Chapter Two: "Phantoms of the Past, the Crows Come"
"Heh, let Jinx run free for a while longer. I would not keep her from having her fun. In the meantime, it'll give dear Caitlyn something to think about. Soon enough, the crows will come. And when she sees our black wings descending upon her supposedly safe City of Progress, she'll know she chose wrong then those few years ago… She'll know she should have remained focused on me, like her former partner, rather than decided I was not a real threat to her." – Unknown Speaker
"Sheriff Caitlyn? Uh, um, if you are there, may I come in?"
"AH, hm, what?" Caitlyn gasped aloud while dropping the rest of her personal things into the secret floorboard, her heart leaping up into her throat when someone requested her attention from the door so suddenly, "Yes? Yes, what is it? Come on in."
"No, perhaps I shouldn't." The male guest replied, sounding quite unsure of himself when he noticed the obvious rush in her words, "What with you obviously on the floor and having had that fight with Vi earlier, I should have known this would be a bad time to-"
"Oh, knock that off, Hector! That's an order!" Caitlyn cheerily laughed when finally having hidden her stuff, gotten to her feet to brush herself off, and realized her guest was the timid yet good hearted uniformed rookie, "Hector Vail", "Get in here! Don't worry, I'm not like Vi. You know I don't just smash anyone or anything that comes into my quarters unannounced. Wait, what is that you've got?"
"A bit of encouragement from the rest of your forces to you, sheriff." Hector coolly responded to his superior's question, holding out the generous bottle of ruby red grape wine he had been holding in the crook of his left arm, "We have a second ready for Vi as well when the time is appropriate. Um, of course, you're going to ask why you're getting this. Well, it's simple. We here at the headquarters couldn't help but hear you and Vi go at it earlier and we just wanted to reassure you that we, your city too, knows you two – all of Piltover's Finest – are trying your absolute hardest in putting an end to who you, we, have come to call the Loose Cannon."
"This is from everyone?" Caitlyn wondered aloud when handed the wine by Hector, taking immediate notice that his uniform was drenched with rainwater, "You mean to say you and the others put together this gift… and you, Hector, got soaked by the rain to go get this for me and another for Vi?"
"Indeed, yes. Yet, it was my absolute pleasure in doing so." Hector replied, a smile coming over him when seeing his sheriff begin to grin too at comprehending his antics of having gone down to the local store despite the thunderstorm in progress, "Also, a side note, we all here thank you for not letting Vi smash the headquarters apart. Thanks for just having her shout, not make the roof collapse on all of our heads."
"Bah ha ha! I understand that Vi has had her unpredictable moments but I highly doubt she'd go as far as begin punching up our headquarters, Hector." Piltover's sheriff giggled, feeling a bit sad but happily so that she had just enjoyed the yordle wine rather than waited for this surprise gift to arrive, "She'd never allow herself to go as far as to really hurt her friends with her anger. And speaking of her anger, she won't be so angry anymore when she sees that you all have gotten her such a grand brand of wine as mine here. Truly, she'll be grateful if not relieved when you present it to her."
"I am very happy to hear that, sheriff." Hector replied, showing another bright smile once more, "The others will be happy to hear it too. We just wanted to let you and Vi know that we've always appreciated all of your hard work. Don't ever question that."
"You don't know how much that helps me to hear that, Hector." Caitlyn chimed, actually ignoring the warnings in her fuzzy head as she went to open her newest bottle of adult goodness, "Here, have a seat with me, actually. We'll enjoy this together. Then we'll share it with everyone else in the headquarters."
"That beverage is meant only for you, ma'am." Hector stated, looking quite unsure as he looked to actually leave the office, "The others want you have to that for yourself. They put together their money to let you enjoy that yourself and not have-"
"Am I the law around here or not?" Caitlyn jokingly yet firmly demanded of the nervous rookie, drawing out several shot glasses while also seriously pointing for Hector to not take another step away but forward to her desk, "Don't you leave! Get back here! Sit! Enjoy this with me! That's an order!"
"And if I don't comply, sheriff?" Hector joked, daring to leave for a moment before returning to quickly sit before his grinning sheriff with a tentative chuckle, "You know what? Don't answer that please. I'd rather enjoy this drink at your orders rather than, uh, clean the holding cells for the next week, right?"
"Heh, that's right." Piltover's sheriff remarked brightly to the rookie, passing him a shot glass before they both downed their wine with much laughing, "And everyone else will join me in this drink or they'll look forward to sweeping, cleaning, and organizing the holding cells instead. No excuses! All will drink with me! They'll drink, they'll laugh, they'll have a good time!"
