"Get back here you little punk!"

Vi's rough bark echoed throughout the concrete alley she was sprinting through, Caitlyn right at her side. Ahead several metres, splashing through the muddy puddles littered across the pavement, was Jinx, running for her life and cackling all the way. The Loose Cannon's lithe, rail-thin form flipped around, sending a barrage of rockets exploding out of Fishbones' gaping maw and directly towards the rampaging bruiser. With a rising whir, Vi charged up a Vault Breaker, and smashed the rockets by a deafening boom. Her Blast Shield taking the brunt of the damage, Vi skipped nary a beat as she began picking up the pace. She was done chasing the young demolitionist only to have her slip through her fingers like smoke. This time, she was catching Jinx, and that was it.

"Might I suggest protocol 2, Vi?" Caitlyn shouted, still cringing from the ear-splittingly loud explosion that had barely missed singing her skin. Normally, she would chastise Vi for her dangerous and frankly irresponsible actions, but Caitlyn knew the score here; she knew just how badly Vi was thirsting for Jinx's blood.

The last few months had been a disappointing parade of close calls and failures, the majority of which had ended with Caitlyn getting severely reprimanded and the city of Piltover suffering for it. Caitlyn had spent many days and many nights cleaning up after Vi as she had her little fits of rage, little things being shattered and curses being shouted into the night air. If they could end it here, Caitlyn would be more than pleased. So, despite her previous reservations, Caitlyn was going to do it.

Tonight, she would let Vi off her leash. She would let nothing hold her back, and get the job done, any destruction be damned.

Vi nodded vigorously in congruence; just chasing this criminal down the alley would get them nowhere. They had learned this many times. Despite the duo having essentially almost ruled this city for the past few years, and learned every street and alley like the cracks in their skin, it seemed like Jinx somehow knew them more. One way or another, conventional chasing would lead to Jinx disappearing into thin air, nothing but the acrid smell of smoke and her haunting laugh in the air to suggest she was even there. "Sure thing, cupcake!"

With that, the Sheriff broke off at the next possible street, leaving the long string of alleys and leaving the chase to Vi. Vi grinned maliciously, pushing herself to move faster despite being weighed down by the heavy hextech gauntlets. You're all mine, freak.

With a loud cackle and a hiss, Jinx tossed back a handful of flame chompers, which quickly began snapping at the air, hoping to catch Vi's ankles in their jaws.

"Gotta be faster than that, Fathands!" Jinx screeched in delight, sliding her tiny, agile body through a hole in the fence at the end of the alley.

"Not so fast!" Vi roared, taking a running jump and swinging over the chompers' range with the aid of an overhead fire escape. With a loud crack, Vi threw herself gauntlet-first through the dilapidated wooden fence. Rolling and landing in a crouch on the other side, Vi scanned her surroundings to see where the blue-haired ball of trouble had run off to. Perplexingly, the street she'd thrown herself into appeared to be empty; nothing but the distant sound of sirens and traffic bouncing off the worn cobblestone streets.

Shit.

There was no way Vi could have lost her so easily. She'd only been a heartbeat behind her, and while agile, there was no way the gunner was that fast. Vi took off in the nearest direction when she was suddenly being crushed, her face slamming painfully into the damp pavement, a combat boot placed squarely against the back of her skull.

"Piltover's Finest? More like Piltover's Lamest." A low, teasing voice taunted in Vi's ear. The enforcer growled, and struggled to push the smaller girl off her, but received a sharp kick to the skull as a reward. Stars exploded behind her eyelids, and the sudden rush of nausea made Vi want to throw up on the very cement her face had just bounced off of. Vi groaned as Jinx dug her boot into the back of her head, grinding her face uncomfortably against the pavement.

"So, Fathands, where did Hat Lady get off to?" Jinx made an exaggerated sweeping gesture, making binoculars with her hands and inspecting the area. "Can't believe she'd just up and leave you behind!" The gunner gave a dramatic huff and thrust her hands onto her hips, bending over to lean into Vi's ear once more. She bit her lip in a teasing, almost seductive manner, breathing heavily into Vi's ear. "Maybe I should go track her down for you, Fathands? You just wait right here, and I'm gonna go have a little talk with Little Miss Sheriff!" With that, Jinx leapt off Vi's downed form, and made to take off. With a loud, animalistic growl, Vi wrenched her gauntlet forward, ripping Jinx back by the ankle, rejuvenated by the threats to her superior officer.

