Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter one: welcome to the undercity

The air was putrid, thick with a heavy sense of solemnity.
Vi looked at them — the people of the Undercity, the people of… Zaun?
A little girl coughed while her mother fussed, both choking on the thick scent of gray remnant.
She sighed, looking down at the gauntlets, the filthy enforcer uniform, and the splatter of blood from… Powder.
"Oil and water, Pow. Oil and water."
She wasn't sure who she was saying that to — herself or… Jin—Powder.
Maybe it was muscle memory. Maybe instinct. Vi wasn’t sure. Not really.
Looking up — and there it was. That statue.
Vander’s face stared back at her, weathered but unblinking.
"I don't know what to do… Vander. What should I do? Where should I go?" she whispered.
Fingers tracing the letters scratched into the rusted metal — E-K-K-O — gently scraping her nails in the dirty cracks.
Her eyes were wide and glassy with tears, face twisted in tortured worry, eyebrows drawn together, one hand clutching her bruised ribs.
“So that’s where you’ve been roaming around.”
Vi turned, and there she was — Sevika.
Metal arm hanging loose at her side, eyes clouded with mirth.
“Sevika.”
“Hound.”
“Hound?” Vi repeated, incredulous.
“Vander’s successor. The Hound of Zaun. The undead sister.” Sevika shrugged. “Babette didn’t spare any dramatics for the rest of us.”
“Fuck off, Sevika. I am not falling for your shitty mind games. I’m no one’s hound — not Vander’s, not yours.”
Her voice was raw and raspy — but loud.
Sevika grunted, turned, and began walking back toward the ports.
Vi was just about to sit down. Collapse, actually.
When suddenly—
“Your sister’s not the only symbol running around, Violet. The title is yours — and all of us are waiting for you to take it.”
“Shut up.”
Sevika’s chuckle told her everything she needed to know.

Chapter Text

Smeech inhaled heavily. Motioning for a goon to line up another two shots of shimmer laced whiskey.
"So...Sevika" he licked his lips as Sevika cringed in visible disgust.
"How's Silcos business running? "
"Get to the point Smeech. I haven't got all day for your small talk. I have other...things...to take care of."
Her black eyes glared at him with that wretched look. Like she hated him.
"I'll be honest then...dear"he crooned at her.
"Wheres Jinx.?"
Her eyes flicked up to his, he preened at the attention; mechanical parts hissing as they shifted and clicked.
"Occupied. " Sevika said it calmly, like it was a passing statement, like she was just mentioning the weather.
Smeech growled amusement and arousal quickly fading into hot anger.
He roared as his arm shifted into a blade, moving rapidly to Sevikas unprotected neck.
CLACK
Smeechs eyes widened as she caught the blade in her mechanical arm; nonchalantly finishing both shots of the liquor within seconds.
Slowly, she stood arm still clutching his and then...
CRASH
She threw him over the bar and straight into the wall of beverages behind. He watched in horror as she took out all ten of his golden boys within minutes. Punching ribs and jaws like a bulldozer, he launched himself at her, stabbing himself with shimmer and groaning as the purple converted his blood into straight power.
Intoxicated, Smeech roared, dual blades at Sevikas neck.
He watches enamored as her sick and heated eyes widen then narrow, mouth tugging into a feral grin.
His hands cross like a scissor, but when he opens his eyes.
A headless Sevika is no where to be seen, instead his lungs are crushed as the wretch punches hard from below.
Smeech flies in the air, landing at her feet.
Sevika squats above him, smile intact.
"We all know that the undercity belongs to Silco and Vander. Now that their gone, their daughters will take their place."
"Y-you don't be-b-belive that."Smeech wheezes.
"Pay the pits a visit Smeech, you've gone rusty swimming in your liquor. "
"Bitch."
He wheezes as his eyelids falter and his word goes dark.

