Chapter Text
The fall of Piltover comes in late Spring.
There are warning signs, of course. But then, there always have been.
Then the warning signs are gone and all that's left is utter devastation.
Caitlyn and Vi are in the Undercity when it happens, tucked into a corner booth at a dirty little bar, nursing their drinks as they wait for their informant to show up. He's late, and Vi is honestly starting to think he's not going to show at all.
She's turning to say as much to Caitlyn when someone bursts through the front door and shouts, "It's starting!"
Seconds later, there is a series of distant rumbles that make Vi think of the colorful clouds of smoke blooming throughout Piltover only a couple of years ago.
Across from her, Caitlyn goes statue-still. She must've recognized the sound of bombing too.
They don't even need to exchange any words; in an instant, they're both on their feet, tearing out of the bar and running for the Bridge.
There are crowds of people flooding the streets, some of them wearing masks and many of them carrying weapons. All of them, she notices, are wearing strips of colored fabric around their upper arms. There's an underlying anger in the chaos, an insatiable bloodlust that has all of the hair on Vi's neck standing on end.
It takes time to force their way through the mob, but eventually they reach the edge of the river, and Vi instantly wishes they hadn't.
Piltover is in flames.
The moon and stars are choked out by smoke while the city glows orange beneath it. She can hear distant screaming, the crack of gunfire, the roar of flames as they ravage everything in their path.
"No," Caitlyn whimpers beside her. "No."
Vi can't breathe. Her limbs feel suddenly cold and heavy and her head feels stripped, like an over-tightened screw; it's like her body is becoming untethered from her mind, like her consciousness is at risk of floating away and getting lost in the smoke rising from Piltover's funeral pyre.
Then a hand grabs her arm and Vi is violently jolted back into her body. Caitlyn is staring at her, eyes wild and frantic.
"We have to go back," she gasps.
"No," Vi says without even thinking. "We can't. It's --"
The man shouting 'It's starting!' The bombs going off in rapid succession. The mob, armed and masked and ready.
This was planned. This was a fully organized assault on the Uppercity, and there is no way in hell that she's taking the Sheriff of Piltover into a riot where a violent mob will be actively hunting for people like her.
"We can't go back, Caitlyn," she says with absolute certainty. "We will die if we go back."
"No," Caitlyn says. Her voice is shaking. "My father's still there, Vi. I can't --"
Vi's stomach drops. The odds of finding Tobias before the bloodthirsty mob are slim, but Caitlyn's right. They can't leave him to die.
Caitlyn clutches Vi's arm, blunt nails digging into her skin. "Please, we have to go back."
And against every instinct she has, Vi says, "Okay."
-:-:-:-:-:-
The front doors of the manor are open, the locks busted and the wood splintered and gouged. Caitlyn moans low in horror at the sight, and all Vi can do is follow as her partner runs up the front steps and slips into the house.
The manor has been ransacked.
Shattered glass and pottery crunch beneath their feet as they slowly creep through the foyer. One of the paintings on the wall has been slashed to pieces. The furniture has been tipped over or smashed.
They need to leave. Fear is crawling up Vi's spine like a spider; it feels almost like being watched, like a cool prickle on the back of the neck. They need to get out before it's too late.
But Caitlyn moves further into the house and Vi follows, because it's all she can do. She can't save anything or anyone here, but she can, at the very least, watch Caitlyn's back.
The first body is just past the foyer. His suit is soaked in blood and his face is disfigured, but Vi recognizes him as the old butIer, Jefferson. She can't tell which of the many injuries actually killed him.
Caitlyn makes a terrible little noise in the back of her throat at the sight of Jefferson's body. As the Sheriff, she's seen plenty of brutalized corpses but Vi knows well that it's different when it's someone you knew. Someone you cared about.
They keep moving, picking their way through the destruction. It looks like the entire house was subjected to the same vandalism as the foyer, all smashed furniture and shattered decor and slashed fabric.
Down one hallway, in the direction of the kitchen, Vi spots a pool of blood and a limp arm visible from one of the open doorways. She doesn't point it out to Caitlyn and she doesn't stop moving.
When they reach the living room, however, Vi stops dead.
It's just as bad as everything else they've seen, but that spider-tickle on Vi's spine is suddenly a full-on frantic skitter as she takes in the vandalized family portrait on the far wall. All three of the painted figures have had their eyes scratched out, and there are red X's painted over Cassandra and Tobias' faces. Caitlyn's face has been circled.
"Caitlyn. We have to go."
Caitlyn is staring at the painting too. "No," she whispers. "No, I need to --"
"What do you think we're going to find, Cait?" Vi asks frantically. "We need to leave now."