"They'll drink to your continued health and partnership with Vi, will they not?" Hector wondered, accepting another shot glass of wine from his happy superior, "Is that not worthy of a drink or two?"
"It's very worthy, if I may say so myself." The sheriff chimed with a wink, laying back in her comfortable desk chair where she lifted her stocking covered feet to set them crossed over one another on her desk, "Thank you, Hector. You and the others have just done a very good job in making my rather mucky night… a better one."
"I serve Piltover the best way I can. On that, I swore while taking my honorable day of oaths." Hector responded, not ever stopping smiling as he set his own shot glass back onto his superior's desk, "And on this particular night, the best way to serve Piltover is to help the sheriff see the way, right?"
This rather heart felt explanation of helping the City of Progress by helping its sheriff honestly took Caitlyn off guard. As she gave the rookie – a finer than fine young man with black hair, topaz eyes, a finely toned body adorned in the traditionally blue Piltoverian police outfit, plus an obviously optimistic attitude that would get him far in not only his career but in life too – the sheriff couldn't help but think of whom Hector Vail really was in reality.
Since he had joined the forces several months ago, Hector had shown a potential for the field. He was indeed handsome for the ladies to look at, the kindest type of family man, quite young for a recruit, but a promising figure amid his fellow newbies. His records while in action before Jinx's reign of terror showed he had been brave, wise, an inspiration to the young as well as old for citizens and police alike.
And now, clearly, as he got a bit more comfortable in his own seat before her desk, it seemed he knew just what to do and say during the worst of worst times for the sheriff. Not only that but since the dangers of the Loose Cannon had come, his performance, his reputation, his progress towards promotion, had not slowed at all. They had, quite fortunately, only intensified.
It was obvious that no matter the dread it faced, Piltover would not fall nor continue to suffer at the hands of Jinx. Sure, there was the city's finest on the case of putting the blue haired terrorist behind bars but with figures like Hector here – with men and women who were willing to go beyond the call of duty when called into the fray – the future didn't so dim. It seemed quite bright, in fact.
"I thank you for worrying about me and Vi, Hector. Yet, it is not required." Caitlyn admitted while glancing backwards towards the stormy outside world, feeling more content than she'd felt in a long while, "It is indeed a good theory that to care for Piltover's sheriff is a good way to secure the city's future. However, you are also an important part of the city, you know. You may only think of yourself as a recruit of the police force but you are still part of the police. And when you are part of the police of Piltover, you are more than a man or woman. You, like me, are a guardian yourself."
"Well, that may be true, sheriff… but amongst us all here, you are the best of guardians for this city then. You cannot argue that. You just can't."
"I can and I will." Caitlyn replied, feeling humbled not to mention a bit embarrassed by Hector's tender words, "I may be sheriff but I have my faults as does Vi. She and I may be strong but without good souls like you, Hector, like those in the headquarters here, this city would have fallen a long time ago. Only together are we strong. Only united together do we make the best of guardians."
"Only together are we at our best, hm?" Hector repeated, rubbing his cleanly shaven chin in the meantime, "Then, if that's true, if you will permit me to ask, sheriff… why did you abandon August for Vi those few years ago?"
August? Vi? Abandon? Wait, what?
Had Caitlyn just heard her recruit correctly? Had Hector from nowhere really just said the name of the sheriff's isolate if not secret former partner? Had he wondered why she'd supposedly abandoned August for Vi even though that hadn't been the case at all? No, this couldn't be… this was crazy to even imagine. How could Hector know about… that? He didn't. He couldn't.
Yet, as the strangest of sensations began to make her vision blur, her body not respond, her balance of gravity go all out of order, Caitlyn couldn't ignore the obvious as Hector went on interrogating her with a most stern expression across his formerly encouraging face; the recruit knew of her past. He had clearly shown that he was somehow aware of some well protected information that not even Vi had been told quite yet.
"Why did you give up on August, on your past, and take to chasing the insignificant with that steel fisted hag rather than deal with the real situation, sheriff?" Hector wondered of Piltover's sheriff as she tried not to slide out of her armchair, her bulging eyes looking around as if not knowing what they were looking at, "Why did you abandon your former partner in dealing justice to grow soft watching over this little city of clockwork, steam, and so called progress? Why did you give up on this?"
