Chapter Text
Two hours before the beginning of the eclipse.
The tunnels breathed like a sleeping beast, deep and detached. The air was heavy with humidity, every drop falling from the rusted pipes echoed against the stone, as if marking the sick pulse of the tunnel and the very flow of time unraveling in intervals. The corroded walls gleamed under a dim glow, sickly skin lit only by the trembling flame of a torch.
Riona advanced in silence, shoulders tense, steps steady. In one hand she carried the torch, in the other she caressed the edge of one of her blades, as if touching the steel kept her awake. Her eyes, dark and alert, devoured every shadow trembling in the cracks of the tunnel.
At her side, two of Sevika’s soldiers walked sluggishly, dragging their boots across the damp floor.
"Another round..." one grumbled, letting out a yawn. "Always the same. If anyone wanted to sneak in here, they’d have done it already, and we’d be somewhere else... probably dead, but at least not bored."
The second let out a coarse laugh, rough as gravel.
"Don’t complain. I’d rather rot from boredom than come face to face with those Noxian dogs."
Riona tilted her mouth into a half-smile, the flame reflecting in her gaze like a flash of steel.
"I’d rather have an enemy with a face. At least then I know where to stick the blade. Boredom, on the other hand, gets inside your head, eats at you slowly... and when you notice it, it’s already rotted you from within."
The first soldier snorted.
"You talk like some damn poet, brat."
"If only I were," laughed the second, elbowing his companion. "If we ever get killed, she’ll be the one writing the chronicle in blood."
Riona arched a brow, amused, barely spinning the blade between her fingers.
"You know what I’d write right now?" Her voice rang like steel against damp stone. "Two idiots making noise in a tunnel."
The two men burst out laughing, the echo multiplying against the damp walls, as if the tunnel itself laughed with them. Riona played along with a light smile, though her fingers never left the hilt of her blade nor her gaze the scanning of every shadow.
Deep in her mind, the laughter faded quickly. She had learned far too soon that what seemed calm always hid a blade beneath the skin.
The silence shattered with a spark. First she saw it: a fleeting glint, metallic light cutting through the gloom. Then, the sound. Sharp. Absolute.
The first soldier fell with a clean shot between the eyes. His skull burst backward, blood spraying the air, hot droplets marking Riona’s face like burns. The echo of the shot thundered through the tunnel’s entrails.
There was no time to breathe. The second soldier barely opened his mouth before another bullet tore through his neck; blood spurted in a dark gush, his body collapsing like an empty sack of flesh, thudding against the muddy ground.
Riona blinked, heart racing. She had seen them a second before: alive, laughing. Now they lay motionless, sunken in red pools that slowly spread until they touched the tips of her boots.
The hum came again. Pure instinct. She turned her head and the projectile grazed her cheek. The burn was instant, a line of fire that drew a gasp from her lips. Warm blood traced down her skin, mingling with sweat.
The motion threw the torch from her hand. It struck the floor with a dull thud, rolling a few inches until stopping against the damp wall. The flame clung to life, writhing and casting violent shadows that danced along the tunnel.
Riona forced herself upright. Her fingers darted to her thighs, where her crossed blades rested: her mark, her certainty. With a swift motion she unsheathed them; steel glimmered beneath the trembling light of the fallen torch, demanding blood in exchange for silence.
And then she saw her.
From the shadows emerged a figure walking with sure steps, each stride laden with insolent confidence. The crooked grin was a bare knife, and her eyes, two embers fueled by gunpowder, seemed to revel in the chaos just born. Samira.
"Nothing personal, girl. Just business." The Noxian’s voice was a mocking whistle, her weapon spinning in her hands with the ease of someone toying with a child’s knife.
Riona clenched her jaw, blades steady, shoulders squared.
"You… you were the woman with Ekko. I knew it. I knew you were a Noxian bitch."
Samira arched a brow and let out a short laugh, sharp as a bullet snapping into a chamber.
"And if you knew, why didn’t you do anything?" She tilted her head with false curiosity, her blazing eyes locked on her. "You could have saved your city, girl… but you’re still babbling where you should bite your tongue."
She stepped forward. The weapon’s barrel gleamed beneath the trembling light like a black, hungry eye.
"And for your mistake… you’ll die in this tunnel. Just like those two."
The words ignited Riona’s rage. She didn’t wait. She charged head-on, blades slashing for vital points. Each strike was a muffled roar, every cut an attempt to rip the grin from the Noxian’s face.
Samira, however, moved with the insolent grace of someone who had danced through a thousand battlefields. She dodged by inches, her dark hair flowing with each turn, interlacing sharp gunshots that forced Riona to duck or roll, and arcs of her curved blades that flashed beneath the torchlight.
The tunnel became a living stage: steel against steel, sparks torn from the walls, flashes illuminating the damp like lightning trapped in stone.
Riona had changed. Every firm step echoed her training with Sevika, each strike sharper, more violent. With an agile spin she scooped damp earth with her boot and flung it at Samira’s face to blind her. The Noxian raised her arm, barely shielding herself, and laughed with shameless delight.
"That was cute. But you still smell like an apprentice."
Riona didn’t stop. She crossed her daggers in ascending and descending cuts, forcing her back, pressing as if to push her out of the tunnel. Samira enjoyed the game; every time she countered with her blades, the force of the blow rattled the girl’s arms down to the bone.
In one of those clashes, one of Riona’s daggers passed so close it sliced off a strand of Samira’s hair. The black sheen drifted slowly to the damp ground.
Samira froze a second, grin fixed like a mask. Then she smiled even wider, though the spark in her eyes betrayed a fleeting thought: the girl had almost touched her.
"Well…" she whispered, almost amused. "You got me. Careful, girl, keep this up and you might even make me sweat."
Riona, panting, gripped her blades tighter.
"Then stop talking and bleed."
Samira lowered her weapon, shifted into a more serious stance, knees bent, feet rooted to the stone. Her blades gleamed like jaws ready to bite.
"Alright, playtime’s over. Now the real fight begins."
She struck first. A downward slash, then a horizontal, then a diagonal. Riona crossed her daggers in a metallic spark, barely deflecting the strike. The impact rattled her arms, and in that brief opening, Samira landed a punch that sent her stumbling back.
"Feel the difference?" she mocked, advancing like a predator in the hunt.
The next exchange was brutal. Riona deflected a sword cut, but the Noxian answered with a knee to the stomach that stole her breath. She barely managed to cover against another slash, only to receive an elbow to the ribs that forced a choked groan from her. Every attempt to defend was punished with surgical precision.
Sweat streamed down Riona’s forehead, mingling with the blood from her cut cheek. But she did not yield. Every gasp was a challenge, every blow endured another spark of rage.
Samira spun like a whirlwind, slipped to her flank, and with the opening struck a hard elbow to the nape of her neck. Riona’s world folded, her body dropping to her knees. The ground’s damp earth burned her palms as she tried to hold herself.
Samira rested one blade on the girl’s shoulder, regarding her as if appraising goods at a market.
"You’ve got guts. What a waste. Be my apprentice and maybe you’ll see another dawn." She said it lightly, almost playfully, like offering a toast, not a way out.
Riona raised her head, eyes blazing with fury. She spat blood onto the ground.
"I’d rather die here… than breathe the same air as you."
Samira sighed with theatrical flair, shaking her head.
"With your fire and my bullets, we could’ve done wonders… but you’d rather rot in this tunnel."
She spun her weapon and, without hesitation, slammed the butt against Riona’s temple. The explosion of light in her head vanished instantly, swallowed by absolute black.
…
The first thing Riona felt as she regained consciousness was the hammering of boots. A rhythmic thunder that pierced her skull like iron mallets. Every step was a stab that made her bones vibrate.
She forced her eyes open. Her vision was blurry, a parade of shadows stretching against the damp walls like specters. When the image finally cleared, she understood: endless columns of Noxian soldiers were crossing the tunnel. Ordered ranks, spears gleaming with oiled edges, armor striking in unison like a single metallic heart. The air reeked of iron, sweat, and gunpowder.
Samira was there. Leaning calmly against the wall, as if it were all a show staged just for her. She smiled like someone savoring the climax of a play.
