Chapter Text
Bright lights. A gun in her face. A firelight, perched on the end of the barrel. Explosions.
Caitlyn awoke to the sounds of a struggle. Someone was screaming, fighting against restraints. Rattling metal echoed through the darkness.
Then, blinding light. First, it was directed at her, but then it swung away. It took a moment for her vision to clear. When it did, she found herself to be in some sort of laboratory. She was cold. The air felt damp and heavy, and it smelled of rot and chemicals. Her entire body ached. There was so much pain that it was hard to discern exactly where she had been injured. Parts of her burned while other parts were disconcertingly numb.
When she tried to move, Caitlyn found that she was restrained, strapped to some sort of table. Not only were her arms and legs bound, but her head was also trapped under a leather strap. Fear struck her. She didn't know where she was and she couldn't remember how she had gotten there. Everything hurt, and she couldn't move. In a panic, she thrashed against the restraints. This was a terrible mistake.
Sharp pains radiated out from the points where strained against the straps. Except for where it didn't, and she could feel nothing at all. Sensation started and stopped at various points all over her body. She realized she couldn't move some of the fingers on her left hand. Caitlyn groaned and grit her teeth as anxiety blossomed in her stomach, making her feel nauseous on top of everything else.
They had been taking Ekko across the bridge. Her and Vi. There was a barricade. Marcus was there. He… had pointed a gun at her. There were firelights everywhere. One landed on the barrel.
And then everything exploded.
Caitlyn tried to cry out, but her mouth was dry and her throat burned and her voice came out a hoarse rasp, like the sound of someone on their deathbed. She swallowed over and over, desperate to wet her throat and find her voice. But before she could make her own noise, she heard someone else screaming and gasping for breath. The noises came from her left, where the light was. The strap over her forehead was just loose enough for her to turn her head, but it felt like every muscle in her neck was tearing as she tried to look for the source of the noises. As she moved her head, it felt everything inside her skull fell to the side, throbbing pain radiating out through her crainium. She screwed her eyes shut and hissed as the demonic child of a hangover and a migraine hammered against her forehead.
“Vi?” said someone, their voice barely above a whisper.
Caitlyn's eyes flew open. Was Vi here? Had she also been hurt in the explosion?
“No, no, no! NO!” the voice cried out, followed by desperate sobs.
“I understand this must be painful,” said a softer, calmer voice. A man.
“NO!”
“I’m afraid it will only get worse.”
The screaming voice echoed through the room, chanting “no” over and over with increasing terror. The sound only worsened the pain inside Caitlyn's skull and made her heart pound in her chest. With the last bit of strength she could muster, Caitlyn forced her head all the way to the side and gasped.
Beside her, strapped to an operating table in a similar manner to herself, was Jinx. A slim, bald man stood over her, pressing the plunger on a device that held multiple vials of shimmer, pushing the drug into her arm. Purple flooded her veins, running up her arm and across her entire body, pulsing with light and throbbing with such intensity that they inflated into a web of swollen ridges running across Jinx's body. She convulsed on the table, thrashing against the restraints and screaming bloody murder, spit flying as the shimmer ran through her.
Caitlyn had seen photos of this effect in training and caught glimpses of the deformed addicts in the fringes of the undercity, but she had never seen the process itself carried out in front of her. This couldn’t be what it was normally like. She couldn’t imagine anyone willingly doing this to themselves.
“L-let her go,” Caitlyn croaked. She still couldn’t manage enough saliva to moisten her mouth. “Stop… stop it!”
The man looked over his shoulder at her.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, ignoring Jinx’s desperate pleas for help.
Jinx’s body was still spasming under the restraints at the drug tore through her. Despite everything Jinx had done, Caitlyn didn’t think she deserved whatever was happening to her. This was a pain she wouldn't wish on her worst enemies. She wanted to help her. She always wanted to help.