Caitlyn rips her gaze away from the portrait and turns. "Vi, I have to know."
Vi wants to scream, to cry, to beg Caitlyn to just run. But she can't. She can't deny Caitlyn this, not when she knows what it's like to be haunted by hope for the impossible.
So they keep moving, through the wreckage of Caitlyn's home and down the hallway to Tobias' study.
Vi hadn't even realized that there had been a spark of hope in her own chest until it is brutally smothered, leaving her feeling hollow and empty and sick.
The study door is broken, the wood splintered around the lock. One of the hinges is badly damaged, leaving the door hanging crooked in its frame. It's ajar; the gap is only an inch or so, but Vi knows, with absolute and utter certainty, that the moment they widen it, there will be no going back.
The life they had here is over.
Caitlyn reaches for the old brass knob and Vi immediately jumps forward to wrap both arms around her partner and physically haul her away. She places herself firmly between Caitlyn and the door.
"Vi --"
"No, Caitlyn," Vi cuts her off. "You're not going in there. You --" She stops, swallowing hard around the lump in her throat. "You don't need to see this."
Caitlyn's eyes are filled with tears and denial. "No."
"I'll go in," Vi says. "Stay here. Don't come in, and don't look."
Caitlyn shakes her head frantically. "Vi --"
"Caitlyn," Vi says, trying to be firm but mostly just desperate, "promise me."
Caitlyn makes an absolutely wretched noise that makes Vi's chest feel like it's being ripped in two.
"Caitlyn, promise me."
Caitlyn chokes, "I promise."
Vi looks her partner over, at the shaking of her hands and the trembling of her chin and the horrible, haunted look in her eyes. Then she cracks the door a little wider and slips into the study.
The first thing she notices is the metallic smell of blood filling the space, so thick she can almost taste it. The room is a mess. Overturned furniture and toppled bookshelves are all splattered with blood and gore.
And in the middle of the room lies Tobias Kiramman.
His wide and empty eyes stare sightlessly off into the middle distance and his skin is paper-white. Deep, bloody gouges have been carved into his torso, his arms, his neck. There is a hatchet still buried in his throat.
Vi chokes back tears and bile.
She forces herself to move forward and the ornate carpet squelches sickeningly beneath her boots.
When she reaches Tobias' body, she drops into a crouch and, with trembling fingers, closes his eyes. After a long moment, she reaches for his left hand and gently tugs his wedding ring free of his finger. It slips off easily. Vi tucks it into her pocket; Caitlyn deserves something to remember her father by.
"I'm sorry," Vi whispers, even though he can't hear her and can't forgive her. "I'm sorry."
Then she takes a deep breath, blinks away her tears, and shoves herself to her feet. She takes three more seconds to gaze down at him - another loved one she couldn't save - and then she spins around and makes her way to the door.
She doesn't look back.
The second she slips out of the study and back into the hallway, she comes face-to-face with Caitlyn.
"Is he --?"
Vi shakes her head.
Caitlyn goes ghost-white. "No," she breathes. "No. No no no, please, no. Vi, please --"
"I'm sorry, Caitlyn," Vi chokes. "I'm so sorry."
Caitlyn makes an awful keening sound and staggers forward. Vi catches her and folds around her like she can somehow protect her from this, even though she knows that nothing is quite as eviscerating as being the last survivor of your family.
She holds Caitlyn as the heaving sobs wrack her partner's body, but after a moment or so, Vi pulls back and, hating herself for doing it, says, "Caitlyn, there's no time. We have to leave."
The devastation on her partner's face doesn't fade, but Caitlyn still clenches her jaw and nods. There are still tears pouring down her face, but something in her eyes hardens. "Okay," she rasps. "What now?"
"Do we need anything while we're still here?"
Caitlyn swallows hard. "We're not coming back, are we?"
Vi's insides twist at the grief in her partner's voice. "No. No, we can't."
More tears spill out as Caitlyn closes her eyes and takes a deep, ragged breath. "There are more bullets upstairs. I'm almost out."
"Okay." Vi nods. "Let's go."
As they make their way up to Caitlyn's bedroom, they find another body - one of the maids - sprawled across the stairs. It looks like the back of her head was smashed in; there is more than just blood pouring down the staircase. Vi has to wrench her gaze away from the chunks of brain matter splattered across the steps; when she looks at Caitlyn instead, she sees her partner's jaw clench and her grip on her rifle tighten.
