Piltover Case Files

Chapter 1

Strange Circumstances

It was silent as it had always been within the book covered walls and hallways. Like the empty void of space, each room, nook and cranny had been empty and quieted as the morning light slipped in through the windows in a desperate attempt to find shelter. Though some would have said the eerie silence of the library was something to fear and the chills from the cooled air to be creepy, Sil would have disagreed.

Even when Piltover's Academy Library was filled to the brim with eager students and rowdy individuals, the librarian was always at peace in the silence of his library. In fact, he had always been unaffected by noise as the only sound that could register within him was the nothingness of empty silence. The quiet embrace of his untouched hearing gave this to him, for while sound may have tried to shake him, he was unstirred by the chaos that would have surrounded him.

Now how did he have such willpower to do this you may ask?

It was simple

Sil was deaf and this was what made him such a calm and collective individual in the bustling city of progress and technology.

He was a somewhat young librarian, only at 24 years of age, but he still felt content with his job. The smell and feel of books kept him there with every word and sentence drawing him closer to each page and book cover. Stories fascinated him from a young age as he had felt a part of the world just seemed to have been locked away from him. While he may have not yearned to hear the sounds of everyday life, he couldn't help but feel left out sometimes whenever he watched a clique of students walk buy laughing and smiling or a songstress pour her heart out on the street.

Sil shook his head; these thoughts were commonplace and were quickly brushed away in their usual manner. He didn't like to dwell on things in public especially since he had so much to do that morning. A league match had occurred the previous day and the results of said match had been raucous and chaotic with it only getting worse when the Zaun champions won in the last minute.

Not that he had actually taken an interest in the match or watched; he had to come back to his library at five in the morning to find it in ruins. In fact, he hadn't watched a lot of league matches in a while, the last being a Noxus vs Demacia match. He never found Plitover vs Zaun to be that interesting and he had actually preferred it when a match involved the Shadow Isles or the Void.

Those matches were always unique and had Sil on his toes while Plitover had the same old gizmos and doohickeys firing off at each other. It was boring and Sil couldn't waste his time on boring.

That's why he always had his head in a book. Too bad he couldn't do that now.

While most of the library's contents had been intact, the location and disarray of said contents was in dire need of organization. Books upon books were scattered everywhere to the point where a book case or two had been toppled over. His tired body barely managed to get them up before six and he was still stuck with placing the books back on the very shelves. In addition to this, the graffiti, the trash, and the destroyed books would have to be dealt with on another day and several others as he was going to be the only hand to spare at these hours. No one was ever going to help him during active hours.

Placing another book on the shelf, Sil robotically maneuvered his eyes to the next book, and the next book, and the next book. As soon as the cart's contents were emptied, he set off to get another stack ready for transport.

Over in the corner of the Library, the ever imposing pile of books just didn't seem to get any smaller. He had about two hours before the library would open and an hour before his assistant showed up. Honestly, Sil wished he had the cruelty to tell his assistant to do it for him, but alas, Sil was not the type to do such things. In any case, he preferred to do things alone mostly due to the fact that the other librarians and assistants did not know sign language. Indeed, it was incredibly awkward whenever he tried to strike up a conversation, only to look at a piece of paper half of the time so that he could write what he wanted to say.

So here he was, stuck with a pile of books with the end far from his reach. Hopefully, his assistant would only see half of the pile, but that didn't seem to be the case at this moment. Sil grabbed a stack of books, placed it in the cart, and began his run again.

He got back to the shelves, shuffling the novels in their roughly covered bindings in an unending dance. As time passed, the empty holes in the wooden walls filled up again and at last his hand found its way to the last book. He looked at the serial for a moment, noticing something amiss. It wasn't supposed to be here.

"Damn," he thought to himself, "Now I gotta walk all the way to section D."

Sil took the book in hand, making way to the dreaded section D. He had been here several times and was familiar with the books that were organized in their neat little rows. The only annoying bit came from its distance from his current section. It was a fair bit ways down a hallway towards the right as its literature was comprised of fairy tales, tall tales, and legends of the like. Indeed, somewhat unfitting to have in a library for highly intellectual individuals of science, but he supposed that a short humorous read would have been nice.

