Moving without thinking, Caitlyn snaps into action. Vi has become a target to her, and that's all that matters now. All other thoughts are pushed out of her head. She has a target, and they will not escape. Only once has anyone ever escaped her, and it won't happen again. She collapses her rifle into its smaller, less bulky form, and slings it over her shoulder. Her eyes shine with grim determination as the first drops of rain begin to fall, and start to wash the blood-drenched street below clean.
She aims her hex-tech grappling device at the building across the street and fires the line, but doesn't wait for it to connect before she dives off of the 7th story ledge she is on. The wind rushes through her hair as she falls, and any observer would think she was going to keep falling and hit the ground. But right before she does, she triggers the gauntlet, and the line retracts with incredible power, bringing her with it. She flies up, and shifts her legs to swing sideways, flying past the building she grappled to. She thumbs another button on the gauntlet, and the claw releases it's grip and zips back to her. She's really flying now, propelled through the air from the inertia of her swing, legs and arms back, chest out and eyes closed. Her grey cloak flaps in the wind as she soars between the skyscrapers of Piltover, high in the air. The rain begins to pour.
Caitlyn lives for this now, this feeling of freedom, of being able to go anywhere and do anything. It's an adrenaline rush unlike any other, and when she's flying like this, swinging from building to building with her grappling hook, never once touching the ground, she never wants to come down again. Down there was pain, down there was hardship, and suffering. Nothing could touch her up here. She could empty her mind, and just be one with the wind rushing past her. She could forget about everything that had happened. Forget about Vi. Wait...
"VI!" Her mind practically screamed the name at her, as she snapped back into reality and remembered exactly who she was chasing. Not some nameless criminal, not some corrupt cop, but Vi, her girlfriend, the love of her life, and the cause of all of her misery for the past two years. Because she had disappeared, and never came back for her. And it had ripped her up inside, when the dark parts of her mind whispered to her in the night, when she was cold and alone, telling her that her partner had abandoned her on purpose. She was too cold, too uncaring, and she didn't appreciate Vi when she had been a part of her life. The voices told her that she was never coming back.
But there she was, down there on the dark streets of Piltover, running like the devil was at her heels. She had to get closer. She had to catch her. She had to. She couldn't let Vi go again, couldn't watch her disappear into the night once more. Her sharp, calculating mind refused to consider that as a possibility, and she normally considered everything, every possible outcome. But Vi leaving her again, that was not one of them. Not when she was so close.
She flew though the air, swinging from building to building, with the ease of someone who had done this for their entire life. Her reflexes were sharp and honed, and her mind analyzed every possible location her grappling hook could latch to, what trajectory she would need to avoid smashing into a building, what amount of force she would need to increase her speed as she flew.
And she did this all while her eyes remained glued to the fleeing figure below her. The streets were empty, and the rain poured down, almost obscuring her vision of the wayward Enforcer. It didn't look to her like Vi was running from her, but she was certainly running from something. Perhaps herself, and after what she had witnessed in front of that movie theater, Caitlyn knew she would be running too.
She aims her gauntlet at a gargoyle ahead of her, and thumbs the extend button. The claw shoots forward with almost supersonic speed and spears into the rough stone, then closes its talons and secures itself. She retracts the line, pulling herself towards the gargoyle, and swings under it, then flips over and lands on top of it. Turning and looking down, she can see that she is ahead of Vi, and only a good five stories above her. She lets herself fall forward, off the gargoyle, and grabs onto the jutting mouth of the stone demon. Hanging in the air now, she punches the claw of her hex-tech gauntlet into the gray marble, and activates its talons. She's so close now. She lets go.
And she falls, four stories, now three, two, one. Right before she would have hit the ground, she thumbs the retract button, and the cable goes taut and begins to pull her back up, nearly wrenching her arm out of its socket. She doesn't care. Before the cable can drag her upwards, she releases the claw, and falls the last ten or so metres to the ground. She lands on the balls of her feet and turns the landing into a roll, coming up... and crashing into Vi, tackling her to the ground.
The rain is a deluge now, splashing off the pavement in a fine mist. Caitlyn's hood has fallen off, and her hair is soaking wet and clinging to her face. She straddles her former partner, hands on the other woman's shoulders, staring down at her. Vi stares back up at her in shock, she hasn't moved since she was knocked to the ground by the falling Sheriff. Caitlyn's violet eyes shift back and forth desperately, looking for some sign that Vi remembers her. Something flickers in Vi's eyes, recognition? Yes, recognition, and... fear?
"She's not real, she's not real, I can't face her, not now, NOT LIKE THIS! NOT AFTER WHAT I'VE DONE!" Vi's broken mind screams at itself.
