#rp: a new faction in zaun

[shimmerbeasts]

Vi sighed and said patiently, "Caitlyn, we both committed this mistake. I was there, remember? I helped you just as much to take down Choss and Margot as the Grey did. I, too, deliberately closed an eye to their role in the Undercity. It was easier to read them as simply Silco's thugs and sympathisers. It was easier to hide behind my disdain for my home town's cannibalism than consider its vital importance for many people."

"Can't believe I am saying that", she continued with a mournful smile, "but I almost wish Jinx were here. I may have hated that Silco raised her, but it is so clear that she knows more about territories than anyone else I know. Little man may be a leader, but let's be real: Ekko is not the type of person you need to get, well, that side of Zaun active again. Much like me, he completely rejects the notion of eating human meat. It's well within his right, but it's clear a sizable chunk of the Undercity needs the whole ability to consume the flesh of others. Maybe Sevika has an idea in regard to that. I mean, she is a counsellor now."

They continued to head through Piltover towards the Warden's Station. Vi kept an easy pace so Caitlyn could lean her full weight upon her mate. The sound of the butt of Caitlyn's rifle hitting the ground accompanied them, together with the murmur of a few passersby. Even with Zaun having gained its independence, many Piltovans still inspected the violence, the Undercity brought to their doorstep with disgust and suspicion.

Vi smiled affectionately as Caitlyn huffed and leaned herself against her. The Zaunite wrapped an arm around her partner to support her more. Vi teased back: "You might wanna lay off on the explosions then. It is like you are begging for any surrounding predator to come eat you."

They ascended the stairs towards the Warden's station. Caitlyn's rifle touched the ground in a low rhythmic clunk. Opening the doors, they were greeted by the hustle and bustle of a place always in motion. Caitlyn had gotten rid of the old uniforms and instead reworked them. The Wardens still wore protective gear, but they had ditched their masks and blue was no longer the primary colour. Instead, a lot of them somewhat copied the Sherrif, donning muted blacks or muted navy blue.

"Slow down, cupcake", Vi said reassuringly, "The Baroness will take what she needs when she actually goes out on her mission. For now, making sure your legs do not completely deny you their service, is my number one priority."

She had barely spoken her words when Seb came rushing out of the infirmary towards them. His sleek nostrils opened and shot and his eyes glittered in worry. Vi had never asked what fish he counted among his ancestors, but it was clear that the Vastaya had the senses to match. Immediately, he helped Vi guide Caitlyn into the infirmary and urged her to sit down on a bench so he could examine her.

Caitlyn had learned that while she could process the gray without dying from its poison, it still influenced her. Small amounts she could easily process and breath without problem, but this had been a massive cloud and drowned out all her senses. Her sense of sight and smell were most affected, which were her strongest senses. Her hextech eye was useless if she couldn’t breathe.

A soft sigh of comfort came at Vi’s tongue brushing over her wound. It applied a gentle antiseptic that came from their vastaya bloodline and their saliva aided in cleaning and pain relief. “My knowledge was less than I’d assumed. I thought I understood but there’s so much I don’t,” Caitlyn admitted as she glanced at Vi. “Plus, I really messed everything up by taking out Chross and then Margot after things happened between us,” Caitlyn admitted. She had been determined to take out all the chem barons that aided Silco and shimmer. While she kept her promise, that promise had indirectly messed with the entire system. “And unfortunately.... this is one thing I don’t know how to fix, even with the wardens and providing more support to Zaun. Hopefully, with Sevika in charge, she can get other territories filled, but... this is my fault too,” but there wasn’t guilt behind her words, just acceptance of what she had caused. The past could not be change, but she actively tried to fix things now.

It started with the council, and then dissolving the enforcers to create the Wardens. The Prince of Piltover actively worked in ways to ensure Zaun retained their independence now, and the respect of their ways, whether or not people understood. So this new chem baron, though she didn’t think he was, was going to cause even more problems as Zaun tries to heal itself.

A brief grin crossed her lips and nodded her head. “Well, at least I’m still alive and walking, must count for something,” she said and then gave a nod. “Possibly, we can ask. I can search through my books to see if I can figure it out that way, too. Someone’s bound to know what it is.” Caitlyn leaned up against Vi as she shook her head. “Concussions and explosions are becoming a routine,” Caitlyn huffed, leaning against her.

The lingering walk came with each step, as Caitlyn took a calm breath to keep her mind focus but she definitely needed some pain killers and sleep. As much as she wanted to argue, Vi once again was right. She nodded her head in agreement and looked at her. “If she needs back up, take any of the wardens with you since I can’t. Though, I trust Baroness can handle herself easily as she always has, and with the gang there shouldn’t be a problem,” Caitlyn admitted and smiled. “My ever capable Zaunite.” She took another breath and pressed the stock of the rifle against the ground in a means to keep walking.

