VI
Vi herself was aware she wasn't much for *keen* ideas, but this one was indeed too risky, perhaps more than when she went to come on knocking down at the Last Drop, before that whole tea party deal. For all she knew, they'd all be waiting for her, pointing guns at the entrance for what happened to those two on her beat.
Well, her and her newfound 'buddy'. Still, she had to get into the Central Precinct. What she needed was in there and she needed it fast.
Vi's head, though, was still buzzing as it tried to process everything the Dredge guard told her. It was all just too quiet to be true, even if noise was indeed made with the attack on the Firelights earlier, as Ekko told Vi. But then she believed her sister was been keeping her head down after that, waiting for the whole dust to settle, even more with the whole Ironhand deal and everything else going on.
But to think Jinx would be capable of something like causing that earthquake... A prison break indeed sounded *more* like the sister Vi knew - or thought she knew - but an event as cataclysmic as that was too much above her. Or so she thought.
Vi and the guard arrived at the front entrance of the Central Precinct, where it was guarded and the enforcers noticed both arriving, but no alarms were sounded, yet. The commotion was as usual, even as some did notice Vi and that one she was pushing were walking in a hurry.
'Guess they ain't found out about those two, yet...', she thought, but she still went in a hurry within the Central Precinct, where she moved past the enforcer at the reception, whom noticed her and the one with her.
"Trencher, where have you been, what the hell is this?", the receptionist enforcer asked, gesturing at the handcuffed guard right out of a warzone.
"Short version?", Vi asked, walking forward and gesturing at the broken radio at the bandolier. "Lack of option."
"Couldn't you've just gotten to another enforcer and asked for the pickup?", the receptionist asked, a second later.
Vi tried her best to pretend a 'didn't known that' expression.
"Y'know what, don't answer that, you just can't make crackrats think...", the receptionist said. "Just stash him somewhere in the main hall and get the replacement at the Dispatch office."
Vi nodded, taking the guard with her past the doors to the main hall just like she walked in with Caitlyn hours ago. Vi also hoped she wouldn't be noticed by either her or Gilhil, she didn't need that.
As they entered the Main Hall, Vi stuck to the corners as she tried circumventing the central area as close as possible to avoid being seen. She immediately noticed one of the enforcers just walking in her direction.
"Hey, excuse me, got a second?", she asked, stopping before him.
"What is it?", the enforcer asked back, stopping too.
"Gotta get this one cleared up and processed real fast, gotta get back to the beat.", Vi answered. "Know the way to the evidence room?"
"Sure, take the stairs.", the enforcer pointed at the closest set of stairs behind him, surprisingly more civil than Vi expected. "Walk forward then go right, penultimate door to the left of the corridor, can't miss it."
"Thanks, you're a saver, officer...", Vi replied.
"Jeferson.", the enforcer replied. "Just get to it."
"Sure will, thanks a lot.", Vi nodded, allowing a small smirk as she then took the pointed set of stairs in a haste and then took the supposed route. "When we get there, if the access is barred, push me or headbutt me, make a scene-", Vi whispered to the guard.
"-to draw the guy out, got it.", the guard interjected, as they walked to the Evidence room.
Unbeknownst to both, however, Shelley was on her way from behind them when she noticed them entering the T-intersection and walk the corridor. She had been keeping an eye, on Camille's orders, to ensure neither would stir any trouble or try anything.
And according to her check, Vi was supposed to be on a beat, not taking someone to process...
She immediately walked on a haste back down and into the desk-riddled center of the main hall, right to a corner spot where Kiramman was working on a large pile of paperwork riddling almost all of her desk.
"Four minutes, princess.", Shelley said, non-chalantly, which rang Kiramman out of her focus.
"What?", Kiramman asked, turning and noticing Shelley was there. "No, Shelley, no, I'll need half-hour at least to sort out-"
"I mean your *girlfriend, Kiramman.", Shelley cut ahead, stepping closer, stopping Caitlyn whom stared at her, dumbstruck. "I just saw her with someone else, headed to where I bet is the evidence lockup."
That made Caitlyn's heart stop, as well as the whole world go numb around her.
"Four minutes.", Shelley continued. "Then I'm running with scissors. You're lucky I didn't take it personally."
Shelley then turned around, headed back to the stairs, standing by and counting the minutes to carry out her warnings.
As Vi and the guard entered the evidence lockup, meanwhile, they did see the access to the shelves of stored cardboard boxes, with all the sorts of things within, as well as some things just too large to fit in them, was indeed barred, save for a particular hole where the receiving enforcer was working on a desk behind it, to doubt to receive the incoming evidence for registering and then stash it away.