Just like the rest of the house, Caitlyn's bedroom has been destroyed. There are files scattered across the carpet, bookshelves tipped over and spilling across the marble, cotton and feathers from the shredded bedding cast over everything like snow.
Caitlyn is trembling in front of her, and Vi can't tell if it's adrenaline or grief or rage. Then she takes a deep breath and heads over to the overturned cabinet where she normally stores her ammunition.
Vi begins to slowly prowl the room. There's not much to be done - her gauntlets are at the apartment so she'll probably never see them again, and there's nothing else that she really needs while on the run.
On the run. Fuck. They're really going to have to do this.
She's not sure what makes her turn - that strange prickle on the back of her neck, the slightest sound of an unfamiliar breath, the faintest hint of movement in the corner of her eye - but Vi finds her gaze snapping to the closet just in time to see something glint in the dim light.
"Cait!"
Her partner whirls around, rifle coming up just as a man lunges out of the closet with a large knife grasped tight in his hand.
Vi backpedals to get out of the way as Caitlyn fires; the first bullet rips into the man's side and the second --
Something heavy slams into the back of Vi's head.
Her vision blacks out for a half second; when it clears, she's slamming into the cold marble floor with enough force to rattle her teeth. There's a high pitched ringing in her ears, so loud that she almost doesn't hear Caitlyn scream, "Vi!"
There's more gunfire, shouting, her own pulse pounding through her skull. Head still spinning, Vi forces herself up enough to drive her elbow into her attacker's knee. He howls in pain; when he bends over to clutch at the joint, Vi catches his head and twists.
He's dead before he hits the floor.
Her head hurts so much that she thinks she might throw up, but there's no time; there are already two more people crawling out of the shadows like cockroaches. Vi staggers to her feet to intercept another as he charges at Caitlyn, with a fucking meat cleaver raised above his head.
Where the fuck did they come from? How did she and Caitlyn miss four people hiding so close?
Vi catches the guy by the shoulder and spins him to face her. She manages three punches to his face - they're a little weak and clumsy because her head is still pounding, but they all land - before he strikes back, backhanding her before slamming his other hand into her gut.
The strike to her face makes her vision swim; she only barely manages to block the bloody blade as he swings it towards her again. Her next sloppy punch hits his throat though, and he staggers just enough for her to catch ahold of his head and slam his face into her knee. She can hear his skull crunch grotesquely before he smashes to the marble floor.
He doesn't move again.
She stumbles back, head spinning. But before she can catch her breath, she hears something right behind her and whirls around just in time to see a massive figure raising some kind of spiked weapon over her head --
Bang!
The bullet tears through his neck with a spray of crimson, and the man collapses to the ground, choking on his own blood before his breath gurgles to a halt.
Vi gasps for breath in the sudden silence. It's hard to get her eyes to focus with the pain in her head - she thinks, absurdly, of an egg cracked open and spilling across the ground - but she turns to check on Caitlyn anyway.
Her partner sweeps her gaze around the room, rifle still at the ready as she looks over all four bodies. Caitlyn is pale but steady, though there is something shaken in her eyes that seems less about the ambush and more about --
"Cait," Vi rasps, and her partner's gaze snaps to her. "It was them or us."
Caitlyn swallows hard and then nods sharply. "I know. I'm - I'm alright." She folds her rifle and slings it onto her back. "Someone will have heard those gunshots. We need to go."
As if on cue, a sharp sound rings out downstairs. Vi whips around to face the door; from the corner of her eye, she sees Caitlyn do the same. The noise is followed by a cacophony, the shouts of multiple people with obviously no concern about being stealthy.
"Fuck," Vi hisses. "How many of them are there?"
"Were they waiting for us?" Caitlyn breathes.
Vi turns to her partner in horror. That's it. The slaughter, the ambush, the probable mob downstairs. They're here for Caitlyn. This is a takeover of Piltover, and the Sheriff is one of their main targets.
"The window," Vi says as her heart begins a frantic drumbeat in her chest.
Caitlyn is across the room in three strides, flipping the latches - at least it looks like no one was planning on entering through here, Vi thinks with no relief - and shoving the window open. She's looking down into the garden as Vi comes up beside her.
"I don't see anyone," Caitlyn says breathlessly. "Come on." And she slips out into the night.
As Vi swings her legs over the windowsill, more shouts ring out not far behind her, accompanied by the thunder of footsteps on the stairs. She takes one last look around the bedroom - they made so many memories here - and then turns away and pushes herself out into the darkness.
-:-:-:-:-:-
They run.
It's chaos out here. They try to stick to narrower, less used streets, and they do manage to avoid most other people. But the roar of flames and the smell of smoke and the heat of burning buildings all stalk them through the city.