"Want to know something about me, girl?" she said, as if speaking in an improvised confessional. "I wasn’t born in Noxus. I’m from Shurima. I grew up in a desert that devoured the weak, where every day was kill or die. And when Noxus found me, I understood that nation and I spoke the same language: conquer, expand, never stop. Here, no one gives you anything, and that’s what makes it perfect."
She pushed herself upright, the torchlight dancing in her crooked grin.
"That’s why Noxus is invincible. Neither Piltover’s toys, nor its commander, nor Zaun’s little rebels have what it takes to outlast us."
Riona raised her head, blood streaming down her temple.
"I don’t give a damn about your story."
Samira laughed delightedly, almost pleased by the answer. She leaned close enough that their eyes were level.
"Fine, then don’t listen to my story. Listen to this: your silence condemned others. Ekko, your teacher… they’re going to die, and you won’t be there to stop it."
Her smile turned into a knife.
"And when you hear their screams in your conscience, remember it was your fault."
Samira laughed again and snapped her fingers. Three soldiers broke away from the march and came at once.
"I have to go. I’ll leave the little one to you… have fun with her."
She bent down until Riona could feel the blade of her grin inches from her face.
"I want you to suffer plenty before you meet your death."
Riona lifted her gaze, rage devouring her, following her with every ounce of hate she could summon. She tried to rise, to take a step toward her, but the soldiers seized her harshly.
"Samira!" she screamed, torn apart, as if her voice could pierce through the columns of iron and gunpowder.
The answer was a sharp blow to her face. Darkness swallowed her again.
...
When she woke, the couple of hours had turned into a faceless hell. The blows fell like acid rain: fists splitting her lips, kicks stealing her breath, blades grazing her skin just to watch her bleed. The metallic taste flooded her mouth; every swallow was rust and defeat.
And in the midst of the pain, guilt.
“I should have spoken. I should have done more. I should have shouted before it was too late.”
Every strike was a reminder of her silence, of how she had let Piltover and Zaun march blindly toward collapse. She imagined Ekko, her teacher… imagined their faces twisted with fear. Samira didn’t need her to hear their screams: planting the thought was enough to tear her conscience apart.
The soldiers’ laughter boomed. One pressed a knife against her cheek and traced an “N” with care, as if branding cattle. The others added cuts to her arms and legs, not to kill her, but to revel in each groan.
The Noxian march continued. Row upon row of warriors crossed the tunnel, spears gleaming like oiled stars, armor pounding in unison. The tunnel vibrated with that metallic pulse, a colossal heart announcing the eclipse’s approach.
And then the shadow arrived. A towering beast emerged among the soldiers. His muscles seemed sculpted in iron, his golden eyes burned like embers in the gloom. The ground shook beneath every step, and with it, Riona’s chest. The fear was primal, absolute, as if the earth itself recognized a predator.
She didn’t know what that creature was, but she understood that nothing human could bear such weight in its body.
Eventually, the flow ended. Only a handful of bored guards remained, drinking and laughing among themselves. They looked at Riona as if she were a broken toy.
"Enough games," said one, leaning over her with a rotten grin. "Time to end this."
"How?" another sneered. "We could hang her right here."
"Better string her up and leave her on tiptoe, let her choke slowly while she watches us," suggested a third, laughing.
One pulled out a small vial and shook it eagerly.
"Or I’ll take some shimmer and crush her skull with my hands."
The others shut him down with curses and laughter.
"Are you stupid? Waste shimmer on this? Not a chance."
The leader raised his voice in annoyance.
"Enough nonsense. We stab her and it’s done."
The highest-ranking one leaned over her, gripping her neck with one hand and lifting her from the ground like a broken doll. Riona kicked weakly, her wrists still bound, air escaping in gasps. She saw the flash of the knife and, a second later, the merciless plunge.
The blade sank into her abdomen. The pain was white, blinding, dragging a muffled groan from her throat. Warm blood gushed, spilling in waves that stained the filthy ground. The soldier pulled the weapon out cruelly and released her. Riona crashed down heavily, breath shattered, each one shorter than the last.
She felt the cold of the ground licking her skin, indifferent, as if the earth itself denied her existence. Her blood mixed with the tunnel’s dampness, spreading beneath her in a dark pool. The cold seeped into her bones, and for the first time she accepted the inevitable: this was the end.
Not like this. She wouldn’t be the warrior she had dreamed of, nor the apprentice who proved to Sevika how much she had grown. There would be no glory, no victory; only the laughter of faceless executioners and the silence of a forgotten tunnel. Her strength drained, and with it, hope.
Just as she was about to surrender, a movement in the shadows broke the monotony of pain.
Behind one of the guards, a shadow slid like a patient predator. A steel hand emerged and seized the soldier’s head. A sharp, precise twist: the crack of snapped vertebrae filled the air like a gunshot.
The others turned, terrified. The torch flickered, revealing Sevika stepping out of the darkness, her metallic arm still extended, her gaze frozen and lethal.
"What the fuck…?" one stammered, stumbling back.
There was no time for more. Sevika launched herself at them with the brutality of a storm. There were no flourishes or feints: every strike was final. The steel arm pierced, crushed, shattered. Broken bones, slit throats, bodies falling like mud-soaked dolls. The slaughter was brief, precise, merciless.
Riona, barely conscious, watched her teacher turn her tormentors into broken flesh. The blows weren’t loud or chaotic; they were decisions. Precise, inevitable. And amid the pain, a spark of pride lit her chest. That was Sevika. The woman who had made her strong. The shadow who would always protect her.
The last thing her eyes saw before closing was her teacher’s figure, triumphant, standing among corpses. And she died with a smile, convinced that if this was her end, at least it belonged to her.
Sevika rushed to her, holding her clumsily. She searched for a flicker in Riona’s eyes, any sign of life. Nothing. Not a breath. Only blood slipping between her steel fingers.
"Riona…" Sevika murmured, her voice breaking like rarely in her life. An unusual desperation seized her; her eyes, hardened by years of war and smoke, grew wet.
With a strangled growl, she turned to one of the corpses and rummaged through its clothes. She found a small vial of shimmer, ripped it free with clumsy hands, and yanked it open. She hurried back to Riona, cradled her head with a tenderness that didn’t seem her own, and let a single drop fall onto her split lips. Then she tilted her neck, forcing the liquid down her inert throat.
"Damn it, girl…" she muttered through clenched teeth. "You still have much to learn."
Nothing. The tunnel’s silence was an abyss. Sevika held her then, with a rough sob tearing from her depths, a sound she’d never have allowed anyone to hear.
"Damn it all…" she whispered, grinding her teeth against the pain.
In that broken embrace, a weak voice, barely a murmur, cut through the gloom.
"Never thought I’d see you cry… least of all for me."
Sevika jerked back, startled. Riona’s eyes were open, shining with an unnatural glow, a living reflection of the shimmer.
The woman wiped her tears with her forearm and growled, pulling her mask of hardness back on.
"This never happened. If you tell anyone… I’ll kill you."
Riona smiled faintly, blood dried at the corner of her lips, and still, proud. But her expression darkened at once.
"Sevika… Zaun and Piltover are in trouble."
"I know," she answered, voice grave and firm, helping her to her feet and standing by her side.
"And what’s the plan?" Riona asked, leaning on her arm, trembling, but her gaze steady.
Sevika remained silent for a few seconds, staring ahead into the tunnel’s depths, as if she could see beyond the darkness. Her features were stone, but in her eyes burned a fierce resolve.
"Right now… just resist."
Riona frowned, her heart pounding furiously.
"Just resist? There’s no plan? We have to do something!"
Sevika glanced at her, and for the first time in a long time, let slip a gesture that wasn’t mockery or hardness.
"Do you trust me, girl?" she asked, her voice low. "If you ever have… this is the moment to prove it."
The tunnel’s silence became an oath. Slowly, they began walking back toward Zaun, teacher holding up her apprentice, apprentice trusting that, for the first time, resisting would be the only plan… for now. Above their heads, though they couldn’t see it, the shadow of the eclipse was already sliding over the city.
Hours into the eclipse.