“But I trust you. I know you can do this. You and Baroness. Hopefully, we figure out what this is before it causes more problems for Zaun that it doesn’t need.”

[sheriff-caitlyn]

I started this blog in 2014, as the first Caitlyn on tumblr, and obviously I’ve been through a lot of retcons and changes myself, not only adapting to Riot’s own public retcons (from the minor, like her aesthetics, to the major, like the removal of the Institute of War as an integral part of their lore) but also to my own. That’s the thing about playing a character as complex as this, is that you learn more as you go. In your interactions with others and the creation of backstory, history, and other bits of worldbuilding to better understand the world you’re in, a character goes from a handful of images and some in-game voicelines to a fully-fledged person with a complex narrative. Sometimes things change, and that’s fine. But there are some changes which... aren’t. 

For all the fingerprints I’ve put on her, she is still not my character. But I care. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe, but I care about this character I have been involved in and I care about the direction she has been taken. So, without further ado, I’d like to delve into:

The Recent Caitlyn Update In Piltover’s New Context or, We Gotta Fetishise Police Violence, I Mean, Look At Her, She’s So Hot

Back in August 2015, I went, ‘Oh No, they’re going to try to turn Piltover into Gotham City, aren’t they?’, and lo and behold, suddenly we have Poison Ivy now. But I will get back to that, later. In this particular thread, I noted that many of the characters in Piltover seemed destined for a revamp that would rob them of what originally drew us to them in the first place, and that Piltover seemed destined for a rework that would wash out much of their character. Piltover and Zaun were always meant to be polar opposites, but suddenly we were seeing glimpses of Piltover being ‘not as good as everyone thinks’, which hinted that Piltover and Zaun were destined not to be polar opposites in the future, but indistinguishable from each other. It worried me that the only thing telling these two fascinating cities apart would be the sunlight.

So, when we have so much potential for a clash between Zaun and Piltover, between ‘Science No Matter The Cost’ and ‘We Must Advance The World With Care’, why change Piltover to some murky middleground, turning peace and security into wartime capitalism? A world where the people are shitty, where weapons and profit come first, and the only ones making a stand are the ones who are so embittered they have nothing better to do?

Because it has to be ‘interesting’. We’re going to lose bits that we like, that we’re familiar with. And that’s why I’m concerned.

This was before Piltover and Zaun were squished together in an ugly - and utterly ham-fisted - method of showing How Complex The Future Is. There’s layers, guys! Literal layers to this one single city! That means it’s deep! But when I say ‘bits that we like, that we’re familiar with’, I’m not clinging to a fanon interpretation. I’m saying the things that drew us to the world and to the characters to begin with. I could adapt from Caitlyn turning from brown-haired and brown-eyed to black-haired and blue-eyed, because even through I had been doing art, at that point, the change gave me an opportunity to express and discover more about her character (her eye colour being influenced by her mother’s magic, for one). But some of the more stark changes - to family, to job, to personality, to the city of Piltover itself - these result in a character changing completely. I was worried that the cool detective who literally made the world a better place would be chopped and changed into something unrecognisable. I even expounded on my concerns in November 2016, where I could see some of the ways the writers at Rito might make adjustments in the direction of their lore updates.

All this to say, I’ve been working on her for a while, and I was bracing for some bad news. This? This is kind of the worst.

Caitlyn has always been the Sheriff of Piltover, an authority figure, a representative of the law and order that Piltover is famous for. Piltover’s peace and financial prosperity has been directly linked to Caitlyn’s concerted effort to eradicate crime (not criminals, crime! Which, as I have mentioned particularly in this post from 2014, means she upended and reformed the justice system, from the legal process to the prisons to how people are treated as citizens). The city is safe, people have greater access to personal wealth and development, classism is erased, society is flourishing. Zaun, as Piltover’s polar opposite, is a corporate nightmare, with ‘do as thou wilt’, private bodyguards for the rich and powerful while the poor scramble to survive in a system that barely treats them as human. Vi, as a Zaunite, brings a lot of her ‘violence as a problem-solver’ methodology to Piltover’s law-enforcement, though she seems to have no intention of returning to Zaun and seems to have bonded with Caitlyn (‘teamwork!’) to Get Shit Done. And, apparently, there is still shit that needs to be done, though nowhere near as much as there had been in the Bad Old Days.

Vi was, at the time, the awkward-grit-teeth-grin-ha-ha-um-yeah representation of police violence. ‘Resist arrest’, she cries gleefully, as she beats people and breaks down buildings, and we are supposed to go ‘ha, isn’t that funny’ with varying degrees of sincerity. Of course Piltover is going to have problems: anywhere that has wealth and stability is going to be targeted by the envious and the needy. Peace needs to be protected. The problem lies in how that protection is enacted.

So now we have the recent Legends of Runeterra update to Caitlyn, an update which looked at the context of Piltover needing protection, as well as the modern context of Riot’s California location in the Years of Our Lord 2020-2021, and then decided ‘you know what we need? Police violence, everyone loves police violence’.