Onto struggling Caitlyn's desk, Hector next threw a file of new paperwork, pictures, all topped off with a golden card that had a "C" upon it as well as a separate symbolic envelope with a jeering crow plus inky feather. At this, at seeing the yellow card of her and August's most frustrating nemesis, the sheriff lashed out with her numbing hands to attempt to look over everything Hector had just revealed.
Ignoring the fact that she'd obviously been drugged by something in the red wine – no wonder Hector had insisted earlier that she enjoy it herself – not paying any heed that the rookie wasn't being effected in the slightest, intent on truly finding out what was going on, Caitlyn did indeed grab onto the newly shown files… but not without collapsing upon the hardwood floor in the process!
In a mess of scattered papers, of pictures, the sheriff struggled with what remaining yet drained strength she had in looking over the information blank Hector had just given to her. As she did so, unnoticed by her, an enormous black crow landed upon the outside windowsill behind her desk to shake the pounding rainwater off of its inky plumage.
At seeing the ominous bird roosted outside, Hector purposefully reached into his uniform to produce a most odd yet recognizable object before his struggling sheriff's eyes; a small, tin made circus monkey toy that – when cranked up by a crank in its back – began to eerily spang the cymbals in its hands together.
"H-Hector… Ungh…" Caitlyn gasped out as the ominous tin monkey clanged away, pushing herself up into a sitting position against the nearby wall with most of the recruit's produced files in her lap, "Where did you… get that toy? Where did you… get these files? Where have you… been?"
"I've been through the most terrible of things and have come to show you that it is only there because you decided to give up on your unfinished past, sheriff." Hector replied in the middle of downing repeated shots of the tampered red wine, taking in deep breaths as his body color seemed to brighten up, "You see all things catch back up to us. In your case, at one point in time, you had a choice that concerned that yellow card in your hands."
At this, the rookie of Piltover's forces sharply gestured to the present yellow C card Caitlyn was all too familiar with before resuming drinking, "But instead of pursuing the owner of that card like a certain other has done for too long, you let it go. You decided to become a sheriff when you hadn't even finished the most important of jobs and now…"
Hector blankly gazed towards the crow outside, a most hopeless gleam glinting in her once happy eyes, "Now me, this city, everyone and everything everywhere is going to suffer for it. And Jinx is just the start. That Loose Cannon of yours, that golden card dealer… they're your past coming to catch back up with you, sheriff. And your past is going to cost us all a lot of things."
What was this madness? What was Hector spewing? Why had he turned so abruptly cold when he had always been so kind, so gentle, so compassionate? What did he mean be the past was coming back to catch up with huffing Caitlyn? Jinx was more than enough trouble to handle nowadays but where had all of this craziness – especially from the innocent yet not so innocent rookie of all people – suddenly come from?
So many questions… without the proper answers. Answers that weren't provided by Hector when Caitlyn, through her growing illness from the wine, began to try her hardest speak to him.
"H-Hector… I didn't give up on… on anything." The sheriff groaned out in a cough, trying to remain awake as her senses demanded she be taken into the hurting blackness overwhelming her, "I made this city…. I made it safe. I-I've been helping August in finding this dealer of golden cards all the while. D-don't do this. Help me. Tell me who has put you up to this. Tell me how he or she or whoever got into your mind and-"
"Me help you?" Hector laughed, reaching into his pockets again to produce a hextech pistol next that made the sheriff's blood stop pumping for a moment, "Why would I help you when you can't even help yourself? When you can't help this city? You've grown soft, sheriff. Back in the day, back with August, you wouldn't have let yourself be reduced to… this. Your guard was always up, always ready for anything. Yet, here Jinx is running free, Vi is as dumb as ever, and you are suffering from whatever was in the drink here. Pathetic."
None of this… was making sense. There were mentions of August, of Vi, of Caitlyn's past, of the golden C card dealer, of Jinx, of Piltover's future being one of pain, and too much more for the sheriff's growingly hazy brain to piece together at the moment.
Nonetheless, although handicapped, Piltover's sheriff murmured, "Hector, I – I'm not… You know I'm not pathetic. I know that you know, ungh, the city hasn't been lost due to any course of action. Only together, not apart, can we… keep this city. Don't let yourself fall… out of grace. Don't become a criminal. Remember your, hngh, sworn oaths."
"Yes. Only together, not apart, can we win this city back." Hector agreed, checking over his pistol while putting a silencer on it and taking notice of the crow as it departed from the window into the heavily falling rain, "Yeah, I know my oaths, sheriff. I also know my oaths won't matter in the days to come. It's too late for any of that anymore.
