Caitlyn groaned and rolled onto her side. Dazed, she shook her head, taking a moment to clear it and take stock of her surroundings. Her ears were ringing, her head pounded, and her whole body ached from the force of the blast. Aside from that, though, she was alright. Although the smoke was still thick, glowing orange from the fires of the burning commune, the sounds of battle had abated and it was now shockingly quiet.
But Caitlyn was afraid. Where was Vi? Her last glimpse of the brawler had been the snarling faces of the two-headed dog on her jacket as she disappeared into the fray, her steps clumsy and uneven. Running after Jinx.
Reckless. Stupid.
Caitlyn had screamed out for her, reached out for her; but it all happened too fast. Vi was too far to reach, and it was all Caitlyn could do to get her rifle up in time to cover her. Vi was too injured to spot incoming attacks, much less dodge them - Caitlyn knew this. So she shot down one that Vi had failed to sidestep, and another that raised their sword to strike at her. They both fell, but when she'd looked up from the gun's sights, it was to see Vi's jacket vanishing into the soldiers and smoke.
Futilely, she had given chase.
And then there was the explosion. Cait hadn't seen what had happened after that.
She grabbed her rifle and scrambled to her feet, scanning the bodies that littered the ground. Some were the commune villagers, lying where they had died; bizarrely executed by an unseen force. Some were Noxian soldiers, or at least, parts of them. None were Vi.
She started to hear surviving Noxians calling out to each other, their shouts muffled in the dust and smoke. Dim silhouettes ambled through the blazing buildings around her, but in the confusion, none approached or even took notice of her. But Caitlyn knew: somewhere in the havoc, Ambessa was prowling. Her blood ran cold at the thought of the vicious retribution that would be visited upon her - or even worse, Vi - should they meet.
Sudden motion on the ground caught her eyes. Fear spiked through her, hot and sharp, and for a moment her chest tightened, imagining that it was Ambessa coming to hunt her down. But it wasn't Ambessa at all.
It was Jinx. She was kneeling over a dark heap on the ground, a mess of scrapes, cuts, and grime standing out against her pale skin.
And the thing she was kneeling over…
"Vi," Caitlyn choked out.
Vi was lying face-down in the dirt, limbs sprawled haphazardly, eerily still. Caitlyn stared, aghast. Her ears filled with the sound of her own rushing blood; her throat locked tight. Vi's clothes were in ruins: the leather charred and smoking, the snarling emblem on her back unrecognizable. There were large holes and tears in the fabric across her shoulders and down her back and legs. Underneath, Caitlyn could see burned skin, blistered red and raw.
Jinx's back had been turned, her face bent low towards Vi's, but as soon as Caitlyn spoke she whirled around. There was something small and broken in her expression.
For a moment, Caitlyn could not control the fury that sparked in her at the sight: Jinx, the terrorist, Jinx the murderer, alive and well, bent over the very sister she'd tormented and tried to kill just months ago. And Vi had run to her without a moment's hesitation when she saw Jinx in danger. After everything Jinx had done, she didn't deserve Vi's saving. She didn't deserve the magnitude of Vi's love.
Neither of them did.
She pushed away the unwanted thoughts and the anger simmering in her breast. This was not the time for feelings.
"She's… she's breathing," Jinx faltered, her voice hoarse and flat. She looked away. "She needs help."
That was all it took to break through Caitlyn's defenses. Vi's alive. She felt an odd swooping sensation in her chest, a combination of desperate hope and fear. Vi hadn't been in good shape even before the explosion. Now, her condition looked much worse. She didn't know how much time they'd have.
Caitlyn rushed to her side and dropped to her knees next to Jinx. "Vi!" she called, eyes raking across her scorched back. She needed to see a sign of life - needed to see it with her own eyes. "Vi!" And incredibly, Caitlyn saw her shoulders moving ever-so-slightly, indicating breath. One of her hands twitched subtly; Caitlyn nearly sobbed. "We need to get her out of here," she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Help me turn her over."
Jinx's eyebrows creased, concerned and unsure. "Her burns," she said, her voice a harsh rasp.
Caitlyn's mouth tightened; they didn't have time to sit and debate. The burns looked bad, yes, but that cut in her abdomen had her worried. "Her side was wounded. She's losing blood," she said sharply.
Jinx nodded, but didn't move, her expression distant.
