Chapter 1
A group of siblings from the under city of Zaun stood on top of a building looking at the vast difference between their broken city and the corrupt capital known as the top side of Piltover. Everything in Piltover looked so lively, almost manufactured to seem as if it was some type of utopia. And then you had Zaun, where people were fighting for their lives daily and struggling to even get a single loaf of bread that wasn't stolen in some way.
A 16 year old girl with bright pink hair shaved from one side and piercing light blue eyes named Violet felt the most conflicted about the two cities out of the 4 kids. On one hand, she'd always dreamed of one day being rich enough to get out of Zaun and live a good life in Piltover with her sister Powder making sure to heal the trauma they both shared. But the other, she couldn't stand Piltover. Why was everyone so happy and why did they live without the constant fear of enforcers who believed just because they were from Zaun it meant they could treat them however they pleased like trash nobody wants to deal with? Enforcers killed her parents during the revolt for freedom in Zaun.
"So how much longer you plan on staring at the sky? It looks just as ugly as your haircut." Mylo, the annoying sibling, teased causing Vi to smack the back of his head.
She could only handle so much of his nonsense at a time. "Just as long as you keep acting like this. You're forgetting who planned this trip in the first place."
Well that was half true. While Vi had planned the route and escape route Ekko, their neighbor and Powder's best friend, gave them the tip of a penthouse in Piltover where an inventor with tons of things to steal lived. The man had come into Benzo's shop to buy some display pieces and paid with gold. That meant he had to be loaded if not well off.
"How much longer until we make it?" Powder complained struggling to follow her siblings tired from all the constant jumping around.
Powder was the weak link. In her defense she was only 11 years old. But that still didn't stop Mylo from being agitated with her all the time. He was a firm believer of Powder needing to stay home away from the jobs they took.
"Here we go again." He groaned not surprised Powder was already whining.
Vi felt for her sister. She knew it was hard to keep up since they were older.
"Not that much longer. You see it over there?" Vi asked pointing out a building not too far from where they stood now. Just needed to climb the place pick the lock and then they were in.
Powder grumbled and defeatedly followed once more behind her siblings making their way to the building trying to stay undetected from the enforcers that hovered down below. It wasn't easy with Powder almost falling twice and Mylo constantly bickering with her. It was normal sibling rivalry but at what cost?
Eventually they made it to the balcony of the penthouse and Mylo began attempting to pick the lock. Noticing it was taking too long, Vi kicked in the door leaving him feeling unaccomplished and shocked by how viscous that girl was.
The place was huge. Books and papers filled with writing were scattered everywhere. It was clear they picked the right person to pilfer from.
Vi was in awe. She'd never seen anything like this before. It was like Benzo's but cleaner and less junky. Her attention turned almost instantly to the bookshelf filled with an endless amount of books. Vi loved to read especially action books with lots of fighting and battles. Where did she even begin? She took her hand and skimmed through the titles picking the three most interesting options and throwing them into the bag they brought to put the stolen goods in.
"Where the hell did you even find this place?" Claggor asked the girl just as stunned with how much this place had to offer.
"It was that tip from little man." Vi answered making her way to look around for anything of value.
Powder on the other hand had snuck into the bedroom beside this workshop intrigued by a sandwich. She began to eat it but stopped noticing a box with some type of blue sphere object in it.
-
Outside of the Penthouse was another girl by herself. She had been accompanied by the resident of the place her family's friend Jayce Talis. This girl was none other than 17 year old Caitlyn Kiramman the daughter of the noble Kiramman family. Jayce had left her by herself after needing to talk to someone downstairs giving Cait the key for the room. It was technically her family's workshop after all.
Caitlyn set the boxes she carried down by the door and grabbed the key from her pocket opening the lock and heading inside. She had never been here before. It was the first time her parents agreed to let her visit Jayce's place. They had a habit of deciding what she was allowed and not allowed to do in life and visiting his place was one of them. But Cait pleaded and begged eventually making her parents give in to her wish to go see what Jayce had been up to.
Immediately upon entering she noticed the group of teens ransacking the room and began to panic.
"Oh shit. Powder we gotta go!" Vi yelled alerting her younger sister to hurry up knowing they had been caught in the act.
Caitlyn couldn't believe her eyes. Who were these kids? And how did they get inside? She was slightly terrified. Not a clue what to do, she stood almost paralyzed watching the group stumble to leave the place.
Powder emerged from the bedroom beside this. Alarmed she followed her two brothers outside to the balcony while Vi fumbled around trying to get the bag. Caitlyn stood still like a mannequin freaking out internally hoping Jayce would burst through the door at any second and stop the theifs. She wanted to scream out for help but for some reason she just couldn't.
"You ok?" Vi asked taking notice to how freaked out Caitlyn looked. She was on the verge of tears and wasn't doing anything to try and stop them.
