At last, the hallway ended with a dead end. The final room was square with not a whole lot to offer, or so it seemed. There was only a glass table in the center and the colorful wallpaper went blank with the grey marble floor switched to a checkerboard pattern. What vexed Vi the most was the door. It was metal plated and vastly undersized, measuring only up to her shin. Even a Yordel would have to bow his/her head to get through the doorway. Vi got down on her knees and gave the door it a cynical look.
"Seriously?" she asked aloud, "Why would a door be so tiny?"
She reached out and wrapped her hand around the doorknob and gave it a twist, only to be met with a metallic click. Patience wasn't exactly Vi's forte, so she began roughly tugging at it as she tried to force it past its limits.
"Easy there, Miss, pull any harder and you might end up hurting yourself." A familiar voice said. Vi yelped and fell onto her back, not expecting to hear anyone.
"Who said that!?" she snapped, looking around the empty room.
"Down here," the heavy accented, robot-like voice said. Vi tilted her head down to the door. The silver knob bore a shockingly close resemblance to the mask of certain mechanical mage from Zaun.
"Viktor?" Vi asked in disbelief, "What are you doing down here and since when were you a door?"
"I am not a door," huffed the knob, "I am a door knob, there is a difference."
"Alright, sure, but why?"
"Why?" he repeated, "Well, that's a stupid question to ask. That is as if I asked you 'why are you human?' And who is this 'Viktor'? I am a door knob, I have no name. But since you seem so keen on calling me such, I guess I can excuse it."
"But…you're that loon from Zaun. You know, create a world of machines and replace all organic life." Vi said, still confused. The Viktor-knob paused.
"I can assure you, you must have me confused with someone else. All I do is open and close…but a world full of machines does sound like a promising investment." Vi didn't want to drag this out anymore.
"Whatever, have you seen Jinx? You know, blue hair psychopath, pale skin, annoying laugh, dressed as a rabbit for some reason…"
"Oh," the knob said in realization, "You mean the white rabbit?"
"…Sure I guess. Listen, she's a wanted criminal and I'm bringing her in. I have to find her."
"Well, she just went through moments ago, you just missed her in fact."
"Can you let me through, then?" asked Vi.
"I can, but it doesn't look like you can," the Viktor-knob pointed out, "You're far too big to fit through."
"Well, how do you expect me to get through?" Vi asked.
"In order to past through, you must…" the knob took a dramatic pause, "Evolve."
"No way, Vik," retorted Vi, "I'm not buying into any of that mechanical b.s you're trying to sell."
"This has nothing to do with mechanics, Miss, just look on the table behind you." Vi briefly glanced around and sure enough, there was now something on the once blank table.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a finger-sized flask with a tiny label attached to it that read, 'Drink me'. Vi scratched her head.
"How come I didn't see that before?" she asked.
"Not everyone has the eye of the shutterbug, it seems." The Viktor-knob said. Vi picked up the flask and unscrewed the lid with her fingertips with great difficulty because of the hextech gauntlet's large fingers.
"So...I just drink it?" she asked the knob, hoping that whatever was in the flask wasn't poisonous.
"No, shove it your nostrils while singing 'I'm a Little Teapot'. Yes! You're supposed to drink it, didn't you read the label?" sassed the Viktor-knob. Vi shrugged her shoulders, still unsure.
"Well…down the hatch," she said and took a single shot from the flask, completely draining all its contents. Her tongue shuddered at the sour tasting liquid before she went still and expected something to happen.
"So, what was the point of-AH!" Vi suddenly gripper her stomach, feeling as if a swarm of butterflies fluttered about within. At the same time, she felt as if the room got bigger. She soon found that she wasn't just seeing things, the walls really did look as if they have grown taller.
"Hey! What's this!?" Vi angrily asked.
"You have evolved!" announced the Viktor-doorknob, proudly. Now, Vi could hear him more on her level rather than from below. To her surprise, she was now on equal size scale with the door.
"I shrunk!" she cried.
"Evolved," corrected the knob. Man, he really liked saying that word.
"I can go in, right?" asked Vi. If the knob could shrug, he could.
"Don't see why not," he said. Vi gripped the knob again and turned it to the right. Again, she was met with the same click.
"What gives?" asked Vi, her short patience diminishing.
"Oh," the heavy accented knob said, "That's right. I forgot to mention…I am locked."
"You're what!?" Vi shouted, eyes narrowing.
"Locked, as in not being unlocked, as in I cannot open without a key." Vi face palmed with a gauntlet.
"Really!? Really!? Now you're telling me you're locked and you need a key!? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" she half-exploded.
"You never asked me," the Viktor-knob simply responded. Vi breathed in and out, regaining her composure.
"Fine, fine," she mumbled, "So, where is the key?"