Caitlyn had barely whispered it, loaded with terror and certainty:
"Shit…"
The eclipse. The signal.
The moment her foot touched the floor, the roar of explosions tore through the city. The ground shook as if breathing with fury, walls vibrated, and the windows lit up with orange flashes before bursting into shards of glass. The air reeked of smoke and gunpowder.
Vi awoke instantly, eyes snapping open like blades.
"What’s happening?" she growled, already sitting up, half disoriented.
"It’s started…" Caitlyn whispered, her voice frozen, fixed on the window.
The eclipse’s light dyed the rooftops a sickly red, and beneath its shadow chaos burned on multiple fronts: the Enforcers’ headquarters engulfed in flames, the Council reduced to smoke, explosions across the river in Zaun—apparently at the Firelights’ refuge—and beyond, Stillwater Prison lit up like a bonfire.
Vi was already dressing while Cait kept staring at the disaster. Without losing rhythm, she grabbed a pair of clothes and tossed them to her.
"Come on, cupcake, fast!" she said urgently, that rough tone brushing tenderness in the middle of the disaster.
Cait caught the clothes and dressed with the precision of someone who had repeated the gesture in a thousand violent dawns. Buckles tightened, clasps locked, everything with the coldness of a learned ritual.
Vi disappeared into the wardrobe hall and returned with the arsenal: her Hextech gauntlets, Caitlyn’s rifle, and a metallic cube that vibrated with a contained energy that made the air hum around it.
She tossed the rifle to Cait, who caught it without hesitation, adjusting the sight with skill. Only then did she notice the strange cube in Vi’s hands.
"And what the hell is that?" she asked, not lifting her eyes from the weapon, but with a tension that betrayed her unease.
Vi strapped on the Hextech gauntlets first. The snap of the metal clasps echoed like a heartbeat of steel. Then she grinned shamelessly.
"A little upgrade, courtesy of Jinx."
She pressed the cube against her chest. The artifact unfolded with a mechanical roar that reverberated through the room. Black and gold plates, sharp and gleaming, assembled over her body like a predator enveloping its prey. In seconds, Vi stood taller, broader, amplified: every muscle turned into force magnified by the machine. The exoskeleton exhaled steam at every joint as if it breathed.
Caitlyn stared at her with a lump in her throat. That figure wasn’t just her Vi: it was something else. Intimidating. Fierce. Almost inhuman.
Vi looked down at her and, despite the armor, her eyes were still the same: sparkling, reckless.
"Finally, I’m at your level." She smirked, raising a brow.
The lump in Caitlyn’s throat broke into an involuntary smile. Neither the eclipse, nor the explosions, nor the war could erase that spark.
She turned once more toward the window. Beneath the eclipse’s sickly light, she saw them: rows of Noxian soldiers advancing through the streets like an organized shadow, a river of steel and screams flowing straight toward them.
"They’re already here…" she murmured, her pulse icy against her neck.
Then she clenched her jaw, rifle steady in her hands.
"I’m going for my father," she said, sprinting down the hallway.
"And I’ll head to the entrance. I’ll hold those bastards back as long as I can," Vi replied, her voice deep, firm, a promise of steel in every word.
They split at the staircase. Vi rushed down, the gauntlets and exoskeleton resounding with every metallic step. The echo of her armor was a war drum that seemed to announce her before she arrived.
She slammed open the front door… and the night air hit her with a slap of reality. The garden, once immaculate, had become an improvised graveyard. The Enforcers guarding the mansion lay sprawled across the damp grass, pierced by black arrows still quivering in their bodies. Blood mingled with dew, and the scent of iron saturated everything.
Beyond, dozens of Noxian soldiers advanced in tight formation. Some bore spears and shields, others revealed warped bodies, muscles swollen and veins glowing: shimmer pumping like liquid fire. Every step rumbled the ground, every war cry a roar that froze the blood.
Vi froze. Her breath caught for an instant, and the reckless grin she had worn minutes earlier vanished without a trace. Fear pierced her chest like a stake: for the first time she understood that even with the exoskeleton she couldn’t be a wall against an entire army. And if she fell, Cait and Tobias fell with her.
An arrow whistled, grazing her cheek, cutting a strand of hair. Vi blinked, her heart on the verge of exploding. Reality drove in like a nail: she was alone against an army.
With a yank she slammed the door shut and braced against it, using her body and armor as an improvised barricade. The push from the other side shook the hinges, the boards creaked under pressure. Metal vibrated against her back. Vi clenched her jaw, sweat trailing down her temple, and muttered under her breath:
"Shit… Cait, you’d better not take long."
Meanwhile, Cait reached her father’s room, Tobias Kiramman. He was still dressing, buttoning his jacket with a calmness unfitting the chaos that rattled the city.
"Father, we must evacuate now." Cait’s voice cracked with urgency.
Tobias looked up, incredulous, as if he still couldn’t understand.
"And what about the mansion?"
"That doesn’t matter right now," she snapped, almost shouting. "We’ll die if we don’t leave."
"Alright," Tobias sighed. "But I need a couple of things."
Cait ground her teeth until they hurt.
"Shit, Dad, don’t you get that we have to leave now?"
As he rummaged through his belongings, Tobias answered with stony calm:
"I understand very well. But I’d rather die than leave without what I need."
Cait tapped her finger against the doorframe, every second stretching into eternity, anxiety clawing her chest.
Finally, Tobias exclaimed:
"Here it is." He pocketed a small object, grabbed his shotgun, and turned toward her with a strange firmness. "Now we can go."
Cait stared at him incredulously, but instead of arguing, she changed strategy.
"Do you keep alcohol from the hospital here?"
"Yes," Tobias replied, opening a small cabinet and pulling out several bottles.
He handed them to his daughter. Cait examined them seriously, nodded, and tucked a couple into her jacket pockets. The rest she left behind without looking back.
They ran through the hallway, explosions rattling every wall of the mansion, dust falling from the ceiling with every tremor. At the staircase, Cait cried out desperately, her voice drowned in smoke and thunder:
"Vi!"
She looked down just as the front door practically exploded. The built-up pressure gave way, flinging Vi through the air. Her body slammed against the marble floor, sliding several feet among splinters and dust.
The soldiers stormed in immediately, a tide of steel and screams.
Vi, still dazed, rolled onto her back just in time to see one of the shimmer-mutated brutes slam a massive fist into the floor, opening a crater inches from her head. The second strike came straight at her.
"Not a chance," Vi spat, catching the giant with both hands. The exoskeleton vibrated, joints screeching, as she shoved the blow aside with a roar that rattled the walls. The floor cracked under the impact.
Two more charged at her, spears gleaming under the eclipse’s light.
From the top of the staircase, Cait fired with surgical precision: two shots, two down. The flash carved light into the gloom, and smoke spread like a veil. That single second of respite was all Vi needed.
The brawler leapt up, the exoskeleton roaring with each movement. She slammed into the first soldier, driving her fist into his stomach until he folded over himself, then used his body as a battering ram to crash him into another. Both flew against the wall, wood splintering in a shower of shards.
Another struck her from the side. Vi met him with a brutal headbutt that broke his nose, then swung her metallic arm in a wide arc, tossing him through the air like a rag doll.
"We need to fall back!" Cait shouted, reloading without taking her eyes off the target.
Vi only nodded. She hit a fourth with an uppercut that lifted him off the ground, and before he fell, she slammed him into the floor with a double hammer blow of her gauntlets. Blood sprayed like hot rain.
A volley of shots rang beside her. Tobias, shotgun braced against his shoulder, fired into the mass. He didn’t have his daughter’s surgical precision, but every blast took down at least one, keeping the nearest at bay.
"I’m no marksman, but I still know how to blow heads off!" the old man growled, reloading with steady hands.
The air filled with smoke, fire, and screams. Caitlyn fired with relentless calm, each shot another enemy down; Vi struck with brutal force, a hurricane of steel and flesh; Tobias covered the gaps, his shotgun thundering like stormfire.
Still, the tide didn’t stop. More soldiers surged through the threshold, climbing over the bodies of their comrades.