MAN I thought the stripper-cop skins were bad but here we go!

Her Yordle Snap-Traps (which I envisioned as from the Yordle Military, rather than a racially-profiling weapon as, y’know, they work on human-and-larger-sized people as well) have now been replaced by electroshock grenades, the intent gone from incapacitation and observation to outright paralysis and destruction. Her net-short is now apparently electro-conductive (admittedly, I have had one (1) single RP where that happened, but it came at both a cost to Caitlyn and to her weapon’s efficiency as a result, a last-resort against a dangerous opponent). Caitlyn’s cards in LoR take her from being a detective coordinating ideas and people and putting together a case to a SWAT team leader. This might be the biggest problem in working for a non-combat-oriented character in a MOBA, or in any fighting game: the game needs to find rationalisations for all of their characters being there, being combatants, being able to kill (even if, as Riot says, the lore is separate from the game). We have monsters and soldiers and ancient powers who of course they know how to spill blood and relish in doing so. But pacifists, like Karma or Bard? Explorers like Ezreal? And a sheriff, a peacekeeper, a law-keeper, someone mindful of responsibility and the importance of saving every life possible, like Caitlyn? They’re stripped of that depth and complexity in-game, but there was always the lore that backed them up. But they’ve done away with that completely. Caitlyn was never special operations. She was never military. But now she is, because she had to be changed to fit better into a fighting game. They had to make her violent, and as a result, they have undermined not only everything about the character that made her interesting to begin with - turning her now into a representative of police brutality, but with long hair, pouty lips, and a thigh gap - but they’re also re-writing the context of Piltover. It was bad enough to squish Piltover and Zaun together. But now, Caitlyn’s update is proof that Piltover has gone from a steampunk utopia to a violent, oppressive and cynical post-industrial world. The depiction of Caitlyn as a SWAT team leader (complete with special-forces beret, because hat! Caitlyn wears a hat! Nevermind the fact that she’s no longer wearing a distinctive tophat but instead a symbol of extreme state-sponsored force!) shows us that Piltover’s ‘army’ is not designed as a defence against outsiders, but as an offensive force against their own people. Caitlyn is supposed to be the representation of how peace and order is maintained in one of the largest factions in League of Legends, and if her method of maintaining order is straight-up police violence against their own citizens, then it’s not really peace and order. It’s authoritarianism at best, and facism at worst.

Piltover was different from every other nation in Runeterra because it didn’t have a military. It had defenders, and it had a powerful economy, and it had a democratic political system. But the Piltover update retconned Caitlyn’s hard work. The gangs were back - though now they’re big powerful families like Clan Ferros - and Caitlyn has been de-aged so that she’s still new to the force, that she hasn’t even had her chance to change anything. Her importance to Piltover is minimised... and why is Vi even there? (Oh boy I guess you’re going to have to watch Arcane to find out! Coming to a Netflix near you soon!) With a younger Caitlyn in a violent society, she has no choice but to be violent herself... even if that undermines everything previously established about Piltover and about Caitlyn. This update has made Piltover just as ugly and oppressive as Demacia, Noxus, and Zaun. It’s just another army equipped to do violence, but now that violence is turned inwards. This isn’t protection, it’s control. It’s fear. It’s oppression. Caitlyn is no longer a peacekeeper. She’s a monster. Chopped and changed, as I feared, into something completely unrecognisable from how she began in a world that no longer looks like what it had been... or should be.

It’s hard to tell what came first, the change to Piltover or the change to Caitlyn. Either way, the changes are inextricably linked. Caitlyn was integral to Piltover’s modern state, and Piltover is integral to Caitlyn as a character. Her (original) drive was to make the city and all its people better; Piltover was a utopia because of the effort of Caitlyn, and of people like her, people who wanted a better world. This new iteration of Piltover - full of fear and violence and hypocricy, layered over Zaun in such a way that makes ham-fisted commentary about the wealth/class divide - undermines the value of the individual. It removes agency. It removes hope, which had been integral to Piltover. Piltover is no longer the CIty of Progress... it’s the City of ‘you better be rich and pretty if you want to progress’. And Caitlyn is no longer a force for good or a representative of responsibility, because those things don’t exist in Piltover anymore. Legends of Runeterra has turned Caitlyn into a bitch, someone to hate. She has a marked lack of respect for people, as demonstrated in her new character traits of ‘casually-racist’ (her lines to Veigar), ‘condescending’ (her lines to Viktor), with some added pride in her violence (’here’s my calling card *shoots gun*’ and ‘I aim to win and my aim is excellent’). She is a representative of her city, and she is a terrible person now. Piltover is terrible. Piltover is ugly. 

But Caitlyn avoids that last part. And she’ll get away with it, because she’s a hot twenty-something.

