Heyy, I've been a little uninspired lately so sorry for the later than usual chapter ~ hope you like jt
Caitlyn arrived at the scene as soon as she could, she'd sent Vi back to retrieve her gauntlets. Rifle tucked neatly under her arm she carefully surveyed the scene, approaching the sun gates cautiously. Her sight was greatly reduced by the thick smoke in the air. It didn't seem like there were any casualties, other than damaged stock, but that could be dealt with later.
There were lots of voices, panicked shouts, men trying to direct others to get out of the way, warning the nosy bystanders to get back. Other than that, it was quiet, and eerily so.
The smoke was too thick to see more than a couple of metres in front of yourself, so the sheriff only took herself as far as she felt she should, keeping enough awareness of her surroundings to plan an escape routes. She stood still for a minute, listening hard to her surroundings. Footsteps behind her, heavy, not too fast, but not too slow. She readied her hands on her gun and spun around, ready.
"Vi!" She said with an exasperated breath. "I almost killed you." She lowered her gun.
"Thought you said we aren't allowed to kill unless we think we or others are at an extreme risk. We must keep battery to a minimum -blah blah blah" Vi said, mocking Caitlyn's accent. She received a glare in response.
Just then a man ran past, his face twisted in horror. "It's the calm before the storm, the psycho said she's preparing the finale - we need to RUN!" He half screamed at them before he vanished into the smoke. There was a high pitched giggling in the distance, Vi's eyes widened sharply, why was that sound so...familiar?
"We should back off. He could be right." Caitlyn said clearly. "Vi." She said, noticing the daze that her partner was in. "I need you to focus." Vi nodded quickly, shaking herself mentally. "We need a better view, higher up, there's no point being down here, we can't see anything."
Caitlyn lead them to an alley, there was a few of the dockhouses there, they climbed up the emergency exit stairs and managed to get on top of the roof.
"I can see why ya like being a sniper and all." Vi said, looking down from the building, the view was incredible.
"I wish I had time to admire the views." Caitlyn chuckled. She spent most of her time on buildings with her focus on the tiniest of targets, and that was all she allowed herself to see.
"Who do you think she is?" Vi asked. Caitlyn shook her head slowly, she had no idea, but she had a feeling she was about to find out.
"Whoever she is, she's right there." Caitlyn said, her eyes fixed on a particular spot.
"What, where?!" Vi said. Caitlyn stepped closer, she stood directly behind Vi, her head rested behind her shoulder so they had the same point of view. She took hold of Vi's hand and pointed with her to the same spot.
"Here." She whispered, her husky voice next to Vi's neck sent goosebumps across her skin. "You see where the smoke is, it's more dense in that spot, that's where the fireworks were coming from. Where our perpetrator is hiding."
"Wait so why aren't we going in?" Vi whispered.
"It's too dangerous without any vision. She could have hostages, it could just be a complete misunderstanding, we can't assume anything yet."
Vi nodded slowly. She crossed her arms, determined to keep her eyes on the same spot. She lacked the same focus as Caitlyn, after a few minutes of solid staring into space, the anticipation energy built within her stomach, adrenaline was flying through her and she needed to use it. She shuffled about on her feet, lightly jogging. Caitlyn rolled her eyes catching the movement from the corner of her eye.
Caitlyn adjusted her posture, she tilted her head up and closed her eyes for a second, trying to detect which direction the wind was coming in, that way she could plan their next steps. If the wind blew it would give them more vision, and she knew which way to approach from. Alas, it was a rare day in piltover where there was no wind. Typical. She thought.
She readied herself anyway, staring down the scope, hoping to shed some detail and get a close up of what was going on, it wasn't enough, the smoke hadn't cleared. She sighed, preparing her fingers, making sure she had the unfamiliar rifle mapped out at least.
After about five minutes of silence, Vi was getting impatient, she yawned loudly. When she stopped it was silent, almost. There was a quiet fizzing noise, Caitlyn heard it instantly, and like a deer being hunted, her reactions were impeccably fast. She fell on one knee and firmly pressed the butt of her fathers rifle to her shoulder.
There was a small rumble, and the fizzing grew louder, as if it was growing to a climax. It was. After what felt like forever, a rocket flew into the sky with lightning speed, with a long screech. When the noise stopped there was a loud pop, a pattern of stars flew out in the shape of an X. Bright pink. After that it fell silent again, and when the wind blew away the smoke, there was no one to be seen.
"So what got ya's caught up in there?" Feri asked, he offered them both some stale bread to eat. Jessa looked up at Violet, her eyes were big and glassy, her eyebrows furrowed."We got adopted." Violet said. "That's the home we were given." She shrugged.
"Ouch. Hope House?" He said confidently. It was the only orphanage in Zaun. The ones in Piltover - for the pretty kids - wouldn't have let them go to a chemtest unit, intentionally or not.
The girls both nodded in unison.