Vi shoves the Sheriff off of her with more force than she intends, and Caitlyn yelps in surprise as she lands on her back, the rain falling into her eyes. She scrambles back to her feet, just in time to see her girlfriend's skin turn a pale white, and her eyes become black pits.
"Oh no, not this again. Will I be able to stop her if she tries to kill me? After seeing what those she did to those men, I doubt it," Caitlyn thinks to herself as she desperately tries to come up with a way to prevent the demon in front of her from tearing her apart.
But before she can do anything, the ground Vi is laying on begins to glow and sickly purple color, and she slowly sinks into it, disappearing from sight. And the ground becomes normal again, leaving no trace of the woman who was just laying on top of it.
Caitlyn's breath thunders in her ears as she stares blankly at the ground in front her, unable to comprehend what just happened. The rain still pours as harshly as before.
"She left me... again, on purpose. She knew it was me... and she left. She was afraid of me. Did she think I would abhor her? That I would label her a monster and kill her? Oh Vi..."
Caitlyn wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the ground, rocking back and forth as she vainly fought the tears that she knew would reach her eyes anyway. Vi was there, right there in front of her, close enough to hold again. And now she was gone. This time, probably for good. Caitlyn knew now that Vi was avoiding her on purpose, probably had been these last two years.
"What happened to her on that mission from the League? Is she some sort of demon now? Why did she kill those men? Why didn't she kill me? Why did she leave again? Why? WHY!?"
Her mind swirled with questions as she was left alone, once again. Her insides felt like they were turning into ash. And the heartless rain kept pouring down, uncaring of anything at all.
The Piltover countryside would be considered beautiful by anyone who laid eyes upon it. Green rolling hills, freshly tilled fields, orchards of fruit trees. There is a particularly tall hill overlooking the fields, with a single ancient oak tree perched on top of it. The view from the hill is spectacular, and Joebb Archer knows that the view is at it's best after a full day of rain, such as the one they just had. The grass is at its greenest right after a storm. And so he sits, back against the oak, watching the sun go down over the horizon, marveling at the power of nature to create things far more beautiful than mankind could ever manage.
Darkness falls, the sun retreats, and the moon takes its place. Joebb begins the long walk back to his family's farm, wondering what tomorrow will bring. He is nearly a man now, and his father is beginning to trust him with more responsibility as a result. He knows his father will pass on, and he will take over his work. He doesn't mind, he accepts it as a fact of life. The farm will pass to him, just as it did to his father, his father's father, and countless generations of Archer's before him. The Archer family farmed. That was what they did. The folks in the big city had to have something to eat.
Joebb enjoys this time of night, right after the sun has set. The sun's warmth still lingers, and the cold of night has not yet set in. The birds are returning to their nests, and the rustling of the wind through the orchard he walks in is normally calming. But something is different about tonight. There is no wind, and the moon has disappeared behind the clouds, as if it is betraying him. Even the crickets have stopped chirping. He glances over his shoulder and picks up his pace, his mind beginning to conjure up dark phantoms in the shadows. He knows the countryside is safe, crime is rare around here, but still something feels wrong.
There's a noise in the distance.
"Was that... buzzing? Like some sort of big bug or something?" He wonders.
He reaches the end of the orchard and enters the cornfields surrounding his home, but he knows he still has a long way to go before he reaches his house.
He's almost running now, he's never wanted to just get home this bad in his life. He knows he's just seeing things, hearing things, but even still, a cold chill is running down his spine.
The strange buzzing noise sounds again, like the flapping of insect wings, albeit a very large insect. This time it's louder, closer, and he knows that his mind is not playing tricks on him.
He breaks into a sprint, pushing his legs hard and fast. He used to run through the fields as a boy, laughing as his father would chase him and pretend to be a monster of some sort, but this was different. This was real, he could feel something actually hunting him, something inhuman.
A piercing cry echoes through the night, an alien sound that he's never heard before. It sounds hungry. He closes his eyes and runs faster than he has ever ran before.
And he trips. His foot catches on a rock and he loses his balance, pitching off the road and rolling into the cornfield.
He sits up and looks around, eyes wide with fright. His breath comes in hitched gasps, and he realizes he is covered in sweat.
"Not like this, not like this, this isn't supposed to happen, I can't die here!"
He shakily pulls himself to his feet and starts to walk forward again, through the paths in the corn fields that he remembers by heart. This time he moves cautiously, hoping that whatever it was, it had lost sight of him when he fell. He dares to hope that he's evaded it.
There's a rustling behind him, and he freezes, his blood running cold, and his eyes dilating in terror. He turns his head as slowly as he can, hoping beyond hope that it was just some small animal.