In 2015, I drew Caitlyn-as-Swain, as an AU for what might have been. The overwhelming response at the time was ‘aaa she’s so hot I’d follow that leader of Noxus’, prompting a good friend Swain RPer to comment that Swain - who was, at the time, the withered man in green and gold who needed a cane - was just as smart as Caitlyn if not more so, a proven capable leader, but when it comes down to it, sex-appeal will always trump characterisation and storytelling, and that’s disheartening for someone who puts so much work into stories, to context, to something deeper than ‘Just another MOBA’. And here I am, in 2021, looking at how Caitlyn has been stripped of her fascinating and complex characterisation while maintaining her long legs, long hair, and corsetted figure. Now, I do appreciate the fact they’ve given her a better costume than miniskirt and boobtube. She deserves so much better. I even commissioned back in 2015 for a Better Look for Caitlyn; Tom aka FaerieFountain went on to make her new look canon. But she’s supposed to be a detective. She’s supposed to be careful and methodical and mindful of her status and power. Instead, she’s been made gleefully violent, leaving a lot of depth behind in order to become just Hot Cop With Gun. (As an aside, was anyone else uncomfortable with Caitlyn’s high-school skin? Especially when the writer actually tweeted ‘step on me’? Hello? Ma’am? That is a high school student, that is a CHILD you are talking about? But Caitlyn is hot so it’s fine! Sexualise a child! it’s fine, she’s hot, it’s fine!) Almost everyone who has contacted me about Caitlyn’s LoR cards has been excited to see her. Good! She’s a great character! Or, she was. But the enthusiasm about her is tied to how she’s so violent, how she uses her power to abuse those who don’t conform. But she looks great, smoking hot, you know? And when she’s smoking hot, her dangerous and abusive behaviour and attitude are completely excused. An update to a character needs to take into account characterisation as well as the visuals. Her update, sadly, has focused on the all-too-prevalent problem of the viciousness of state-sponsored violence, rather than the complexity of detective work, of puzzle solving and intellectualism, but because she looks hot and speaks in that British accent, no-one’s going to care. Hot ladies can get away with so much, because legs and pouty lips, but I guess she’s also a cop or whatever.

And, as a momentary aside, why is an eco-terrorist suddenly Caitlyn’s longtime foe? It makes zero sense for Piltover and for Caitlyn that someone who plant-based powers is her biggest rival and the city’s biggest threat. Zero sense, until you take into account that Piltover has been stripped of its character and made into something more aligned with modern authoritarianism than the hopeful vibes of steampunk. Environmentalism? Not on my watch! Deploy the police (the good guys!) to silence the protesters (who are obviously the bad guys becase they’re protesting)! Because Piltover and Zaun are one city now, and therefore indistinguishable, we have a fucking Poison Ivy character causing enough trouble in Piltover to warrant entire fucking SWAT teams opening fire within the city limits and around peoples’ homes! Not Zaun, which is the environmental nightmare, but Piltover! With its fresh air and open skies! Yes, that’s a great place for an eco-terrorist to blame and/or try to fix! The whole thing is honestly so backwards! Like they’ve decided to make a cool character in the form of Corina and just shove her into the story, rather than finding a place in the narrative that suits her. The idea that Corina is C makes no sense. Caitlyn vs C is supposed to be Sherlock versus Moriarty, Ganimard versus Lupin, ACME versus Carmen Sandiego, world’s greatest detective against the world’s greatest thief. It focused on the intellectual battle, the need for self-improvement, and - most importantly! - that this was a fight that didn’t result in gunfire or people being put in bodybags. But we can’t have that in our fighting game! We can’t have people thinking, because that’s not the kind of game we have, it’s left-click-shoot out here on the Rift or in the cards. So now we have a woman with plant powers bombing Piltover, and a policewoman kicking down doors and opening fire. And she’s right there, in Caitlyn’s new splash art, within reaching distance of the sheriff!

She’s right there! In hot pink with a flower in her fucking hair! And Caitlyn doesn’t even notice? Looks like one of my major gripes about Caitlyn being updated - Incompetence - is rearing its ugly head. She cannot even see someone not five feet from her. Oooh, look out, Piltover, no-one can figure out why this single eco-terrorist is causing problems for years, but Caitlyn will figure it out! With her gun! Because she’s a cop with a gun, and cops with guns never cause more problems than they solve, right?

Look... I know. I know she’s not my character. I know that everything I’ve done is fan-interpretation. But I’ve worked for so long and hard and done so much research, and things I’ve done have even been seen by - and used by! - the company itself (not just in the ‘oh what a coincidence’ sense, either, I know my link on Hextech as a form of magic made it to several of the writers, some of whom later contacted me). I might be too jaded by all the disappointment to take it personally anymore, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen. We know Riot Games could be and should be better. So many people in this community - and people who have since moved on - put so much love and effort into the characters and the world, building up from scraps and guesswork and extrapolation. It wasn’t our world, but we enjoyed playing in it. We enjoyed struggling in it, because it pushed us to be thoughtful, creative, to be engaged and interested. Critical Theory doesn’t have to be negative... but this recent update to Caitlyn’s character and to Piltover as a whole is... it’s a step backwards. They’ve gone for the ‘ooh isn’t this gritty and dark’ approach, and swept away so much of what made the original so interesting, creative, engaging to begin with. They’d rather have controversy than people genuinely enjoying the thing that they’re opening their wallet for. 