Caitlyn had had her share of run-ins with Jinx, but she'd never seen the girl laid so vulnerable and bare. Caitlyn knew that Jinx had been close to the little girl, Isha, who had been the epicenter of that blast. She must be deeply affected by her death - and of course by Vander's, who they had so nearly saved.
Yet another parent lost to the ceaseless drumbeat of violence that sounded through their cities. Why is peace always the justification for violence? But peace had never come, and the violence never ended.
Not the time for feelings. Vi was hurt, and nothing else mattered.
"Get on the other side of her. I'll hold her head and stabilize her neck, you roll her over." She was relieved when Jinx didn't question further, instead moving into position.
Caitlyn crawled up to Vi's head and placed her hands on either side of it. The black hair was sticky with greasepaint and blood; she spotted a large cut on her scalp. The cartilage of one ear was mostly shredded, and still more blood seeped from the ear canal itself. The sight made her tremble.
Carefully, Jinx reached over Vi to grasp her shoulder and hip, knees braced against the ground.
Caitlyn took a steadying breath. "We'll roll her towards you. On three - ready? One, two-"
On "three," Jinx leaned back and pulled, straining to shift Vi's bulk. She grunted with exertion, eyes glinting Shimmer-pink as she threw her weight behind the maneuver. Vi let out a quiet groan as she was eased onto her side, then rolled onto her back.
Caitlyn shrieked.
Vi's stomach was ripped wide. Intestines spilled out of the gaping wound; a dark, slick pile that trailed from her exposed abdominal cavity to the puddle of blood where she had been lying. More blood flowed steadily down her sides, spilling into the dirt.
Jinx scrambled back with a cry of horror. Caitlyn was frozen, her hands still gripping the sides of Vi's head. She couldn't tear her eyes away. Her stomach twisted. She thought she might be sick.
Between her hands, Vi whimpered quietly, her mouth drawing up in a grimace.
Caitlyn looked up at Jinx, and saw her own panic mirrored back at her. "P-pressure! Get pressure on it," she stammered, reaching down to push her gloved hands against Vi's bloody abdomen, fingers spreading to cover as much surface as possible without touching the mass of intestines trailing out of her. Desperately, she cast around for something else to use. "We need a bandage, she's bleeding out!"
She had hardly spoken before Jinx was already gone, staggering towards a slain Noxian soldier to tug his cloak out from under him.
Caitlyn turned her full attention back on Vi. Her skin was waxy and pale, sweat starting to bead on her face. "Come on, Vi" she muttered. The puddle below her was growing alarmingly large; Caitlyn felt it soaking into her knees. "Vi?" Caitlyn shook her shoulder. "Vi."
To her surprise, Vi's eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Caitlyn with a raw, scared expression, lips parting in a pained gasp.
"Vi!" Caitlyn couldn't stop her gaze from flicking down to the soggy mess of her midsection, and back up to the wide grey eyes staring at her. The tremor in the fine line of Vi's mouth. The small scar notched in her upper lip.
Jinx dropped back to her knees next to her, the red cloak clutched in her hands. There was no need for words between them as they worked side by side; right now, no matter the past, they were united in this single urgent purpose.
Jinx was breathing hard as she wadded up the fabric. She nodded to Cait.
When Caitlyn saw she was ready, she removed her hands, fresh blood welling up as she did so.
Jinx pressed her lips together, and slowly pushed the fabric into Vi's belly.
The reaction was immediate and horrible: Vi's whole body convulsed, curling in on herself, limbs jerking up as her body reflexively tried to guard itself from further harm. A guttural scream tore itself from her throat. Jinx grimaced, but didn't let up.
It was utterly disturbing to watch. Caitlyn swallowed hard against the bile threatening to rise at the intensity of Vi's distress. She closed her bloody gloves over Vi's shoulders, careful to avoid the patches of burned flesh, trying to comfort her with her physical presence. (A pang of guilt. What right did she have to put her hands anywhere on Vi's body? To comfort her? That privilege had been forfeit as soon as she had hit Vi and left her for dead in a sewer. Not the time, not the time, she reminded herself.)
She leaned down, taking in Vi's pallid skin and hollow cheeks. "Shh, shhh, I'm here," she whispered. "We're here." Vi was limp again, or nearly limp; her head twisted weakly towards Caitlyn's voice. "We're getting you out of here," Cait told her fiercely, squeezing her shoulder with hands that shook. "Just hold on."