The clouds retreat, and the moon shines through again, bringing with it a silvery light that illuminates his surroundings. Nothing. There's nothing there. He sighs in relief, and turns back around.
Just in time to see a glimmer of purple haze, as a creature from his deepest nightmares materializes in front of him, and impales him through the chest with a long, impossibly sharp talon.
He looks down dumbly at the object spearing through him, and then back up at the horrific creature, as blood starts to leak from the corners of his mouth. It looks like a horribly evolved bug, with wings, and talons, and a purple carapace. His mind struggles to comprehend what is happening to it.
"I can't feel any pain... so this can't be real, this is all just a horrible nightmare and I'll wake up safe in my bed. I can't feel this thing in my chest, I can't, can't - HUUAAAGGHHH!"
The pain finally stabs into his mind, a piercing agony, and he knows this is real. His psyche breaks.
The creature laughs, a horrifying, raspy sound. It loves this. It lifts up its second talon, and it places it across the man's neck.
"If I kill you, will I learn how to die?" It asks.
It drags its talon across his neck, separating Joebb's head from his body in a fountain of blood.
Vi stops running. She collapses facedown on a nearby park bench, and starts to sob. Relief floods through her body. Her legs cry out in protest against the abuse she has subjected them to. She was fit by any standard; back in the day, she had earned the reputation of being the fastest member of her gang. But even still, her body felt like it was going to collapse on her from running across nearly the entirety of the city. And Piltover was no small city. They called it a city-state for a reason.
She couldn't have stopped though, until now, her mind couldn't come up with any other alternative than to just keep running. She didn't want to face the possibility that she hadn't just been hallucinating, that Caitlyn was actually somehow still alive. Because if she was, then she also knew what Vi had become. A monster, a horrific beast capable of only murder.
For the first time in a long time, Vi feels fear. True fear, not the adrenaline rush and nervousness one feels before a fight. Vi's never been afraid of fighting. But there is one thought, that makes her feel like she is a little girl again, lost and alone in the dark. What if Caitlyn is actually alive?
"What if I hurt her?"
She didn't even want to grasp the fragile thread of hope that Caitlyn might be alive in the first place. Vi only believed in things that were real, that you could touch and see. She'd never been one for hope, or faith, or other intangible concepts like that. Except for love, that had been real. She knew it was real because she could feel it, could feel her heart beating faster when she was with Caitlyn, could feel the warmth from her body when they huddled close at night. She could feel the love pouring from Caitlyn when she stared into those beautiful, violet eyes.
And that was the problem. When Caitlyn had tackled her in that alley, and was on top of her, she had felt real. And that had terrified her. It terrified her of what Caitlyn would do to her, if she knew what Vi had done, what Vi had become. Her mind had screamed at her to escape somehow, she had willed it, and it had happened. She didn't know how she had apparently teleported, or phased out, or whatever it was. She had felt the demon surge to the fore, she had felt herself sinking into the ground, and the next thing she knew she was standing halfway across the city. And she had felt the urge to keep running. So she had followed it, and now here she was, on some park bench by the waterfront, with tears in her eyes and exhaustion in her limbs.
She picks herself up and shifts into a sitting position. Lifting her hands to wipe the tears from her eyes, she-
"Wait, how am I able to lift my hands this easily? Where are my, MY GLOVES! Oh, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!"
Her gauntlets were the two most precious things to her besides Caitlyn, and now she had lost those too.
"Augh, you fucking idiot! How the hell do you lose 50-pound metal gloves you fuckhead!?"
She cradles her head in her hands and desperately tries to remember where she might have lost them.
"Fuuuck... it had to be the theater. And I can't go back there, it's probably the biggest crime scene in the history of Piltover now. And, SHIT! That means they'll find my gauntlets... SHIT!
Welp, that it's it for me. Game over man. Game over."
She sighs heavily.
"Well, at least there's always a good smoke. You're always there for me cigarettes."
She takes her lighter and a pack of cigarettes out from her jacket, pulls one out, lights it, and places it in her mouth, taking a long drag.
Vi blows out the smoke in another long, heavy sigh, leans her head back onto the bench and stares up at the star-speckled sky. The night air is cool, but not cold. She can hear the waves gently lapping against the stone of the docks, and the smell of the ocean is calming.
The arm not holding the cigarette sits uselessly at her side, feeling light and powerless. What was she without her gauntlets? Sure, she was a good fighter, one of the best maybe, but without her famous hex-tech gloves, nothing really set her apart from anyone else who knew how to swing their fists around.
"What do I do now? Find out if Caitlyn is really alive?"