Caitlyn was a detective who focused on responsibility, intellectualism, and care. What she is now is not the same Caitlyn they started with, and expresses a set of values that I do not support. This blog will continue to be focusing on the old lore, on what Piltover has been and what it should be: a hopeful utopia, a place for people to grow and be responsible and thoughtful and mindful of their place on the world stage. It’s not going to be perfect, but there’s hope, and there’s people here who want the world, and everyone in it, to be better than it is. I hope you join me, no matter who you are.

[shimmerbeasts]

Vi had been among the last generation of Zaunites, which had grown up partly with the Grey. She was painfully aware of how much it clung to your lungs and turned you dizzy and disorientated. Thus she could not fault Caitlyn for being completely wiped out by the Grey without her breathing mask. No wonder, these strangers had been able to get the jump on her. Whatever they had in their tanks ensured they could outlast Caitlyn in the sickly green smog.

That hiss of pain caused the Zaunite to wipe her head around. "Cait?" She took note of how her partner massaged her side, no doubt feeling a bad bruise underneath. As Caitlyn brushed her palm over her face, she aggravated the small cut on her temple causing it to bleed more. The familiar sight of the red gash caused Vi to step closer. Without hesitation, she leaned over and began to lap at the wound, trying to clean it off any dirt and grime, which might have come into it.

All the while, she listened to Caitlyn's words, only briefly pulling back. As she did so, the slight sting of her busted lip made Vi pull a face. Before she could wipe some of the blood away though, Caitlyn leaned over and licked across her lower lip. The soothing moisture of her tongue made the Zaunite relax and give an appreciative smile.

"Vander's told me of this stuff before", Vi replied, "Whenever a Chem-Baron dies, either his deputy becomes next in line or if there is no deputy, the gang dissolves and the territory gets absorbed by surrounding ones. Silco leaving a vacuum like this is not new. What is new, is how bad this is! Based on Vander's accounts, stuff like this should have solved itself by now. However I think it takes a special quality to lead the whole Undercity. And let's be real: Cross, Margott or Smeech do not have that in the slightest! Renni would have never dared to pull that stunt she did at the Memorial if someone like Silco was still in charge. I know you Pilties never noticed that, but people like Vander or Silco prevented that stuff from happening."

She snickered and said: "I once hit someone with a rucksack and promptly got punched in the face for it! Believe me, getting caught by surprise is almost a badge of honour here. Especially if you get to walk away." She followed Caitlyn's lead and curiously inspected the dark metal, frowning. "Janna, damn it!", Vi murmured, "I wish I had paid more attention when my mother taught us how to identify valuable metals and gemstones. She could tell a diamond from a pebble. I was more invested in learning how to dig through rock with my bare hands than all that fine-tuning stuff. Maybe Jayce would know what that metal is?"

"Woah, easy there, Cait!", Vi called out as Caitlyn almost stumbled over her own feet as she tried to get up. She rushed over and grabbed her by her arm. "I got you. Deep breaths." Easing Caitlyn's arm over her shoulder, Vi wrapped a hand around her waist and waited for her to pick up her rifle with her free hand. Shuffling their way back towards the bridge and crossing the bridge, Vi said: "I would applaud you for the idea and back you, but you seem really badly hit. So I would recommend that I go. Or well, the Baroness goes. I am sure she can shake any information we might need loose."

Caitlyn’s head rested against the wall, taking in deep clean breaths of air. Caitlyn might breathe the toxic air underneath the land, but it left her mind far more lethal and aggressive than she liked. But this, clean and opened allowed her to clear her head and think a bit more clearly. A shift of her shoulder brought a small hiss, feeling a deep bruise against her skin as she reached up to rub it slightly through her outfit. Then she moved to brush her hand against the side of her face, the streak of blood staining her glove as she rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Much worse than I thought. I expected some chaos with the chem barons being taken off the map, but now its like... a den of predators with no direction,” Caitlyn admitted as she shifted to the side and touched Vi’s face gently, brushing her thumb against her bottom lip and seeing the broken lip. She leaned forward and lightly licked at the wound, hoping to ease some of the ache. “I didn’t think about the vacuum it's that would come with his spot being open, but I honestly thought that maybe one of the other chem barons might take the lead; instead, it’s just... them going at each other’s neck for blood,” Caitlyn put her hand up against her brow.