For him, section D was a common place for him to stay when he was visiting in his spare time. These had, by far, the most interesting escapes that he had ever enjoyed, but he almost felt childish just reading these books.

Reaching his intended destination, Sil calmly made his way through as he looked for his book's section. A few twists and turns later, the librarian calmly walked his way to a certain red bookcase that stood out from the others. It was here that Sil placed the book snuggly into with its other brothers and sister. He nodded, content with his action and he prepared to turn, only stopping as he eyed a book off to the side that was on top of the line of books. Picking up the book, he recognized it from the moment he felt its soft cover.

"The Tale of Two Worlds," the title said looked at its cover and he remembered reading this story a while back. It was a simple love story of two people in two different worlds and two different backgrounds coming to fall in love. As childish and immature the story was at face value, Sil could still come to appreciate its heartwarming ending.

He opened it slowly, forgetting his troubles as he skimmed through the story. For a time, he let the story swallow him up and the words dragged him closer and closer into its bindings. A minute passed of a quick read, but his mind began to slow down as he savored each word like the succulent fruit of a fresh harvest. Nothing could keep him away from the inner sanctum of his mind.

Nothing . . . until he felt the ground shake.

Sil stumbled backwards, mostly surprised from the sudden force, and turned towards the direction of the shaking. He ran hoping to god that it wasn't another book case. He passed section C, and made his way to the shaking when he finally saw what had had happened and by god did it break its heart.

At the far end of Section C's encyclopedia subsection was an open wall that let in the air and sun of the outdoors. Mind you, this was not a part of the Library's design, no, this had just been caved in by a dusty figure that Sil struggled to fully see as he had still been looking from several bookcases down. As the shadowy figure jumped to its feet, it made its way into the library away from Sil's position. Finally, it disappeared leaving him to observe the destroyed wall left behind.

He looked on in horror as his eye twitched at the damages. Someone had the gall to do this to HIS library on HIS shift; an unknown rage started to boil up from within him. He turned to the direction of the intruder hoping to catch a glimpse, but the figure had already jumped out of sight, prompting Sil to shake his head.

"God," he thought to himself, "First with the books and the shelves, now THIS! This can't possibly get worse."

It was at that moment when he felt a large metal object grip him and spin him around towards something he never would have guessed to have seen.

What had grabbed him by the shoulders was a large metal hand that was attached to a rough looking woman with a smirk on her face. Sil gave a surprised look at the woman, unsure who she was or what she was doing here. For several moment, she stood there with a grin of absolute victory, of what Sil did not know.

And then she started talking . . . talking to Sil, the DEAF librarian.

"Obviously she must have some sort of mental issue," he thought to himself as he eyed her metallic fists.

Steam poured from the fists as it moved and its fine details intrigued Sil for a brief moment. The wielder looked very punk rock-ish, with pink hair, ear and nose rings, along with a facial tattoo with the letters VI. Gear shaped goggles wrapped tightly around her forehead as a pair of determined blue eyes gazed into his own orbs.

The woman gave a smug look, rotating a lollipop that stuck out from her mouth and plopping it out with her overly large metal fists. Her mouth moved as if to speak and it was a shams that whatever she was saying would have no chance of getting to Sil in the slightest. The only reaction she would get from him would be a face of awkward stares, which was what he was giving her.

And then she let him go, again making him feel surprised and anxious to move away from the pink hair woman.

What had she said?

Why did she even grab him?

Why was there a hole in the wall?

Sil sighed as he turned around sluggishly making his way back to the front door. It would seem that he needed to close the library for the day until he could get this sorted out.

But before he had even gotten close to the door, the weight of something slamming into him flung him across the room and knocked the wind out of him. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was flying towards the same bookcases that he had been taken so long to work on. The feeling of pain was now a very clear thing to him.

"Ow"

As the mid-afternoon light beat down on to the streets of Piltover, a single pink flare strode down the streets in an upbeat happy mood. With each thump of her strange high heel boots, an aura of confidence and happiness resonated out from her.

For Vi, things had just started to fall into place. Though the recent loss in the league match had been somewhat depressing, it had started a surge of criminal activity and the pink femme fatale was all the more happy to beat down on any idiot willing to cross her path. However, she had not been cleaning up the streets like she normally did on her routines that day. In fact, she had a special assignment given straight from the cupcake boss herself.