“Who… are you? What are you doing… to Jinx?”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to be interrogating me, Miss Kiramman,” said the man, stepping towards her. “But if you’d like to know more about the procedure… Let’s just say I’m saving her life.” He paused, looking her over. “Would you like me to save yours?”
Ah, so she was dying. It didn’t really surprise her. Everything hurt too much, even her insides. Either that, or she couldn't feel anything at all. Her head was pounding to the point that it was beginning to affect her vision. She was struggling to breathe, each inhale rasping and rattling inside her chest. Her lungs felt like they were resisting the air.
Caitlyn wanted nothing to do with the man, but she couldn’t cough up a response to him. Everything was getting darker, colder. Her body hurt more and less at the same time.
“Ah, well. Why not give myself another test subject? I’m not even sure why they brought you here.”
The man stepped back into the darkness, and Caitlyn could hear him drawing liquid from something. Just as she felt she was about to slip away, he reappeared over her, glowing purple vials in hand.
Caitlyn had thought she couldn’t speak, but some primal instinct welled up in her chest and forced out the word “no” over and over as fast as her lips would allow. She used the last of her energy to struggle fruitlessly against the restraints. She could still see Jinx across from her. The girl was unconcious, but her body still shook and spasmed as her veins lit up like fireworks. Caitlyn's eyes flicked up to the man. She did everything she could to move away from the syringe, but there was nothing she could do. She was battered and broken and lying on death's door.
The man pressed the needle into her left arm and pushed the plunger.
Caitlyn’s world lit up in the worst way possible. She screamed until her throat was raw. She thrashed about, unable to control her movements as her body tensed and seized and convulsed. The real world melted away. The last thing Caitlyn saw was Jinx, suffering just as she was.
Then, Caitlyn saw everything and anything—Jinx, herself, her parents, Vi, Jayce, Grayson, Marcus. Marcus, pointing a pistol in her face. Her father, teaching her how to hold a rifle. Her mother, reprimanding her for her actions. Grayson, holding her shot.
The images flashed through her mind in rapid succession, and the people started to blur together and change places as they repated. Marcus, teaching her how to hold a rifle. Her mother, pointing a pistol at her. Grayson, reprimanding her for her actions.
Jinx, holding her shot.
Caitlyn’s eyes screwed shut, trying to make the visions stop, but they continued to flash past under her eyelids as she felt like her body was being ripped apart. She was letting Vi out of jail. She was talking to the beautiful girl in the brothel. She was waiting for Jayce in the rain.
She was letting Jinx out of jail. She was talking to Jinx in the brothel. She was waiting for Jinx in the rain.
Her head whipped from side to side but stayed held down by the leather strap. Just as she felt like her body had stopped breaking down, she felt a sharp pain as the man shoved another needle into her arm and the cycle began anew.
Caitlyn couldn’t be sure if she was ever unconscious because the visions didn’t stop. She watched her life play out before her eyes like a cheap parody of itself, putting the wrong people in the wrong places. Memories looped over and over, populating with different faces each time. Mother, father, Vi, Grayson, Marcus, Jayce, Jinx, the girl from the brothel, the girl she had her first kiss with, her favorite instructor from the enforcer academy. People she had no names for passed before her eyes, invading some of the most private moments of her life. Voices overlapping, everyone talking, yelling over each other until the sound was incomprehensible. Though she couldn't discern what was being said, she somehow knew they were all yelling at her.
When it was finally over, her eyes flew open and the noise ceased. She was unnerved by how quiet it was, feeling the absence of the chaos that had been raging inside her for gods know how long. She could’ve heard a pin drop. She did hear water dripping.
Caitlyn made a sudden, jerking movement as if she had expected the restraints to still be in place, but instead she shot upright with inappropriate momentum, almost flinging herself off of the table. She coughed and ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth (which tasted terrible), trying to conjure up enough spit to speak properly. Still, when she finally opened her mouth, her voice was rough and low, as if she had been sick.
“Where the hell am I?”
