"Ssssssssh, we don't know who's in here," Vi said, trying to shut the group up while quietly laughing herself. Even Caitlyn was in a fit of barely contained hysterics at the complete shutdown Vi had just given to the traitorous pirate. "Alright… keep your eyes peeled. We took out the welcome wagon. No idea who or what else might be around," Vi said as they exited from the small hallway into another area of the mine. This time there was no pit, but active mining drones were hard at work, pummeling into the walls and taking pieces of silver, gold and other metals away from the exposed area.
"Raw materials," Caitlyn observed as the robots dumped their cargo into large metal holding bins. Then she stopped and frowned. The chamber was lit… yet there were no lights shining. Looking up, she saw a purple and amber sky as the sun began to set. "This place is out in the open… I'd estimate the walls as least two hundred feet tall," Caitlyn added to her friends.
Teemo nodded and jumped up into one of the holding bins. "Hm… standard gold and silver… some iron… nothing but ordinary metals," He declared. Vi frowned. Why would they store a simple mining compound behind a locked door protected with a force field? Looking around, Vi saw another door and pointed.
"Let's keep moving. This one locked too?" She stuck her hand out and felt the metal of the door clang against her gauntlet. "Not shielded, anyway." She announced before leveling it with a fist. And then her fist fell to her side, forgotten in the shock of what she saw.
"What… this is unreal…" Katarina whispered. The room was huge. This was again an open ceiling, and front of them sat many armored vehicles. Some looked made for flight, others for ground, but one thing was clear; they were all armed. "These must be years old," Katarina observed, scratching at a patch of rust on one of the tank-like vehicles.
"Ten years, as a matter of fact," The group spun around to see the one man that Vi most wanted to meet in person.
"Jericho Swain," She said, licking her lips like an animal on the hunt. Swain grinned and rested on his cane, watching with a bored and amused look on his face as Vi swung at him. Her fist banged off of his cane as he raised it and the enforcer found herself on the floor with a groan.
"Vi!" Caitlyn shouted as Vi was laid out. She whipped her rifle around as Jinx pulled out Pow-Pow and both of them fired, flanked by Lux's and Morgana's binding spells, the yordles' gunfire and Katarina's flurry of blades.
Swain rolled his eyes and raised his cane again, emitting from it a green field that stopped all of the projectiles in their tracks. Then he smirked and pushed his cane forth, sending the shield flying at his assailants and paralyzing them instantly. "It was a fool's errand, invading this mine. These weaponized vehicles are far too out of date to be useful in today's world. Some of its technology was useful in the reverse engineering process… just like your gauntlets will be," he added as he lifted Vi's arms up over her head. She tried to pull away, but the paralysis held as Swain removed her prized weapons. "These darling gloves certainly will be useful for my foot soldiers during the invasion," He said as he examined them.
"Take them to Fort Shant," Swain ordered as a handful of men rushed in from the door behind them. "They'll be taught proper manners there. I'll oversee it personally," He said with relish as the paralyzed guerilla soldiers were forced to march out of the room.
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"So what now?" Lux asked. She was just as furious as her cellmate, Vi, but rather than making her knuckles bleed with the force of a punch she'd aimed in frustration, Lux was trying to reason. She took a moment to evaluate the situation.
She and Vi were in one cell of a prison known as Fort Shant. They'd been stripped to their underwear upon arrival, as both a security measure and a method of humiliation. Lux's short sword had been confiscated, and she could only assume the same measures had been taken for the others.
That wasn't the worst of it, though. In a stroke of brilliance, as even Lux had to admit, the Noxians had set up a system of constant psychological and physical torture. On the hour, every other hour, one person or another would enter the room, paralyze them and take one of them at random out before spending the hour doing as they pleased with their new toy. It'd only been three days and they already bore marks from it. And that was if they got off easy with a simple hour-long beating.
There'd been the waterboarding. Then the hair pulling. And then, in the fourth hour Lux's worst nightmare came true; they'd found out about the tickling from a jilted Miss Fortune. The guards seemed to enjoy making the Demacian squeal and screech like a bird and Lux's body tingled from head to toe from the aftermath.
