Caitlyn isn't a happy camper when her AI unit wakes her in the middle of the night, police scanner displayed over her bed. She's used to fighting down her sleepiness, but that doesn't mean she enjoys jumping up in the middle of a dream because alarms are ringing in her house.
Pertinent information is splayed across the hologram. There's been an explosion at the east side of Piltover only twenty minutes ago. Two police cruisers have been deployed, and a firefighting team already parked there. A tiny box in the corner tells her that Vi has already been notified, and left her apartment five minutes ago. Caitlyn doesn't like driving, so her partner comes to pick her up for most surprise cases like this.
The pinkette may drive like a madwoman, but she knows the best ways around intersections and highway traffic. Caitlyn dismisses her AI and rubs her eyes awake. Her purple dress is already set out for her, prepared by her house system. Coffee will also be sitting at her counter soon as well—the AI system has adapted to her hectic schedule of late-night calls and early morning chases.
After a few minutes Vi is honking at her doorstep. Caitlyn sighs tiredly, hoping none of her neighbors complain again about the other woman's impatience. Before stepping out the door she takes a printed slip of paper from a slot in the wall—the address of the bombed out house.
"Yo!" Vi greets her. Her partner has always been a bit better at waking up for midnight crimes. Caitlyn can feel a few knots in her typically straight brown hair, and it bothers her. Handing Vi the paper wordlessly, she attempts to smooth her locks into place. Nope. Not cooperating. The Sheriff of Piltover plops down into the passenger side of the car, leaning back into the leather seats.
Vi's car isn't a standard police-issued vehicle—it is a tuned up convertible of her own specifications. The older woman might be a brasher and simpler type, but she is a wizard at altering machinery. Her gloves are a testament to that.
"So," Vi speaks up, entering the address into her navigation system. "An explosion huh? Think it's that goddamn brat again?" Caitlyn can hear the annoyance laced in Vi's tone. She understands the sentiment, but thinks the pinkette gets out of hand about it. Sure, crude portraits aside, it wasn't like the bluette had done anything cruel to the bruiser. Despite her large presence in the city, Jinx wasn't really like most other crooks—she didn't focus civilians or steal treasures. Sure, she causes thousands in property damage every time she pops up, but at least she hasn't played around with the lives of Piltover's people.
…Yet.
"She's our go-to suspect with these things," Caitlyn responds. "I'd expect so." Vi revs the engine with a short laugh and drives away. The brunette watches as the night lights streak by, something tickling at the back of her mind.
The address is important, somehow. She remembers seeing it before—some civilian reporting a criminal sighting—but it has been months since she read it. Perhaps Jinx has targeted another villain for some reason?
When Caitlyn steps out of the car and ascends the steps of the lonely apartment complex, she wishes that she had realized it sooner.
Judging by the increasing amount of pink graffiti toward their objective apartment, their crime scene is none other than Jinx's own personal flat.
Vi, in her usual manner, sees the familiar doodles and charges forward, yelling out insults at their number one criminal.
"Oooh, that little wretch! I knew it was her—"
"Vi," Caitlyn calls, but the pinkette is leaping up the stairs three at a time, her boots clicking with every step. "Vi!" she barks. It is enough to make the policewoman turn around, a dark expression on her face.
"What, Cait?" Vi asks tersely, eager to find traces of Jinx upstairs. "We need to hurry up so we can find clues—"
Caitlyn shakes her head. "No, Vi," she says quietly. "There aren't any clues to find—"
Vi angrily growls. "Whaddaya mean, 'no clues'?! Of course there are! Look at all this! Jinx was definitely here!"
"Vi," Caitlyn says tiredly, pushing her way in front of her raging partner. "Yes, Jinx was here. But—"
"But. What."
Caitlyn turns to Vi with a sharp stare, disapproving frown on her lips. "This is Jinx's house." Vi is stunned into silence, and looks at the doodles on the wall again. They're definitely in Jinx's style, but the subject isn't the same as her usual taunting. These are random images with no connection.
Caitlyn breathes through her nose and continues on. Hopefully Vi will calm down and—
"So the crazy bitch is blowing up her own house!?"