She surveyed her surroundings. Before her was a dimly lit laboratory that seemed to have been carved out of a cave. Underground. The undercity. Buzzing lights burned overhead, barely illuminating the space. Directly to her left was a rusted operating table—empty.
Jinx. Jinx was gone.
Caitlyn moved to get off the table, expecting to hurt all over, but she was startled when she felt nothing out of place at all. She got on her feet without issue, moved all of her limbs without pain. She looked down at herself. Her gloves had been removed at some point, and she was covered in dirt and debris. From the explosion, she reminded herself.
Something was off. Even in the low, sickly green lights, her arms didn’t look right. They were unusually pale. Caitlyn wasn’t exactly tanned, but she had a healthy glow. The hands before her looked like that of a corpse, and where there should have been wounds, there were only a few light scars.
Her eyes darted around the room. Off to the far left, there was a long counter with a sink and a mirror. She rushed over to it and found her feet moving much faster than she anticipated, crashing into the counter and rattling the various medical instruments sat atop it. The speed at which she moved was jarring.
The lights were low, but it didn’t take much for Caitlyn to see that something was very, very wrong. Desaturated, nigh translucent skin revealed branching strands of deep, dark veins around her eyes, which seemed like they had sunken into her face. She always had sharp cheekbones—it was a known Kiramman trait—but now she looked gaunt and unwell.
But the worst was her eyes. Once more, she was confronted with something she had learned about in the academy, though this was also something she had seen many times in life. After all, identifying the telltale signs of drug use was a core part of being an enforcer.
Her eyes were a vibrant, glowing pink. Like someone who had taken shimmer.
“No, no, no, no, no… No, no, no, no!”
How could she go home like this? These were blatant signs of shimmer use. Kiramman or no, she would be arrested on the spot.
A disgrace upon our name.
Her mother’s voice.
Caitlyn shut her eyes and shook her head, as if that would fix the problem. But when she opened them, the perversion of her own face stared back at her. She brought her hands to her cheeks, pressing and pulling at the skin. No matter what she did, nothing changed.
At least, nothing changed externally. Internally, she became painfully aware of a buzzing sensation under her skin, like a current of electricity running through her veins. This quickly turned into an itching feeling, accompanied by random, sharp pricks. Like someone was trying to push needles out through her skin. She scratched at her arm and found herself twitching uncontrollably as she did, jolts of energy coursing through her limbs and causing small spasms.
Her terror turned to frustration, and frustration to anger. Anger that boiled in her stomach until it began to bubble up and overflow, filling her entire body with white hot rage. She gnashed her teeth together and growled as she dug her nails into her left arm until she drew blood.
“Miss Kiramman! I see you’re awake.”
Her entire body whipped around before she could even make the decision to turn to face the voice. It was the bald man. She could now see he was wearing a mask over the lower half of his face. What she could see of the upper part was halfway marred by burn scars.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” she snapped.
“I recall the members of your house having much better manners in the past,” he said, ignoring her question. “Are you feeling alright?”
“NO!” she roared, startling herself. She stepped back in an attempt to get away from the sound of her own voice.
The man laughed, though his tone was indecipherable. He spoke in such a neutral manner that Caitlyn couldn’t figure out his angle—and it was just pissing her off even more. Her hand flew down to grip the counter beside her, and the metal buckled under her fingers.
“What. The fuck. Did you do to me?” she asked again through gritted teeth.
“I saved your life.”
“Bullshit!”
He tipped his head to the side. “If I had done nothing, you would be dead. Ergo, I am the reason you are alive.”
“What is wrong with me?” Spit flew from her mouth as she flung the words at him.
He sighed. “The same thing that went wrong with Jinx, it seems. Valuable results, nonetheless, but this version of the serum still seems too unstable. Not that I expected it to be perfect.”
“Jinx? Where is Jinx?”
He waved dismissively. “She left. Silco soon after. I was worried I might have gotten to you too late, Miss Kiramman.”