"Move it up, deadbeat.", Vi declared in a forced assertiveness, pushing the handcuffed guard in, which caught the receiving enforcer's attention.
"Hey, what's this, got no early warnings for new income!", the enforcer protested.
Suddenly, the guard turned around and pushed Vi out against the wall, doing it again and then kneeling her as she defended herself, as the enforcer instinctively rushed to the gate and used the keys to open it to intervene.
"Hey, HEY!", the enforcer shouted, rushing in as the guard pushed and tried kicking Vi, but as the enforcer grabbed him and pulled the detainee off of her, Vi took the advantage the enforcer was distracted, moved in, grabbed him and unleashed a couple of blows to his face as the guard then helped trip the enforcer to the floor, as Vi finished him off unconscious.
"Keep an eye on him!", Vi ordered as she then ran into the shelf corridor, searching both shelves in a hurry. She knew they must've been there, since it's only been barely a night since she and Caitlyn turned themselves and were detained within this very building.
"Whatever it's you're after, hurry it up!", the guard exclaimed from behind.
It didn't take long before Vi noticed something amongst the boxes on the upper part of the leftward shelf.
A set of thick iron fingers and that was enough to make Vi smile lightly. Checking for a way to climb up high enough to get them, Vi took off some of the boxes and climbed, to grab the gauntlets, with some strength, and let them fall to the ground. Getting off the shelf, Vi checked one of the gauntlets and it's Hextech port, the triangle by the wrist, to see the little recognizable blue glowing sphere within it.
"Guess she didn't let you take'em home, huh, pretty boy?", Vi smiled. "Her loss."
Vi wore then the gauntlets, feeling the satisfaction in their weight as if she didn't wear them in over a decade, as she then headed back to the guard, whom noticed the inhuman big metal hands.
"Sweet Janna...", the guard was impressed. "Talk about *really* taking matters into your hands."
"Turn around, set your hands apart.", Vi said.
The guard did so, sticking out the handcuffs' chains as Vi's index and thumb on the right gauntlet clamped the chain tight and plucked it away with a yank, breaking the chains and freeing the Dredge guard's hands, allowing him to relax the shoulders in relief.
"You mentioned trucks at your prison, can you drive?", Vi asked.
"We all have a basic know-how.", the guard answered. "It was mandatory, to work there."
"Good, we-", Vi started before the door suddenly opened, and Vi and the guard turned to it and froze.
As did Caitlyn, staring at both petrified, there at that place, before she then noticed the large gauntlets at Vi's hands and what looked like was the enforcer lying down, a look of both shock and betrayal.
The air remained tense for over five seconds as none dared say or do anything, not even the guard.
"Vi...", Caitlyn broke the silence, carefully controlling her tone. Her eyes glanced the gauntlets one more time before she imperceptibly shook her head. "Don't."
"Sorry, Cupcake...", Vi replied, a couple seconds later, as her eyes darted for a moment to the back end of the evidence room.
"Vi!", was all Caitlyn could exclaim before Vi rushed in and pushed Caitlyn away, her back hitting the wall of the corridor, as Vi shut the evidence lockup's door.
"MOVE!", Vi roared as she and the guard ran past the gate and shut it behind them, as they then ran to the back end.
"Now what?", the guard asked, nervous, as Vi flexed the gauntlets, her eyes staring the solid brick wall. Behind them, Caitlyn re-entered the room and got face to face with the shut and locked barred gate, as she grabbed the bars.
"Vi!", Caitlyn shouted. "No! Don't do this!"
"Built'em for the mines, huh, pretty boy?", Vi asked to herself, nodding. "Stay back!", she ordered the guard.
"VI!", Caitlyn roared, but then it was too late.
Vi drove her right gauntlet fist with all she had into the wall, which shook the wall and it reverberated to the shelves. She then did the same with her left fist, and started going on.
As cracks started emerging at the wall, Caitlyn, alarmed, ran off the evidence lockup and searched the corridors for a small box on the wall.
The box that shouldn't be used nilly-willy.
Except it wasn't nilly-willy now.
"She's already in the building!?", shouted an upset Sergeant Gilhil, whom was not in a good mood, even more after the Dispatch officer abandoned his post to look for him, giving him news he didn't expect - or even want - to hear from the outdoors so soon. "You should've held her up in here and sent for me!"