"On the table, didn't you see it?" Vi looked up. Hanging off the edge of the glass surface, was a silver key. The enforcer was dumbfounded.
"Something tells me that you lost a lot of games of 'I Spy' as a child, Miss," the Viktor-knob teased. Vi ignored him and continued staring up at the table, which seemed like a skyscraper at her height.
"How the hell do you expect me to get it?" she asked him in mock stupidity, "Climb up there? I'll be doing that for days!"
"What about the checking the box to your left?" suggested the knob.
Vi's posture straightened when she spotted the small jewelry box at her side, just sitting on the floor plain as can be. Raising an eyebrow, she picked the strange new item up.
"How are you doing that? Are you just able to summon random crap?" she asked the door.
"I am doing nothing but pointing out the obvious to you, Miss." The Viktor-knob said.
"Again, how come I never saw it until now?" Vi asked.
"Perhaps you are in need of glasses." More sass from the door knob.
Vi rolled her eyes and lifted the lid of the box. Inside was a mint-sized candy with another label attached to it, this one spelling out 'Eat me'. Vi couldn't help but chuckle at the label, that same phrase is quite common within her criminal confrontations in Piltover.
The enforcer popped the entire piece into her mouth and swallowed it, having no desire to chew the hard candy. After ingesting it, she waited once again for a strange new outcome. Within that same moment, her head suddenly collided with the ceiling and the room grew smaller around her. The Viktor-knob looked up at her.
"Seems you evolved a bit too much, Miss!" he called up to her. Vi rubbed her head.
"I didn't think I would grow this big," said Vi.
"Do you see the key?' asked the knob. Vi was able to recover said object, again struggling because of her huge size and the gauntlets made it even worse.
"Ok, now I can get through, right?" she asked, showcasing the key.
"Yes and no," the knob said, "You can unlock me, but aside from that, I think that we're back to square one." Vi exhaled, making sense of what the issue was.
"I'm too big, aren't I?" she said in monotone.
"Hey, I point out the obvious here!" interjected the knob, "And yes, yes you are." Vi smashed her fist upon the floor, a few tiles cracked from the impact.
"Dammit!" she roared, "I'm going freakin' crazy here!"
"Welcome to the show," commented the Viktor-knob.
"You!" Vi pointed to the door, "Summon another size shrinking drink. Now!"
"Why? There's already one on the table." Vi didn't need to take a pause. Of course, on the glass table was a new flask with the same 'Drink me' label. It even was in the same spot as the original. She could feel that the door was winding up an insult aimed at her vision.
"Not a word!" she glared at him. The Viktor-knob fell silent.
Vi swallowed the flask whole like a pill, not taking the time to perform the tedious task of unscrewing the cap. Seconds later, she was shrunken down to the door's size scale.
"There we are!" the door praised, "You have the key, now, right?"
Vi's response was jamming the key into the whole and twisting it. The door, now unlocked finally, began to budge.
"Oh, right! Another thing, Miss!" the knob quickly spoke up.
"What's that?" Vi asked as she opened the door fully.
Suddenly, water flowed into the room through the doorway. Vi gasped as she was swiped off her feet and dragged out the door via the strong current.
"How well are you able to swim!?" the knob called out after her before shutting.
Before Vi can shout a curse back at him she was pulled beneath the surface by a crashing tidal wave. The current kept pushing her forward as she struggled to pull herself topside. Her big gloves made paddling a whole easier as they pushed more water away from her body. Vi took a huge inhale as she broke through the surface. Shaking off her dizziness, she rotated herself around.
She wasn't in the room anymore, instead she found herself with a huge body of water. It was like the middle of the ocean beneath a black night sky, devoid of any stars or even a moon. Vi continued treading water and staying afloat. The thick fog rolling over made it hard to see very far, not that there was anything but sea.
"…H-how the fu-" The enforcer was totally speechless. Had she not been in a room underground just moments ago? What kind of twisted dimension had she wandered into?
The fog then cleared up and she was able to get more range within her sights. Somewhere in the near distance, a bit off to the west, she was able to make out…land. This came as a relief, so she wasn't lost at a randomly placed sea.
Vi breast stroked the whole way to the shore. The swim took, give or take, about fifteen minutes until she hit the banks. She then collapsed onto the sand as she caught her breath. Her arms were tired from moving about and the gauntlets only added extra weight. Vi slowly lifted her head when she what was next to her.
A path of boot prints, those that she had seen before somewhere in the evidence wing of the station back in Piltover. They belonged to Jinx! The loose cannon had been here. Vi's determination fueled her fires once more as she pulled herself up. She could still catch her nemesis.
"You can't run from me, Jinx," Vi growled as she rung out her wet hair, "I'll always find you."
She then jogged off, following the prints in the sand into the woods which rested just beyond the narrow beach.