Chapter Text

Loris didn’t particularly enjoy being an Enforcer.
He didn’t fit the bill of a polished Piltover citizen either.
So naturally, he never made many ‘friends’ up there in the gold-gilded city.
Vi was never meant to happen — a mistake.
But still, she roused in him a fire he’d thought was long extinguished by bottles and bottles of rum.
Maybe it was the whole business of her not only ranting at him but actually talking to him.
Asking why he was a sob as well.
Her quiet admissions about Officer Kiramman, and what Powder — Jinx — had done,
and what he himself had seen,
made him vow to protect her and help her in… whatever was going on.
“Come on, Vi, I get it — you’re an angsty pit-fighter/lesbian/hound or whatever — but champagne?!”
Vi roared with laughter.
“Okay, okay — in my defense, I was trying to impress her mom!”
He snorted at her.
It was the first time she’d mentioned anything Caitlyn-related without drinking half a bar out of business.
“Do you think I should do it?” Vi asked, uncomfortable.
“The Hound thing?”
“Yeah."
He breathed.
“Yeah.”
She looked at him like she didn’t expect that answer.
“…Okay?”
“Okay.”
That was when the pit-fighter business started.
When she lost the pink and donned the black.
He watched her — clad in leather and bandages, shadow-boxing and grunting at imaginary foes.
“So you’re gonna fight your way to the top and take control of the rings? Hence, becoming a Chem-Baron?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re gonna do all this on one serving of Jericho’s and eight bottles of vodka every day?”
“Yup.”
“And you’re gonna make me buy you black face paint daily, drag your drunk ass to that cheap-ass apartment-room-thingy, play nurse, and set up all your fights for free?”
“You keep the money, dumbass.”
What a menace.
“Fine, ya dump.”
“Yay!” she sighed out, breathless.
“I still think the face paint’s too much.”
“Fuck you.”
Loris laughed at her disgruntled expression.

Chapter Text

"So...you wan'er wha' 50% o' the pits?"
"Yes, yes i do."
The pits owner (lets call him Jack) looks at her, languidly laying half spread on the velvet armchair, unbothered by his heated stare.
"All o' em folks call you 'ound. Is' true. Yo' that Jinxing girls s'ster."
"True enough."
Jack looks at her as if she's an alien.
She probably is. No one in the undercity's stupid enough to walk into a barons office and demand half their share.
The Yordle shakes his head and yawns.
Vi notices that his mouth only has 5 teeth in it, she counted.
"Take all of it!"
"Huh?"
"Im not risking it, that wretch Sevika already wrecked my face."
"HUH!"
"Smeech, bye bye"
Yup. Vi was officially on drugs.

Chapter Text

Vi woke up panting.
Mylo’s haunted face stared at her — skin rotting, lips blue.
"You failed us..."
The voices whispered in her ear, sultry and horrendous, dripping venomous truths.
She choked out curses as Vander’s bloody face swam into view, sweat and tears sliding down her legs.
She stumbled off the mattress, backing away from Claggor.
“No… no! I-I didn’t mean to—”
The words barely scraped out of her throat.
Her ears were ringing. She felt like she was drowning.
“Powder, please. Please… you have to believe me.”
Powder stood before her, face burnt, big eyes staring at her — accusing.
"I hate you."
“Powder, please!”
The image flickered. Jinx. Silco. Ekko.Benzo. All shifting, morphing.
"You failed us."
The whispers turned into screams.
Vi didn’t know when she stopped breathing.
She felt like she was underwater.
Black spots bloomed in her vision. Phantom pain seized her body, a storm of every bruise and break from her years in that cell.
Her hands trembled — or maybe everything was trembling.
There was too much pain to tell.
She looked down.
Her mother’s corpse lay at her feet.
Her own hands moved and then—
Something slashed across her face.
Maggots crawling into the wound.
She staggered, drawn toward the cracked mirror on the wall.
Its broken shards reflected versions of them: Vi. Powder. Jinx.
And then… the black one.
She stared.
The tattoo on her cheek — VI — slashed in half. Blood dripped down her face.
She was mesmerized by the red.
Her knees buckled.
The glass shard slipped from her hand, falling with a sharp clink to the floor.
She followed.
The gauntlets black and bloody, stared at her.
So she fell, and kept on falling.
Eyes closed.
And the sweet relief of black drowning out the endless pain.