Caitlyn moans, leaning against the wall for support for her heavy soul. Why did have to babysit this child all the time? Vi can't shove past Caitlyn with her gloves equipped as easily as Caitlyn could, so she impatiently nudges her partner forward. "Come on, we need to see what's going on in here!"
Giving up hope, Caitlyn opens the farthest door, a corner flat. Jinx's house is in one corner of the building, meaning she has perfect view of most of Piltover's tall skyscrapers. The thought sobers Caitlyn. Jinx has been spending her time looking for the best hitspots, all from the comfort of her own home.
She opens the door, hand hovering over her gun. What they see shocks them for a moment.
Jinx's living room is… standard. The metal tiling on the floor isn't spotless, but it's not covered in dirt either. There's a television at one end of the room, a huge couch positioned incredibly close to it. Between the couch and the TV is a wooden coffee desk, stained with mud. Most of the walls are made of glass, but they are covered in gauzy white curtains dotted with pink and blue paint. Caitlyn is inspecting the only incredibly strange thing in the room—a white marble bathtub filled to the brim with used bullets—when Vi calls her attention.
"Ey, Cupcake, look at this." Vi holds Jinx's disengaged Zap in one glove high in the air. She offers it to Caitlyn, who takes it carefully.
"It's powerless," she says after a moment of fiddling with a few switches. The pistol refuses to generate electricity. She turns it over and notices a stray wire poking out of a hole in the grip. "It appears to be missing a battery, or something of the like." Caitlyn was a pro with her sniper rifle, but when it came to other weapons she was pretty clueless. She knew basics, but the inner workings of techmaturgy and hextech designs? That was for Vi's genius.
Vi takes the gun back and gazes into the hole. "Yeah, its power core has been ripped out. Weird." Vi holsters the shock pistol in one of her belts. "It that the kitchen or somethin'?" She points to a loosely hanging door. Vi takes the lead as they quietly creep forward and gently pushes the door open, but neither are prepared for the wreckage that is Jinx's kitchen. If the living room was tidy, the kitchen was an explosion of everything. Jinx's tinkerings were littered over the floor in various states of completion. Blueprints and notes pinned to the walls everywhere, upturned dishes, and a huge sticky mess on the tile. Vi whistles.
"That's a lot of shit," she comments, idly picking up a random item from one of the many piles in the room. It's a bronze box with a couple knobs, and when Vi messes with it, it folds out into other, smaller boxes. Caitlyn takes in the scene while Vi plays with Jinx's creations. Despite the messiness of the room, she manages to see tiny bullet holes riddling the wall behind her. There's a toppled over cabinet in the hallway, its contents spilled everywhere. Her boots protect her from the shards of glass and metal spread out on the floor.
The explosion that they were alerted for has presence in this room. Caitlyn can see the room the bomb mainly affected through large holes in the walls—it also helps that the door was blasted off, reduced to burnt cinders.
"This doesn't look like something Jinx would do," Caitlyn says softly. "It's not… It just seems too small to be her style."
Vi glances over at her partner, pausing in her exploration. She bites the inside of her cheeks and deflates. "Yeah, you're right," she admits. "Jinx is batshit insane, but not enough to blow her own house up. …I think." Caitlyn chuckles once before returning to her stern expression.
She's traced a line from the pattern of the bullets to the door at the end of the hall. It resembles swiss cheese, and she can see just a bit inside the room. A bright color peeks through just enough for Caitlyn to inhale sharply.
There's only the tiniest bit of electric blue, but Caitlyn sees it. Urgently she pulls her partner with her, stepping over the fallen cabinet with bated breath.
"What is it, Cupcake?" Vi asks, confused. "What did you see—oh." For the second time Vi is stunned into silence as Caitlyn pushes open the damaged door.
The room is missing half its wall. Glass and shrapnel are embedded into the walls and furniture. A pink bed somehow managed to survive the blast, but the cover is burnt at the edges. The whole room is a mess of destruction, but that's not what Caitlyn is focused on.