Vi retreated toward the staircase, panting. She reached Cait, already at her father’s side, firing without pause. The sniper’s gaze was ice and fire at once.
"Take my father. Get him out through our bedroom window, put him somewhere safe… then come back for me."
Vi clenched her teeth, eyes on the hallway flooding with enemies. She hesitated only an instant.
"Now!" Cait shouted, the rifle roaring between her words.
With a furious sigh, Vi turned to Tobias. She scooped him into her arms like a sack of iron.
"Sorry, old man, but there’s no other way," Vi grunted, and without waiting for a reply, sprinted toward Cait’s room with Tobias in her arms.
Cait was left alone. The battle’s din surged up the stairs, boots and shouts mixing with the metallic stench of blood. Her breath was an icy metronome, the Hextech eye burning in her face.
The first soldiers broke through. Cait moved before they could strike: every flash in her vision was a warning ahead of time, every blink a movement already foreseen. One, two, three bodies dropped with surgical precision, each shot placed like a needle into an exposed nerve.
The fourth forced her to improvise. She backed against the wall, pushing off it; spun in the air with cold grace, both legs slamming into his chest. The crack of impact sent him tumbling down the stairs, dragging others like dominoes. Cait landed hard, rolled over a shoulder, and was already up, rifle in hand, breathing smoke and gunpowder.
Without wasting time, she reached into her jacket’s inner pocket and pulled out one of the bottles. With a sharp motion, she broke the metal seal against the rifle’s edge and opened it.
The first shot rang out like a heartbeat: a soldier fell with his forehead pierced. With her other hand, Cait tipped the bottle, spilling alcohol over the carpet and onto the curtains, the sour smell spreading instantly.
Another enemy advanced. Cait pivoted on one foot, fired point-blank, and as blood stained the hallway, she kept pouring a shining, wet trail behind her. Every step was double: lead and liquid fire, death and preparation.
The Hextech eye was more than aim: it saw the arc of a shoulder tensing before the strike, the glint of a blade reflected in a pupil, the air displaced before an arrow flew. Everything happened before it happened. And between each shot, with that lethal calm only she could sustain, she kept opening bottles and soaking the floor as if painting with invisible gasoline.
The entire corridor was now a trap: an inflammable trail snaking toward the room like an unseen serpent, soaking carpets and old wood with the acrid stench of alcohol.
When at last she leaned against the frame of her bedroom window, from the hallway to there lay a pool waiting for fire. Vi hadn’t appeared yet. Cait clenched her teeth and kept shooting, spilling another bottle over her desk, onto the curtains, onto the bed that absorbed it like a live fuse.
A soldier managed to strike her rifle. The impact clanged against her hands, but Cait turned with the same force that pushed her: the weapon became a lever and flung the enemy straight into the windowpane. The body burst through, and his scream ended abruptly, impaled on the statue of her mother. Dark blood slid down the marble of her petrified face.
Another dropped onto her from above. Cait sensed the shadow in her Hextech eye before it fell. She ducked with a sharp move, drove an upward kick that snapped jaw and teeth with a wet crack, and before the body could collapse, she buried another kick in his stomach, slamming him against the wall with a broken groan.
And then she heard Vi’s voice from the yard, roaring through the din:
"Jump, I’ll catch you!"
Cait peeked for a second, the eclipse staining strands of her hair red. She shouted back:
"Shoot!"
Vi blinked, bewildered.
"What?"
"Shoot in here!" Cait bellowed, shoving another back with the rifle’s butt, her voice like a whip.
Vi hesitated. The gauntlets vibrated on her arms.
"But…"
"Do it now!" Cait snapped, her eyes blazing like blades of light.
Vi clenched her fists. Two Hextech blasts ripped across the night with an electric roar. The instant before impact, Cait leapt through the window, shielding her face with her forearm.
The blast was an unleashed sun. The alcohol ignited at once, a ravenous blaze devouring walls, furniture, and men. Heat burst outward, a living roar tearing shrill screams from soldiers, their bodies burning as they tried to escape. Some hurled themselves into the void, falling as human torches into the yard, writhing in their own combustion.
Vi caught Cait in her arms, the exoskeleton vibrating from the recoil.
"Got you."
Cait’s breath was ragged, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest. She slid down from Vi’s arms and stood staring a moment at the flames climbing what had been her home, blackened figures writhing in windows and balconies.
Vi gripped her arm, all traces of humor gone.
"We have to go before more arrive."
They ran across the yard, the mansion burning behind them like a lit funeral.
A Noxian blocked their path, spear in hand. Vi twisted her torso, the exoskeleton roaring, and dropped him with a frontal kick that hurled him into a tree. Another charged from the side: she met him with her electrified forearm, knocking him aside with such brutality his body crashed through one of the garden’s sculptures and hung limply atop it.
Cait covered from behind. Her Hextech eye was pure precision: every shot a vital point, every bullet a verdict. An artery burst, a trachea collapsed, an eye pierced by lead. She was death dressed in calm, cold, exact.
The yard’s ground had become a trap: slick with blood and littered with debris. Cait nearly lost her balance, but Vi already had her by the arm, eyes fixed forward.
"Wall!" Cait exclaimed, pointing at the soot-blackened barrier, flames licking its edge.
Vi didn’t stop. She only turned her head slightly, her eyes blazing with resolve, breath steaming out in clouds.
"Hold on tight."
Cait clung to her neck, legs locked around Vi’s torso. The brawler bent her knees, the exoskeleton humming low like a beast about to leap. Vi’s muscles coiled, amplified by black plates that groaned as they built up force.
And then she did it.
The jump was a silent roar through the night. The air tore around them, wind ripping their breath away, smoke curling into their path like black serpents. The wall blurred into a mirage: an obstacle left behind in a blink. For an instant, Cait felt the weightlessness of being suspended midair, the eclipse painting her skin a sickly red.
They landed.
Vi absorbed the entire impact with her legs. It thundered like a contained storm: both feet buried into the pavement, leaving deep craters, vibrations cracking the stone in spreading waves. Concrete shards burst like shrapnel. Cait felt the shock climb her spine, but Vi held her steady, immovable as a steel wall.
Adrenaline still sparked in their veins, a living current that kept them from standing still. They sprinted into a narrow alley, skirting the mansion’s rear perimeter. Every stride was a gasp, every breath a wound: the air thick with ash and soot shredded their lungs like ground glass.
At last they reached the rendezvous point: an improvised shelter, hidden among rubble and a rusted cart covered in dusty tarps. Inside, it barely offered enough room for two bodies, but it was enough to vanish from sight.
Tobias was there. Alive. Motionless. His eyes wide with disbelief and relief, as if he couldn’t accept he had survived.
Cait turned to Vi the moment they felt safe, her voice sharp with urgency:
"Are you hurt?"
Tobias stepped forward before Vi could reply, examining her with a clinical eye. Vi shook her head, dismissing it.
"Don’t worry, just a bump on the head from the fall, nothing more."
"Never take a head injury lightly," Tobias retorted sternly, frowning. "Or you’ll lose your memory again."
Vi smirked, letting out a mocking huff.
"Alright, old man, you’re right."
The tension eased for an instant, though the weight of the escape still pressed on all three.
While Tobias examined Vi, Cait leaned against the crumbled wall and pulled the radio from her belt. The compact, sober device bore the Kiramman crest engraved in relief. The same she had distributed among her teams to coordinate the Noxus infiltration… the same that, in the original plans, was meant to begin that very day.
She pressed the transmission button. Her voice emerged tense, precise, balanced between fear and duty:
"This is Caitlyn Kiramman. Does anyone copy? Do you hear me?"
Only static.
"I repeat: does anyone copy? The Kiramman mansion has been attacked. Multiple sectors of the city appear compromised. I need immediate operational comms. Any unit on frequency?"
Endless seconds. Then a voice emerged, loaded with exhaustion and ash.
"Copy you, Cait. Jayce speaking. Everything’s… on fire. Noxus has launched coordinated attacks."
Her pulse hammered her temples. Cait nodded to herself.
"Any news on Lux? And Jinx?"
"Lux is with me." The pause was heavy, as if clinging to that certainty. "Jinx apparently went alone to the Firelights’ base."