The itching, the prickles, the tense energy coursing through her. It was too much. A sensory overload. This man was making her so angry, she could just—
He took a step towards her. The sound was quiet, but terribly loud in her ears, and it snapped her out of her thoughts. She was scared by how fast she reacted to things. That the slightest noise would send her into fight or flight mode…
“Am I correct in assuming that your new outlook on life isn’t agreeing with you, Miss Kiramman?”
She winced. “Tell me what you’ve done to me. Now.”
“If you must know the details, I’ve injected you with a new variant of shimmer that I developed. It’s a particularly potent mix, capable of healing life-threatening wounds.”
“I got that, just…” Caitlyn winced again and pressed a hand to her forehead. She was so angry that she could hardly think straight. “How long does it last?”
He laughed, and this time it seemed genuine.
“Oh, Miss Kiramman. It lasts forever.”
His words slammed into her like a blow to the gut. Anger was superseded by fear. She held her head in her hands and stumbled backwards.
“No… No no no… I can’t… I have to… I can’t be… this!” She threw her arms in front of her, staring at her open palms. “I… I—”
A soft clinking sound interrupted. Her eyes darted towards the man. His arm was outstretched, dangling a glass bottle half-filled with pills.
“These might be of use to you,” he said, waving the bottle before pulling it back to hold it closer to his face. “My own special concoction, made to help with the side effects of the procedure. They won’t fix how you look, but they’ll make you feel better.”
She lunged towards him, but he stepped back, clutching the bottle to his chest.
“Ah ah ah! You see, Miss Kiramman, I’m the only person who knows how to make these, and right now, I’m holding the only batch that exists—a mere two weeks’ supply.”
“Spit it out, bastard.”
He rolled the bottle along his palm.
“If you want to feel better, you can’t kill me. Because if I die, there’ll be no one to treat your… condition.”
Caitlyn balled her hands into fists, anger threatening to boil over yet again. Just as her thoughts started to rage, she forced herself to snap out of it and did her best to evaluate the situation with a calm mind.
Every bone in her body wanted her to brutalize his man and desecrate his corpse, but she couldn’t do that. In no world would that be helpful to her cause. If anything, she needed him alive even without his promise of medication—he was evidence of what had happened to her. If she had any hope of ever making it home, she would need him to explain what he had done to her. Otherwise, no one would believe her. She’d look like she went underground, took a wrong turn, and gotten hooked on illicit substances. Clearly not in her right mind anymore.
Not fit to be part of this family.
“Gods, shut up!” she hissed. “Fine. Please, just give them to me.”
Caitlyn pressed a fist against her forehead and shuffled towards the man. The buzzing was inside her skull now, reverberating through her head and making it hard to tell what was in her mind and what was real. She kept hearing her mother’s voice.
The man handed her the bottle. She immediately ripped it open, grasping for a single pill with trembling fingers. She threw it into her mouth and swallowed it dry.
The effect was nearly instant. The physical sensations subsided. She stopped twitching. Her mind quieted. She was able to think. To breathe. To collect herself and her thoughts, and assess the situation properly.
There was a small tag tied around the neck of the bottle. 2X per day. 1 morn, 1 night.
A two week supply. She looked past the bottle at the man.
“What’s your name?”
He was quiet for a moment. “People have taken to calling me Singed.”
On account of the burns, no doubt.
“Are you going to keep me here?”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to—and I don’t. You are free to leave, Miss Kiramman.”
She was stunned. This man would deign to pump her full of experimental drugs and then let her walk free? He wasn’t even interested in trying to detain her? What had he wanted out of all this? The sick satisfaction of tormenting young women?
As if he could see the gears in her head turning, he said, “I could have let you die, but, you see, I once had a daughter myself. You caught me in a moment of rare compassion.” He looked her over. “I don’t seek your gratitude, nor do I need anything from you but your word that you won’t try to harm me. If that’s agreeable, I will prepare more medication for you every fortnight.”
Caitlyn wanted so badly to bargain with him, make some kind of offer to swing this in her favor. But she had nothing. Less than nothing. No way home, and nowhere to go. If she went without the pills, she would surely lose her mind within a matter of days.
