Lailha nodded, eyes hooded behind her respirator's goggles, "Fresh paint, gotta do it every few days or the Gray makes the tag look like a pile of dogshit. That's our gang sign Sheriff, and if they're anything like the boys I left behind when I went and got clapped in irons, they'll pop as many dickheads as they can before vanishing like dust in the wind."
Caitlyn squatted low, eyeing the length of the slopped avenue with a defeated air, the graffiti tags of dirty white whirlwinds mocking her. "Carlson, get them to back up, we're gonna have to go around."
Special Enforcer Lenn let out a muffled string of curses behind his respirator, but turned around and started jogging back to the First Company, head low and rifle tucked to his shoulder. Caitlyn took a moment to look at the other three members of her vanguard unit, Special Enforcers all, and said for what was likely the tenth time that day, "Thank you all for doing this."
One of them, Camron, shrugged his massive shoulders. "If Vi knew we let you go all by your lonesome, I'd rather take a skinny dip in the sump than deal with her reaction," he rumbled, shivering slightly in spite of the warm undercity air. Him, his twin sister Abigail, and the last member of their little troupe, Lailha, were all undercity born and raised.
Caitlyn had only held her position as Sheriff for all of two months, but promoting the three of them to Special Enforcer to force the pay raise they'd been due for years had been one of her earliest actions. Vi had been a late, and slightly nepotistic, addition to the roster of Special Enforcers, but she'd quickly won the hearts of everyone she'd rubbed shoulders with, especially those from the undercity.
A moment later, Camron's words hit home, and Caitlyn sputtered, "Hold on, what did you mean by that? Vi hasn't been-"
Abigail slapped her twin upside his head before turning to her boss, "Ignore him, Sheriff, Vi wouldn't do anything improper. But we all look up to and respect her. The two of us at least," she said, gesturing to Camron and herself, "joined the Enforcers, looking for a way out of the undercity, but Vi's fresh out of the clink, and she's diving back in to try and help stabilize things? How could we not follow that charge?"
"It's laudable, and like, hard not to admire," mumbled Lailha. "She's newer, younger, but maybe that's it. We lost that spark a while ago, getting stepped on and stepped over. But even after all she's gone through, she still shines. Her flame, that light? We'd follow it, and through her, follow you anywhere."
"Uh, yeah, what they said," muttered Camron, rubbing the back of his head, "I'd hate to disappoint the kid, is what I meant."
Another slap from Abigail, "Don't be callin' Vi 'kid' we're not even thirty, cripes, makin' us both sound like old ladies."
Camron bristled, "Oi, you're the lady here, I'm a dude!"
"It's an expression, calm your tits Cam!"
"Oi!"
Lenn slid to a stop next to Caitlyn, who was holding her face in her hands, "The twins at it again? Err, the Colonel wants you to tell him to back up, not and I quote, some errand boy."
Caitlyn sighed for what was likely the hundredth time that day, "Very well. Squad, form up."
A quick double march, but low, eyes up and fingers resting on trigger guards. This was not a test, or a stroll along the upper lanes. Lately, the various baron-funded gangs were sparking off each other like brandished blades, small gunfights and back alley shankings all around the undercity. What few Enforcer patrols still ventured into the lower lanes went at double strength, and many had come back with compromised armor from some opportunistic pistolero. Now, they were deep in chem-baron territory, deep in the fissures. And Special Enforcer or otherwise, it was only through dint of being followed by a literal army that they'd avoided many casualties.
Before long, they were by the small staff car, a different, but still hostile sort of atmosphere surrounding the officers of the Piltovian Home Guard, First Company. Their armored transports couldn't fit down the tight alleyways of the undercity, and the staff car had lost both side mirrors before long, but Colonel Brokle had insisted that it was the duty of his rank to appear above the squalor of battle or travel.
Kneeling in the same thin layer of chem-laden ash and debris as her Enforcers, Caitlyn disagreed, but that was neither here nor there. "Colonel, did you need clarification on my Special Enforcer's report?"
The Colonel's frown was evident from his furrowed brows, and the way he drummed his fingers along the side of the automated carriage. "I just wanted to hear that we're being delayed, again, by your oh so fabled gut instincts."
Suppressing sigh number one hundred and one, Caitlyn nodded, "Yes Colonel, we are avoiding what seems like a sniper's paradise in search of a better route. And I say this as someone who favors long-distance engagements herself," she said, patting her unique Hextech rifle. Unlike Vi's gauntlets which were still classed as 'on loan' from Jayce, the rifle had been a gift, one that just so happened to fit into her old rifle's carry case.