Cait’s face hardened. The chaos was so reckless and disorderly it reminded her, for an instant, of herself: unpredictable, untimely, always bursting in uninvited.
Vi turned her head, the name igniting a spark in her eyes.
"Jinx?" Incredulous.
Cait raised a hand, asking her to hold. After a second of tension, Vi breathed deep and held the impulse.
New interference cut across the channel, and suddenly a voice emerged with unexpected clarity:
"This is Sarah Fortune. I’m aboard with Lynn. We’ve contained the area, but dozens of enemy fleets are visible offshore. Controlled, for now."
Her tone was iron, every word striking with the certainty of one who commands the waves.
"Good. Hold your position. The port is essential," Caitlyn replied, tension scratching her throat.
"Don’t worry about that," Sarah’s voice dropped a tone, ironclad, with a trace of mockery. "Nothing passes through my waters."
Cait gripped the transmitter tighter, as if to anchor that promise to reality. But her mind was already on another absence. The plea burned in her throat before it even formed.
Switching frequency, she opened the private channel.
"Steb? Do you copy?"
Only static.
"Steb, do you hear me?" she repeated, voice harder, as if firmness could drag a reply from the void.
A crackle. Silence. Nothing. The echo of the empty channel drove under her skin like an icy nail. Steb never broke protocol. Never. The certainty that something was wrong crushed her chest.
She returned to the general channel, her voice hard but clear:
"Sevika…"
Nothing.
Neither Sevika. Nor Ekko. Nor Steb. Something was wrong, a premonition growing unbearable, a hollow widening with every second of silence.
"Jayce. Sarah. I’m heading to the Enforcers’ headquarters. I have to find Steb."
Sarah’s response came instantly, firm as a cannon shot.
"Lynn is moving there right now. Reinforcements inbound."
Cait closed her eyes a moment, drew a deep breath, and her decision hardened in her voice.
"Jayce, you and Lux go after the councilors. Secure their safety at all costs. If they fall, we all fall."
There was a second of silence on the other end, barely interrupted by the line’s crackle. Then Jayce replied, his tone grave:
"Understood."
"Keep the frequency open," Caitlyn added, pulse steady though inside she felt pressure gnawing at her guts. "I want constant updates from each of you."
She tucked the radio away with precision, as if sliding it into her pocket could also lock away her fears. Then she turned to Vi. This time not as a battle partner, but as someone seeing a crack in a person who should never break.
"Do you still have the strength to go on?" she asked, voice low but edged with steel.
Vi lifted her gaze. Dried blood still marked her temple, but her lips curled into that crooked half-smile, insolent yet fragile at its core.
"Yeah. Just a bump. I’ve woken up worse after a night of drinking in Zaun."
Caitlyn rolled her eyes, but the smile broke her armor before she could stop it. That damn ability of hers to challenge even death with sarcasm.
Tobias, who had been examining Vi with the pocket flashlight he always carried, straightened slowly. His expression was clinical, but urgency strained his features.
"I need to go to the hospital," Tobias said without hesitation. "There will be too many wounded needing immediate care."
Time froze. The explosions outside muffled, as if distant echoes of another world. All Caitlyn could hear was the frantic hammering of her own heart. Part of her wanted to scream, to grab him, to beg him not to move from there, that she couldn’t afford to lose him now. That if she lost him, she’d lose an essential part of herself too.
"No…" she barely whispered, her voice breaking. "Father, no."
Tobias’s eyes met hers. There was no fear in them. Only resolve. The same conviction Caitlyn recognized in herself every time she lifted a rifle knowing what was at stake.
She rushed to him and hugged him. She clung to him like when she was a child, as if that gesture could hold the world or stop time. She caressed his face with trembling fingers, unable to control the shaking.
"Promise me you’ll come back… that you’ll take care of yourself. Please."
Tobias lifted his eyes to Vi, silently asking for space. She understood, nodded with a half-resigned smile, and stepped out of the shelter to watch the alley.
Then Tobias turned back to his daughter. Slowly, he pulled a golden watch from his pocket, old, elegant, as worn as it was unforgettable in her memory. Caitlyn recognized it instantly, her eyes widening before filling with tears.
"Mother’s watch…"
Tobias wiped her tears tenderly with the back of his hand.
"It belonged to the love of my life. I never let go of it since she passed. Now it must go with you."
"No, Father, I can’t…"
He placed the watch against her chest, firm, pressing until he felt her heart beat beneath.
"You don’t understand, daughter. You carry the city’s weight and the future of all. Your mother will be with you in every shot, in every decision. I’ve lived my war… now it’s your turn. Let this memory remind you who you fight for."
Cait gripped her father’s hand over her chest. Tears streamed freely now, but in her trembling voice burned determination.
"Alright, Father… I’ll do everything so that both you and Mother will be proud of me."
Tobias nodded, certainty lighting his tired face.
"Of that, I have no doubt."
He glanced toward the entrance, ensuring Vi wasn’t watching, and pulled something else from his fingers: the wedding rings, his and Caitlyn’s mother’s. The metal gleamed dimly in the gloom.
"This is for the two of you, for when the time comes."
He placed them in Cait’s hand, and she sobbed, closing her fist around them.
"Father… there’s still a long way before that. And you’ll be there."
He shook his head softly, pressing a long kiss to her forehead.
"No one can guarantee that. But I can guarantee this: I love you."
"I love you too, Father…" she whispered, barely audible, clinging to him as if that instant were eternal.
They parted. The final embrace felt like a farewell. Tobias never looked back as he stepped into the alley, with the fatal serenity of one who walks straight into hell because he knows it is his duty.
Vi returned silently, resting her firm hand on Caitlyn’s shoulder.
"Everything will be alright," she said with a calm that not even the surrounding chaos could break.
Caitlyn met her gaze, and though her voice came out barely a thread of air, she nodded:
"Yes."
A few more seconds of silence, sharing the same ragged breath, the same pounding hearts trying to find rhythm. Then Caitlyn inhaled deeply, straightened once more with a commander’s rigidity, and ordered with a clear voice:
"Move out."
Both of them plunged into the night, heading toward the Enforcers’ headquarters, with Tobias’s farewell still burning in Caitlyn’s chest. The emotional wound had hardened into steel.
The city burned on every corner, transformed into a labyrinth of smoke and ruins. They passed through alleys where the walls still exhaled heat, where fresh corpses seemed to stare at them with glassy eyes reflecting the eclipse. Their steps were fast, firm, but every breath was torment: the air scraped their throats as if swallowing burning glass.
Three quarters of an hour later, they reached the perimeter. The silence wasn’t calm, but the prelude to something already done. The air was saturated with smoke and gunpowder.
Vi broke it with a growl, her voice loaded with frustration and restrained fury:
"How the hell did so many get in?"
Caitlyn halted behind the remains of a collapsed wall. From that position, the devastation was clear: the headquarters blackened, its façade bitten by flames, the echo of collapse still alive in the stone.
"There were always gaps, Vi…" she said in a low, firm tone, without tremor. "The Red Anchor. The tunnels. The infiltrations everyone pretended not to see. It was a ticking bomb. And when we tried to disarm it, politics tied our hands."
Her Hextech eye glowed, vibrating with cold rage.
"And now we pay the price of a divided city. A city that had barely begun to rise."
Vi clenched her teeth, her jaw carved by frustration.
"Then we’ll make them pay for every damn step they take."
"Take cover," Caitlyn ordered. Her voice was no longer plea nor doubt. It was a commander’s.
Vi moved beside her, both of them in defensive stance, senses taut as bowstrings. The headquarters before them was a burning corpse.
The banner hung at half-mast, its fabric devoured by an irregular flame that seemed to mock its symbol. Parts of the roof had collapsed, and from inside rose thick smoke blending the stench of scorched stone with something crueler: flesh. Through the cracks still echoed muffled screams, a massacre that had happened only minutes earlier.
Then the memory struck violently.
The first vision induced by the Hextech eye.
It wasn’t delirium. It was this.
The headquarters burning. The flag wrapped in flames. The entrance devoured by fire.
And Jhin.
Jhin, emerging from the smoke, as vivid as if he were already there. Holding his weapon. Aiming. Firing.