"Hector… you don't mean that-"
"Sheriff, we're done here. Save your breath. It's not my loyalty you need to win back to save this decaying place, to keep your past from destroying everything… It's August's."
"August… no one knows him… How would you know about him…?"
"Because HE who delivers those told me himself." Hector stated, gesturing to the golden C card in Caitlyn's limp lap and meaning the master of the symbolic item, "You really are more than lost, sheriff. You need to get back on track of what you left behind and to do that, I'm revealing this stuff to you. I'm helping you, the sheriff, the guardians of guardians of this city, so that you can help Piltover. Only through you will all of this chaos, this Jinxing, cease."
"T-then, if I am to make a difference… why am I so incapacitated? What did you… put in the wine…?"
"Whatever was in the wine wasn't my doing, ma'am. I guess, somehow, through the miracles or curses of science, it was meant for you only… and as for me, ahem, I've done my part. All accept one more thing, anyway."
Suddenly, the hextech pistol was against Hector's temple and before it went off, before the walls were painted with his cranium, he stated, "Just like I have, you need to stop dreaming and wake up, sheriff. Wake up already. The crows are coming… and I'm sorry but they won't let my sister or my mother go unless this was done."
"H-Hector, don't you pull that… trigger… That's an order… We can help your family from-"
"Hah, sheriff to the end, huh? That's good of you, ma'am." Hector actually chuckled, his senses dulled with the massive consumption of alcohol, "But there can be no more loose ends than those that have already been shown to you. For my loved ones that they have, I have to go. I pray you have the best of good luck in the coming days, ma'am. You have less than three minutes to make good use of what you've seen and heard here… what you're feeling now will be nothing compared to what's on the way."
Caitlyn didn't have the strength to avert her eyes when her recruit executed himself in front of her with a muffled gunshot to the head. Then, grunting, knowing she hadn't the energy to do anything but, the sheriff looked to call out for someone, anyone, a miracle, to come to her aid. Yet, she was so very heavy in both body and mind and, to her terror if not dread, she couldn't manage even a whimper past hector's formerly lively body. She couldn't even say anything past her dried lips.
There, in her corner, with the tin monkey clanging its cymbals together in front of lost Hector, the sheriff's so called bettered night had just clearly taken a nosedive from decent into total chaos. As her senses began to numb, as her heart slowed, as her eyes drooped while looking down at the golden card labeled C, her mind was faintly thinking of several things.
No, Caitlyn didn't remotely think of fear, of the end, of the approaching light at the end of the tunnel before her failing vision. Instead, if she could have – which she actually was in her own silent way – she would have openly wept like beforehand on the sofa at having met such an end filled with regrets; where her city was dying, her friends would have to go on without her, and she had somehow failed Hector so terribly that he had been forced to assume the role as the most horrific messenger of the golden C card user.
And then there was August Cousitarian… who needed to be contacted, to be involved, to be informed about all of this that Caitlyn had just been told!
What about Vi too? The enforcer needed to know Caitlyn hadn't meant anything that she had said earlier that night! To the sheriff, Vi was and would always be her best friend, family, a sister through more than just conflict, heroics, even blood! Not only that, if it even existed, Vi couldn't be given hero own red wine!
Yet, even with such desperate if not valiant thoughts where she wanted to make things right with those she loved before the end, Caitlyn could not overcome the truth of reality. Soon enough, with no one knowing about it, she had lost consciousness in her office while the minutes towards her unforeseen doom speedily approached.
"CAIT!" A drunkenly positive Vi suddenly laughed from out of nowhere next, slamming through the sheriff's sturdily locked office door with much dismayed uproar from the other nearby officers, "Hey, um, hic, cupcake, babe, sis, forgive me! You're the best! With all of my shouting and yelling, I was being the idiot earlier and can you tell me why the yordle crossed the road? Cait? Hey, cupcake, I – CAIT?! WHAT IN THE-"
Before the hazy eyed yet suddenly sobered up hextech handed enforcer of Piltover was a most unexpected sight that had just happened seconds before her actual arrival!
The sheriff of the City of Progress was down as was a recruit! There was blood everywhere but thankfully none seemed to have come from Caitlyn. No, sickly, the gore had all probably come from… what had formerly been Hector Vail's head.
By Piltover, what had happened here?! Why was Hector dead?! Why was Caitlyn unconscious?! How had this happened in the headquarters, in one of the most secure places in the City of Progress?!
