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"Are you happy now?"
Caitlyn knew immediately that something was wrong....
Vi's voice tone left no room for doubt.
Her warm gray eyes were now dull and cold.
She could not help but notice the atlas gauntlets thrown to the floor at the foot of the bed on which Vi sat, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped and fingers intertwined.
And even the uniform had been tossed haphazardly to the floor; Vi had gone back to wearing her own clothes.
"Happy to have arrested the chembarons, to have stopped the production of shimmer..."
Vi stood up and took a few steps forward, bending her head to the side and glaring at her askew.
"Happy to have sent my sister to jail."
Vi's voice was dangerously low and calm, her gaze hard, cold and distant...
"Another trophy for Sheriff Kiramman... my warmest congratulations." Vi reserved her an openly false and derisive grin.
This wasn't the Vi that Caitlyn knew.
She was in uncharted territory now and had to use great caution... Vi was evidently hurt and, as with a wounded animal one had to be careful about everything that was being done and said.
She sighed, "Vi, you know too that was the best solution. The only option..."
"Best for topside!" retorted the rancorous zaunite, almost snarling.
"Vi..."
"I lived in Stillwater. But the fuck do you know?!"
Vi snapped loudly, planting herself in front of Caitlyn, their faces only inches apart.
Vi's face was transfigured by anger, and Caitlyn was startled.
"Your enforcers were bashing my head in every other day! And there was no shortage of inmates who wanted to smash it out of me daily, sheriff."
Caitlyn tried to think of something to say, but she couldn't: Piltover and enforcers had really hurt Vi.
"That's no place for Powder... it's no place for anyone!"
"Your sister killed half the council! She seriously injured my mother!"
"Your people killed our mother!!!"
Caitlyn opened her eyes and mouth wide, losing the power to speak.
"And killed our father..."
"You ruined our lives... The horror of that day, what consequences do you think it had on a poor defenseless child of five fucking years?!"
Again Caitlyn could not utter a word: Vi's ones were all too true and ached like stabs to the heart.
Vi stepped back a bit, returning to a more normal voice tone.
"Powder had accused me of creating Jinx, I blamed Silco..."
She pointed a finger toward Caitlyn's face "But the truth is that all of you created Jinx, the day enforcers killed our parents!"
"The blame for what she did is on those hands that are stained of our blood."
"You people should be the ones to go to jail!"
"But of course that will never happen, will it "sheriff"? Who paid for the extermination of the Zaunite protesters that day, on the fucking bridge I hate more than anything else!!!"
"Who will pay?"
"No piltie of course."
Caitlyn was speechless, Vi's accusations weighed like boulders....
But nothing hurt her as much as what she said at the end.
"I hate you Caitlyn."
Saying this Vi stepped back even further and there was no mercy in her gaze, only pain.
Caitlyn felt her own heart split in two, stopping, shocked realizing she was losing the woman she loved.
"I hate Piltover..."
Vi added brokenly, angrily.
"I hate myself for arresting my own blood sister, for sending her to the same hell I was locked up in." her voice, her expression dripping pain and despair.
"Please..." Caitlyn extended a trembling hand toward her.
Vi avoided it, then walked to the room door "See you never again, sheriff…"
"No Vi, please don't leave! We can fix everything, please listen to me!"
Vi looked at her for a moment, then turned and put her hand on the doorknob.
"Vi, I love you!"
The zaunite froze.
She sighed "I love you too," she said in a broken voice, without turning back.
"That's why it hurts even more."
The door closed behind Vi's back, and when Caitlyn ran to open it again she had disappeared into thin air.
Disappeared from her life.
Caitlyn walked back to the room they shared from the day Jinx attacked Piltover.
She looked at the bed they shared, where they made love, where Vi had comforted her whenever she needed it.
Caitlyn's heart broke, she fell to her knees and wept desperately.
...
The cacophony of the crowd all around her.
People shouting, cheering, betting.
For her there was but one thing: tonight's opponent.
He was a behemoth, a walking mass of muscle, shirtless, tattooed and shaved haired.
She'd knocked down so many like that in her life.
And it wouldn't be any different for this one.
She found an opening when he tried to hit her with a hook.
She crept into his guard and smashed his jaw with a mighty uppercut.
He staggered and she took him apart piece by piece, showering him with a hail of well aimed punches.
When he ended up on the ground she continued to smash his face until he lost consciousness.
She got up and the crowd went into raptures.
She, the woman once called Vi.
She was no longer recognizable... her hair was dyed black except for the shaved part on the left side.
On her face she had smeared a black dye divided into two rough stripes that started from her hairline and ended at her jawline.
Except for baggy dark pants and boots on her torso and arms she wore only wrappings.
On her forearms, around her right biceps under her shoulder and on her chest, on breasts.
Her muscles, sculpted abs and tattoo were fully in view.
She took the winning money from the one who handled the bets, who also handed her a bottle of rum. She unscrewed the cap and threw it away, then drank from the bottle as if it were cool water, the liquor dripping from the sides of her mouth and ending up running down her sweaty neck and into her chest.
Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw Caitlyn in the crowd!
She turned to get a better look.
It wasn't Caitlyn...
"Of course, how stupid." whispered she, "That was another life..."
"516, 516!!!" two girls in the audience called her.
She wasn't Vi, so she didn't use that name anymore; she didn't want to be found.
Vi was a daughter of the Sump, an undergrounder, a sister, a lover.
She died.
The day she arrested her own little sister.
Because she had no one left to protect she lost her mind, pushed everyone away.
Now there was only 516 who, as in prison, was only pain and Nothingness.
She returned home with an empty bottle and two horny girls, determined to drown in a sea of meaningless sex and anesthetizing alcohol.
This was 516's life, not unlike the one she had led in Stillwater.
...
Next morning the girls had woken her up, asking her if she felt like having sex before they left.
"Yeah, whatever," was her less than enthusiastic answer.
At least when she was having casual sex she didn't think, she was lost in the act, taking apart her partners just as she took apart her opponents.
It was the same for her.
Around noon the girls were gone, extremely satisfied and looking forward to the opportunity to share the story of having spent the night with the baddest, hottest fighter of the moment.
Vi was left alone with the mess that was her apartment.
Empty or half-full bottles everywhere, some spilled that stained the floor with liquor of all kinds.
Used clothes tossed on the couch, dirty dishes in the sink.
Vi looked around, "Fuck this."
She went to the bathroom.
In front of the mirror she took off all her bandages, remaining completely naked.
Bruises from the past few days' fighting decorated her torso, one thigh, and one shoulder.
She showered and washed it all off; the hair dye would last another week or so.
Vi stared at her own pitiful reflection in the mirror.
Caitlyn appeared behind her.
She laid her tapering hands on Vi's shoulders... her touch was so gentle.
She kissed Vi on the neck and the Zaunite's lips began to tremble, her eyes tingled.
"I'm sorry Cait..." tears ran down Vi's cheeks "Shh." murmured Caitlyn as she continued to gently peck Vi's neck "I'm sorry..." repeated the fighter.
Vi blinked and Caitlyn vanished.
"Rrraaahh!!!"
Vi threw a punch into the mirror shattering it, cutting herself.
She ran back into the living room screaming like a fiend, picking up glass bottles and crashing them into the apartment walls, shattering them.
Just as shattered was her life!
Finally she fell to her knees and howled her pain until her throat hurt.
Then she cried, broken.
Vi did not die...
She no longer knew how to live.