She wanted to make things better for the Undercity, not worse! She gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes, her vision blurring slightly thought from the pain or concussion she wasn’t sure. “Um.. Yeah, my head is pounding from the beating it received. And very pissed at myself for letting myself get caught like that. It was unexpected. I’ve never seen these men working so well together, and it’s different from Silco,” Caitlyn said as she nodded, with understanding.

Her fingers reached forward, twisting the bolt within her fingers. “This isn’t Piltovan made, and the metal looks too dark to be metals from Zaun, if I’m correct,” Caitlyn whispered, twisting it around in her fingers and looked back up to Vi. “I was on the same thought, that this might have been Jinx. But the congregation I found. They were organized, controlled, and not trying to create chaos like Jinx does. Instead, they were talking about finding the strong and capable, and the weak would die under their feet.” Caitlyn passed the bolt back over to Vi as she rubbed her hand up against her face, shaking her head. “I need more information to know what, or who, this is. Maybe go back to the crime scene after a day or so to see if I can find more details.”

Pushing herself up to her feet, she grabbing her rifle only to stumble and hit the side of the wall. She had stood up too fast and caused the blood to rush to her head and making her lightheaded. That or it was the concussion she suffered as she pressed her palm to her head and shook her head as if that would make a distance. “Come on, Tiger. Let’s get back home. We can do more there,”

[shimmerbeasts]

Reaching the upper layers of the Undercity at the river's edge was a relief. Vi was almost shocked by how quickly her body had gained an addiction and maddening yearning for the fresh air on the roof tops. She could still handle Zaun's Gray and all its chemicals and pesticides with ease, yet, now her body had gotten hungry for something new. Having moved to Piltover allowed her to breathe this good air, this normal air at all times. One might as well ask her to not lick up sugar water. She could not get enough of it.

However, most importantly, up here, most pursuers gave up. It was too close to topside for many gang's comfort. Plus even as a child, Vi knew that you had to be a special kind of suicidal if you chose to pursue an Enforcer. After all, where there was one Enforcer, there were likely more. It still felt wrong to be able to cloak herself in the protective armour of these men in blue with masks, which hid their faces. However, Vi was not going to break her head thinking about this dilemma, if it helped her in keeping Jinx in check. The less she thought about what it meant that she now wore this uniform, the better.

"Yeah." Vi brushed the back of her hand over her mouth. Blood smeared across her bandages, her knuckles and the back of her hand. Her clothes reeked and stuck to her body. Her muscles trembled and her legs felt like they were about to give in. The Zaunite leaned herself against an old balustrade. She panted alongside Caitlyn as both tried to catch their breath.

"Is it me or has shit down here gotten much worse?", Vi asked before she plopped down beside Caitlyn, "Cannot believe I am saying this, but as crappy as Silco was, at least, he kept the Undercity from eating itself. If my informants are correct, outside of him, at least two other Chem-Barons are dead. And look where it has left Zaun? They are all at each other's throats. More than usual, at least."

Worry etched itself into her features. The inhabitants of the Undercity had always been incredibly territorial. It had even started when they were kids. Damn, Deckard compared to this chaos was a walk in the park! Still, now not a day seemed to go by without some report of explosive violence and blood on the streets. Some part of Vi, the stupidest goddamn part, could not help but worry for Powder. Even though Jinx could easily take care of herself.

Caitlyn's hiss of pain and her hand against her temple drew a look of concern from Vi. "Cupcake?", she asked, "Ya good? Or are you just pissed off at yourself?" The Zaunite nodded when her girlfriend remarked how they must have had the same idea. Funny, how life works.

"I talked with one of my informants", Vi said and corrected herself, "Well, not my informants. The Baroness'. Potato, potato. The gist is that they saw someone making the Undercity unsafe. I too first thought it was Jinx expanding her territory, but I now realise it is a contester. And it is not one of the old Chem-Barons. This one is new." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the metal bolt. "I found this in the most recent crime scene. However, that thing was used, it must have shredded sinews and tissue, broken bone even. It is not Jinx. As bloody and messy as that crime scene, it lacks all my sister's calling cards. No clear bullet wounds, no residue of gunpowder, no remains of rockets or Chompers, and most importantly, no colours. No confetti, no paint, no strange drawings. Nada."

There were so many questions on her mind, but Caitlyn knew this would be a dangerous place to talk if there were any more around. Her head screamed from the impact, a throbbing headache for the day, as she reached her hand up to press against her bloody temple. Recon had not gone as plan, and the fury within her wanted nothing more than to tear this gang apart already. The smell of blood and bodily fluids made her stomach heave as she grasp Vi’s shoulder, then they both were covered in blood. The purr from Vi calmed her own inner concern, knowing her girlfriend had her back. She wasn’t wrong though... she wasn’t okay. Caitlyn was far better at distance fighting, and while she could do up close fighting, it was not her strong point.

