Chapter Text
“Enforcers! Escort them out!”
Everything came to a screeching halt. Had this been a huge waste of time?
No, it couldn’t have been. They couldn’t have been set up to fail, not when they had done so much to get here. If she admitted that it was a waste of time better spent fixing things with Powder, she wouldn’t know how to recover.
Yet, there was only so much denying one could do. As she realized it really had been a huge waste of time, Vi’s world collapsed on top of her.
“Forget it,” Vi snapped, “I remember where your damn fancy door is.” She knocked Caitlyn out of the way as she stormed into the marble hallways, painted with undeserved luxury and smelling of obvious corruption; it reeked so much of the disgusting smell that it astounded Vi that anyone could ignore it so easily.
Corruption smelled like rot and decay, of rats feasting on whatever trash they could find, of a drug house being pumped full with the pink smoke of Shimmer; it was the metallic, copper-like smell of spilt blood being covered up by harsh cleaning chemicals, the smell of an entire Undercity gone brutalized, ignored, and left for nature to take its course. Despite seeing the source of it, Caitlyn hadn’t noticed the smell. Vi could feel bile rise up her throat from just thinking about everything.
How, exactly, had she been so foolish as to trust an enforcer to do anything about Silco when time and time again they’d been brought into ignoring his presence, or willingly ignored the Undercity’s problems unless they could kill a person or two? Vi knew damn well that her place of origin was just a punching bag to Topsiders, so, of course, what should they care if some asshole had taken it over and was running it into the ground? Ah, that was right — Nothing .
After all, what obligation did they have to care? If they didn’t care, then what obligation did Vi have to care? Why shouldn’t she just punch one of the damn stone pillars and continue until the entire building came crashing down upon the Council? Just because of morals?
Vi was only pulled out of her thoughts when her blunt nails dug crescents into the calloused skin of her palms, threatening to break through the roughness and dig down into muscle. She really needed to get out of there and quick . She never wanted to see those goddamn hallways ever again.
Now the entrance was before her, the door foreboding and imposing as it stood tall over herself; it reached the high ceiling, which she had to crane her neck back to look at, and Vi had to wonder what the point of was such intricate carvings when the wood was so dark that nobody wouldn’t notice the fretwork if they weren’t looking for it (just to show off? That explanation would fit how vain Topside was), but she quickly resigned herself to never understanding Topside before she pushed the door open — it’d cause her a headache if she tried thinking about it any further.
The cold, electrified night air blasted Vi’s olive skin as she stepped out into the downfall, making her hair stand on end. The door closed behind her with a loud SLAM! as she trotted down the limestone steps, raindrops lashing at her tough skin and soaking her to the bone in wet and cold.
The dark storm clouds swallowed up the stars and moon, leaving the lighting only to the cluster of gas street maps surrounding the entrance to the Council building. Although the warm lights were trying their hardest to illuminate the space from within their glass cages, their effort was useless against the insatiable darkness and distorting rain. Water drained into large puddles that had settled where crowds of ignorant rich would be bustling around in the daylight, and the sound of thunder bounced off the concrete, echoing back to Vi and her solemn reflection.
“Vi!” Caitlyn called out to the raspberry head over the pitter-patter of the downpour. “Vi, wait!” However, Vi ignored the calls, even as wet footsteps chased her in a hurry. “Wait! Where are you going!?”
Vi scowled down at her reflection, feeling annoyance fray at her nerves. “I don’t know,” she shrugged sarcastically, “Back to where I came from? Seems that’s what everyone up here wants.”
“I can fix this—”
“You can’t!” Vi yelled, turning around on Caitlyn so fast that it instantly stopped Caitlyn in her tracks as she froze up, flinching away. “This is how things are, how they’ve always been! I was so—,” Vi paused to choke back a sob, “stupid to think they could change.”
Caitlyn’s swirling oceans followed Vi’s bandaged hand to her hip as she searched for something to say, some way to comfort Vi; anything would work, yet her mind was drawing a blank. Vi heaved a sigh and made a move to turn away when Caitlyn finally broke the uncomfortable silence.
“There must be something else we can do,” Caitlyn hesitated, reluctant to continue without being able to see Vi’s reaction, “Some other way. We’ll make a new plan!” Caitlyn outstretched her hand, which finally got Vi’s attention as her emerald gaze flickered to it before it settled on the enforcer’s earnest expression full of hope. “We have to try!”
“We tried okay!?” Vi snapped, averting her gaze away from Caitlyn’s pained expression as soon as it changed. Vi truly did hate to break that hope, but she had to be realistic — no more lies. The last time she had done that, she’d lost a family member. “It wasn’t enough. Topside and bottom; oil and water. That’s all there is.”
Caitlyn paused, dropping her hands. Why did she feel like her heart was splitting in two? Tears welled up in her eyes and mixed into the rain; her chest tightened and a pit filled her stomach; she had to painfully swallow down the lump in her throat and take a deep breath before talking again, wanting to remain as composed as she possibly could feeling this way. “What about us?” Why are you leaving again? Don’t you know I need you, Vi?
Vi paused, mouth gaping open on unformed words as she struggled for an answer. The tension was pulled taut as Vi took seconds to reply, and the rope was nearly about to snap when Vi finally replied, side-eying the enforcer. “...Oil and water.” Vi scoffed with a shrug and cast her stare to the ground, back at her copy in the puddle. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
Caitlyn could feel a sob coming up her throat that got stuck there, threatening to suffocate her, and even after she swallowed it away, her throat felt scratchy as she talked, her voice weak and quiet. “You’re just saying that.” Tell me you don’t really mean it. Say you’re lying. Don’t destroy me like this, Vi, don’t do this again.
“Do yourself a favor, cupcake, and go back to that big , shiny house if yours, and just forget about me, okay?” Vi didn’t risk looking back at Caitlyn as she threw her hood over her head, put her hands in her pockets, and fled the scene into a dark alleyway. So, she had left another one behind, and she bit her lip as she allowed herself to be swallowed up in the darkness, her feet carrying her to wherever the alleyway was taking her. Hell, it wasn’t like Caitlyn truly cared, anyways — Vi had only been a tour guide to the Undercity.
When she was stabbed by Sevika, Caitlyn had only kept her alive for information. When she listened to Vi’s ramblings, it was only to distract her from the map on the floor, which Vi now registered at Powder’s drawings, and when Caitlyn said she was concerned the fireflights were hurting her, it, too, was said to distract from the fact that she’d let her guard slip by being surprised by Jinx being Caitlyn’s sister. All this over some stupid miniscule glowing stone.
Yet, in spite of everything, Vi couldn’t bring herself to truly hate Caitlyn. No, not after the fond memories they had made and how an enforcer had so willingly helped some Undercity scum. Perhaps something was different about her. However, Vi quickly scoffed that idea away — she would’ve been better off left for dead at that ditch in the Undercity. Vi should have refused to help; no, she should’ve refused to even leave her cell, but she was so high on freedom that she had barely even registered the situation.
Vi exited the dark alleyway and pulled the wet hood off of her head before she took a look around; it was no longer raining, or maybe it just wasn’t raining in this district of Piltover, which seemed to be for factories. As Vi raked her eyes across the wide street, a certain broad figure caught her eye — buzzed black hair, tan skin, and a recognizable white suit imprinted with a red emblem of a hammer.
That was Councilman Jayce Talis , the very same man who was the only one willing to stick up for the underground out of the entire council, and the only other one willing to go to war with Silco. Vi smirked to herself, for this was an opportunity presented on a silver platter, and not one she was about to pass up; thus, Vi started following him to a Talis-owned forge.