As Vi – as gently as she could while trying to stay sober in the midst of being completely hammered – picked up her partner in her steely gauntlets, the enforcer found it terrifying to see how limp, how helpless, how lifeless the sheriff was being!
Caitlyn… she couldn't die! She just couldn't do that, just snuff out like some candle in the wind! Not after the brutal verbal exchange she as well as the now panicking enforcer had just recently had where they had basically told each other they were better off alone, not together! No, things couldn't end this way for the sheriff and enforcer! Reality couldn't be that cruel!
"Medic! Ugh, nurse! Doctor! Hey, everyone!" Vi emotionally screamed through her grogginess, looking to leave the office to seek medical attention for her unconscious and hopefully not deceased partner against crime, "Guys! I need someone with medical expertise in here quick! Cait is down! Cait is-"
While Vi went on shouting for someone to come aid her in seeing Caitlyn to medicine or some kind of treatment, the wound up tin monkey on the desk had ceased clanging its cymbals together. As it finished its obnoxious banging, a mechanism clicked inside of its chest that played a sinister yet carefree voice through its mouth that made Vi not only stop in her tracks but snarl.
From the monkey toy, with many eerie giggles, chimes, laughs, an actual recording of Jinx's voice rang out to be clearly heard.
"Hi! Ha ha, you've reached Jinxy-Winxy, Pow-Pow, and Fishbones! Say hello, Fishbones! HELLO! As crazy and sad as it is to believe, we're not available right now to have fun with you. Oh, don't cry Pow-Pow. You, whoever you are interrupting my own fun, leave us a message after the BOOM and we'll join you when we, heh heh, can!"
"I'll leave you a message, you freak!" Vi growled at the tin monkey, readying a fist to smash the thing into the ground, "Ever heard of the knuckle sandwich? It's my personal favorite and if you did this to Caitlyn, I swear you'll come to like it just as much as – Oh no… No, no, NO!"
Through the window behind Caitlyn's desk, through the rainy darkness, with much sparking, crackling, along with hissing, Piltover's hextech fisted enforcer saw something was rushing towards the office at breakneck speed!
Acting with actually precise swiftness despite she was mostly drunk, Vi seized the bloody body of Hector before leaping out of the office where everyone was trying to lecture her on her overdose in alcohol! Just behind the enforcer though, she didn't hear her lecturers. Only the window shatter, a loud squeal of metal go off, and then–
"Down! Everyone down now!" Vi roared to everyone near her before protecting her two packages – unaware Caitlyn and Hector's cold body – with her gauntlets when Piltover's sheriff's entire office fiercely exploded into flame, debris, along with smoke!
As Hector had said before recently removing himself from the equation, three minutes were now up. Caitlyn had avoided her most terrible demise of being blow apart due to Vi's convenient entrance… and now, hopefully, the medics could get into her bloodstream in time to spare her from losing her life to whatever she'd been drugged with. Hopefully.
"You made a most excellent shot, Jinx." A cloaked figure humorously acknowledged from the roof where he stood with the tittering Loose Cannon in the rain opposite of Caitlyn's now destroyed office, a large crow – the same Hector had seen before dying – roosted upon his soaked shoulder, "But not at all as effective as predicted, I'm afraid. The sheriff lives. Naughty, naughty, naughty."
"Augh, Fishbones!" Jinx vented at her rocket launcher next when told off by the cloaked stranger looking across the street through the scope of the barrel a long and sleek hextech sniper rifle, slapping the shark shaped weapon around as if she were really hurting it, "Useless! You're so useless! Bah!"
"I'm sorry!" Fishbones – deeply along with throatily voiced by Jinx herself out of the corner of her mouth – exclaimed while slapped, "I'm sorry I'm such a useless, terrible, unreliable, party pooper! Please forgive me! Please! No, wait, let me fire again!"
"Now, now, there's no reason for us to be so frustrated here and there's certainly no reason to fire off another missile." The cloaked figure acting as a roost for the crow explained to his blue haired, red eyed fellow as she went about doing her crazy business, "Truly, judging by our master's design, it is actually rather fortunate that the sheriff has lived… she will not only increase the speed of August's investigation but him seeing her so tormented will drive him onward with renewed vigor. Things are about to become very hectic in Piltover."
"They're about to become hectic?" Jinx wondered innocently, a look of childish confusion coming over her pale face and not at all showing she had an issue standing nearly naked in the cold storm's downpour in the meantime, "You mean I didn't make things hectic enough until now? Oh, poo!"