"She showed me her radio got busted.", the receptionist answered. "That and the fella she brought in, she-"
"She just knocked two other beat men out there!", Gilhil cut him off. "And she more likely smashed the radio herself, on purpos-"
Suddenly, the bells started to ring, making Gilhil groan and rush back to the Central Precinct's innards.
Within the precinct, in another corridor, Camille walked back from the interrogation room, observing the usual commotion of the enforcers on the way back to her office as to start instructing Jayce, when she also heard the bells ringing, making her stop, wondering what could've been now.
Unless it could have something to do with... them.
Kiramman certainly wouldn't. And that left...
"She would not be so foolish...", she said to herself.
The wall at the back end of the evidence lockup was now mostly cracked. Just a few more blows. It recalled her of the time in Stilwater, to punch the walls just to keep herself alive in that place.
Except now she wore the literal means to break herself free. And now she was going to. On one of the blows, Vi heard cracking sounds, almost collapsing. She flexed the gauntlets one more time, as the pressure indicator on the gauntlets went overdrive and she roared, punching with all she got with her left fist and then the right one as she jumped, the full power of the gauntlets unleashed.
As the gauntlet's power hit the wall, it ran across the cracks and accumulated as it was then released by the kinetic energy, busting right open like a popped balloon - one made of bricks - and forced itself mostly against the wall at the end of the street, creating a hole twice Vi's size, even she got impressed.
"Come on!", she ordered the guard as she jumped the hole to the outdoors, right as the door was busted open and Caitlyn and other enforcers went in and tried pointing rifles at the Dredge guard, only for that one to immediately jump outside, falling rather painfully at the daylight street now littered with rubble and awed bystanders. The enforcers then moved out, alarmed, but Caitlyn remained, staring harrowed and almost powerless at the newfound devastation.
Vi rapidly picked him up. "Let's go, move it!", she said as she started running the street and then taking a left, on an open street, looking for a vehicle in transit as kept on running. It didn't take long for both of them to find one, as they spotted it when they entered another street, to the left, a cargo truck with crates at it's trunk. Vi rushed to the truck's front, raising the gauntlets as a visible sign for the vehicle to hit the breaks, startling the driver, whom saw it all happen too fast.
The pink-haired girl rushing in to the vehicle's side, using the big fat metal hands to rip the truck's door and immediately grab the driver and pull him out as another one right behind her, a trenchcoat wearing fellow, boarded in.
"That your truck?", Vi asked the driver.
"Company's.", the driver answered, frozen solid.
"Ain't anymore.", Vi replied, letting go of the driver and rapidly turning around and climbing the truck's trunk. "C'mon, get outta here, drive!", she knocked the rooftop of the vehicle, shouting to the Dredge guard, whom immediately did so, setting the motorized vehicle off at full speed leaving the driver and the bystanders behind.
"Where to!?", the guard shouted in transit.
"River!", Vi answered.
"Not sure this'll breach the blockade!", the guard replied.
"Not the bridge, the river!", Vi retorted, as the vehicle went forward before entering another street to the right, the guard clearly trying to avoid coming closer to the Central Precinct. As he entered, he honked the truck's horn as to scare off any bystander pedestrians as the truck went along the street.
However, shortly ahead, a wagon entered the street ahead at the end to block them. Piltover's finest were quick to react.
"Slow down!", Vi ordered as she then jumped ahead and ran to the wagon, letting out an uppercut at the front cockpit to pivot it upwards and she then pushed it aside, making the vehicle collapse upside down as she then waited for the truck to move in and she climbed back up at the trunk before the truck moved back forward fast after taking a left turn.
As the guard tried to find a more open street, Vi spotted something coming right behind them, or rather two, rather smaller vehicles, on two wheels and approaching fast. As if they were motorized bicycles. With enforcers riding them.
"PULL OVER, FISSURE RAT!", one of the riding enforcers, clearly a woman, roared as the motorcycles closed in to the truck. Vi took a look below, at the crates, having the only the idea that came to her mind. She grabbed one of them and then threw it at one of the riders, whom was forced to swerve aside but paid more attention to the falling crate that what was on the side he swerved over and thus hit a lamplight post, the sudden collapse making him fall and putting him off the chase, leaving only the rider woman at the chase.
The woman rider immediately drew her sidearm and opened fire at the vehicle, making Vi duck for cover as the guard then made a sharp turn right. Vi took that chance and grabbed another crate to throw at the rider, making a full impact as the crate and the motorcycle impacted as one and the crate split open, revealing a whole load of cabbage that bursted open like a flower and spread cabbages everywhere as the motorcycle tipped over and the rider flew from it, falling painfully at the street and left far behind amidst the cabbages as the truck went on, taking a right and then a left.
