Chapter Text
She let the paper slip away from her fingers, watched it drift onto her desk.
With her other hand pressed to her temple, Caitlyn sighed. Another day in the office, another night spent in her chair. Publicity could be both a bane and a boon, and a part of her wondered just how the hell Jayce managed it.
Leaning back into her chair, Caitlyn slowly spun, one foot digging into the floor as she turned around to look out the window. Through the slats of the window blinds, she saw the ever familiar skyline of Piltover; towers of pristine white and gold watching over the city, outlined by the silver moon high in the sky. Even from here, she could spot the bold blue of the Hexgate, its runes swirling and glowing, the sky completely clear for airships to blast away.
The Arcane. A bane and a boon, and once again, Caitlyn wondered how Jayce managed it. Viktor, too.
The advent of magic had, despite Jayce’s and Viktor’s best efforts, unleashed a Pandora’s box and few had realized that it’d bring more than what they bargained for.
More than what Caitlyn had bargained for too, but it was what gave her a job, she supposed.
With the toe of her boot, Caitlyn lightly tapped the edge of her desk, pursing her lips. She never liked fully turning on the lights in her office, instead content with the little lamp perched at the corner of her desk and the lights of the city behind her. It was easier to focus, when she could hone her gaze in on just the things she needed to see. When she glanced away from the windows, over to the wall, she briefly followed the sharp slants of light and shadow across the lines there.
There, a massive map of the city lie covered in strings and arrows and photographs, accompanied by pinned notes with runes drawn haphazardly in circles. Runes upon runes…
Case upon case, of Caitlyn breaking the curses that came with each use of magic used wrongly. She’d solved so many now, saved so many from awful fates. It was a wonderful feeling, knowing she’d done her part to make the city a better place but…
She glanced down at the loose leaf of paper on her desk again, reading but not reading the lines of interview questions printed there. Piltover’s best detective.
There was something to be said, about the loneliness at the peak of success. Late nights like these, the silence in her office became a stark reminder that she was…alone. Maybe she could only blame herself for this; no one else could quite hit the same beats as her, keep up with her queries and deductions — not even Jayce, nor Viktor, as brilliant as they were. Everyone else in Piltover saw her as either her occupation, which she could only blame herself for, or her name, which she couldn’t exactly blame her parents for either.
Reaching a finger out, Caitlyn pushed the interview paper this way and that.
Would she ever be able to share this with someone?
A soft knock at her door. Caitlyn startled, drawn out of her thoughts, one hand instinctively reaching under her desk for the pistol stored there — instinct, of course, but then she heard a familiar voice on the other side.
“It’s me, Viktor! I know it’s late, but I’d like to speak with you!” Viktor’s voice sounded muffled, but Caitlyn recognized his silhouette outside the glass pane in the door.
She got up and opened the door to see his gangly, lean form just on the other side, leaning on his crutch.
“It’s good to see you, Viktor. Come in.” Caitlyn stepped aside, but not before she noticed a young girl with blue hair tied in long, twin tail braids sitting on the bench just outside her office. Her wide eyes caught Caitlyn’s for a split second, before she abruptly looked away, tugging the hood of her ragged cloak over her head.
“I’ll speak to you about my little friend once we’re inside,” Viktor said quickly. To his little guest, he said, “Stay here, Powder. I’ll tell you when to come in.”
“Okay.” Powder sounded so small, so young. Caitlyn couldn’t help but analyze in that split second; a young teenager, from the undercity? Viktor, bringing her, under the cover of night? The way Powder hunched in on herself, no doubt keeping something close to her chest — either literally or figuratively. Something was up.
Caitlyn shut the door behind them, an eyebrow raised as Viktor walked over to the chair in front of her desk. “Let me guess. Another curse to break?”
The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched up in amusement. “Another curse to break. I hope you’re ready for another case to solve.” He glanced around Caitlyn’s office. “You’re not busy, are you? I hope you’re not, since it’s quite late, Caitlyn.”
“No, I’m not. I was just spending time—”
“Alone?” Viktor asked inquisitively, his expression shifting into one of concern.