The ambiguity was gone.
It was a warning.
Caitlyn pressed the rifle against her shoulder, her fingers steady, her breathing controlled. Fear was there, pounding at her temples like a frantic drum, but she seized it by the throat and chained it to her rifle’s stock. She turned it into aim.
And a single question, urgent, unbearable, cut through the silence:
Where was Jhin now?
…
The cabin smelled of salt and skin. The lamp swayed with each movement of the ship, casting shadows that stretched like claws over the wood. Sarah and Lynn lay naked between tangled sheets, their pulses still racing, the air thick with the heat of a desire only just extinguished. Lynn played with a red strand stuck to her forehead, while Sarah, half upright, smoked slowly, exhaling spirals of smoke that seemed to write secrets on the ceiling.
"Do you think other ships have softer beds?" Lynn asked with a lazy smile, though her voice carried a strange tremor, almost as if she spoke only to fill the silence.
Sarah arched a brow without taking her eyes from the ceiling.
"There are no beds softer than the ones you ruin."
Both laughed quietly, but the sound broke with a distant thunder. An explosion biting the horizon. Another followed, closer. The whole ship shuddered, as if a sea monster stirred beneath the planks.
Lynn sat up sharply, skin bristling.
"Did you feel that? Or was it my imagination?"
"It wasn’t your imagination." Sarah was already snuffing out the cigarette, serious, her expression unshaken as if she had been waiting for this moment.
In seconds they half-dressed, when the door was pounded urgently.
"Enter," Sarah ordered, lacing her boots with almost irritating calm.
Roger burst in, face hardened.
"Admiral… Piltover is being invaded. We intercepted some soldiers heading our way, for now."
Sarah didn’t flinch. She straightened her jacket as if dressing for dinner, her gaze hard as a blade of steel.
"And offshore?"
"Our scout ship reports dozens of vessels approaching." Roger’s voice carried the weight of urgency.
Lynn looked at him in disbelief, the alarm in her tone making her seem younger.
"Sarah… there aren’t enough fleets to stop that many enemy ships."
Sarah dropped the butt into an empty glass. The hiss of it dying out sounded louder than cannons.
"Roger, you know the plan. Execute it."
The man bowed his head, tension visible in his shoulders but not dimming the absolute respect.
"Yes, my lady."
When Roger left, Lynn turned to Sarah, frowning.
"What plan, Sarah? How did you know soldiers would come as far as the ship?"
Sarah approached slowly, with a calm so calculated it chilled more than the nearest cannon. She brushed Lynn’s lips in a brief, almost ironic kiss.
"Darling, I’m a box of mysteries. And boxes break when one insists too much on opening them."
"So you don’t trust me?" Lynn asked. Her voice had an edge, but beneath it vibrated something else: fear… or perhaps guilt.
Sarah smiled. Not tenderly, but like someone who sees straight through another.
"I trust. But remember: I trust mysteries more than truths."
Their eyes held in heavy silence until Sarah straightened. Her voice regained its command’s hardness.
"Take your weapons."
Each obeyed. Sarah opened hidden compartments, pulling out revolvers, knives, and a sword, as if the whole cabin were a secret armory. Lynn grabbed her shotgun and a club. The young woman glanced at her sideways, a flicker in her eyes Sarah didn’t miss: not just fear… something more, a shadow hiding behind urgency.
Sarah inhaled deeply, fastening her belt with ritual calm.
"I’m heading to the deck."
"I… will try to contact headquarters by radio," Lynn replied, looking away too quickly.
Moments later, Sarah stepped onto the deck. The air smelled of salt, gunpowder, and smoke carried from the burning city. The eclipse stained the waters a dark red, as if the sea itself burned. And there was Roger, leaning against the railing, a lit cigar between his lips. The smoke rose slowly, lost in the breeze that carried a metallic omen of war.
"Nothing in sight yet," he reported, eyes fixed on the horizon. "But I’ve alerted all divisions."
Sarah walked to his side, the sound of her boots sharp against the deck. Her expression was the same as always: cold, sharp, as if the port’s flames were mere decoration.
"Are you afraid?" she asked, tilting her head with a trace of mockery.
Roger shook his head slowly, exhaling a gray cloud the wind erased instantly.
"I’m too old for that. And if I were, what difference would it make?"
Sarah smiled faintly, a dangerous glint in her eyes.
"This may be the greatest battle we’ve ever faced."
Roger let out a rough laugh, dragged by years and smoke.
"Yes. Probably the last. But if everything goes as planned… we’ll be legends. Alive or dead, what does it matter? Legends all the same."
Sarah pulled a cigar from her jacket, lit it calmly, and brought its ember close to Roger’s until both tips sparked together, as if toasting at a funeral in advance.
"I hope so, my friend." She drew a long drag, letting the smoke mingle with the ash-heavy air. "Though let me warn you: if we end up in hell, you’d better keep bringing tobacco."
Roger chuckled briefly, sincerely, and for an instant they seemed detached from the steel tide looming over them.
The pounding of hurried steps interrupted the shared smoke. Lynn appeared on deck, her face alight with urgency, the radio clutched in her hand as if it were the only solid thing left. The device crackled with static, its green light flickering faintly in the gloom.
"Sarah… it’s Caitlyn." Her voice trembled beneath a thin veil of firmness.
Sarah arched a brow, her smirk tilted as if this almost amused her.
"Oh, right, the radio she gave us," she said with soft irony, extending her hand. "I’d forgotten."
She took the device with feline calm and brought it to her lips.
"This is Sarah Fortune. I’m aboard with Lynn. We’ve contained the area, but dozens of enemy fleets are visible offshore. Controlled, for now."
Caitlyn’s reply came cut by white noise, but the urgency was unmistakable.
"Good… hold your position. The port is essential."
Sarah inhaled from her cigar and let the exhale blend with the sea haze. Her voice came out firm, sharp, like steel cooled in ice water.
"Don’t worry about that. Nothing passes through my waters."
The silence that followed on the frequency was heavier than any cannon shot. The creak of the ship’s wood and the waves against the hull filled the void.
Lynn lowered her eyes, as if burdened by too great a weight, and murmured:
"Sarah… I’m leaving." Her fingers clenched the radio’s metal as if to wring out another voice, another certainty. "I need to reach headquarters. No one’s answering on frequency and, judging by the direction of the fire on the horizon… I know it’s in danger."
Before Sarah could reply, Lynn was already moving toward the gangway. The thud of her boots on wood was hurried, determined.
"Take care, Lynn," Sarah said with glacial calm, more command than farewell.
Lynn turned for a second, her silhouette framed against the blood moon of the eclipse.
"You too." Her voice carried more than concern: a dark undertone.
Then she leapt down and vanished into the mist on her bike, the roar of its engine devoured by the night.
Sarah remained motionless, her lips still marked by the cigar, her gaze fixed on the point where Lynn had disappeared. Roger watched her from the corner of his eye but said nothing.
The radio crackled again, tearing the silence.
"Sevika…" Caitlyn’s voice was broken, followed by static and then clearer: "Jayce, Sarah… I’m heading to Enforcers’ headquarters. I have to find Steb."
Sarah’s response was immediate, unwavering, as if nothing could surprise her.
"Lynn is moving there right now. Reinforcements on the way."
The channel crackled with static, Caitlyn’s voice still speaking, but Sarah no longer listened.
She lowered the radio slowly, as if its weight didn’t belong in her hand. Cait’s voice became white noise, a murmur drowned by the creak of wood and the sea’s roar. Sarah switched the radio off like closing a coffin, letting it hang from her hand, her eyes fixed more on the horizon than any plea.
She didn’t look at Roger. Didn’t even pretend to listen. She sank into her own thoughts, behind that cold, hermetic mask she wore as armor.
Roger watched her silently, his cigar burning low between his fingers. He took one last deep drag, spat overboard, and murmured with the calm of one who has already accepted his fate:
"They’re here."
Sarah drew her telescope from her belt, snapping it open with a metallic click. She brought the glass to her eye, and the horizon turned into a field of red lights and stretched shadows. Tiny torches flickered over the blackness, and slowly, the shapes of dozens of ships emerged from the mist like monsters with iron teeth.