"Alex used to be there too. Not the friendliest of the bunch though, is our Al. Still maybe you'll be the best of friends... that's if you wanted to join us?" Vera said.
"Us?" Violet asked."We're a gang, group, club whatever you wanna call it. The Lost Children. And you guys.. look kinda lost to me." Vera said with a cocky grin.
The two sisters looked at each other, a part of Violet was very reluctant to trust anyone else again, but these kids were her age, maybe a little older. Could anyone treat them as bad as he did? After a minute of silent thinking she raised her eyebrows at Jess, silently asking her opinion. Jess nodded quickly, still chewing on the old chunk of bread.
"Sure." She said casually, turning back to look at the smoke that was still fogging up the atmosphere. To think they thought that would be home, that they were wanted.
"Family." She said as they started to walk together to their base.
"Huh?" Feri replied, looking at her with his eyebrows furrowed."I'd call it a family." Violet said, taking hold of her sister's hand and smiling back at Feri.
"Me too." Said Jessa excitedly.
For Violet and Jessa, their new home, took shape in the form of a family. They didn't stay in one place for too long, but that didn't matter to them. Growing up in an orphanage, in the lowest most dangerous part of the city, every child had their big dreams: being adopted into a happy loving home with wonderful caring parents, sometimes it happened, but rarely.
They were taught not to get their hopes up, not to expect anything from life. That didn't stop every one of them dreaming of a warm house, with parents that wished them good night and sang to them, as they slept on the thin cold mattresses of old Hope House.
There were seven lost children when they were introduced, but the group grew and shrunk over time of course. When Vera and Feri first introduced Violet and Jessa, they brought them to their sump hideout. The other three were seated around a makeshift chemfire to keep warm, two boys and another girl.
The girl stood up defensively as she watched them approach, a sharp stick gripped between her fingers.
"Put that shit down Alex seriously you're gonna poke someone's eye out! " The boy next to her said as he grabbed the stick from her grasp and threw it away.
"Maybe that was the IDEA!" She growled, sneering at him. She side eyed the two unfamiliar faces unwelcomingly.
"They're joining us, get used to it." Vera said, staring her down.
Alex scowled, she sat back down with a huff and reached for another stick to stropilly prod the fire with."Thought we were a gang." She said under her breath. "Aren't we meant to make group decisions on things like this?" She hissed, her dark curls covered up one side of her face, she huffed it out of the way with a sigh. As the hair moved away from the left side of her face it revealed a deep pink scar, it tore through her eyelid and above her brow. In the middle of the scar was the pure white iris of her left eye. It completely contrasted the olive green of her right eye, lit with fire as her glare burnt into the girls faces.
"Fine." Vera said strongly. "This is Violet and Jessa, they just burnt down an undercover chemlab. All in favour of them both joining the Lost Children?" She said with a healthy element of theatrical sarcasm. By the time she'd finished talking everyone had raised their hands except Alex, who glared daggers into Vera.
"How the fu-"
"Remember the rules Zin, we don't ask questions about each other stories?" The guy called Zin stopped and frowned, remembering his agreement to that.
"No questions?" Violet repeated, sounding confused.
"Telling your own story is fine, but we don't pester each other about things, it's one of the rules." Zin said rolling his eyes, he was younger than Feri and Vera. Alex seemed a little older, but maybe that was her offish stance.
"I'm Zin by the way, that's Mav, and just ignore Alex she's a bit of a bitch." He said, hissing as she kicked him in the shin hard. She sarcastically grinned at Violet and Jessa curtsied dramatically and walked away, leaving them slightly puzzled as to what they did wrong.
"She gets friendlier... ish" Mav said. Zin looked at him in disbelief, he shrugged. "You're part of the crew now, might as well sit down." He said gesturing towards the makeshift seats by the fire.
They did sit down, Jessa sat on Violet's lap to make enough space for Vera and Feri to join too. Together they sat around that fire telling jokes and stories. Laughing away. Even Alex returned, and cracked a smile at one of Mav's stupid jokes. Their cheeks ached from smiling, it had been a long time since they had had any fun, or anyone else to share it with.
Jessa fell asleep in Violet's lap, as the rest of them laughed into the night, and when they couldn't keep their yawns at bay, Vera showed them to a spot for them to sleep in.
Jessa fell back asleep straight away, she curled into her sister for warmth and sighed happily, peacefully lulling back to sleep. Violet smiled, she couldn't think of a time they felt this happy, could she? She didn't remember much. But when she closed her eyes that night, she couldn't stop the visions, silhouettes in the flames, faces fading before her. Was this because of the lab? There was a sick feeling in her stomach, like another memory spilling up, had it happened before? Deja vu… it happened sometimes right, for no reason. She stroked the girls hair, gently. She wouldn't hurt anyone, not on purpose, she was just defending herself. Us.
The tiny girl laid there, enveloped in her sisters arms, she slept peacefully, a soft smile spread across her lips.
Babies T_T