Sweeping around her to pat her rocket launcher's shark shaped head, the crow's enigmatic master keeping the sleek sniper rifle at his side insisted, "Heh, don't be so hard on yourself over nothing, Jinx. You have done very well. You know that. And to be honest Fishbones has not really failed us in anything. Thanks to him being something of a party crasher, things are about to become much more… fun for us."
"Really?!" Jinx exclaimed, her crimson eyes bulging and her smile widening into a leer at the mention of things maybe becoming more fun than they already were, "Then Fishbones did good? Fishbones made us proud? YAY! Yay, for Fishbones!"
"YAY!" Fishbones agreed with much clanking while Jinx mimicked his voice for him.
"Please, Jinx, lower your voice and come along with me." The cloaked figure insisted, lazily retreating from the place they had been at when firing off Fishbones into Caitlyn's office, "Yes, Fishbones and you has done good tonight. Yet, we have had our fun here. So, before she can come to ruin our playing around, let us leave this place before Vi catches on to our game."
"Why worry about that loser and her big loser hands?" Jinx chimed, skipping along through the rain behind her companion as he approached the nearest ledge leading off of the roof, "All she knows is how to break things, not save them. If anything, I want her to find me… She always has a way to make things way more fun!"
"I'm sorry to say it but we have had all of the fun we can have tonight." The master of the crow as well as holder of the sniper rifle chuckled back, turning to extend a hand – a gnarled, robotic, clawed hand – for the Loose Cannon to accept with something of a grimace, "But not to worry, little Jinx. The greatest fun is about to begin and it will involve not only this city but all of Runeterra itself. Just be patient."
"Patient? Pfffffft. That's no fun!" Jinx whined before assuming another mocking poise where she had her rocket launcher talk for her while she rather spoke in a deep voice again, "No, waiting is boring! Waiting is no FUN at all, silly! Mmf!"
"Aw, Fishbones! I wanted to say that!" Jinx lectured herself with a giggle, looking entertained all the same, "Shut your trap already and keep it shut!"
"Mmf!" Fishbones animatedly replied in a muffled grunt with Jinx pretending to hold its steely maw shut, "Mmf, hmf, murf, smurf, urf, urf, murf!"
"Good, Fishbones! Keep your mouth shut like that from now on!"
"You are the one who is being silly, silly." The cloaked holder of the sniper rifle chuckled, pulling Jinx closer to him as she finished her eager yet animated conversation with Fishbones, "Think about it… Our master is the one who has given us this opportunity to change history, who has given you all of your fun in Piltover here. Now, are you really willing to call him silly now that he wants to give you the world as a playground?"
"Well, duh, no." Jinx mocked, allowing her cloaked fellow to pull her into an embrace where she was finally protected from the rain under his cloak and allowed to even enjoy his warmth, "I'm just saying, heh, that waiting… it's SO hard sometimes! It's boring, you know!"
"YEAH! BORING – Mmf!"
"What did I just say, Fishbones?! Shut it!"
"The crows are coming, Jinx." The cloaked stranger stated, allowing the crow on his shoulder to take off into the rain with the Loose Cannon staying close to him, "They're nearly here as it is. And when they do arrive… you'll never get enough fun. You won't know where to stop, where to go, what to do with yourself. It'll only be fun, fun, and more fun for you, for the crows, for all of us. Now be silent and hold on. We must report back to our master that the plan has worked out a bit differently than planned. Not that that's bad, mind. Heh."
And then, as the lightning flashed and thunder roared from overhead, the Loose Cannon along with cloaked stranger she was hugging vanished from sight to parts unknown but them.
Next, finding shelter upon a nearby railing out of the rain coming down in torrents, the large crow that had signaled Hector to end his own life was all that was left to observe a group of wailing hextech automobiles arrive at Piltover's Police Headquarters to dowse the flames that were feeding upon Caitlyn's former office, to keep everything under control, and to help Piltover's unconscious sheriff stay alive so that she could do what needed to be or was expected to be done; contact her loyal yet isolate old time partner, August Cousitarian, about the sudden reemerging of golden card dealer C.
The past of Piltover's sheriff, whatever that might entail, had come back in the most unexpected ways. If one paid enough attention to them, the rainy gales were stirring with the powers of fate. What awaited everyone, everything in Runeterra in the future had begun to unravel; for the crows were coming. And it was known that where a crow appeared, that deity or force or power known as death soon followed or… was already there to greet it.
End of "Phantoms of the Past, the Crows Come"…