Jinx peered at the small heap of intestines lying in the puddle of blood next to her sister. "How do we get her out of here?" she rasped, sounding incredibly small. Caitlyn was reminded with a jolt that Jinx was still a teenager.
With the Noxian's cloak half stuffed into Vi's gut, the blood loss had slowed, but only marginally. The wound was still open - they couldn't apply proper pressure without running the risk of crushing her distended organs. To Vi, Jinx mumbled, "You're all… inside out."
Caitlyn watched something desperate and yearning come over Vi's face at the sound of her sister's voice, and she felt her heart break. Vi and Jinx's eyes met, and she could see the love in Vi's face. She had seen that look on her before - a wide-eyed, open, vulnerable expression.
Seeing that same loving gaze directed at Jinx, the girl that Caitlyn had spent so much time hating and fearing and hunting, should've felt like a betrayal. But in the moment, she understood: that was just who Vi was. She loved fiercely and deeply, and there was nothing in this world that could take away her love for her sister - nothing that Jinx could do. Certainly nothing that she herself could do, Caitlyn thought ashamedly. To think otherwise had been a cruelty.
Vi's scarred lips parted. She strained to lift her head, and drew in a shuddering breath. She was trying to say something, Cait realized. She saw her fight to form the words, but it was a fight she lost; her head fell back against the ground and instead, Vi's voice came out in a high, keening whine.
The sound was as anguished as it was unbearable; almost without realizing it, Caitlyn found herself stripping off her soiled gloves, pressing her bare fingertips to Vi's jaw, cupping it gently, feeling Vi's cool, sweat-slicked skin. Gently, she slid her fingers down Vi's neck to feel for her pulse.
Vi was gazing up into her face with big, glassy eyes as Caitlyn's fingers found the artery in her neck. She still looked scared, but calmer now, face no longer screwed up in pain. Instead, Vi just watched her.
Against her fingers, Caitlyn could feel Vi's pulse racing, weak but fast, her heart in overdrive. That was a bad sign.
But Vi hardly looked bothered - on the contrary, she was beginning to look almost peaceful. Her eyes were starting to drift shut.
"Vi, stay awake," Caitlyn said, but already she was slipping away.
"Hmm, so sweet," she slurred between shallow gasps, a slightly delirious smile tugging at her mouth. "Like a cupcake." And with that, she was out again.
Caitlyn bit her lip, hard, as warring emotions battled in her chest.
"She's not a goner, right?" Jinx's voice was flat, uninflected, but Caitlyn heard the dread in her tone; the ill-concealed anxiety behind the question. Is she dead? Jinx was terrified.
Caitlyn shook her head. "No, I still have her pulse." But now, a different question loomed large before them: now what?
Vi was alive, for now, but in grave condition. Caitlyn was no fool - she knew Vi had lost an alarming amount of blood, and that her weak, rapid heartbeat meant that time was running out. Her father was a doctor, after all; although she'd had limited interest in medicine, sometimes when she'd been young he'd read excerpts from his thick medical textbooks as bedtime stories. Things about hypovolemic shock and tachycardia and peripheral vasoconstriction. Words she knew but didn't understand.
Caitlyn's only real medical training was a three-day basic Enforcer's first aid course. This was so, so far beyond what she knew how to deal with. Vi needed immediate, professional medical attention - the type provided by experienced surgeons in sanitary hospital beds, not a messy field dressing with dirt and grime on every surface.
She no longer saw Ambessa's men wandering through the smoke - still thick as the village burned - but knew they couldn't be far. Perhaps they were regrouping, waiting for the smoke to clear to return for their dead? They needed to be gone by the time the soldiers - or Ambessa, she thought uneasily - returned.
But Vi… Caitlyn gnawed at her lip, trying to reason through what their next steps should be. She and Jinx could probably carry her between the two of them, but it would be hard on Vi's already critically weakened body. They'd need to somehow package her up before they tried to move her. Otherwise the blood loss would be too severe, she was sure of that - one look at Vi's alarming pallor confirmed it.
She was so focused on her thoughts - on the impossible task before them, and on Jinx's blood-soaked arms trembling as they bore down - that she didn't notice someone approaching until his voice sounded right behind her.
"Caitlyn?"
She whipped her head around to face the speaker, jumping so badly that she jostled Vi, who made a tiny, pained sound in her lap.
It was… Jayce?