And that is to say nothing about the screams.
Several times, Caitlyn slows down when they hear one particularly close. But each time, Vi catches her by the arm and drags her onward.
Then they round a corner and Vi stops dead.
It's a wider street, one lined with shops and townhouses, all of them blazing against the smoke-choked sky.
And, covering the cobblestones, are bodies.
Beside her, Caitlyn makes another terrible noise of horror. "Oh, gods," she breathes. "They --"
Vi swallows against the nausea rising in her throat and rasps, "We have to keep moving."
For a half-second, she thinks Caitlyn is going to argue, but then her partner takes a shuddering breath and whispers, "Okay."
They pick their way through the corpses, and the puddles of blood splash shining droplets onto their shoes. The worst part, Vi thinks numbly, is that they can't even not look at the bodies as they try not to trip over them. Which means she has to look at every terrified face and all the brutality they endured in their last moments.
An old man in his dressing gown, the side of his head crumpled inward.
A young woman in a pretty dress, her throat slit almost to the bone.
A little boy in his pajamas, two neat little holes in his forehead.
A baby, still swaddled in a blanket, with a deep wound in the center of her chest.
Caitlyn stumbles to the side and vomits into the gutter. Vi just feels cold.
"They killed them all," Caitlyn chokes, still doubled over and panting. "They - Oh, gods, even the children."
Vi can't answer. She can't even move as a crow on a nearby roof caws loudly before swooping down and landing on one of the corpses. She just barely manages to wrench her gaze away as the bird dips down to eat.
"Caitlyn," she says, and it hurts to talk with her voice so ravaged by grief and smoke. "We --"
Caitlyn nods, then spits into the gutter and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. "I know. We - We keep moving." She turns to Vi, putting obvious effort into not looking at the bodies. "But where do we even go?"
Vi shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't - Out of Piltover."
"How?" Caitlyn says, something bordering on hysterical creeping into her tone. "The boats, the airships - they're probably overrun. If they block the roads --"
Vi moves toward her, nearly stumbling in her haste. She grabs Caitlyn's hand and can feel her partner's fingers trembling. "We'll figure it out later. We'll - We just have to keep going."
"Where? Where, Vi? We can't just run with no direction!"
She's right, because of course she is. But Vi's head is starting to spin from the - stress? adrenaline? fear?
"The river," she manages. It will give them cover on one side and will lead them out of the city.
Before Caitlyn can respond, a scream splits the air. Vi flinches away from the noise - shit, that was nearby - and just barely manages to keep ahold of her partner as Caitlyn takes a step in the direction of the sound.
"No, Cait," she rasps. Her throat is painfully dry, so she swallows hard and tries again. "There's nothing we can do."
"We have to help," Caitlyn chokes, turning to look at Vi. Her face is pale, her eyes are blown wide with fear, her hand is still shaking in Vi's.
The scream rings out again, and then abruptly cuts off.
Caitlyn makes a strangled noise of horror and Vi pulls on her hand, stumbling further away from the fire and the bodies and the ghost of a terrified scream. Caitlyn, thank fuck, doesn't resist as Vi drags her away from the massacre and toward - she hopes - the river.
They keep moving, and eventually - maybe, time is so strange right now - the dark water comes into view. The thick smell of the toxic waste that pollutes the river has never been so comforting. They might actually have a chance.
But as they reach the low wall that keeps the poisoned water out of Piltover, Vi can feel herself slowing. Every step is harder than the last. Vi can feel a stitch in her side, the kind that comes with too much running, slowing her down. Caitlyn notices her lagging, of course; she matches her pace as Vi trails behind.
"What's wrong?" Caitlyn pants.
Vi shakes her head, too out of breath to reply. The pain in her side is almost unbearable; she brings her hand up to press against the tight muscle and instead touches something warm and wet.
She goes absolutely still.
Oh, fuck.
Feeling strangely detached, Vi pulls her hand away from her side and stares down at the red, slick and shining, that coats her palm. She can see a fine tremor in her fingers, but she can't feel it at all.
"Cait?" she chokes.
Caitlyn turns away from where she had been keeping an eye on the street and says, "What - Oh, gods, no. No."
Between one blink and the next, Caitlyn is slamming to her knees beside her, nearly ripping Vi's shirt in her effort to get to the gaping, bloody wound just below her ribs. The fatigue suddenly makes so much sense.
Without thinking, Vi reaches her shaking hands toward the injury, but Caitlyn bats them away and presses her own palms over the wound. Vi can't hold back a hiss of pain at the pressure.