And all the while, the other cellmate was forced to watch it all happen, paralyzed and unable to look away or cover their ears. At first it had been in the name of interrogation. Then the guards realized that the two weren't saying a damn thing and began this new regimen.
"I… I don't know. Every opportunity we possibly get, they paralyze us. There's literally nothing we can do. I… He may have just won," Vi said with a rare fear in her voice. Then her ears perked as she heard voices down the hall. "Shut up," She said. Lux nodded and tried to focus on the sounds as well. Was their torture brigade back early?
"Come on, move it blue and red! The man wants you here and I ain't about to have you two make me late, " One guard said with a nasty laugh. The two cellmates looked as best they could around the corner just in time to see Jinx and Katarina be pushed forward, motivated by the swords at their backs. Vi's face went cold as she saw her sister, but couldn't take her eyes off of Katarina. Katarina's betrayal must have gotten her special attention, because she looked considerably worse for the wear than Jinx. She'd been branded on her right side. There were bruises, lacerations and… were those rope marks on her neck?
"Alright Kitty Kat. You said you'd do this, we said we'd spare you a day. Hold your end," The guard pushing Katarina said roughly as the other stood a paralyzed Jinx upright and held her still. Vi cocked her head. What in the hell were they talking about?
"What the fuck's going on here?" She demanded. Jinx's guard grinned.
"We did some talking with your old friend over here. She finally came back around. Knew she had it in her. Kat said that she's gotten to know you guys better than us and said she'd be better at… caring for you guys," He phrased the last bit so that Vi clearly got the message: Katarina was their new torturer in exchange for her own skin.
"You never changed a bit," Vi hissed, spitting at Katarina. She fell woefully short and Katarina smirked.
"That, Pink, was a bad idea," She said mockingly before slapping Jinx across the face. The bluenette did her best to make no noise, to give her no satisfaction, but Katarina kept going. A knee to the stomach, a whip straight into the iron bars of Vi and Lux's cell… "This is for all the tortures you gave me," Katarina laughed at Vi's expression of rage.
Then three words nearly ruined everything. "You with me?" Vi heard Katarina mutter near-inaudibly even as she pulled Jinx off the floor. Vi's face fell for a short second before returning to the mask of rage. She'd seen Jinx weakly nod. She was in on it, in on whatever plan Katarina had concocted. Katarina turned back to Jinx's guard and made a motion, which caused him to go back around the corner and bring back Pow-Pow.
"Time to watch some people die," Katarina said with an evil, disgusting laugh, a laugh that flashed Vi back to her parent's death. And then it happened. She took the weapon in her hands, aimed at Jinx, then whipped around and fired two neat shots, one for each guard's neck. A third shot blew the hinges off of the cell door as Jinx recovered on the ground.
"Vi… Jinx… I am so, so sorry. I had to get them off guard, to trust me," Katarina said as silent tears streamed down her face even as she handed a standing Jinx her gun. She looked at the ground, then back up with the eyes of the cold assassin. "But now's not the time to cry," She snarled. Vi nodded, and then caught sight of Jinx's eyes. They'd changed. They were deranged… again.
"Oh, shit," Vi cursed as she realized what had happened. The real Jinx, Jessebelle, had been broken. And while she was away recovering… Jinx raised Pow-Pow and fired on Katarina, who jumped to the side and took cover behind Vi. Even the "psycho" Jinx couldn't bring herself to fire on her sister.
"Come on Kat, come out and play like a woman!" Jinx said gleefully as Katarina made a break for it down the hall. Lux snapped around to look at Vi as they chased.
"It's gonna be the battle of the goddamn ages in here, Vi! Dark Jinx against Dark Katarina! They're going to rip this place apart fighting!" Lux said. Vi nodded.
"I know. And I'm not gonna stop 'em till they do," She said. Lux's jaw dropped.
"What?!"
"Think about it, Lux. If we try to bring this place down, we'll be in one group and one place. They'll have a fairly easy time of taking us down, especially since we're worn out from all the torture. But I'd LOVE to see these guys try and get between those two psychos," Vi grinned. Lux stared even as they came to a crossing.
