Chapter 2

A radio hooked up to a pair of large speakers in the corner of my workshop blasted incoherent punk rock as I laid on the cool paved floor in the middle of the room, positioned strategically beneath the chassis of my motorcycle so I had access to the suspension. Over the past few hours of working on the vehicle I had hit a rhythm and now I cranked my wrench away in time to the off-beats of the drums, and it had lulled me into a sort of daydream more than once that night. Following the afternoon's fun driving at high speed around potholes the size of small cars, I had found a few problems with the bike that had made it harder to steer suddenly in situations like that. Normally I didn't think much of minor stuff and edge cases, but given that I'd probably be chasing whatever had caused that kind of mayhem a second time, it paid to be prepared. While the floor was cold and flat, it was far from bare- in fact, the same could be said for most of my workshop.

Like my office down at the department, my workshop was covered with things to either create or destroy- shelves and drawers covered the walls, packed with bits of scrap and pieces to various assemblies lying on the countertops in multiple stages of completion. Where a wall wasn't covered by a tool rack or shelf, I had put up posters of various bands I'd seen around the city, everyone from Pentakill to Rage Against The Hextech. A half-built hot rod sat in the corner of the room furthest from the closed garage door, partially covered by a tarp that helped remind me that I hadn't tinkered with it in a few months. Nearby the door into the rest of the house sat my gauntlets, resting against the wall as opposed to stored in any sort of locker, with the pack powering them sitting next to it, inanimate and almost docile where it lay.

While the place certainly looked like my type of dwelling- and I did sometimes sleep there- if you were to go through the door leading into the rest of the place, you would find upper-class and extremely nice-looking decorations, full of whites and floral patterns and comfortable class. After all, like my office in the police department building, I only really held residence in the one room- the rest belonged to someone else. In this case, it was the Sheriff herself, a woman named Caitlyn.

There is no better example of polar opposites than the two women in charge of Piltover's police department; myself the deputy and Caitlyn the sheriff. Cupcake- sorry, Caitlyn- grew up in the more affluent part of town, born to a statesman and an influential researcher. Keep in mind that at that time, 'affluent' was saying something- Piltover wasn't always a shining example of law and order (blue-haired stick figures with fish-shaped rocket launchers notwithstanding), it was Caitlyn who dropped the crime rate into the single digits in the first place. Growing up in a safer and more expensive part of town was a luxury not many could afford, but unlike most, Caitlyn has used her silver spoon for generosity and the betterment of the city around her. She's smart, the smartest cop I've ever met, and hasn't squandered the wealth she's inherited or earned. But there's a way she holds herself that never lets you forget where she came from, a timbre to her voice that implies authority even without the badge.

And then there's me. The aristocrats and statesmen that raised Caitlyn as one of their own would have called me a 'street urchin' and rolled up their noses, and often times they did. I lived in the outskirts of the city, where the law was too scared to reach (and to some degree, still is). I grew up in an environment no kid should have to endure- no parents, no family, no home, desperate and hungry on alternating days. Handouts were a myth I didn't believe in, and it meant I had to rely on me and nobody else. I'm… not proud of what I had to do to get by. I lied, cheated, stole, all in the name of survival. Eventually I found a gang to take me in, make me feel like I had a home, a place to go where I wasn't afraid. But they were no better, worse if anything, and it took me more bank heists and robberies than it should have to realize that they were headed down a road I didn't want to follow. The criminal records and officer files say I'm 'reformed', but the truth is that I wised up. And one of the first things I learned the hard way is that all the changes of heart won't change where I'm from.

That juxtaposition in mind, you can imagine how strange it was for me to move into Caitlyn's house shortly after joining the force. Officially, I was 'relocated to a secure location within close proximity to the Sheriff to allow for close monitoring of my behavior', because you don't just give a known bank robber a police badge and expect them to walk the straight and narrow because you asked nicely. Unofficially, I think Caitlyn saw where I came from and knew I couldn't go back there. Not after what I'd seen and done. She'll never admit it, but she saw a chance to help me help myself and took it.

That transition was still the strangest thing I've ever had to get used to. Her place is really nice… too nice. Everything is tastefully decorated to convey a sense of wealth and class, and she has two or three servants hired by her parents long before she could walk who wait on her and do chores around the house. I hated all of it. Not the actual people who work here in her service- they're nice folks, always willing to help- but I hate being waited on by someone else. It's… weird. Unnerving. If I wanted something done around here, I did it myself. Same as I always have. The servants protested at first, but two things happen when you butt heads with me- you either win right away or give up trying after awhile. They didn't manage the former, and most eventually went with the latter, giving me pretty much free access to the basements and cleaning facilities they used so I could wash my grimy clothes by myself. Despite that freedom, I still didn't like sleeping on a cloud-like bed or eating with fine silver, and so I spent most of my time in the workshop, living in the dirt and grime and tools and punk rock. And damnit, I liked it.