At their feet lays their slippery bomb enthusiast. Her body is covered in bruises and bloody injuries. Her arm is trapped between her skinny body and her pink machine gun, twisted in an uncomfortable angle. Her back was exposed to the explosion, and has tiny pieces of glass and stone poking out from it. The rug in the room is stained with her blood.
"What the fuck," Vi gasps. She doesn't know how to respond to this situation. She always wanted Jinx to be apprehended and punched repeatedly, but this doesn't make her feel happy. Instead, the bruiser watches in horror as Caitlyn reaches out a careful hand to the bluette's mouth.
"Vi." Caitlyn's voice is hard and cold, like steel. The brunette flashes the card at her partner, its decadent C scrawled in black ink. The card still has teeth marks left from Jinx.
"No fucking way," the pinkette mutters. "It's C? For real?" Vi, apparently over her stupor, kneels by Jinx's body and removes a glove. She shakily touches the girl's bloodied cheek, trying to remove one of the shards of glass in it.
"Augh," Jinx moans, and Vi screams. The bruiser leaps back and quickly tugs on her glove, the weapon spouting steam at its quick start up. Caitlyn blinks a few times and helps Jinx into a sitting position.
"What are you doing!" Vi hisses, both fists ready to beat Jinx into a pulp. "Don't touch her!"
"Vi," Caitlyn admonishes her partner's behavior. Jinx might be their most pressing enemy, but C made a personal trip to her flat. That was enough to make her ignore the urge to instantly handcuff the sociopath. Also, she doubts the wiry woman could escape with so many injuries.
"What I take," Jinx moans slowly as her mind returns to her. "Dass fucked." Her eyes crack open—one of them has a blood bruise—and stare into Caitlyn's own browns. Jinx huffs and closes her eyes again, this time furrowing her eyebrows. "Hurts. I'm dead?" She tries to shift slightly, but her numerous injuries make her gasp out.
"I wouldn't move," Caitlyn ordered Jinx, a firm grip on the girl's limp wrists. Jinx looks at Caitlyn again and blinks slowly.
"Hat… lady?" she says. Caitlyn makes a noise of irritation from the back of her throat. Jinx chuckles weakly before quickly deteriorating into a fit of coughing. "Well, there goes a lung."
"What happened?" Vi asks tensely. Jinx twists despite the pain to look at her favorite person.
"Fathands!" Her voice is hoarse, but Jinx looks genuinely happy and Vi doesn't know how to respond.
"It's Vi," she stresses, looking away uneasily. Jinx just grins and returns to rest in Caitlyn's arms.
"You're comfy, Hatlady." Caitlyn raises her nose.
"That's wonderful. Now, are you going to cooperate and tell us what happened, or are we going to be forced to lock you in an interrogation cell?" Jinx hums thoughtfully at her options.
"Gee, you have great bedside manner," she teases. She tries to get up, but Caitlyn's grip is much stronger than any energy she has in her body. "Okay, okay, can I just…"
"No," Caitlyn cuts in. Vi creeps closer, slowly lowering her fists.
Jinx looks between the both of them and frowns. "Uh, well, this wasn't how I planned this going down but…" One of her injuries flares up and Jinx grunts, clenching her teeth. Vi watches as Jinx grapples with her pain, feeling strangely put off by it.
'It's 'cause I didn't do it,' she thinks. She'd been so obsessed with crushing the bluette that she'd started thinking her as a personal project, much like Caitlyn's fixation with C. For now, the pinkette finds solace in that answer.
"Oooh," Jinx says after a second, one eye shut in a grimace. "I'll skin that yordle and make myself a new rug!" Caitlyn and Vi share a look, their gazes serious.
"Did this yordle put this in your mouth?" Caitlyn asks, holding up C's calling card. Jinx inspects the design for a second, leaning in to get a closer look.
"Hmmmm, uhmmmm…" She continues to hum before brightening up and smiling. "No clue!"
Vi grinds her jaws, aggravated at Jinx's easygoing attitude. "Listen here, answer us seriously, you psycho!" Jinx just raises her eyebrows at Vi.
