Unfortunately, the first thing Jayce noticed was awry in his laboratory was not that half of his supplies were missing or that the inside walls had been covered in graffiti. The first thing he noticed was that a huge chunk of the ceiling was missing, letting the early morning sunshine flood into the building, shedding light on the rest of the havoc that had been wrought on his precious workshop. Bits and pieces of rubble littered the floor, no doubt having crushed inventions and materials more valuable than the building they were stored in.

Normally, Jayce's first instinct would have been that maybe Viktor—or some other equally twisted Zaunite—had sent someone to break in and get their grubby hands on whatever they could. But they would have been more likely to go for the blueprints as well as the technologies themselves. Some of his more recent technologies were still here, though, even if they were in a state of complete disrepair, and his tattered blueprints peeked out from beneath the grime and the rubble left by the ceiling. Besides, even a Zaunite, despite being what inhumane savages they were, wouldn't have blown a hole in the ceiling.

The only fortunate part of what had happened was that he was not left wondering for long who the perpetrator was. "THANX, HAMMER BOY! SEEYA!" was sprayed in hot pink on one wall. The adjacent wall was marked with the signature "X WUZ HERE" of Piltover's least favorite criminal. Jayce set his Mercury Hammer next to the door with a thud, leaving it propped up against the wall as he stepped inside to further inspect the damage done.

He stared open-mouthed at the chaos in his normally rather neat laboratory, not sure what to attempt to salvage first. As he gawked, a hand patted him hard on the shoulder in an unsuccessful attempt to be comforting. Then again, comfort was not the first item on Jayce's list of priorities right now. It was pretty damn close to the bottom.

"Sorry about your lab, Jayce." It was Vi, having let herself into the building through the door Jayce had left ajar behind him. She wasn't wearing her hextech gauntlets (which explained why her hearty pat on his shoulder hadn't put him in the hospital), but her hands were clenched into tighter fists than his own. "Someone called in the sentry bots right when there was a commotion, but they didn't even budge."

Jayce didn't answer her or even make it apparent whether or not he had processed that she had spoken at all. He walked to the center of the lab, hefting a huge hunk of concrete out of the way. The blueprint it had been lying on top of was crumpled and smudged, having folded in on itself a few times. Jayce knelt down to pick it up, smoothing it out and blowing on it, tilting it downward to get the dirt and dust off of it. Some parts of it were certainly gone, having torn and fluttered away. Some of the markings had smudged beyond legibility. He would have to copy what he could over and reimagine the parts he couldn't remember, but it was salvageable. Hopefully the rest of the hundreds of blueprints were easily reparable. His hopes weren't too high.

"Some of the geeks at the office checked the sentry bots' logs. It looks like they haven't gone anywhere, even on patrol, in hours. That scrawny little psychopath must have disabled them or... or something. I don't know. The fact that she didn't just destroy them is beyond me." Vi strutted in, leaning against a table and crossing her arms. "Did she take anything valuable in particular?"

"She took just about everything that she didn't break first." Jayce's voice came out a little more edgy than he had expected it to. Vi didn't seem to take it personally. "I'd say she took anything that wasn't bolted to the floor, but some of the things that were bolted to the floor are gone. I don't know how she would have made it out with so much in so little time."

Vi huffed, pushing off the table so she could pace angrily. "Jinx always finds a way, somehow. I don't know how she managed to disable the sentries or how she knew when you were going to be gone." She swore, rubbing a hand across her mouth angrily.

"Or if it mattered at all that I was gone." The rubble had crushed his bed. Where he would have been sleeping was covered up entirely by the displaced roof. If it had killed him, at least he wouldn't have to deal with the aftermath.

Jayce didn't try to make conversation when Vi didn't answer, probably irritated with his uncharacteristic gloominess and with the fact that Jinx had best her and had made out of Piltover having destroyed something and left a mark once more. She busied herself examining a twisted piece of metal that looked like it might have been important. Jayce was sure it was. He didn't know if he had the time or the means to repair it now, though.

It took him a few minutes to calm himself down enough to take inventory of what all was gone. Although the grime and the rubble was covering up the windows that usually let light flood into the workshop, the gaping hole above him lit up the room plenty. He liked natural light and lots of windows, but having no roof had the same result, but a lot more irritating.