“It’s not like I have anywhere else to be,” Caitlyn said quietly. She moved to her desk, trying not to think of the implications of what it meant to spend so many nights in solitude.
“Well,” Viktor said gently, leaning his hip against the chair. “If it’s of any comfort to you, I think this next case might bring you out of this place for some time. With someone, I might add.”
“Field work?” Caitlyn asked, looking up. “I assume it has something to do with the girl outside.”
Viktor nodded. “Her sister needs your help.”
—-
From what Caitlyn could understand from Powder’s description of the curse, was that her sister was placed under a form of the arcane none of them had ever encountered before.
Powder gave her the rundown the next morning as the two of them took a taxi to the outskirts of the city. Her sister had been, in her words, turned into something not human and Caitlyn was her last ditch hope to figure out a way to undo the magic that had been placed upon her.
When Caitlyn had prodded just a little to figure out who had cast the curse on her, Powder had fidgeted in her seat, one hand tugging anxiously at her trousers. She wouldn’t say his name, but she did tell Caitlyn that it was one of the barons from the Lanes.
Someone powerful then, had cast it.
Shimmer-related? Caitlyn took notes in her notebook all the while.
Powder had bit her lip, before her eyes darted from Caitlyn, to out the window — they were coming up upon the farmlands surrounding the city now.
“It was cast by someone using Shimmer,” Powder whispered. “It’s made worse because the properties of Shimmer allow the enchanter to harness a version of the arcane that isn’t… normal. Like a corrupt version of the magic.”
“How so?”
“Viktor told me about the Hexcore Dilemma. Think of it like this.” Powder gestured this way and that, mimicking how the core of arcane magic had writhed and twisted in its metal cage. “If we try and think about it like locks, and the Hexcore was a lock that constantly shifted so you’d have to make a new key every second to open it, then my sister’s curse is like…there is no lock.”
“No wonder you’re Viktor’s student,” Caitlyn chuckled. “An apt metaphor. That explains why you came to me for help.”
“I-I’ve tried a dozen different ways myself, and I can’t crack it.” Powder’s shoulders slumped, and she sunk back into her seat. “I don’t know how to open the door, because there’s no door, and there’s no lock, and there’s no key. But my sister’s on the other side, and to break the curse, we have to get to the other side.”
Powder glanced up at her, with a little spark of hope in her despairing eyes. “You solved that huge case with all those people tricked into a cursed deal with Shimmer. I hope you can help with my sis too.”
“I’ll do everything I can, Powder,” Caitlyn promised. She couldn’t not help if someone came to her asking for help (and Viktor had pleaded with her too; she never could say no to her friends).
Viktor had chosen to stay behind to continue work with Jayce, but he had given her a slight warning before she’d left. “Just be prepared and be open, Caitlyn.”
“Aren’t I always?”
“Of course, but all the same.” He regarded her with a look that she couldn’t quite read. “Don’t make any assumptions.”
As they approached the outskirts where the roads became narrower, Caitlyn looked out the window to see them coming up upon a dilapidated warehouse sitting on its lonesome amongst a weathered plain of yellowed grass in the distance. Rusted chain link fences surrounded its perimeter, and the asphalt driveway of the place lie cracked and pokered with weeds. When Powder had said her sister lived far away Caitlyn hadn’t registered it as quite literally living far away in the farmlands way out here.
As Powder and Caitlyn got out of the taxi, Caitlyn signaling the driver to wait for them, she turned to stare up at the decrepit warehouse before her. Its metal walls were probably once a sleek metal, turned only to darkened rust, and its windows were dirtied and dusted from years of exposure to the elements. When she followed Powder to an even more banged up looking door just off the side of the building, she couldn’t help but note several large… scratches on the wall, some painted over with bright neon graffiti.
Taking a closer look, Caitlyn bit her lip as she noted the vicious slashes torn into the side of the warehouse. Like a wolf’s claws had ripped through the metal, clean and easy. But no wolf could ever be that big…
“You…you live here, Powder?” Caitlyn asked tentatively, eyebrows raised. “Is it…safe and sanitary, to do so? I can ask to have you and your sister moved—”
“No, no, she likes it here,” Powder said, fumbling around in her pocket for a key. “And Viktor helped me get a place by the Academy, so it’s just my sis here.”