Both of them were on edge, and it showed as Caitlyn’s fur on her shoulder bristled from her stress. “Indeed.” She glanced at Vi tapping her pockets, something on hand from her own research. It wasn’t often Vi came into Zaun, it would usually be Baroness who did. Caitlyn had learned that Vi had different sides to her, all that dealt with this world differently. Pink and Baroness were as much of a part of Vi as they were her, and she had embraced her for all of it. Never looking at her as if she was wrong for developing these sides to help herself cope.

Caitlyn squeezed Vi’s hand and then took a hold of her rifle and moved in sync with her. Where Vi lept, Caitlyn followed, where Caitlyn slide, Vi chased. They worked in perfect tandem until they were finally hitting the fresh air of the upper part of Zaun. Caitlyn’s heavy breathing echoed as she leaned her weapon up against the side of the building and slide down against the ground. She could see her Kiramman sigil from across the river Pilt. “Should have some time to catch our breath here,” Caitlyn licked at her lips, feeling a cut against her lip as she huffed in annoyance.

Her hand reached up to Vi, offering her to sit down next to her. “Seems we were of the same mind, knowing something was happening in the Undercity. I thought it might have been Jinx at first, but it’s not her MO,” Caitlyn started, as she reached over and pressed her other hand up to her temple and hissed. She hated that she let herself get surprised.

[shimmerbeasts]

Sometimes, Vi's and Caitlyn's minds seemed to sync up. Without even uttering a word of it to one another, they had times when they went after the same problem in their own way. Vi had begun avoiding the Undercity, mentally not ready to be faced with Jinx, unless she was absolutely willing to deal with it. Thus it was very common for Caitlyn to do investigative work on her own.

However, much like Caitlyn had her own strings of informants in the Undercity, so had Vi. Or well, not Vi per se, but the Baroness had. And the Baroness never ignored a threat, particularly if her informants had made the risky trip up to Piltover. Sightings had sprung up in the Undercity - not of the beast Warwick, which by now was a confirmed threat, but something new. Something, which her spies called a beast of machinery and explosions.

At first, the Baroness had wanted to brush off the threat, assuming that it was another one of Jinx's inventions, simply because it entailed explosives. However, her spies had informed her that whatever it was, had nothing to do with Jinx. It was its own entity; it was far more crude and abrasive compared to her sister's feline grace, careful selection of colours in her explosives, and her general sense of playfulness. Furthermore, to make matters worse, whatever that thing was, it was gathering followers.

The Baroness recognised a contester for territory if she saw one. It was hard to pinpoint if this machinery monster would just try to take one territory or all of Zaun, and maybe she should have let the other Zaunites handle it. But a spark of pride and anger at the indignation of that rumoured thing even existing was enough for Vi to decide to deal with it herself. Zaun was everchanging, and if that thing managed to take over, it could be just as, if not more catastrophic for everybody than Jinx. And if the Baroness were honest, she just did not want that thing to contest for territory, plain and simple.

You had to hand it to the Baroness' source: While they had not been able to lead her straight to the steel monstrosity, they had led her to the next best thing. The aftermath of one of its rampages. Vi's eyes were dark and her lips a tense line as she drank in the destruction around her. Her informants had been right. This was not Jinx. That destruction did not bear any of her sister's calling cards. No graffiti on the wall, no smell of gunpowder or dynamite.

There were holes in two of the buildings, almost as if something had smashed through the doors and broken the wood like it was cardboard. The bodies, strewn about, had been dismembered and disassembled. They had several square-like holes in them as if something heavy and hard had punched through them like a sledgehammer. It had enough force to break and bend limbs. One of the bodies looked particularly gruesome: Ground up into viscera and with blood and chunks of flesh and skin all over the floor. The clothes had been completely torn to shreds and the bones had been crushed into fine powder. It didn't look like this had come from an explosion. It looked like the person had been fed through a meat grinder.

But how?! This seemed physically impossible! Even if you considered some of the strongest Chem-Tech suits, their occupants fought with blades! None of them could just shove you into a meat grinder. In fact, who was insane enough to carry a meat grinder around and use that in a fight?! Wouldn't it completely hinder any shards of progress you had made? The longer Vi stared at the crime scene, the more of a headache she got. She could not make sense of it. Even her fine tiger nose, usually so reliable, came up empty. The stench of blood and oil was so pungant, it nearly made her throw up.

Steps, shouts and a sudden explosion in a nearby side alley made her dart around. Vi's intake of breath told her everything, she had to know. "Cupcake!" The Baroness vanished and Vi took the ground running. Seeing Caitlyn slumped down in the alley, her rifle a few inches away from her and nursing her skull with three of those followers of that steel monstrosity closing in, Vi saw red.