"Did you see any snipers? We have a timeline to keep, Ms. Kiramman, and-"
"It's Sheriff Kiramman, Colonel Brokle, and if you truly do intend to take Jinx on in a territory she's laid claim to, you can ill afford to take more casualties."
The Colonel harrumphed at Caitlyn's words, but she had him, she knew he knew she was right. Vi had told her, as had Cameron, Abigail, and Lailha, that in spite of seemingly airtight regulation and control of civilian firearms, a booming black market trade in such thing between topside, undercity, and Bilgewater kept hot iron and cold lead flowing into the dim streets of Piltover's darker half.
It was impossible to prove otherwise, but in the four hours since their eight o'clock march into the undercity had started, a dozen of the Guard had suffered wounds or fatal injuries from "stray bullets". The fact that these running gun battles left very few other injured parties sprawled on the pavement was simply "bad luck", thought Caitlyn bitterly.
"No, we'll press on ahead. Wasting time is simply not an option."
Caitlyn shook her head, why was she so distractible without Vi nearby, "Wait Colonel, you can't-"
"I can, and will, Ms. Kiramman, and I thank you to not ever again try to inform me about what I can or can't do," the old blowhard snarled, his eyes betraying the sneer behind his mask, "Now be a good little girl, and scout the way."
"Why you slimy old fuc-" started Abigail, one of her legendary swearing streaks prematurely stopped by Cameron's hand clapping over her mouth.
"Form up, we need to take point, again." said Caitlyn, turning her back on Brokle as she twisted a few arms and kicked at a few heels to get her squad moving. Special Enforcers, though above and apart from their rank and file comrades, tended to need a bit of a rough touch. Made sense that was the role Vi fell into, given-
Caitlyn slapped a hand over her face and groaned, wondering if something was happening to the other half of her soul. She felt humiliated, afraid, worried sick, proud, a whirlwind of emotions clawing at her mind.
"It's Vi, yeah?" mumbled Lailha, and Caitlyn nodded as they rapidly approached where they'd been kneeling a few minutes ago. With a flagrant disregard for protocol, Lailha undid her respirator and stuck a hand-rolled cigarette into the corner of her mouth. "Mind if I take lead here? Might be new blood, but these were my grounds back in the day, some of the old Dusters might still be hanging about."
Caitlyn paused for a moment, but nodded to Lailha, the sense of being watched and hated growing as the tromp of boots grew louder in her ears. Lailha tossed her rifle to Lenn, and her helmet to Cameron. In a swift motion, she shucked off her chest armor and jacket, leaving her with nothing but her gloves and a chest wrap from the waist up.
The tattoos that Vi carried weren't a patch on Lailha's ink, from her wrists to her shoulders, down her back and across her leanly muscled abdomen, nearly every spare inch of skin was covered in ink and scars.
Taking three big, languid strides into the corridor, Lailha threw her arms wide, "Requestin' passage for me and abouts a hundred fifty odd dickheads, name your price Dusters!"
Where once there was silence. Caitlyn could hear the murmuring of voices, and the clatter of arms. A man, pale and rangy like Lailha stepped out of the shadows, wearing a chem painted leather duster, stalked toward Lailha with an Enforcer issue revolver pointed square at her face.
"Five years, it's been five FUCKING YEARS! This is how you show up, this is how you're dressed?!" the man screamed, flecks of spit arcing out from gnashing teeth and snarling lips.
Lailha blew a plume of smoke in the man's face, "Had to cut a deal with the old sheriff, had to solve his problems for him to stay off the books. It was that or get stuck in some dark, lonely hole. Stillwater or the ground, 'bout even odds I'd say."
The man shook his head slowly, eyes always on Lailha, and he thumbed back the hammer on the revolver, "That's not good enough. I know you Lailha, I know what you could do. You could have been back the next damn day. Or was it all stories, Lailha Smoke?"
Camron and Abigail both jolted as if shocked, the puzzle pieces fitting together, for them and Caitlyn too. "Smoke" had been one of Piltover's most wanted for years, so called because of the cigarette stubs left on her victims, and that attempting to catch her had been as fruitful as trying to catch smoke with one's bare hands. She'd vanished into undercity myth five years ago. There had been conflicting claims of a final grand battle on top of the towering statues of Founder's Bridge, or of an ignominious death in some gutter, and everything in between. All of which, it seemed, concealing her true fate.