She takes another drag of her cigarette and blows the smoke out in a ring.
"And even if she is alive, and I find her again, what then? How could I possibly face her? And what about this thing inside me? I don't know when it's gonna decide to just murder everyone around me. Hell, it could take over in the next five seconds. Hmm, maybe I could just go on a rampage through the under-city, now that the gangs are back. Heh, that'd be fun. Teach them what happens when you fuck around with my city."
She lifts her head back up and opens her eyes, and her mouth opens in shock, dropping the cigarette onto the bench. Right there, to her left, was a simple stone bridge over the water. There was nothing really special about it, it was about twenty feet long with an upward-curving arch to it, and it connected two parts of the waterfront to each other. There were two lampposts at each end, and they cast a warm glow across the bridge. It was nothing special to the average person, but it was special to Vi. To her, it was the place where she had confessed her true feelings to Caitlyn.
Caitlyn gazed out over the water, looking contemplative, as Vi stepped up beside her and-
Vi shook her head chuckled to herself.
"Nope, that's enough flashbacks for one day. Bad things always happen when I have them anyway. Still, this bridge does hold a lot of memories. Funny how I keep ending up in these places. If I believed in any of that shit, I'd say fate, or destiny or whatever was at work. Load a' bullshit right?"
Vi stood up, glanced longingly at the bridge, and stretched out her muscles. She had cried, got all these pent-up feelings over Caitlyn out, and that was that.
"If Caitlyn's alive, all I have to do is avoid her. As much as I want to... no, this is for the best. She'd probably end up killing me anyway. And if she's not alive, then... well, then that solves that problem."
The pink-haired woman never dwelt long on things, she was a woman of action, and it didn't take long for her to come up with a haphazard plan.
"Welp, I have a demon in me. No changing that. But there's always a bright side to everything right? And in this case, the bright side is that the demon likes to kill people, and is really good at it. All I gotta do is make sure I'm around people who need killing before I go apeshit or whatever. Shouldn't be too hard in this city. But first, gotta get my gauntlets back. They'll probably be locked up in the old precinct by now. And these new cops might as well be part of the gangs anyway, so I'm sure not gonna mind if this demon kills a few of 'em. Or all of 'em. Shit happens."
With a fresh sense of purpose, Vi stands up and turns around, only to stop dead. Too late, she realized something was wrong. The air felt dead, the light breeze had ceased, and the water was still. That type of thing only happened when something from the Void was nearby. And nearby, it was indeed.
Standing roughly ten feet away, grinning wickedly at her, was a very large, very dangerous, very purple bug. Sort of like a preying mantis from a horrific nightmare.
The look of shock on Vi's face was quickly replaced with anger, nothing surprised her for long.
"Kha'Zix? What the flying fuck are you doing here? When did they let you out of the Institute?"
The Void Reaver stood up to his full height and flexed his arms, extending his talons and idly shifting them back and forth.
"Those pathetic fools never could keep me under lock and key, I just never had a good reason to leave. Until now."
He smiled at her, revealing a mouth full of fangs.
"So you're the cause of all that Void energy I've sensed lately. Surprising, I never thought Ter'Kul would find another living host. Not after he was sealed away into the darkest part of the Void, oh, a good five or six thousand years ago."
Vi scoffed.
"You expect me to believe that whatever's inside me has been around for five thousand years?"
Kha'Zix flickered his wings and looked at her with a bored expression.
"Oh no, he's existed for far longer than that. My kind was old before your species ever crawled out of the primordial muck that you call "evolution." That never fails to amuse me, your kind knows absolutely nothing of the subject. But that's not the point. It doesn't matter to me at all what you believe or what you don't, because you see, you pose a threat. And I don't much care for those. So, here's what's going to happen."
Kha'Zix tucked in his talons to his chest and crouched down into his combat stance.
"I'm going to kill you, I'm going to cast Ter'Kul back into the Void, and then I'm going to eat your body. Simple right?"
Vi quickly shifted into a fighting stance as the Void Reaver flew at her, talons outstretched and alight with void energy.
She grinned.
"Bring it on."
AN: Sorry it took so long to write this, and honestly I don't have an excuse. Other than just not feeling like writing for a while. First I got into RWBY, and started shipping Whiterose and Bumblee, and read nearly every single WR and BB fic on this site, and then after that I finally got around to watching the first season of Attack on Titan. Oh. My. God. The single greatest anime/tv show/ media production to ever be produced on the face of this earth. Eren/Mikasa so hard. So aside from all that, I got really distracted, but now I should be back to writing at a regular pace. Oh, and soon I get to write actual fluff! Anyway, please leave a review if you feel so inclined, and have a great day.