I was torn from my reflection by the very rock that made me happy being turned down, and then off altogether. The nerve of some people! I yanked my head out from under the bike and aimed a glare directly at whoever had turned down the music, only sparing a second to check who it was. "This had better be real important, Jeeves."

Standing at the door with a hand on the stereo's volume dial was an elderly yordle, whose name was certainly not Jeeves. Not that it stopped me. He stood all of three feet tall and wore an adorably small and well-fitting black suit, with a little-bitty bow tie and teensy-weensy white gloves. He looked vaguely like one of the fuzzballs from Bandle City, but his tawny brown fur was maintained very carefully, with the closest thing to unruliness being his bushy white mustache and equally bushy eyebrows framing his face. "I've requested of you on multiple occasions to kindly refrain from using that surname, Miss Vi," he said curtly, his voice stately and the picture of refinement despite being adorably high-pitched. The bastard.

My eyes narrowed. "And I've told you that if you called me 'Miss' again I'd punt you into the laundry chute." Jeeves (or, if you really want to know his real name, Bradford) was the only one of the servants who absolutely refused to refrain from politeness and upper-class behavior around me, to the point where he occasionally treated me like a little girl who didn't know her manners, which was partially true. Partially. The stubborn bastard knew just how to get on my nerves, and I knew just how to get on his. Honestly, sometimes I looked forward to butting heads with him. Sometimes, but not now. "What is it?"

"Miss Caitlyn has returned," he continued, shrugging off my idle threat in just the right way to irritate me without making me want to actually act it out. "She wishes to speak with you immediately. I asked her to give you time to clean up," he added, looking me over, "But we both agreed it would be a futile effort."

I looked down at my clothes with apprehension. I wore a set of gray mechanic's coveralls, the top half zipped down with the sleeves wrapped around my waist like a belt, and a white tank top showing off a bit of my midriff but otherwise covering all the naughty bits that would have gotten Jeeves in a tizzy. Of course, he wasn't referring to the clothes so much as the coating of dirt and grime over them, which was a mixture of oil, dirt, grease, and all sorts of other things that had no place in a posh environment such as this. "Jeeves," I said with fake shock, "That almost hurts my feelings."

Jeeves nodded dismissively and stepped aside, one arm gesturing through the door back into the house. "If you please, Miss Vi," he responded, again trading honorific for nickname, "Miss Caitlyn is quite upset."

Oh. …Well, crap. It had to be about the stuff from this afternoon. After all, I hadn't given her any other reasons to be pissed off… lately. I had filed the reports and everything to cover my tracks, but go figure, the detective might have sniffed me out. Then again, she might not have. If I kept my cool, maybe she wouldn't be able to find out. Well, okay, it wasn't the best plan, but nothing better came to mind.

I followed Jeeves out of the workshop and through winding hallways leading into various pristinely-cleaned rooms until we came to Caitlyn's study, a comfortably-sized room for four or five people colored a soft, dark purple that made the room feel strangely cozy. A large fern sat near the entrance to the room in a brown ceramic pot, and next to it was the first of many bookcases that wrapped along the walls, stopping only for a painted brick fireplace at the far end of the room. Several easy chairs sat around a small coffee table at one side of the room, and at the other side was a thick oak desk, carved with master craftsmanship- a gift from the mayor of Bandle City after finding a particularly dangerous yordle sorcerer terrorizing the city several years back. Behind the desk was a large and exceedingly expensive-looking chair, framed on either side by a trophy case with marksmanship awards and various accolades and trophies, and framed overhead by a large mantelpiece with a handcrafted hextech rifle mounted at its center. In that chair sat the Sheriff of Piltover, and she nodded to the small yordle in front of me as I stepped into the room. "Thank you very much, Bradford, that will be all."

Sheriff Caitlyn was a gorgeous woman with milky blue eyes and dark hair that almost seemed violet in some lights as it fell down to her waist in the back and curled in a slight twist over her chest. She had a slight figure, all curves and smooth skin, but I knew better- under that milky skin lay the lean muscle of an athlete, muscle that didn't command power like mine did, but instead raw speed and agility. Her thin brows framed sparkling eyes with a knack for looking inquisitive even when not asking questions, and her button nose and lips colored a few shades darker than normal painted a picture of a professional whose beauty was used as a tool to hide a razor wit. Normally she wore a purple outfit with brown boots and gloves that seemed to turn the eyes of every man that wasn't blind or a gem knight, but tonight she wore more businesslike wear, including a white blouse that tucked into a pastel purple business skirt, which matched the jacket draped over the side of the chair. It was a strange outfit to see, but it's not every day she has to go and speak to committees and governing bodies all day. You'd have to kill me to get me in something like that.