"But I ammm being serious!" she whines. Again she tries to sit up on her own, and this time Caitlyn allows her to. The brunette refuses to release the other woman's wrists, however. Jinx is slow to stretch her damaged muscles, ignoring how each of her wounds sting as they shift. "Like, actually serious." Her childish voice is gone, replaced by a tenor the two police officers don't hear often.
Jinx looks at her destroyed room. There is still dust hanging in the air, light attempting to filter through. Her pretty bedspread and soft curtains have been burnt to bits. Half her wall is gone, too.
She looks over at her arm, surprised to see the taser's head still dug into her skin. Turning her body so that the arm is shoved into Caitlyn's face, Jinx shrugs the shoulder a few times. "See that? That's what I would call one fucked up taser." She smiles, eyes turning thoughtful. "Actually, it was pretty awesome when I think about it. Potent."
Caitlyn uses one hand to restrain Jinx's wrists and hovers the other over the black box. Jinx shrugs and leans closer to the brunette's hand. Figuring that to be enough permission, the sniper quickly snatches it from Jinx's flesh. If the constrained cry is anything to go by, the prongs had been buried deep. They have left two perfect holes in Jinx's upper arm, the surrounding skin and flesh blackened by the charge.
Caitlyn is amazed at the damage. "This is from a taser?" she asks, disbelieving. Jinx chirps an affirmative before taking her own look at the discharger.
"Sooo not regulation," she comments. Vi, interested, also comes over. Caitlyn passes the tiny box, and the pinkette pinches it carefully between two huge fingers. Jinx closes her eyes and rocks her head back and forth. "I was tryin' ta gun down the guy when he came up from behind me and zapped me," Jinx explains, each word pronounced carefully. "BZZZT! Just like that. I fell over faster than a lopsided elephant!" The image makes Jinx laugh. "I don't, heh, remember much after that."
"Why'd he come after you?" Vi is holding the taser head to the light, inspecting its profound featurelessness. "I mean you're both criminals, so—" Vi is interrupted by Jinx's enraged screech. The pinkette jumps into a defensive position as Caitlyn struggles with their wounded charge.
"What—calm down!" Caitlyn orders, but Jinx struggles even more to get out of her grasp.
"Justine!" she cries out. "Justine!" Caitlyn grunts as Jinx elbows her and pitches forward, free from her grasp. The woman tumbles, agitating her cuts and making them bleed again. Caitlyn and Vi follow behind the possessed maniac as she tears through the wreckage of her house. She leads them to a door at the other end of the kitchen, bolts covering the handle.
Except they are all broken, Caitlyn notices as Jinx fiddles with the loose knob. After a second she manages to push the wooden door open, and reveals a dark stairway up. The bluette nearly breaks her nose as she scrambles up the steps, Caitlyn following behind calmly. Vi takes up the rear, determined to use her width as a defense should Jinx try to escape.
Jinx punches open a trap door and climbs into an attic. Caitlyn peeks her head over, and sees the equivalent of Jinx's private worklab. There are tables covered with in-progress projects, most of them bombs. One wall is covered in electrical tools and equipment, the dim lighting making them glint slightly. Vi's expression darkens as she takes in the scene, knowing this is where their nemesis crops up her various schemes.
Caitlyn watches as Jinx collapses at an empty table. It's odd in that it's the only completely clean table—it doesn't even have a white cover.
'It's too clean,' Caitlyn realizes as Jinx punches the floor, muttering angrily.
"He took my Justine, that bastard!" Jinx grabs a section of her hair and chews on it angrily. "Blows up my house, electrocutes me, steals my work…!"
"What did C steal." Caitlyn darkly asks as she realizes what most of Jinx's projects are. Bombs of different sizes and shapes line the tables. Jinx huffs as she pulls herself up from the ground, panting at the effort.
"He stole Justine," she answers simply, like it should be obvious. Vi shouts, expressing Caitlyn's personal feelings.
"Who the fuck is Justine!" she yells, throwing her fists into the air. Vi almost knocks out one of the hanging lamps, the attic slightly too small for her. Jinx leans on the empty table, drawing circles with her finger on the pristine wood.
"Justine was my latest bomb," she begins sadly. "Like my Super Mega Death Rocket. I wanted to make one that was remote controlled."