'What the hell am I doing asking if she's ok? I bet she's waiting on somebody to come up and take us to jail.' Vi thought ignoring the concern she felt for Caitlyn. She picked up the bag but stopped noticing a blue object rolling on the ground getting ready to explode. Without any hesitation she jumped in front of Caitlyn shielding her as the thing exploded blowing up the building and alerting the guards down below.
"Vi!" Powder yelled out terrified realizing her sister had still been inside the building that had suddenly exploded. Claggor held the young girl back from going inside to check on Vi before the smoke settled.
Caitlyn had blacked out for a second but then woke up and realized what Vi had done. She had protected her from getting seriously hurt in the blast. Vi laid on the floor unconscious but still breathing much to Cait's horror.
"Oh no! Come on wake up!" She pleaded shaking the girl trying to get her to regain consciousness before enforcement came up.
Caitlyn didn't have any clue who this girl was but suddenly she wanted to protect her at all costs as Vi had done for her. She knew Jayce and the enforcers would notice the bag of stuff and accuse Vi of robbing the place and setting off the explosion. Caitlyn couldn't risk that. Quickly she grabbed the bag and handed it to Mylo.
"Your sisters fine. Just take this and go. If the enforcers find this bag of evidence they'll know it was a robbery. I'll get her home safe to you later I promise." Cait demanded sending the three on their way. Powder cried and screamed as her brothers carried her away from the scene.
Just like she'd assumed, deputy Marcus, Jayce, and two other officers raced up to the building.
"Please! You've got to help my friend! She's injured!" Caitlyn begged clinging to Vi's side alerting the grown ups.
Marcus stared in shock at Vi hoping that they didn't have a dead child on their hands. He walked over to the girl and checked to see if she was still alive. She was. Just unconscious.
"Cait are you hurt?" Jayce asked rushing to her side. Caitlyn shook her head and began to create a fake story to save Vi from being prosecuted.
"I'm fine. I found my friend outside and invited her up. We looked around for a minute until something fell and the place blew up. She saved me from getting injured by protecting me from the explosion." Cait lied trying to be as convincing as possible. Jayce's face fell. There had been so much in here that was illegal research that could get him thrown in Stillwater. Anything could have fallen and caused this. He was in deep shit. How was he going to explain to Cassandra and Tobias that he almost killed their daughter?
After a few minutes, Vi slowly regained consciousness. She attempted to sit up but fell back down realizing she was injured. Her whole body ached and her side felt like something was broken. Feeling the extent of her injuries, she began to cry. Vi was usually a tough person when it came to being hurt but this was a little much.
"I'll take you to the infirmary downtown and get you some professional help. We'll get to the bottom of this later." Marcus declared picking the injured Vi up and carrying her in his arms. She absolutely hated enforcers of all kinds but she was too weak to protest.
Caitlyn wanted to follow but was stopped by Grayson who came out of nowhere. "You can see your friend later. But for now I have to take you back to your parents and try to piece together what all this is about."
"No way! I need to see if she's ok! She saved my life!" Caitlyn begged pleading to follow Marcus. It broke Grayson's heart to see Cait like this. But she knew the safest thing right now was to return Caitlyn to her parents and then figure out who the other girl was so she could give the news of the accident to that childs parents. This was going to be a huge pain in the ass to explain to the council how illegal research the Kiramman's funded almost killed somebody.
-
The whole way home Powder screamed and sobbed yelling out for Vi believing her sister had been killed. Neither Claggor or Mylo wanted to leave Vi behind but at the same time they knew it was better to leave so that there was less of a chance they'd be caught for what they had done.
"She'll be ok and you know that. Vi's the toughest person out there." Mylo assured his crying sister. But even he still had doubts in the back of his mind. Who were they to trust some random Piltie child saying Vi would be safe and sound? For all he knew they'd probably thrown her in a jail cell by now.
Opening the door to the bar, Claggor let go of Powder who instantly ran over to Vander uncontrollably crying. Vander looked over at the two boys who's faces had a look of hurt and confusion and taking in that Vi was nowhere to be found.
Most of the bar had also picked up on this now too making the room go quiet with tons of whispers lingering around.
Concerned and slightly angry, Vander picked Powder up and followed the two boys down to the basement.
"What the hell happened to Violet?" Vander asked in a harsh tone with disappointment showing on his face. "And what is that bag you've got? Surely you didn't do anything stupid?"
Claggor hesitated for a bit but then finally spilled. "We went to go check out this place little man told us about. It was all going fine until the place blew up and Vi was still inside."
Trying to keep his composure, Vander took a moment to breath making sure not to lash out on his clearly traumatized children. "And you left her behind? Do you have any idea if she's ok? What if she's dead? You should've stayed behind and waited for help to come. Now I have to go search around and see if I can find out if anybody knows what happened to her. And while I'm gone, get rid of that bag. I don't know what's inside but I know you need it to be discarded. Asap."
Mylo sighed grabbing the bag and signaling Claggor to follow as they proceeded to figure out where to dump it. All this hard work for nothing. And tragically, poor Vi had become the victim of it.