"No, you don't, freak!" Vi howled, pulling her gauntlet back for the punch. Jinx grinned sadistically in Vi's grip, wriggling out and ducking her head just in time for Vi to bury her gauntlet in the pavement. She just had to keep Jinx busy long enough that Caitlyn could set up a sniper position, and get a good mark on the little brat-

"Target in my sights!" Came the accented voice, strained with focus, rattling out of Vi's earpiece. Finally! Vi was beginning to fear that Caitlyn would take too long, and their nemesis would daringly slip from their grasp yet again. A cocky grin plastered to her face, Vi ripped her gauntlet out of the ruined pavement, and lunged for the blue-haired demon again. Jinx had the upper hand, however; while Vi stumbled slightly, off balance from the effort of ripping her gauntlet out from where she had buried it, the gunner had pulled out Pow-Pow, and, with a malicious glint in her eye, began revving it up. The enforcer's eyes widened as she heard the tell-tale sound of the minigun beginning to spin, and quickly threw her large gauntlets up as a shield, her own Blast Shield throwing itself up as protection. Vi clenched her teeth, her mind racing as she grasped for a way to counter the attack.

That is, until the familiar crash of a sniper's bullet ripped through the night air, harmonized quickly with a sickeningly high pitched screech of pain that could only have come from the gunner before her. The hail of bullets quickly stopped, and Vi let down her guard to see Jinx had let Pow-Pow fall to the concrete and was holding her shoulder. A long trail of blood was rushing down her arm, seeping out from beneath the small, nimble fingers trying to hold it. Jinx wasn't stopped for long; her magenta eyes met Vi's once more, looked more crazed and deranged than Vi had ever seen them, and without hesitation, she whipped out her Zap gun. With a sadistic smirk, she pointed it at Vi, and pulled the trigger.

"Zap zap, Fathands!"

The blast of energy hit Vi hard, the electricity immediately crippling her muscles. Vi was knocked over by the force of it, the burning sensation ripping across her body and forcing her limbs into submission. She cried out, pulling in raspy gasps of air like she was drowning. She could've sworn she'd shredded every muscle in her body in the one hit. Like taser training, Vi thought raggedly. It brought her back to her formal police training, being forcibly shot with a taser on a low setting to show her what it was like. But this, this was a thousand times worse. Vi struggled with all her might to pull herself back up, at least into a crouching position, but to no avail.

Jinx, however, was in no such position. Her magenta eyes, still filled with fury and depravity, scanned the skyline for the sniper who had caused the throbbing pulse in her shoulder. Low and behold, only a couple buildings away, perched on top like an eagle stalking its prey, was the Sheriff of Piltover herself, evidently lining up for another shot to get the gunner away from Vi's prone body. Crazed eyes met blue ones, which widened slightly when they noticed the nimble hands pulling Fishbones out once more.

"You've really done it this time!" Jinx deadpanned, her rocket launcher beginning to whir and emit heat and smoke. "I was all ready to make nice and just play a game and just be friends, but you had to go and ruin it!" Jinx shot a look down at Vi, who was still struggling against the effects of the zap, and laughed. Vi was halfway up, her back and arms shaking with the electricity jumping across her muscles. Jinx had to say, she was impressed with the enforcer's tenacity; the voltage in her Zap gun would be enough to render something as big as Volibear motionless for at least a few minutes. But here she was, shaky and rigid, but with a fire in her eyes that said she wasn't even close to giving in.

"I hope you've given Hatlady your love and appreciation, Fathands, because she's about to go bye-bye!" The girl began giggling, the massive rocket launcher in her hand spraying out smoke and fire, trembling with the enormous rocket just begging to be unchained. Vi managed a strangled gasp, staring where the rocket was aimed for. Caitlyn had grabbed her sniper and was turning tail, desperate to get the hell away from the rocket and its death sentence. Vi pushed herself harder than she ever had before, straining her abused body to move with a guttural bellow. With a final push, she rammed her massive gauntlets into Jinx's petite body, slamming her into the ground with a pained thud. She couldn't stop the massive warhead that exploded forth from the rocket launcher, however; it had already burst out of the gate and blasted into the night like an obscene firecracker. No!

"Cait!" Vi coughed out, her voice struggling to get out of her throat as her weight lay on top of the demolitionist. Vi could do little but watch as the massive rocket swirled through the air like a fighter jet, making its mark in the center of the building Caitlyn had been standing on. When it hit, an eerie dead silence seemed to blanket the street, drowning out even the quickly approaching sirens from all sides. The silence lasted barely a half second as the building was quickly turned into a brilliant fireworks display, a tremendous explosion of heat and sound and a flurry of sparks and flames that seemed to rise up like a skyscraper. Vi's eyes widened, gaping as the ringing in her ears overtook the sound of the explosion that was quickly bringing the building Caitlyn had been standing on into a pile of charred rubble. Vi's heartbeat pounded in her eardrums, sounding in time with the ringing noise from the blast.

And then came the laughter.

Jinx's shrill laughter lit up the acrid night air like a match to gasoline, rising higher and higher until it was burning into Vi's brain.

Soon after came the first enraged slam of a hextech gauntlet into her shaking form.