As he had said before to Vi in a moment of irritation, it did look like she had taken just about everything she could. It seemed like she only took the machines themselves. Most furniture was still there and, although his bookshelf had been tipped over, scattering books around the room, it looked like most of his papers, blueprints, and books were still there. What money he had that wasn't held in the value of his creations was left alone in the safe he had hidden in the floor beneath his bed.

Vi helped him move a lot of the rubble so he could see what had been crushed and what was still there, but didn't bother to help him sort through what pieces of crushed metal went to what machines. It was a long process, but like most Piltovians, they were getting very used to sorting through the destruction and devastation Jinx left in her wake. As the day dragged on, Jayce stayed as frosty as he had been right when Vi had showed up. It was disturbing because he was normally extremely forthright about his thoughts, but he seemed reluctant to talk. She didn't blame him. Most of the talking happening was Vi radioing back and forth with Caitlyn, the sheriff of Piltover, regarding the details of what had happened.

It was late into the afternoon and their work wasn't even half done when Caitlyn finally showed up. She looked frazzled and worn, like she had been awake for a long time. Although she was usually very put together, she had an empty mug in one hand that had probably had coffee in it at some point. Why she decided to bring the mug to Jayce's lab was most easily attributed to tiredness. In the other hand she had an inch-thick stack of paper clipped together. She went to take another drink from the mug, and looked disappointed when it was empty.

"Something isn't right," she announced shortly before looking up at the hole in the ceiling and taking a deep, aggravated breath. Vi stood up, dusting off her hands and walking over to greet her partner. Jayce didn't look up, eyes narrowed as he worked on smoothing out a blueprint on his desk. Despite a huge tear through the center and the fact that it was crumpled, it looked better than most of the ones they had found.

"Well, cupcake, for starters, there's a hole in the ceiling. That's not very right, if you ask me." Vi's voice was much more humorless than it should have been. "Or is it something worse than that?"

Caitlyn dropped the stack of papers on the desk opposite Jayce. "I don't know. You radioed in earlier that she had taken... a lot." Vi gave a nod. "That doesn't seem off to you? Both of you remember when she annihilated the bank. The building was destroyed, but nothing was taken. You know that she does this for fun, not for profit."

Vi furrowed her brows and even Jayce looked intrigued. "So, what? You think she didn't do it? I mean, I can't count on both hands how many people would want to get in this place, but this—" Vi indicated to the entire lab, "—is definitely her. You can't fake these kinds of stupid theatrics."

The sheriff shook her head. "Oh, I'm certain she did it. But we know she didn't take anything for profit. She never does. And if she was looking for money, why wouldn't she just hit the bank again? Or anywhere else that she wouldn't have to fence everything she took? I highly doubt she would know how to use any of Jayce's machines, or if she would need any of them."

Caitlyn looked at Jayce for confirmation. He shook his head. "I don't make things psychopaths can use. My inventions exist to help people." He stood up, gathering his things up into the bag he normally used for travelling. Vi and Caitlyn watched him curiously. He didn't spend long getting ready before going back to the door, taking the Mercury Hammer from its spot against the door frame.

"Where do you think you're going?" Vi asked as he shouldered his weapon, ready to go out the door without mentioning anything to them.

"I'm going to her. I need to find out what she wants." Caitlyn and Vi looked at each other, nearly exasperated. The last time Jayce had gone on this kind of mission, he had torn through Zaun and ultimately destroyed Viktor's lab, nearly killing himself and the other inventor in the process. They had no personal qualms about him getting rid of Jinx (other than Vi's deep-seated desire to do it herself), but whether or not he could kill her without getting blown to bits first was up for debate. Besides, they didn't know what hole she crawled out of to come terrorize their city.

Both women stared incredulously. "...And you think you'll be able to find her?"

"I guess we'll find out."

A/N: I don't know if anyone is going to read this because it's a strange pairing but it feels so very right to me (is that weird?). This is a new account after I lost the information to my past accounts and I'm still getting back in the habit of writing, so I'm sorry if any of my grammar or structuring seems off. Reviews and other attempts at communication are welcome!