"When?" Caitlyn snaps, voice taut with stress.
Vi shakes her head. "I don't - fuck - I don't know."
"It must've been in the bedroom," Caitlyn says tensely. "Shit. Have you been bleeding this whole time?"
Vi's head is beginning to spiral up into the smoking sky. She doesn't know. She doesn't remember getting hit, she doesn't remember when it started to hurt, she doesn't remember. But, fuck, it hurts now.
"Your dad --" she grits and then stops dead as the image of Tobias' body, lifeless on the floor with his blood soaking into the ornate carpet, swims to the forefront of her mind. Vi slams her eyes shut and tries to breathe around the rising nausea.
Caitlyn makes an awful little noise, but her hands stay steady as she presses them over the hole in Vi's gut. "Okay," she says, voice pitched up in panic. "Okay. We can - We need to --"
Above the roar of flames, above Caitlyn's frantic words, above the rush of blood in her ears, Vi hears something.
Voices.
Footsteps.
She grabs Caitlyn's wrist, but it's not necessary. Caitlyn's head snaps up toward the sound as the rest of her goes statue-still. Slowly, she looks up at Vi and, when their eyes meet, Vi can see her own horror reflected back at her.
They're out of time.
And then, with breathless clarity and a rush of cold through her veins, Vi realizes the only way out.
"Caitlyn," she rasps. "Run."
"What?" Caitlyn asks, barely more than a terrified whisper.
"You have to go," Vi manages. Her own fear is choking her, but she forces it down enough to say, "You can make it."
She can see the exact second that Caitlyn realizes what she's saying; her partner's eyes go wide and her face goes pale. "No," she says, soft at first and then hard as stone. "No. We can both make it."
Vi clutches her partner's wrist even tighter, like that'll somehow stop how much her hands are shaking. Her eyes burn. "And if we do? What then?" She bites her lip so hard that it hurts. "I'm bleeding too much, Cait. I would just be slowing you down."
"I don't fucking care," Caitlyn bites out.
"I do." Vi stops to drag in a trembling breath. The voices are louder, the footsteps nearer. "Listen to me --"
"No."
"-- Listen. I can buy you time."
"Time for what?" Caitlyn asks, a note of hysteria in her voice. "What am I supposed to do on my own?"
"Live," Vi says, bringing her other hand up to cup Caitlyn's face. Her fingers are trembling. Her palm leaves a smear of blood on Caitlyn's cheek. "Please. Please, just - just live."
"Without you? No. No, I don't --"
The tears welling up in her eyes finally spill over. She's pretty sure Caitlyn's crying too. "You have to," Vi chokes. "Please. Don't make me watch you die."
Caitlyn makes an awful keening noise. "You're all I have left."
"I know," Vi says, and it's half sob. "I know. But you're all I've got too. Please. Please. For me."
Another wretched noise slips out of Caitlyn and she shakes her head frantically. "No. No, I'm not leaving you. I won't --"
Vi hauls her partner up and kisses her, deeply and passionately, trying to pour everything she has into it. Caitlyn kisses her back just as desperately.
Vi grabs her partner by the arm and turns them so that Caitlyn's back is to the river. Then she pulls away and, against Caitlyn's lips, whispers "I love you. And I'm sorry."
And shoves her backwards into the water.
-:-:-:-:-:-
Caitlyn is aware, for a half-second, of the sensation of falling - the pit of her stomach dropping out, the feeling of weightlessness, the rush of singed air around her.
Then she hits the water, and only feels cold. The river rushes up over her head, dragging her under into the frigid darkness. Desperate and blind, Caitlyn kicks out, twisting in search of either gravity or buoyancy, anything to give her some direction.
Normally, the river is calmer, but it seems to almost understand what kind of night this is, because it fights her. Maybe it knows that she was meant to die tonight. But she fights back as hard as she can, until finally she breaks through the surface of the rushing water.
She drags in a frantic breath, all smoke and ash to combat the ice in her bones, and then twists to find the shore.
It's not hard. Piltover is still ablaze.
The water tries to drag her under again, but she kicks back to keep herself afloat, desperately scanning the shoreline for --
"Vi --" she chokes, and foul water splashes into her mouth. It doesn't matter. She can see her partner, just a little upstream, a silhouette against the raging fires. She's not alone. There are other shadows moving toward her, surrounding her, outnumbering her. One of them raises an arm, aiming directly at Vi's head.
There is a flash.
A bang.
And Vi falls.
"No!" Caitlyn screams, and two of the figures whip around in her direction. But before they can do more than that, the toxic water swells up around her to drag her under once again.
She lets it.