I think so too. So, what's in the folder?" She picked up the first thing she could; a blurry picture of Vi holding a street boss by the neck, gauntlets steaming, and chuckled. She remembered the chump.

"Mostly, it's any intel I could get, which, by the way, isn't a lot. Routines, popular places… People of interest, such as this lovely young woman." Caitlyn, without looking, reached into the folder and effortlessly withdrew one picture that made Vi blush. It was of her and her first girlfriend as they kissed in an alley outside a bar. She looked at Caitlyn, expecting… Something. Disgust, disapproval, maybe hatred. She found warmth in Caitlyn's eyes, and strangely, that was somewhat scarier. The Sherriff's smile put her both on edge and at ease. To hide this, she grabbed one file at random. It was her second partner, an augmented-beyond-belief ganger that had used his Chemtech to hide compassion and a kind heart. He'd been raising orphans… And was amazing in the sack.

"Yes, well, none of it was particularly helpful. You showed up out of nowhere, started beating up the most dangerous of gang members, evading every attempt to arrest you. And that leads to my reason." Vi tried not to show how curious she was, and not just in the reason for her "arrest," but in what that smile meant and how she hadn't noticed all this stalking.

"I'm offering you another shot at life, Vi. Join me. Become my deputy. You won't have to live every day in danger, fight for your life every minute. You'll be able to do good. With you, no criminal in this city will be safe." Vi took a moment before grinning. She realized what a good deal it was… She got to beat up anyone she wanted, and she had immunity! She could tinker without having to look over her shoulder… And frankly, working with Caitlyn wasn't exactly unappealing. She was pretty hot. And cool.

Vi shrugged.

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. Sounds good." Caitlyn smiled that little, enigmatic smile, gathering the dossier and putting it away again.

"Glad to hear it. Now, girl…" Caitlyn leaned forwards, hands clasped in front of her, the smile disappearing.

"Get your feet off of my desk."