Charging up her Atlas gauntlets, Vi catapulted herself into the air and with a roar to draw their attention, plunged herself into the fight. Compared to the steel monstrosity, these people worshipped, they themselves were a joke. While they had been able to take Caitlyn by surprise, upon closer inspection, it became apparent that none of them had any professional fighting training. Their bodies were lean and meagre, muscles weak, were it not for the chemicals, pumping through their tubes. Their weapons were nasty though: Serrated blades, dipped in what could only be described as sewage water.

Still, even with their augmentations, Vi had taken down Chem-Tanks, some the size of houses. She made short work of the six men, taking several of their hits while snapping their necks, breaking their skulls against the wall, and tearing out their throats. Even when more than one person tried to gang up on her, Vi had faced rape and theft attempts in Stillwater. She knew how to handle several opponents in a small space. The fight was over before it really had begun.

Body covered in the men's blood and littered with a few cuts and bruises, Vi walked over to Caitlyn. Helping her on her feet, the young Zaunite wrapped her arms around her girlfriend and with a deep, guttural purr buried her head against her mate's neck. Caitlyn was bleeding too. Vi could smell the wounds and feel the blood from the head injury wetting up her hair. Even when her girlfriend claimed she was okay, Vi murmured under her breath: "No, you're not."

Vi opened her mouth as if to say something to her question, but when Caitlyn told her to hold the thought, Vi merely nodded. Courtly, she stepped back and watched Caitlyn get her bearings. She could smell her tenseness and aggravation, and if she were honest, she felt the same way. The commotion and the smell of various blood would be enough to attract other gang members. It did not matter if they were from this new cult or belonged to Jinx or even bloody Smeech or Margot, neither Caitlyn nor Vi were in a position to take on a second fight.

Vi felt the weird, chunky cylinder-like block of messing, which she had picked up from her crime scene, weigh down one of her pockets. Patting Caitlyn's shoulder, she said: "You and I both have stuff to tell, Cupcake. Let's go."

◈　 ⇢  @shimmerbeasts　 ⋯　 blood, blood, gallons of the stuff! ♡ 　　⸻　sender hugs receiver just to get their blood all over them <3 (Vi to Caitlyn)

This tended to be a typical Tuesday by the lights of it. Vi rarely went into the Undercity and Caitlyn knew that, so it wasn’t the first time the Headhunter had to deal with a situation on her own. And Caitlyn’s information tended to be on par, knowing what she was going up against and facing off against men, women, or beasts. What she didn’t expect was being faced up against something entirely new. Chembots were one, but these men were had wires infused into their body, shimmering green and mechanic implants of all sorts. Be it guns for arms, flamethrowers and more; something or someone had been building what looked like a small guerilla army of their own.

Cybernetics was not new to Caitlyn, but this kind of cybernetic chem alternations was. Zaun was ever changing and this kind of alternations could have been expected from the way chembots were crafted. But Chembots were weapons drones, as if they could not fully think for themselves; but these men could. They spoke, talked, and were planning something big.

Least her information was good, for one thing; what they said was true and whoever this person was crafting these new engineer changes was going to try to stage something. Perhaps taking over one territory or hell, she wouldn’t put it past whoever it was to try to take over all of Zaun.

The recon mission hit a stump as Caitlyn was trying to leave the area, only to be intercepted by several of the augmented men. Sickly skin of pale green, the smell of poison against their breath, and many of them looking almost as if they worshipped a cult. There wasn’t any hesitation in the fight, though her primary objective now was to get out. Her nimble feet launched her through the street, twisting and turning, but the explosion of a grenade caused her body to hit the wall and her head collided with the ground. The next thing she knew, she heard punching, shouting, and the flash of dark red hair in her line of sight.

Vi’s face was streaked with blood, and her hands drenched in it. Her blood or theirs? She couldn’t quite tell. Even her olfactory senses were a little dazed from hitting her head so hard. But those arms around her told her that the problem was out of the way and Caitlyn moved to wrap her own arms around her back. The metallic scent filled her nose as she wiggled it slightly, knowing now for sure it was Vi’s blood. “I’m okay,” Caitlyn tried to promise, though she had hit her head hard enough she had seen stars.

“Wait, how did you find me?” Caitlyn questioned as she pulled back and placed her hand up against her face. The blood streaked down the side of her head and Caitlyn worried about her condition, unaware that she didn’t look any better. Her own blood glazed the side of her face where she hit the wall, and blood stained wounds along her arms. But suddenly, her mind could only comprehend the fact that Vi was injured and knowing she was in Zaun, where she rarely liked to venture to. “Hold off on that thought. Let’s get somewhere else. I don’t even know how long I’ve been out,” which aggravated her more than being attacked. She grabbed her rifle, forcing herself to her feet, though she wavered slightly. Weakness wasn’t something she could afford though, as she forced it back and quickly tried to get her bearing.

Though a quick glance behind her, and she noticed the six dead bodies laying in the alley and it was too easy to deduce what had happened. “Let’s get topside. I have something to tell you, and you're not going to like it.”