It was, unmistakably, Jayce, but he had undergone a drastic transformation since the last time they'd seen each other. His hair was greasy and lank, and he'd grown a full beard, which looked dirty and out of place on him. He also looked like he hadn't slept in ten years; his eyes were sunken deep into his head, dark circles standing out beneath them and thick brows drawn into a scowl. There was something skittish and feral in his face that Caitlyn had never seen there before.
Caitlyn's mouth dropped open, her brain sputtering to a full halt. Jayce had been missing now for nearly five months.
"What… what the hell are you doing here?" Jayce's voice was a ragged growl, but his surprise and confusion could not have been more apparent.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Caitlyn bit back, incredulous. "I'm here to capture - well, to rescue-" she stopped abruptly, scowling. "It's too much to explain right now. Can you help us?"
Jayce was looking them over, taking in the scene before him. Caitlyn watched him try to process it: her; Jinx; the motionless figure between them. The gruesome mess on the ground.
"That's not…" He faltered, squinting in the haze. "Is that Vi?" Caitlyn confirmed with a nod, and Jayce paled. "H-holy shit."
Jinx had glanced up when Jayce had first appeared, but quickly turned her attention back to Vi. Now, however, she looked up, pink eyes glowing eerily as she directly met Jayce's hazel ones. "You just gonna stand there yapping?" she said, an edge to her voice.
"Who are you?"
Before the conversation could continue - before Jayce could find out that this girl beside her was THE Jinx, the terrorist who'd blown up the council - Caitlyn cut in. "Jayce, we can talk later. Vi needs a doctor. Do you know how to get out of here?"
Jayce shoved aside his confusion and set his jaw. "I have no idea, but I can help." It was one of the things she loved about Jayce: he didn't need to have a why - if he needed to act, he wouldn't hesitate. He was always ready to jump into the action. "What do you need?"
She recalled a time in her childhood - what had she been, eight? - where she'd been running from an imaginary foe through the streets outside the Kiramman Mansion. Jayce had seen her fleeing, and he hadn't even checked to see what it was she was running from. He'd assumed that the danger was real, and she'd been scooped up and tucked into those big arms, winded and giggly, before she could say otherwise.
Caitlyn took a breath, mind racing. "Ambessa and her army are here, in the village. I don't know where they are - regrouping by the entrance, possibly - but they'll be back. We have to be gone before they see us - they'll attack on sight."
Jayce grunted his understanding. "Where are we taking her?"
It was Jinx who replied. "Topside." Caitlyn and Jayce both looked at her. She shrugged, not meeting their eyes. "Thought your old man was a doc."
It was a good idea. Caitlyn nodded slowly, thinking it through. "If we can get outside to the Fissures, we might be able to steal an Enforcer transport - there are four by Ambessa's camp, if we sneak around to the back. We take that to a bathysphere. There's a security checkpoint, but I can get us through." In her lap, she felt Vi shift minutely.
Jayce nodded, eyes warily scanning the area. "Alright. I can carry her."
Caitlyn had opened her mouth to reply when he cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. He was listening intently, muscles tensed under his filthy jacket.
Now Cait heard it, too: faintly, though the smoke, they could hear voices.
"Come on," Jayce urged. "We need to get outta here!"
Clearly. She didn't say it.
In her lap, Vi's eyelids had cracked open again, revealing blown pupils that drifted back and forth without seeming to register anything before them. Automatically, Caitlyn stoked her cheek, thumb skimming across sweat and grime.
Jinx and Jayce were both looking to her, waiting for her direction. Caitlyn's mouth drew down into a tight frown as she considered. "We need to close the wound as best we can. We can't carry her with it open like that."
"Well what do we do with…" Jinx gestured broadly with her chin at the exposed entrails. "Y'know." She gulped. "All her insides."
Caitlyn briefly closed her eyes, trying to keep her voice steady and failing miserably. "We'll just have to… pack them up as best we can. We can tie the cloak around her." The idea made her stomach twist up like a wrung cloth. "Jinx, you'll remove the fabric, Jayce and I will reassemble what we can, and then we cover it back up again. We secure the bandage, and then we leave. As quickly as we're able."
If Jayce registered her use of Jinx's name, he didn't say anything. He looked down at Vi, horrified. Caitlyn was horrified at the idea herself, but what else could they do? The voices were still distant, but they were getting louder. It was time to move.
The three of them got into position.