Lailha took a step forward, gray eyes glowing in the dim neon chem lights, letting the muzzle of the revolver press against her forehead. She blew out another plume of smoke, grinning like a bleached skull bobbing in a sump, and whispered huskily, "Wanna give it a shot, Bobby? See if you can kill a legend? Old lady Lailha you're thinking, been living high on the hog, getting fat on treats from her Piltie masters? Do it Bobby, fucking test me, I've been living for this day since I took the fall for your boy."
Caitlyn swallowed heavily, watching gray light coming from Lailha's eyes, casting the man's features in sharp relief. She could see the sweat on his brow now, watch the adam's apple in his throat bob and bounce. Slowly, he uncocked the hammer, "A hundred and fifty dickheads, you said? That's an awful lot of toll money"
"Mmhm. Wadda ya say to thirty hexes, there and back again?"
Nodding, the man tucked away the revolver, "You know the only thing past us is Wrencher's turf right? And the only reason we're not another group of thugs under his thumb is that we're on Renata's stretch of the fissures."
Lailha beckoned for the rest of the Enforcers to approach, and Caitlyn shook her head as she counted out the thirty hexes. "Have you heard of Jinx passing through here?"
The man, Bobby, just frowned at her and stuck his hand out. With a sigh, Caitlyn lobbed him her entire coin pouch, shooting Lailha a glare. The man weighed the small satchel in his hand, before giving the surrounding stretch of buildings a wide smile.
"Alright fellow scoundrels, looks like our dear friends across the river wanna buy us a drink. To the Last Drop, and the last drop therein!"
A veritable tide of fissure folks boiled out of the buildings, many holding firearms or blades of varying lethalities. Among the guns, half of them were clearly Enforcer issue, just another black mark in the ledger of the late Sheriff Marcus.
As quickly as they came, they vanished, and just in time to miss the march of the Home Guard coming down the avenue
"Glad they took their sweet time getting moving, if the boys saw this march of dickheads, the sumps woulda run red," Lailha mumbled, shrugging her jacket back on and donning her helmet and chest armor.
Caitlyn nodded, and the troupe resumed their quick double-time march deeper into the undercity. It was eerily quiet, and as they moved, the silence began to fray at their nerves. Needing to hear was one thing, but only having the whistle of wind and thrum of chem carrying pipes to match the hiss of respirators and clunk of boots on stone? It grated, it wore on the mind. The buildings lost their coat of painted hazy clouds, and graffiti tags of whirlwinds were replaced with ones of electric batons and gory promises of bloodshed.
Finally, Caitlyn asked, "Charming fellow, this Wrencher Spindlaw. Are all the chem-barons like this?", a note of wry amusement hiding behind the rather serious question.
"Yes, they are," grunted Abigail, before shaking her head, "and no, they aren't. It's... complicated."
Cameron laughed, "That's politicians for ya though. Polite smiles, firm handshakes, hidden blades in the off-hand, and skeletons in the closet. Least down here it's mostly out in the open, and Wrencher is a product of that."
Lenn tilted his head, the only way to see his confusion behind the respirator and helmet, "How's that? From the dossier, the man is a monster, a certifiable psychopath!"
"He's also a genius," grumbled Abigail, "he single-handedly worked out the compound of chems needed for long-lasting, stable electrical power. That alone would have earned him a seat at the table in the long run, but he bumped off his predecessor to speed it along."
Lailha snorted, respirator still hanging around her neck as she smoked and murmured, "If Jinx really is trying to pull the same feat, she picked an awful target. The man lives in a veritable fortress, surrounded by gangs as well-armed as the Dusters, and he's no slouch in the thick of things to boot."
They rounded a corner, and every one of them skidded to a halt.
The face from the dossier stared back at them, Wrencher Spindlaw hanging from a ramshackle metal bridge by way of a rope around his slashed open neck. Someone had ripped his chemtech powered arms clean off, or as cleanly as one could tear a limb off. Beneath his gently swaying feet, down on the street below was a fresh line of neon pink paint, a border between the rest of the undercity and what once was the heart of Wrencher's territory.
The buildings on either side of the bridge did wonders to frame the scene. On one, a neon turquoise outline of a monkey's head, with glittering gold paint for eyes and teeth. The other building, writ large from top to bottom, three words in pink, turquoise, and gold. A message, a declaration, a challenge, and a rallying cry.
JINX
IS
HERE