“You have my word,” she said.
“Good. Enjoy the rest of your day, Miss Kiramman.”
Singed gestured towards a door behind her, and she left quickly, desperate to get out of that makeshift operating room. She emerged into another cave, though this one was much more natural. There was a pool of water in the center, and glowing mushrooms dotting the walls. A few different tunnels led out of it, but the easiest to access would be the one from which the water flowed downwards. Caitlyn pocketed the bottle of pills and moved forward.
She followed the winding stream up and up until she felt wind and smelled rain. She picked up her pace, jogging and hopping over rocks. In just a few minutes, the sky was in sight.
Rain fell, pitter-pattering against the stone walls of the ravine she stood in. High, high in the distance, she could see Piltovian rooftops jutting above those of the less fortunate on this side of the river.
She was so relieved to be free that she hadn’t realized she had nowhere to go, and she didn’t know where any of her allies were. For all she knew, Ekko and Vi were dead, blown to bits by the firelight bombs. She was not one for praying, but she did speak one in that moment, hoping that they had survived.
She clambered up the sides of the ravine, exiting onto undercity streets. She couldn’t cross the bridge, but she could take a good look at it. Survey the damage.
Caitlyn scaled buildings, getting herself as close to the river as possible while still staying out of enforcer sightlines.
Her vision felt sharper, as if she could see further than she could before. The barricades were still in place, enforcers still patrolling the bridges. Certainly, the bombing had only worsened things in that department. And Marcus must have also died. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be alive or not.
She stayed there, perched on an abandoned rooftop, watching her former comrades go about their patrols. She recalled Jayce’s visit, how her parents had her removed from the force. House Talis Security. A cruel joke.
The rain picked up, and Caitlyn was getting drenched, though she didn’t feel particularly cold. Sitting around in wet clothes was still uncomfortable, so she picked herself up.
Caitlyn took one last look across the river at the marble towers of Piltover, then descended into the undercity.
She remembered how Vi had moved about when she first followed her down. Running and leaping across rooftops. Caitlyn hadn’t been much good at it then, but something was scratching at her brain, telling her to give it another go. She leaned forward, then took a running start towards the edge of the roof.
Her body moved on its own, like it was doing all the work for her. She didn’t even have to think about when she needed to jump, or how high. She was just suddenly in the air, and it felt easy and natural. The same happened when she landed on the roof below, rolling out of her landing with the expertise of someone who had been doing this all her life.
It unnerved her. But she couldn’t stop. She let her body carry her down, down, down. Down to the Lanes.
Caitlyn hadn’t exactly gotten a lay of the land from following Vi around, but she had paid enough attention to remember where things were. She descended to the streets, no longer worried about anyone pegging her as an enforcer in the state she was in. As if she had even still been an enforcer when she first came down here.
Her first thought had been to seek out the Firelights, but she doubted they would be happy to see her. Especially not if Ekko was gone. They would probably revel in the irony of her current position before blaming her for his untimely death.
The only other place Caitlyn remembered fondly from her time with Vi was the brothel. Babette’s, she recalled, named after its Yordle owner. Vi had ditched her there, but she couldn’t deny that she had a good time. She blushed and shook her head. Not something she needed to be thinking about right now. Her instincts were telling her that if she had any chance of getting help down here, it would be from Babette.
Caitlyn went through the front door this time, knowing that the security wouldn’t let her through the back without Vi by her side. A buff, bald man with a handlebar mustache sat behind the front desk, which itself was behind iron bars. He did not greet her when she entered.
“I’d like to speak to Babette,” she said as calmly as she could muster.
His eyes narrowed. “She’s not taking meetings.”
“Please, it’s urgent.”
“I don’t know you. I’m certain Babette doesn’t know you.” He gave her a once over. “You look like shit, but something about you stinks. People don’t come ‘round here asking to talk to the Madame. Least, not marching right through the front door.”