Caitlyn's heart stills as the information processes. "Bomb?"
"Like how big?" Vi continues, her anger swept away in the face of this information. There would be time to beat the other female into a pulp—right now they need to know what exactly C was packing.
"Biiiiig." Jinx admits, stretching one of her arms all the way out. "Like, enough to wipe out one of the Hextech Whatchamacallit Facilities." Caitlyn exhales slowly, her hand pressed into her throbbing forehead.
"Was it finished?" Caitlyn can feel Vi's presence behind her, ready to grapple the bluette.
"Not all the way!" Jinx chirps, her attitude taking a full 180. "I never installed the radio transmitter for the controller or the propulsion jets." Then she pauses with a finger in the air as a thought comes to her. "Ah, but, yanno, it's probably still volatile."
"Volatile?" Vi grits out. "Like, explosive?" Jinx nods rapidly.
"Yeah! Exactly! You're not a dumb as ya look, Fathands—ugh!" Jinx can feel her ribs bend under Vi's strength. Futilely, she squeezes her fingers into the joints. "H-heeey! Hechkgh." A shadow is cast over Vi's face as Jinx suffocates.
"Vi!" Caitlyn begins, but Vi shakes her head.
"No!" she starts, bearing her teeth. "Don't stop me! Why the fuck was she building something like that anyway, huh? We got what we need to know. We don't need her anymore…!"
"VI!" Caitlyn hollers and instantly the bruiser drops Jinx to the ground. The wiry woman collapses and attempts to regain her breath.
"Hey, Hah… Hatlady," she attempts to say, coughing as her lungs recover. She can definitely feel some of the shrapnel that Vi pressed deeper into her body. "Like, uh, what?" With a deep breath, Jinx pushes her hands on her knees and stands up. She wobbles. "I always knew you liked me but, uh." She looks at Vi who is barely containing her rage. "Fathands maaaybe has a point."
"You wanna die?" Vi growls, squeezing her fists. Caitlyn holds up a hand.
"You made the bomb," Caitlyn explains. "It's not finished. That means that either C will finish it on his own—"
"HAH!" Jinx interrupts with a loud laugh. "I'd looove to see him try! I put my own personal twist on everything I make, so unless he knows how to reverse engineer hextech parallel bonds that make no sense, he ain't finishin' zip." Caitlyn's eye twitches at Jinx's loud proclamation, but it does ease some of her stress.
"That's good to know," the sheriff continues. "Anyway, if your bombs are as unique as you say, then we need you to disarm it, should C find use—"
Caitlyn barely contains her rage when Jinx interrupts again. "Eeeeeeeh. I don't think so."
"What does that mean," Vi scowls. Not very gently she grabs Jinx in her large glove so that her head was in the space between her index finger and thumb.
"It sounds fun to watch you guys go looking for this guy," Jinx says with a smile. "It'll be even more fun to watch you run around in panic if he decides to use Justine!" She closes her eyes when Vi starts to tighten her grip, but keeps her grin up.
"Is that so?" Caitlyn asks coldly. Jinx makes a thinking sound, but the brunette shakes her head and Vi grapples her prey. "Then, we have a nice metal cell waiting for you at the precinct."
Vi then drags a protesting Jinx back down the stairs, Caitlyn following while reporting into her communicator. "We're going to need a clean-up crew at the crime scene, as well as a bomb-disabling squad. Prepare the high-profile cell as well."
"Hey, hey, hey!" Jinx yells out, kicking at Vi's arm. Blood drips down her pale leg, staining the shorts she's wearing.
"Stop struggling," Vi warns. "You're not getting anywhere, bitch."
"We're going to need to confiscate her weapons," Caitlyn says to her partner. Vi smirks and pats her hip with her free hand.
"Got one right here." Jinx cranes her neck and catches a glimpse of Zap.
"Oh, hey! You have Zap!" She glares at Vi. "Give her back! She looks sick!" Vi just ignores her captive and walks into Jinx's destroyed bedroom. She grabs the minigun with her other hand, cradling it under her arm.