She lowered the telescope with calm. The gleam in her eyes was as cold as the waters around her.
"It’s time to move, Roger," she said in a grave voice, charged with that certainty that both froze the blood and set it alight.
…
The main room of the old Talis mansion was cloaked in dense, warm penumbra, as if the walls still kept echoes of stories no one told. The air carried a faint night breeze that barely stirred the curtains, bringing with it the distant murmur of trees swaying in the wind. The bed was a battlefield in itself: tangled sheets, skin against skin, breathing in rhythm after the electric disorder of the night.
Jinx lay on her back, an arm draped across Lux’s torso. Her tattoos glowed pale under the dim light, scars and ink on a chaotic canvas. Lux, in contrast, slept with the serenity of someone who, for an instant, had found refuge: her chest rising and falling slowly, golden hair scattered like a halo on the pillow.
It was a false calm.
A distant boom tore through the silence. The vibration rattled the mansion’s foundations, faint but enough to wake them both.
Lux’s eyes snapped open, pulling the sheet to her chest, muscles taut, senses alert. Jinx reacted with the instinct of someone who had never known true rest: she rolled to the side, reaching for her weapons on the floor, fingers clenched as if already ready to fire.
"What was that?" Lux asked, her voice still rough with sleep.
"Explosion," Jinx growled, peering out the window without bothering to cover herself. "And not a small one."
Lux followed, wrapped in the sheet like makeshift armor. From the horizon rose orange flares, columns of smoke clawing at the sky. Another detonation lit Jinx’s face for an instant, painting her eyes with a wild gleam.
"Piltover’s burning," she murmured with unsettling certainty, as if she had been expecting it.
A shiver ran down Lux’s spine.
"It can’t be… today?" Her voice cracked. "We were supposed to leave today…"
"The eclipse." Jinx said it like revealing the punchline of a cruel joke she already knew.
The door burst open.
"Jinx?! Lux?! Did you hear that? We have to—!"
Jayce froze mid-step. The scene hit like a hammer: Jinx completely naked before the window, Lux half-wrapped, her skin still flushed. He swallowed so hard he nearly choked and spun on his heel, fumbling to cover his eyes.
"By the runes, no! Somebody put clothes on, please!"
"Jayce!" Lux protested, burying herself deeper in the sheet. "Knock before you enter!"
"There were explosions! The ground shook! How was I supposed to think that—?!"
"Yeah, yeah…" Jinx cut him off, scooping her pants off the floor with no shame. "End of the world and you’re worried you saw a little skin. Priorities, huh?"
Jayce began pacing the room like a caged animal, muttering under his breath.
"Shit… we don’t have a plan… we don’t have a plan…"
Lux watched him with worry, dressing quickly. Jinx, now armed and slinging her jacket over her shoulder, stood before Jayce. She smacked him across the face so hard he landed on his back.
"For someone who came back from the dead, you sure scream like you’re about to die again," she said coldly.
Jayce rubbed his cheek, indignant.
"Was that necessary?!"
"It’s always necessary." Jinx shrugged. "If not for this, I’m sure you owed me another."
Lux sighed, offering Jayce a hand to help him up, and said firmly:
"We need to regroup. First your mother. Then decide what to do."
In the main hall, the four finally gathered. The Talis mansion, remote as it was, hadn’t taken direct hits: no shattered windows, no burning walls. Only the distant echo of catastrophe. From the windows, however, points of fire dotted the distance. Piltover and Zaun seemed to burn together, though the distance blurred everything into flaming postcards.
Jinx stood still, eyes fixed on the red lights staining the horizon. She said nothing at first, only pressed her lips as if holding back a storm. Finally she murmured, barely audible:
"Lux… I’m leaving."
Lux’s voice broke instantly. She spun to her, eyes wide, clutching her wrist tightly as if that could chain her in place.
"Where?"
Jinx held her gaze for a long second. There was so much in those blue eyes it almost hurt: love, fear, and that cursed need to protect even knowing she could lose everything. Then she turned back to the window, swallowing hard.
"You know where." Her tone was grave, harsh, like a sentence already written.
Lux shook her head, her voice raw.
"No… you can’t leave me now. Not after everything we’ve been through."
Jinx gave a faint smile, that crooked half-smile that had always been both refuge and wound.
"I promise I’ll come back." She raised her hand, showing the metallic finger, wiggling it with irony. "Maybe missing a finger, or an arm, or half a brain… but I’ll be back in one piece enough."
Lux frowned, anger flashing through her fear. She gripped Jinx’s wrist tightly, almost as if to bind her there.
"Don’t mess with me with jokes, Jinx." Her voice cracked, a blade of fury through tears. "I don’t want relics, I don’t want empty promises… I want you."
Jinx froze, disarmed. That plea hit harder than any bullet. For an instant, all her armor cracked, revealing the girl who had always feared being forgotten. She stepped closer, leaning enough to rest her hand on Lux’s cheek. Her breath was uneven, almost trembling.
"You’re the only thing that makes me want to come back, you know?" she whispered.
Lux closed her eyes, letting tears fall at last. Her hands tangled in Jinx’s messy hair, clutching her desperately.
"Then do it. Do whatever you have to, but come back to me. No matter how long it takes… come back."
Lux kissed her, brief but burning with urgency, with the kind of love that sears because time is short. Then Jinx pulled away with her tilted smile, the one she always used to disguise fear.
"I swear I’ll try."
She turned toward the door, and before crossing it, raised her hand in farewell. Her boots echoed down the hall, each step pulling her farther away, like a metronome marking the distance between them.
Lux stood still, feeling the silence weigh heavier than any explosion in the distance, then turned to Jayce.
"And now what?"
Jayce lowered his gaze, fists clenched, voice barely a murmur:
"The radio."
He almost ran from the hall. Lux followed him with her eyes, feeling the tension press in her chest like an immovable weight.
Then Jayce’s mother, who had remained silent on a chair until then, rose with solemn slowness. Her steps were short, but each carried the weight of farewell. She approached Lux and, without warning, took her hands in hers. They were cold, bony, but firm.
"Take care of him," she said softly, with a calm more heartbreaking than any scream.
Lux blinked, startled.
"What?"
The woman smiled. Not a smile of joy, but the serene gesture of someone at peace with death.
"He doesn’t know… but I do. I have cancer. I had barely a month left."
The words sank into Lux like an icy knife. Her throat closed, unable to answer. The murmur of distant explosions faded, leaving only the sound of her own racing heartbeat.
The woman squeezed her hands tighter, as if to carve her message into Lux’s skin.
"The fact that Jayce came back gave me strength to go on…" Her voice faltered for an instant, but regained firmness. "But I don’t want my last days to be watching him break against something with no cure. I want him to remember his mother standing… not as a burden."
Lux bowed her head, tears spilling despite her struggle. She squeezed the woman’s hand hard, as if in that touch she found a mission, a vow.
"I’ll do everything I can for him. I promise."
The woman looked at her with tenderness, as if she had known her all her life, as if she had waited for that moment to entrust her legacy. She closed her eyes briefly, leaned her forehead against Lux’s, and whispered:
"Then I can rest easy."
Lux stayed there, feeling the fragile warmth of those hands gripping hers, aware of the secret unveiled.
At that moment, the door burst open and Jayce rushed in, radio clenched in his hand, breath ragged, voice urgent.
"I spoke with Caitlyn. The mission is to go to the council. Protect the councilors."
Lux turned to Jayce’s mother. The woman said nothing, but closed her eyes gently, dipping her head in a silent gesture that said it all: go. No plea, no resistance, only resigned acceptance that duty comes even before blood.
Lux’s chest tightened, burdened by the weight of that silent farewell. She brushed the woman’s hand with her thumb, as if to engrave the touch before letting go, then rose with a resolve born of that very promise.
She turned to Jayce. Fear still glimmered in her eyes, but determination was already etched into her face.
"Yes… let’s go," she said firmly, her voice clear as a beacon through the smoke.
