12:30 p.m.
The Sheriff of Piltover had just screeched into the parking lot of the hospital. She was quite late, but the Defender had made sure of that with a few tricks of up his sleeve.
That little bastard..forced me to take the freeway during the morning rush. Every extra minute I spent up there not moving I'm gonna pay back with a bullet, I swear…, thought Caitlyn as she exits the commandeered vehicle of Officer Campbell.
On the way to the hospital, the Defender had ordered a lockdown of several blocks due to "official police business". Nobody really questions the Defender, so the order was followed. This forced the Sheriff to take extra blocks, and ultimately the freeway leading into the morning rush.
Caitlyn calmly, but quickly, hurried her way into the front doors of the E.R; she was immediately greeted by patients and doctors alike. One in particular, a surgeon, caught her eye as they came up to greet her.
"Hello Caitlyn, what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?" Caitlyn easily recognized the surgeon because of his covered face and posture she's seen many times on the Rift.
"Hello Shen, working here today are you? I thought you had Pre Season championship matches scheduled the whole week." The Surgeon gave a shy chuckle and stuttered a little.
"It turns out I'm not really wanted for the games as much anymore. Ya know, since Darius and Fiora are the new hot picks." The tone in his voice was one of disappointment. Caitlyn felt bad, but then remembered her purpose for showing up in a hurry. "Excuse me, Shen, have you seen The Enforcer and Defender around? They said they came to visit Ahri to see how her condition was.."
Shen perked up and cleared his throat to respond, "Ah yes, they just left about ten minutes ago. If you'd like to see her, Ahri has just woken up. She's doing better because of her affinity to stealing the life force from people, and Soraka's natural talent for healing. Quite remarkable what happened to her though.." The Surgeon had pulled out a clipboard with some recently filled out documents on them. "She had several broken ribs, fractured nose, eye socket, damage to her throat, and some of the muscles in her right leg were torn. Yet she shows NO sign of external damage. Tell me, Sheriff, while she was in your care, how could this even happen? I don't recall there being any sort of magic capable of this. Every kind there is, Void, Shadow Isles, Fire, Ice, etc etc, causes some form of external damage. But like I said, there is nothing! It's ..such a wonder to everyone here.."
"To be quite honest, Shen, none of us know quite what happened either. All I can say is that it involved Jinx-" Shen stopped her in her tracks, "Say no more, that little girl, as small as she is, has caused quite the business here, sad to say business here is never good business. A few of her victims sadly..have never recovered. A few paralyzed, two still comatose.. The ninja seemed to get lost in his thoughts for a moment; he quickly snapped back after a few seconds, "Ahem, but I digress. Ahri would love to see her, any kind of happiness or positive emotions she can be given right now could very well help her recovery, so I insist you see her!"
I have to track those two down before Jayce gets himself into even more bloody trouble, but I guess seeing Ahri after her ordeal can come first, real quick… , thought Caitlyn.
"Ah, very well. Take me to her, but I must hurry elsewhere soon." Shen motioned a direction, and Caitlyn fixed her skirt and followed. The hospital was quite incredible to ones not used to coming here. Outside every room was a monitor that kept track of the room occupant's heart rate, blood pressure, whether or not they were conscious or not, the cleanliness of the air in the room, the temperature, and if something worsens with the patient, the screen will brightly flash red or yellow depending on the problem. Red usually means crash cart is needed along with morphine and other medications depending on the patient.
As Shen and Caitlyn entered an elevator, a small girl ran up and tugged on Caitlyn's skirt. The Sheriff got startled, yipped, and jumped forward a bit while making sure her skirt wouldn't fly up. She turned to face the little girl, who had a big smile on her face
"I know you, you're the Hat Lady!" Caitlyn chuckled a bit at that, then snapped her eyes open at the nickname and leaned down to meet the girl's smile. "Hey there sweetie. Do you call me Hat Lady cause of my big ol' silly hat here?"
The kid shook her head, "No, I got lost from my family outside, and I was walking around and stuff, and I started to cry, and then this other lady came up to me, she was in a hood, but she had these really pretty pink eyes, and she told me that the "Hat Lady" would be able to help me. I asked if she could, and she said she was busy going on a trip, so I did what she said and now I found you!"
Caitlyn gave a sincere smile and hugged the girl, "Of course I will help you, but first I would like to ask you something." Caitlyn ended the hug and look at the girl, "This lady you saw, did she say where she was going?" The little girl let out a *hmm* and shook her head, "All she said was that she was going to visit other cities, Piltover was becoming too dull and boring for her."