"…Left. Garen always told me right was wrong," Lux said. Vi shrugged. Last time she'd taken the right path she'd been going into Monkey Kingdom territory, so… They continued their mad dash, eventually stopping at a doorway. There wasn't even a door on it, just an entrance.
"Storage," Vi grinned as she pointed to hers and Lux's clothes in addition to the others. "Don't see our weapons though… must be a weapons room somewhere around here. Whatever, get dressed quick," She said as she threw her typical police uniform on in record time before slinging all the other clothing over her shoulder.
"Alright, now we just gotta get these things off my wrists and I'll be back in business," Lux said as she pointed to the bracelets that nullified her magic. Vi started to say something, but an explosion cut her off. "I really hope Katarina's still in one piece after that," Lux said as they raced back down the other hall.
"THERE! WE CAN AT LEAST GET THEM!" Vi looked ahead to see at least fifty guards in their path. She smirked; she didn't have her gauntlets, she was beaten and bloodied, but by God she was still Vi. Foregoing her typical dash punch, she dove into the crowd, knocking people down left and right. Lux watched helplessly; she was useless in a hand-to-hand fight of this handicap.
"GO!" Vi shouted at the light mage. Lux hesitated for a second, then leapt through the melee and moved on, nearly falling on her butt as she skidded to a stop before Riven and Teemo's cell.
"Uhm… uhm…" Lux stuttered as she looked at the lock. She didn't have any way t o break the lock. "I'll be-" She had to cut herself off as she hit the floor, barely dodging a rocket. The same could be said for Vi, but not most of the guards. Another rocket blew a hole in the wall of Riven/Teemo's cell and the two wasted little time escaping.
"Don't know where this hole leads, but we'll meet up somewhere!" Teemo cried out as they ran. Vi nodded as she dusted herself off.
"They're gonna kill one of us eventually," Lux muttered. Vi nodded in agreement.
"Yup. That's why we need to get the hell out of here before they get the chance," "Vi said. Their pace slowed slightly as they tired, but they still continued to run down the corridors of the jail block. "How fucking big is this place?!" Vi shouted in frustration.
"There!" Lux pointed to a staircase up ahead. Vi sighed in relief as the pair dashed up it, then stopped dead at the sight before them.
The room they'd came up to was an empty shell of what it had been. Walls were eaten away, cell doors were twisted and blown clean off, and in the middle of what might as well of been an arena now were Katarina and Jinx. Vi spotted the rest of the crew, presumed they'd escaped during the fight and ran over to them.
"What the fuck is going on?!" Riven demanded. Vi bit her lip.
"Katarina tricked the guards into letting her loose by smacking Jinx around a bit. Then Jinx finally broke and, well, you know what happens when Jinx breaks. And then Katarina decided that the only way to fight off that psycho was with… well, you get the idea."
"…This'll be a bloodbath and you know it," Riven said as she ducked gunfire. Vi shrugged and pointed.
"It will be if they take us out. They've got those paralyzing things. Teemo?" Vi's attention turned to the yordle. He looked up, all ears. "Time to shine. Get invisible and go blind 'em. They can't shoot what they can't see and hopefully they'll just wind up getting each other with those damn things," Vi ordered. Teemo nodded and became unseen quickly before running off.
"Ok, now what? That still doesn't solve… this," Lux waved a hand at the two warring women. Vi shrugged again.
"My initial idea of letting them tear the place down sounded better on paper, I'll admit. But how the hell are we going to get between them? You didn't handle Jinx back when she was… that… all the time. I know this Jinx better than to think we can just calm her down," She explained.
"I could bind 'em if we can get these things off," Lux replied, waving her wrists. Tristana looked up and frowned.
"Bend down here," She said. Perplexed, Lux did as told. Tristana closed one eye, took careful aim and fired her cannon, sending a precision shot dead into one of the cuffs and cracking it open. Lux hissed in pain from her wrist being hit so card but shook it off, holding out the other wrist. Tristana repeated the process, Lux cursed a few times and then thanked Tristana before looking back to the brawl.