…
The night burned over Piltover, painted red by columns of smoke rising like scars into the sky. The Enforcers’ headquarters, blackened by soot and flames, loomed like a monumental corpse of stone and steel. At its main entrance, two Noxian soldiers stood guard, their silhouettes carved against the glow of fire. Beyond, small patrols prowled like impatient hyenas.
One of the guards snorted, resting his spear on the ground with a sharp thud.
"Do you realize?" he laughed, voice coarse. "Years of training, months waiting for the order… and in the end Piltover folded like a damn leaf."
The other lifted his helmet slightly, revealing a toothless grin.
"Bah, I was expecting more. A little blood, a little fun. This feels more like a parade than a war."
They both laughed, the hollow sound bouncing off the charred walls. It was the last thing they shared.
A whistle cut through the air. Precise. Cold. The first guard didn’t even close his mouth before Caitlyn’s bullet pierced his skull with a wet crack. The body dropped like a broken sack, blood splattering across the second’s face.
He barely widened his eyes, stunned, when a shadow descended on him with a metallic roar. Vi dropped from a high point, the exoskeleton amplifying every fiber of muscle. Her fist came down like a hammer of burning iron. The impact was devastating: helmet and bone pulverized in a single dry blast, the head reduced to rubble scattered across the pavement. The body twitched in spasms before falling still under Vi’s boots.
The silence was so abrupt that only the thick drip of blood seeping into the pavement cracks remained.
Vi straightened sharply, the exoskeleton hissing steam. Her eyes swept the perimeter like blades, alert for any movement. Only the distant rhythm of metallic steps confirmed that the patrols hadn’t yet noticed the carnage at the entrance.
She raised her gaze to the shadow where Caitlyn waited, rifle braced on her shoulder. With a quick, sharp gesture, Vi raised two fingers and then curled them toward herself, signaling her to advance.
Caitlyn emerged from the gloom, her boots barely grazing the stone, the Hextech eye burning on her face like a beacon. She reached Vi without a word, and together they pushed the headquarters’ gate. The reinforced wood gave way with a low, rusty groan, the sound swallowed by the distant roar of explosions across the city.
Vi pressed her back to the frame, her whole body taut like a sprung trap.
"You first, cupcake," she muttered, her voice low, rough as metal scraping. "Clear the inside. I’ll make sure nothing comes in behind you."
The eclipse’s red glow seeped through the entrance, casting deformed shadows across the blackened floor. Caitlyn nodded without hesitation, adjusted her rifle’s scope, and slipped into the darkness of the headquarters while Vi turned on her heel to cover the entrance.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, Caitlyn blended into the corridor’s shadows. The stench of soot and old blood clung to the air, sticking to her throat like bitter dust. She advanced silently, steps measured, the Hextech eye vibrating with flickers that anticipated every movement in the gloom.
The first Noxian soldier appeared around a corner, unprepared. He barely parted his lips to shout a warning before Caitlyn slid behind him. One hand clamped his mouth with surgical precision while the other snapped his neck with a dry crack that vanished into the distant murmur of war. His body collapsed limp into her arms, and she laid him softly against the blackened wall, ensuring he made no sound.
The second turned just in time to see her. The Hextech eye showed her the motion a heartbeat before: shoulders twisting, barrel rising. Caitlyn shoved the weapon upward with a lateral strike, the muzzle flash lost to the ceiling. She seized the opening and drove her fist into his gut, wrenching the air from his lungs in a sharp gasp. Before he could recover, she slammed her knee into his face. The crunch was brutal; the soldier dropped instantly, blood dripping onto the stone.
Caitlyn paused for a second, breathing silently, pulse taut as a drawn string. Her eye scanned the corridor, detecting the faintest vibrations: nothing else, for now.
Outside, Vi kept her back braced against the gate. Every thunder of boots approaching was a hammer striking her patience. The exoskeleton vibrated with every microgesture of her muscles, ready for violence. Between her teeth, she muttered:
"Come on, Caitlyn… what the hell is taking you so long?"
Then, from inside, came a crystalline whisper, barely a thread of voice:
"It’s clear."
Vi exhaled hard, releasing pent-up pressure. Her lips twisted into a fierce grin before shoving the door and sliding inside. Wasting no time, she bent low and, with inhuman ease, hauled the guards’ bodies onto her back as if they were sacks of sand. The exoskeleton groaned, amplifying every fiber of muscle, as she lifted them without complaint or effort. She carried them a few steps and dropped them with a heavy thud by the gate, stacking them into a grotesque wall of flesh and steel.
The scent of fresh iron thickened as she piled them, blood dripping onto the blackened stone. Now they were nothing but an improvised barricade, a blockade of corpses to stall anyone trying to force their way in.
She turned to Caitlyn, brow furrowed.
"You took forever."
Caitlyn didn’t blink. She braced the rifle against her shoulder, her gaze locked.
"I had to make sure no one else was waiting. This was just the entrance."
The silence thickened for a moment. Vi flexed her knuckles, the gauntlets’ metal creaking like a war drum.
"Then let’s move."
They advanced cautiously, clearing room after room. The headquarters was now a mausoleum: charred walls, torn-out doors, smoke curling through cracks and shattered windows as if to swallow what little remained.
The stench of gunpowder and blood grew heavier the farther they went, until they reached the common hall where Enforcers once gathered to eat. The door was barred with spears crossed as a makeshift lock.
Vi exchanged a brief look with Caitlyn and, without waiting, slammed her boot into it. The wood splintered with a sharp crack, and the entrance gave way.
What they found inside froze them in place.
Dozens of bodies. Enforcers trapped, charred in their chairs, others with clean bullet holes in their foreheads, like puppets with cut strings. Fire still licked at the windows from within, devouring the room with slow, relentless hunger. The stench of burnt flesh filled every corner, so dense it seemed to cling to the skin.
Caitlyn staggered back at once. Her rifle nearly slipped from her hands as she stumbled outside, pressing her back against the wall. Air failed her, lungs seizing, until she collapsed to her knees. The panic attack struck mercilessly: short breaths, heart pounding like it wanted to burst from her chest.
Vi was at her side instantly. She let her gauntlets crash to the floor with metallic weight, the ground cracking under their fall. Free of them, she knelt before Caitlyn, one hand firm on her shoulder, the other on her soot-streaked cheek.
"Hey… look at me." Vi’s voice was deep but trembled inside. "This isn’t your fault, you hear me?"
She forced their eyes to meet. "Maybe we can’t bring them back… but we can still find survivors. There’s still time."
The contact was an anchor. Caitlyn blinked, swallowed hard, and with painful effort managed to steady her breathing. Vi clenched her jaw, rose, and returned inside, as if the weight of the world had fused to her back.
"I’m checking again," she said before vanishing into the smoke.
Caitlyn clung to the wall, trembling, but instinct pushed her forward. She moved alone through the corridors. The silence was unnatural: no shots, no screams, only the crackle of fire.
The bodies she found confirmed what she already suspected. There were no signs of chaotic battle. No. This had been surgical. Precise. Each Enforcer isolated, surprised, and executed with a single knife strike to vital points. The blades remained embedded in the corpses, as if someone wanted to keep the blood contained. Then the bodies had been dragged into corners, nearly hidden.
The killer knew the halls. Knew the routines. It was someone inside.
A chill crawled up Caitlyn’s neck. This had happened only minutes ago.
The trail led her to the corridor of her office. Smoke thickened, each step a dull echo across the stone. Then she stopped.
Just meters from the door, the world broke.
On the floor, Lynn knelt, covered in blood, cradling Steb’s body in her arms. A knife jutted from the Enforcer’s back like a brand. Fresh blood soaked the uniform, running down the girl’s arms.
Caitlyn’s eyes widened like blades, unable to comprehend what she saw. The rifle trembled in her hands.
Lynn lifted her gaze, weak, barely conscious, but enough to meet Cait’s eyes. A silent plea shone there, drowned beneath the shadow of suspicion.
In that moment, Vi reappeared from the corridor, shaking her head.
"I didn’t find anyone…" Her voice broke as she saw the scene.
Silence fell like a sentence.
Caitlyn and Vi froze, trapped in the same spasm of disbelief, watching Steb lie dead in the arms of the one they’d least expected.