"Of course, Miss," Jeeves said with a polite bow. Caitlyn turned her eyes on me, and I felt a spotlight shine on my face- sometimes she could really make me feel like a scared little girl being interrogated by an angry cop, something that had happened too many times growing up.

"Good evening, Vi," she said with a careful charm in her voice. "Let's chat."

"'Sup, Cupcake?" I replied as casually as humanly possible, making my way over to one of the easy chairs and slumping down so heavily that I think I saw Jeeves wince at the grease stains I might have caused on his way out.

"I heard about an altercation over in the Academic district while I was away." Her tone of voice and posture were relaxed, but businesslike. "What can you tell me about what happened?"

"You read the report?" I asked.

Caitlyn gestured to a manila folder on her desk. "I read the Lieutenant's report," she said with a tone like she had gone over this a thousand times, "But we both know how inconsistent yours can be. When you do file them, that is. That's why I'd rather discuss it with you."

I shrugged. "We got reports of some huge thing tearing stuff up over in the Academic district. They sent patrols down but didn't hear back, so I went in."

Caitlyn nodded, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth. "What did you see?"

I opened my mouth, but after a second I closed it. I knew what I had told Calhoun, but it still didn't make a bit of sense. I scratched at the dreads at the base of my neck and sighed. "Nothing, really. I mean, the place was trashed. It looked like freaking Cho'Gath had stomped through. But there wasn't any monster there. No hungry void terror, no berserk golem, no giant red bear, nothing." I dwelled on a thought for a moment before I added, "Didn't see any people either. Normal or cop." It hadn't quite occurred to me how creepy that was until I really thought about it, and in a way I was glad I hadn't until now.

"You're saying it just… vanished?" The skepticism in her voice was pretty clear. Caitlyn didn't believe magic was fake or anything, but I had to agree with the thought that giant district-wrecking monsters didn't just go 'poof'. Something didn't add up.

"Poof," I confirmed, using my hands to imitate a puff of smoke bursting out of thin air.

She frowned, her eyes pointed in my direction but no longer focused on me- she was trying to solve the puzzle in her head, and coming up blank. "That's… unsettling," she finally commented. "What evidence did you find at the scene?"

I shrugged. "Aside from craters and broken glass, nothing."

"Are you sure?"

The question caught me off-guard. I wasn't sure what my answer would tell her, or what she wanted to know. Maybe if she knew about… no, no one saw me do that. Did they? "Uh, yeah. Nothing that mattered."

Caitlyn's eyes seemed to bore into mine, and before long I looked away. "We'll have to wait until we can hear from any witnesses who may have fled the scene, then," she said with finality. As I turned back to look at the sheriff she sighed, collected some of the loose papers on the desk, stuck them in the manila folder, and rose to her feet. I rose as well, possibly a bit too quickly, but I was eager to return to my workshop. Getting grilled by Caitlyn always made me uneasy; she was too damn good at it, and I had too many bad memories for it to ever be anything remotely comfortable.

"Looks like," I said as a way to ease out of the conversation.

Caitlyn, apparently sensing my urge to see my way out of the talk, gathered her things and moved to the door. "You may return to what you were doing, Vi," she said in passing. "Supper will be at eight. And before you go to sleep tonight, I want to know where you hid the yordle."

I froze where I stood, shock making my eyes wide. I tried to keep it under wraps, but I looked at her and saw the same eagle-eyed glare she gave a perp dodging the law in return. "I… I don't-"

"Don't you even start with me," Caitlyn interjected, her temper finally seeping through, "Lieutenant Calhoun saw you bring it in and hide it in your office, and was going to confiscate it when you left. It could very well have important information that could lead to saving innocent people. Don't you dare lie to me."

Her words had a contemptuous edge of ice to them, and I could understand why. Caitlyn had no tolerance for anyone who got in the way of the law. Generally speaking, she trusted me enough to let me handle things my way and gave me more leeway than some officers thought I was due, but she was still sharper than I could ever be. Sometimes I wondered why I even tried. "He's in my room," I said with a tone of defeat.

"Let's go talk to him," she replied and immediately stepped out of the study and began down the hall towards my bedroom.

"Cait, hang on-" I started, but Caitlyn cut me off again.

"I'm not in the mood, Vi," she said with a level tone, her words lacking the frost from before but still enough to make me hesitate.

"It's not that, it's that-" I continued, but Caitlyn had already reached the door to my room and turned the handle.

Okay, let's be clear- I don't really spend a lot of time in my bedroom. I just kinda chuck stuff in there and leave. But even I admit it could use some tidying up. Like, a lot of tidying up. When Caitlyn opened the door, I was reminded of why. Normally, bedrooms in the house were various monochromatic hues of one soft pastel color or another, and often came complete with a large four-post bed, a thick wooden dresser and a separate, personal bathroom. The floor was covered in a thick, luscious shag carpeting, the type comfortable enough to zap you if you're walking around in socks.