“I see. And your sister is alright, living all the way out here?”
“Mhm. She can take care of herself, but Viktor helps me send care packages.” Powder shoved the key into the door, wrangling the doorknob for a second before the door loudly creaked open. She paused just before entering, turning and looking up at Caitlyn. “Just please don’t…don’t freak out, okay? Please?”
“I promise, I won’t.”
Easier said than done.
They walked into the warehouse, and Caitlyn stayed close to Powder’s side as she navigated around what looked to be piles and piles of scrap metal, junk, and other miscellaneous machinery. However the place was organized, there was some kind of order to it because Powder led her to the center of the building; the grimy windows prevented the sunlight from entering, masking the whole warehouse in dimness, but Powder reached a hand up and tugged on a string — and Caitlyn shielded her eyes as the two were hit with a bright pool of light from a lamp above them.
It cast their surroundings in deeper shadow, and Caitlyn’s heart hitched up a notch in beat when she saw something huge shift behind a pile of machinery in front of them.
“Vi, it’s me. I brought Caitlyn, the detective Viktor told us about. I think she can help us!” Powder called out.
Caitlyn saw a flash of storm gray eyes glaring at her from within the shadows.
“You? You’re the detective?” said a deep voice, so guttural and gravelly, bristling with thorns. Anger rippled across each word from Powder’s sister, and a shiver fought itself down Caitlyn’s spine. Caitlyn had never heard anyone sound like that before, not even under the influence of Shimmer. Viktor had been right — whatever Powder’s sister had been cursed with, it was something she’d never seen nor heard of before.
“Y-yes. I’m Caitlyn.” Caitlyn straightened up a little, hoping to mask the staccato racing of her heart.
“Why are you here? Why do you want to help me?” The hulking mass shifted, still obscured by metal, but Caitlyn could just barely make out the outline of someone massive and hulking on the other side.
Again, Caitlyn had to fight back a shiver. Her instinct told her to run, but her heart told her to stay.
“Because Powder asked me to.” Caitlyn put a gentle hand on Powder’s shoulder, where the poor girl’s gaze flicked between her sister and the detective. “If someone needs my help, then it’s my job to help them.”
“And what if I don’t want your help?”
“That’s just too bad then,” Caitlyn said, matching the same steeliness in her voice as Vi. “Powder wants me to help you. I won’t leave either until I see exactly what your curse is.”
For a long moment, there was silence. Caitlyn could feel Powder tense underneath her touch.
“It’s your funeral,” Vi rumbled, before her form shifted, taking a step forward into the light.
If Caitlyn’s heart had stopped before, what happened now was an altogether different, terrifying feeling — this was her heart freezing and running, because the massive beast that came towards her was every inch a monst—
No. Caitlyn stopped that thought cold. Vi was a person, no matter what she looked like.
Holding Viktor’s words to her chest, pressing a fist over her heart to calm herself, Caitlyn held her breath as Vi fully stood in front of her, cloaked in the light, all of her features shown sharp and clear.
Broad, wide shoulders occupied Caitlyn’s line of sight, with bloodred fur covering every inch of Vi’s huge body that wasn’t covered by a makeshift cloak, shirt and shorts spun out of scraps; the foot she put forward, then the other were but gigantic paws that flexed ominous claws, her hind legs tense with lean muscle — and at Vi’s sides hung her long but bulky arms, clawed hands twitching as Vi’s steely gaze stared straight into Caitlyn’s own. She stood at least two heads taller than Caitlyn, and she only stood, hunched, peering down at Caitlyn frozen on the spot.
Caitlyn’s brain went into overdrive. Vi’s face — it wasn’t a demon’s, no — but the horns and stiff, upright ears and the bared teeth flashing from her muzzle looked so much like a predator’s, moreso with fangs protruding from her mouth that were illuminated even more brightly in the lamplight.
Like a wolf and its prey, the two stood staring at each other.
“O-oh,” Caitlyn said weakly.
“You get what you ask for,” Vi said, and her muzzle flashed a bizarre grin, and yet, as Caitlyn stared into her eyes — she saw a human buried underneath it all.