That sounds exactly like her. She's concealing herself from the public. On top of that, she actually helped a small girl, and is planning on leaving Piltover? Jayce was right, something is not right here. She is acting completely different. Should we really be worried though is the question, she's being harmless and leaving the city-state.., She pushed it to the back of her mind for now. A little girl and a bigger fox girl were her priorities for the moment, then to see if Piltover's Defender was even still alive, much less conscious.
"Hey sweetie, what is your name?" The little girl's eyes lit up , and she replied "Everyone calls me Lass! I don't know my real name.." Caitlyn raised a brow, "What do you mean you do-" she was interrupted abruptly by Shen, "Excuse me Sheriff, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I am on a schedule and if you'd like to see Ahri, we have to keep moving." Caitlyn turned her head to nod, and turned back to the girl. "Well, Lass, I have to get going, I'm going to see one of my friends now." The little girl's smile went away. "Oh..ok, tell Ahri I said I hope she gets better!" A smile returned to her face, and Caitlyn got stunned for a moment.
"How do you know about that, Lass?" Caitlyn said nervously. Lass giggled and replied, "My family hears news quickly, they say it spreads quickly around this city. We got the news this morning!" The Sheriff was very quickly questioning this child's family. Shen cleared his throat at the Sheriff. She stuttered as she thought of words to continue, "Uh, well sweetie, how would YOU like to meet her, huh?" The little girl squee'd with joy, "WOW, REALLY? ARE YOU SURE?" Caitlyn chuckled and gave a nod. "THAT'S SO AWESOME, wait I have to tell my family." Caitlyn thought now would be a good time to see who this little girl called "family".
To her much confusion , Lass did a 180 turn on her heel, stared out the window, and proceeded to pat her heart and then give an A-OK gesture with her right hand. Caitlyn quickly followed the child's gaze out the window and noticed a brief flash of green light from far away, possibly on top of one of the buildings no more than two blocks away. The Sheriff spiked up, "EVERYONE DOWN!" and pulled the girl away from the window to avoid any kind of gunfire or projectile, but after a few moments, the girl tilted her head up at the Sheriff. "What's a matter?" The Sheriff tilted her head down to meet her gaze, not daring to poke her head out from around the corner she had pulled the girl behind. "What was that , Lass, that light?" The girl giggled again, "It's ok, that's my family telling me it's ok to go with you, but now I think you scared them, can you let me go a moment?" Caitlyn hesitantly followed the girl's request and , after coming out from behind the corner, again gave the same A-OK gesture, again followed by a small flash of green light from far away.
"It's ok, there's no danger Hat Lady!" Caitlyn got up and stepped out. Shen had ducked behind the receptionist's desk. People in the waiting room were lying on the floor covering their heads. Caitlyn look around at all the eyes staring at her, waiting for another order, one of safety perhaps. "*ahem* False alarm, everybody, but good reactions. Misunderstanding, terribly sorry!" She gave a bow in apology. The crowd got up from the floor, some grumbling, some sighing, one calling out "You're gonna kill us if you keep doing that!" Caitlyn grabbed the young girl's hand and quickly led her and Shen into the elevator.
"Sheriff, what the fuck was that display just now!?" The Surgeon was angry for sure. Someone as disciplined as Shen does not normally use such modern day vulgarities. Caitlyn gave a bow to the Eye of Twilight and proceeded to reply, "I'm so sorry, it was a misunderstanding, can we just keep going in silence?.." The Sheriff's face was Vladimir red from embarrassment, quickly noticed and laughed at by Shen. "Very well, but you will have serious repercussions coming if something like that happens again with no sign of immediately danger. Patients out there might have hurt themselves even more, having to just, THROW themselves to the floor like that. I saw what you did though, so I understand the concern. To be honest, on reflex, I had dove behind the desk before you even yelled out, haha." Caitlyn gave a nervous chuckle back, and turned away to notice the little girl now firmly holding her hand, quietly singing to herself "I'm gonna meet A a hri, I'm gonna meet A a hri!". She gave a smile and began to analyze what had just went down.
First, JInx's surrender. Then, what her obedience in the cell. Next comes Vi's hair lighting up, ripping the cell door off, her..loving..me, Jinx locking herself back up, my Defender letting her go on a whim, now he's out there with Vi probably about to get himself dunked harder than most criminals she catches, then this little girl shows up, her "family", this code they're using..it's..way too much to take in right now. Something's going on in the bloody city under my nose, and I am going to find out what. For now, I am just going to focus on Ahri, and my two officers. That is it, nothing else. I'm already brassed off with this whole day as it is.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Shen, "Sheriff, this is our floor, coming?" Caitlyn blinked and replied "Yes, lead the way."