Caitlyn was at a loss. “Look, I was here earlier this week with… a friend… and I spoke to her briefly, and I just wanted to ask her—”
The inner door swung open, and a slim woman in a mask poked her head through.
“Madame would like to see this one,” she said, beckoning Caitlyn to follow her.
The man behind the desk grumbled but did not waste any more of his energy on Caitlyn. She followed the masked woman into the brothel.
Babette’s office was on the bottom floor at the back of the building. Caitlyn had not actually gotten to go inside during her last visit. Babette was the one who had sought her out, informing her of Vi’s whereabouts and encouraging her to give chase. It was a kind act, something that Caitlyn hadn’t expected of anyone down here. A lot of things she hadn’t expected had happened since then.
The masked woman let the curtains over the door fall closed, leaving Caitlyn alone with the ancient Yordle woman.
“You’re Vi’s friend,” she said, taking a drag from her pipe. “Matilda.”
Caitlyn cleared her throat. “Caitlyn, actually.”
She waved dismissively. “I know who you are, Kiramman. Except you’re looking quite different today.”
Caitlyn looked down at her hands, at the dark veins hiding underneath her sallow skin. She wrung them together like she was washing her hands, trying to scrub away the unfamiliarity. Doing her best to keep her calm, Caitlyn explained everything to Babette to the best of her ability. There was a lot she still didn’t grasp, but she understood the hard truths of her situation.
She couldn’t go back up topside. She was stuck here. She needed Singed to supply her with pills. She needed a place to stay. She needed to find a way to fix things.
Babette listened patiently, nodding every now and then.
“Singed… I know very little of him, but I have heard the name. People say he works for Silco, but every other rumor I hear makes him out to be some sort of boogeyman.”
He was. Caitlyn shuddered as memories of his “life-saving procedure” flickered through her mind. Babette noticed this, and she frowned.
“I’m terribly sorry this happened to you, Caitlyn. I would love to offer you a place to stay out of the kindness of my heart, but… this is the Lanes. People who do things out of the kindness of their hearts, seeking nothing in return, are fools.”
Caitlyn saw where this was going. “You want me to do something for you in return.”
“I’d like you to work here.”
Caitlyn could not stop her face from flushing a deep red. “I… I don’t know if I—”
“Not like that, my dear.” Babbette took another drag from her pipe. “I’m running short on security. You seem like you can handle yourself quite well.”
Caitlyn let out a loud sigh of relief. Sure, she had done quite well in her adventures as Matilda, but that wasn’t something she wanted to make a habit out of.
“Of course. Yes, I can absolutely do that.”
“Wonderful. Now, no offense, dear, but you look horrible. I’ll show you to the baths and have one of the girls get a bed ready for you.”
It was far more than Caitlyn had planned on asking for and beyond anything she expected to get. She so badly wanted to go home to her own bed, to see her parents, but having a roof over her head was enough to allow herself to relax.
“Thank you, Madame,” she said, using the title she heard from the other employees.
The baths were split into public and private sections. The latter were clearly more suited to actually cleaning oneself as opposed to the large heated tubs of the former. The showers were a far cry from her en suite back home, but they were still quite nice and kept very clean. Caitlyn was surprised to see a variety of familiar Piltovian brands as she looked through the various bottles of soap and shampoo. They were nothing fancy, but she hadn’t expected to see anything of the sort in a place like this.
She disrobed and stepped into the shower, letting the warm water run over her body. She wasn’t in pain, but she did feel a dull ache from how tense she had been. With a washcloth, she scrubbed away the remnants of the bombing. The water beneath her turned gray as it carried away the dirt and ash.
Caitlyn felt like she was washing someone else’s body. She was familiar with herself, going so far as to take pride in her physique. It was something she achieved through hard work and dedication. Hours of physical exercise. Proper nutrition. A thorough skincare routine. She had been the picture of health.
Not anymore. She avoided looking in the mirror as she went about her business, not wanting to meet the eyes of the stranger she had become.