"Woah, Pow-Pow, too!" Jinx yells out. "Those are mine! Stop touching them, Fathands!" Vi turns her cheek to Jinx's petulant expression.
"Is that it?" she asks to her partner. Caitlyn gives the room another look and nods.
"Yup, seems so. Let's get going." The woman turns to leave, but before she can take a single step Jinx is protesting loudly.
"Wait! WAIT!" she cries out, struggling even harder in Vi's grasp. Vi has no trouble keeping her contained, but she is concerned about the rivulets of blood that Jinx has running down her legs. "Hold up! Yo! Halt! A moment, Your Grace!"
"Chill the fuck out," Vi commands Jinx, but the other woman continues to kick out. "What's your problem all of a sudden!?" Jinx just stares at her, annoyed.
"You can't forget Fishbones!" she announces angrily. "He'll be lonely!" Caitlyn looks back to see if the terrorist is serious, but the neon blue haired girl looks expectant. "My rocket launcher? Helloooo?"
"The blue thing, yes?" Caitlyn asks. Jinx nods enthusiastically, and Caitlyn sighs. "Where is it?"
"He's," Jinx corrects, "across from my bed, in his own! That's where he was last night!" She looks over as well, bright smile as she tries to point out the spot with her nose. "He should be right over… there…" Suddenly she falls silent and still.
"Brat?" Vi asks quietly, unnerved. Jinx mutters something too low for them to hear clearly.
"Fishbones is gone," she repeats. "Fishbones is gone! FISHBONES IS GONE!" Like a switch was flipped, Jinx begins to shout uncontrollably. "FISHBONES IS GONE! FISHBONES IS GONE!" Vi winces at the high pitched sound.
"Will you shut up?" Vi bites out, wincing. Jinx continues to rant, deranged. This is new, even for her. "I'm sure… he's just under the rubble—"
"No," Caitlyn cuts in, looking over the area Jinx described. "The rubble hasn't come far enough, and I can see Fishbones' cushion. The launcher isn't here."
"Fishbonesisgone fishbonesisgone fishbonesisgone fishbonesisgone," Jinx rattles under her breath. "Fishbones! My best friend! Fishbones! He took Fishbones!"
Vi looks at Jinx oddly. "Your best friend?"
Caitlyn holds her chin in her hand. "C is known as being a thief—it's not surprising he snatched your gun as well."
"I'll help."
She speaks too quickly for them to catch fully, but the police officers stare at their captive in amazement.
"What was that?" Caitlyn asks, a smirk forming on her lips as she senses her victory. Jinx looks up and locks eyes, her magenta hues having taken on a blood red tint.
"I'll. Help." She punctuates each word with a period. "He won't get away with taking Fishbones." Caitlyn turns on her heel and hides a pleased smile.
"Good. Now that that's out of the way…"
"Hey…" Vi begins, her voice hinted with concern.
"What?" Caitlyn asks, not wanting to ruin any progress they've made with the highly reactive demolition expert. Vi looks down at the ground Jinx is held over and gulps. The gentle sounds of dripping blood echo through the room disquietingly.
"Feelin' good," Jinx sighs, her face almost as white as a sheet. There are profound bruises around her eyes. She turns to Vi with an absentminded stare. "We gettin' swag tonight, you an' me, Fathands." Her head dips down. "Meet you at the corner of Shit and Faced." Then her forehead meets Vi's metal fist with a loud clang. Her long hair spills over Vi's fist like aqua colored waterfalls.
"Uh." Vi looks at her partner, green around the gills.
"Change that police van to an ambulance," Caitlyn speaks into her collar. Vi sighs.
"I don't get you," she admits. Her partner only smiles and crosses her arms.
"This is why I make the plans, Vi," Caitlyn says confidently. "We can keep Jinx under our thumbs now, and we'll have her help in finding C."
Vi's scarred eyebrow twitches. "And that's a good thing?"
"Sometimes it takes a criminal to catch one," she comments, leading Vi out of the destroyed remnants of Jinx's home. "Especially when they're both so slippery."
"I got a bad feeling about this," Vi mutters, keeping Jinx's limp body at a full arm's length.