As Vi noticed there were no wagons or anymore of those cycles after them, she had a sudden glimpse upwards as she then saw her - the deadly Steel Shadow firing hooks and jumping from building to building, using her legs to force impulses for speed. She then, as she was close enough put herself to launching towards the truck at full speed, like the largest arrow in history.
"STOP!", Vi roared as she then immediately raised both gauntlets and triggered the shielding bubble, which enveloped the area around her - including the front of the truck's cockpit which got the guard off-guard - on which Camille's blade leg hit and recoiled as Vi then triggered off the shielding, and Vi rapidly grabbed one of Camille's legs and then threw all of Camille back away, into the street, hitting a lamplight post with such a violence the post bent over before Camille fell to the ground.
"The hell was that!?", the guard asked.
"Human scissors!", Vi answered.
"Wait, what!?", the guard asked, caught off-guard.
"Move it!", Vi ordered, and the truck resumed it's hasty track. The truck took a turn to the right and then, as they crossed a street, the horn sound out loud, the guard noticed the blockaded Bridge of Progress before they entered the other street.
"Where to now!?", the guard asked.
"Take the next left!", Vi answered, and the guard did so, gaining the narrowed, but clear view of the Pilt River ahead of them. "Give it all you got!", she ordered.
"What, you crazy!?", the guard asked, alarmed.
"JUST DO IT!", Vi roared, and the guard headed full speed, preparing to hit the guardrail.
However, as they went at full speed and Vi went backwards and threw some of the crates off, the guard whom clearly valued his own life jumped off the truck, hitting the nearby wall painfully due to the high speed as Vi punched the trunk, having the truck raise it's front wheels up a bit.
The vehicle then hit it's target, flipping forward due to the impact and practically launching Vi like a small catapult, flinging forward at a high velocity across the Pilt River. At the middle of the flight, she instinctively clenched her fists and activated the shielding, which looked like an energy blue ball flying across the river.
The blue ball did have enough strength to cross the river and land on one of the few standing buildings on the southern isthmus, crashing and busting through a wall as it bounced off the ground and busting through another wall and into another building when Vi triggered the shielding off, falling to the ground and rolling in pain due to the high-speed collapse, yelping in pain, feeling muscles she didn't remember having anymore. That would be one stunt she'd take a long time before trying again.
Airborne, in one of the enforcer airships guarding the bridge, one of the enforcers saw what just happened, a large blue ball forming up and flying across the river. "What the hell did I just see?", he asked himself, afterwards.
As her eyes opened, she saw what looked like a broken rooftop out of a warzone as she then fought through the pain to get herself back on her feet, noticing the destroyed scenario, apparently some runout apartment. She looked the other way around until she saw the hole she 'entered' the building at, immediately walking clumsily towards it, slowly feeling her strength returning. She knew she had to get out and down the fissures while she still could, before the enforcers on that side would catch up what was going on. Though dim, she could hear the alarming horn sounds from the other side of the river.
As she climbed the hole and walked out into the street, Vi ran forward as fast as she could until she saw a part of the collapsed ground, that had formed up a new fissure, Vi navigated around it in shock, reaching around a building lucky to have not been swallowed by it as she then could finally get a full, horrific view of the earthquake's devastation, a sight that would haunt her sleeps for decades.
As if the Lanes expanded into a spider-like manner, almost taking what was mostly the topsiders' territory, with devastation all around. Vi, with eyes as wide open and almost feeling out of air, could only wonder how many did die with that.
"Powder...", Vi said, almost choking. "Powder, what did you do...?"
After a couple of seconds, she shook her head, remembering she had to get in there, at least in the city areas of the Undercity. It took her a minute before she could find a starting point where she could descend into, using the techniques she and Powder shared when entering or leaving the fissures. Only now she had the gauntlets to help make the job easier.
Within moments, she was back home.
Or at least the home she tried to remember, but now all deserted and in ruins...
Notes:
For all of you people wondering, I did watch the S2 trailer this morning along with everyone else.
And... woof!
And yes, before you guys get asking, stuff like Jinx piloting an airship was already planned here for TUA. In fact, some of the stuff from the official season 2 could very well be considered adapted later on into TUA, giving a weird organic hybrid, as it usually goes for our favorite sick doctor.
Next scenes is where things will REALLY pick up, so keep your ears posted.