Looking in my bedroom, you could see the bed through all of the mess, and… that was about it. The walls were plastered with more band and movie posters, most of them unnecessarily violent and all of them completely destroying any air of class about the room, not that it needed help. The drawers of the dresser were scattered about the room, and there were clearly no segregation laws in place preventing various clean and dirty clothes from mixing on the floor to the point where you were probably better off just chucking them all in the wash than trying to figure any of it out. A well-used drum set took up one corner of the room, and at the opposite end of the room hung a large punching bag, with a crude drawing of Jinx right at face level on the well-beaten leather. Even the bed was barely a bed anymore- I had snapped the four posts off awhile ago, and it was barely more than a mattress with legs at this point. Comfortable, but not ritzy, just how I liked it.

Only problem was that the bed was occupied- an orange ball of fuzz with a bushy, blue-tipped tail was rolled up in the middle of the bed, which twitched with surprise as the door opened. I pushed past Caitlyn and made my way into the room, careful to keep my voice low. "Hey there, little buddy…" In return, the yordle hopped to its feet, babbling away in high-pitched syllables, and chucked a boomerang right at my head. Reflex kicked in and I snatched at the thing, barely catching it out of the air in time. "Hey! I told you not to do that!" The yordle bounced on the bed and landed on its head, wiggling its butt in my direction. The grin on its face eased my tension- it was only playing, apparently- but Caitlyn still sighed and stepped up to speak to it as if it was sitting there sipping a cup of tea. I imagine she liked to pretend people did that all the time, just like her.

"Do you have a name?" she said to the yordle.

"Gnar! gabba" the yordle shouted. "Kabba wob Gnar shugu!"

"He says 'Gnar' a lot," I commented. "I was gonna name him Oliver."

"Awriva!" the yordle shouted, bouncing up and down on the bed with childlike glee.

That got a laugh out of me. "Hey Oliver, say, 'Make my day'."

"Awriva!"

I was about to continue, but Caitlyn cut me off. "That's enough, Vi."

"Vee!" The yordle shouted. My face lit up with a grin- it was off, but close enough to be downright adorable.

"Gnar?" Caitlyn asked. The yordle looked up at her quizzically. Guess that was the thing's name. Dammit, I liked the name Oliver. "Can you talk to me, Gnar?"

"Meechoo bah!" Gnar exclaimed, hopping from the bed with surprising speed and landing on my chest before I realized what was happening.

"Holy sh-" I started, but calmed down a second later as he climbed his way up to my shoulder. He was small for a yordle, and even so he was surprisingly light. "Uh, Cait, I think that counts as 'yes but no'."

Caitlyn sighed, leaning against the door frame of the room. "Barring any sort of brain-scrambling magic, that rules him out as a witness," she commented with an edge of exhaustion in her voice.

"That's what I was trying to tell you," I replied as he sniffed at one of my dreadlocks. "I talked to him for awhile but couldn't make heads or tails out of whatever language he was speaking." I smiled a bit. "He's tough little guy, but it looks to me like he just wants to play. I dunno why he doesn't speak our language, but he doesn't seem like a threat. I was gonna bring him to the Yordle Academy tomorrow to see if they had any ideas."

"So why didn't you leave him at the department?" Caitlyn asked. Her tone wasn't like before, not demanding, just inquiring. "You didn't have to lie to the others."

I put a hand over Gnar's eyes, feigning terror. "You kidding, Cupcake? They'd question him, then throw him in a holding cell! He was meant to fly free!"

"So instead you threw him in your room?" she retorted.

"Hey, I didn't say I had all the answers," I shot back. "Plus it's not like my room can get a whole lot worse." I smiled as Gnar began to pick at the strap of my tank top and I swatted lightly at his hand. "Easy there, tiger."

Caitlyn allowed a weary smile to show on her face, and it made me happier as well. "He certainly seems to like you, and you him."

I smiled back at her, mine full of enthusiasm. "Well, it helps that he's even more adorable than you when you're mad."

I didn't get to see Caitlyn's reaction before let out a long sigh and put a hand to her face. "Right. Well. You're in charge of him until we get him to the Academy," she said with a tone of voice that refused the very notion of compromise. "You feed him, you take care of his messes, and if he breaks anything, it's your fault." She turned to leave and added over her shoulder "And if you so much as consider letting him into my room, I'll throw you in a cell for the month."

I let the threat slide off my back and grabbed the yordle from my shoulder, holding him just under his arms like a puppy. He raised his arms wide and shouted "Vee!" again with a cheery smile showing me his teeth, especially the two larger canines jutting out from his lower jaw. I couldn't help but grin in response.

"This is gonna be great."