And boy did she finish that one quickly.

Caitlyn, the sharpshooting sheriff of Piltover's fine streets, had been investigating a recent string of robberies of a possible shape shifter. Two dozen diamonds, three experimental hextech gizmos, and a whole lot of money were the just some of the things that this thief had taken. Hammer man Jayce himself was starting to get worried when he looked over the footage of the thief's efforts. He called the shape shifter "dangerously ambitious," setting his bar high enough for all of Piltover to see.

"Pfft, whatever," Vi said to herself as she walked down the street towards Caitlyn"s office. Slung over her back was a brown body bag in the distinct shape of an unconscious human figure. She smirked, it had been way too easy.

She had cornered the shape shifter when the guy blew his cover trying to steal from her favorite bar. Even with his back to the wall, the shape shifter had managed to screw around long enough to piss Vi off, so much so that she tackled the figure through a wall. When she came to, the shape shifter had changed forms, attempting to fool her, but that failed miserably against her.

Heading up the stairs towards Caitlyn's office, she made sure to bump the figure's head into every door, wall, and bar she could find. The figure's attempted scuffle had been annoying enough, so a little payback was necessary.

Upon reaching the wooden door adorned with the sign of "Piltover's Finest," she forcefully grabbed the handle and turned it, resulting in a number of clicks, bells, and whistles. A blast of refrigerated air conditioning hit her along with a strong smell of tea as she made her way in.

Caitlyn was sitting at her desk surrounded by mountains of paper work while her hat sat on a pile of books. Honestly, she was starting the feel the stress of these matches. Though it was only a showman match, she wasn't too sure she could handle practicing in these matches as well as dealing with the aftermath of both her failures and success in the league. If it was a loss, there would be anti-Zaunite sentimental riots appearing everywhere. If it was a win, it would the over mounting chaos of a city wide celebration.

But if she did quit, Piltover would have one less champion to work with.

"Speaking of which," she thought to herself as she watched Vi bump a brown body bag against the doorway. Caitlyn smiled at Vi, motioning to the body bag.

"So what brings you to my office so early, Vi. I have to drag you up here half the time,"

Vi responded with a confident grin, "Well, cupcake, I just had tuh' bring this guy after he tried to steal from my favorite bar."

Standing from her desk, Caitlyn made her way around the stacks of papers that sat right next to her seat as Vi pulled the body bag off her shoulders and placed it upright in a seat. She removed the head covering revealing what looked to be a bleeding black haired man.

"Voila," Vi said as if to present a product, "here's one shape shifting asshole, for the price a' none."

Caitlyn looked at the man. He looked a bit Ionian with a mix of something else. He was young-ish, probably just a year younger than Caitlyn or Vi, and the blood that had seeped from his head had dried into a dark red mush almost adding to his weary looks. The sheriff frowned as she moved to her bathroom.

"Again, Vi?" Caitlyn said in annoyance, "you do know we need him . . . alive."

"Pfft," Vi waved off Caitlyn's concern, "He'll be fine."

Caitlyn shook her head. Wetting a rag in the sink, the sheriff donned her large purple hat and made her way to the bound culprit. She wiped off the blood and after several minutes of cleaning up the man, she grabbed a cloth bandage to wrap around his head. With that done, she tossed the bandage roll off to the side and grabbed a seat from behind her.

Unsure at first, Caitlyn poked at the man's face, "Yoooooo hoo, wake up,"

He stirred, first a twitch from his right cheek, where he had been poked, and then his eyes furrowed. They opened to reveal two tired, confused blue eyes with bags under them. Caitlyn put two fingers in front of the bound man's face.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

The captive looked at the fingers unaffected, still dazed by his recent injuries. After the man closed his eyes and opened them a few more times, his eyes widened and looked down at his brown and baggy prison. Tearing his eyes away from his body, he looked up at Caitlyn and jumped in his seat once he saw Vi.

Vi smirked, "Hey buddy," she said, "How many fingers."

The captive's brows furrowed in confusion. He moved his eyes to Caitlyn, almost pleading with his confused glance at the sheriff. Caitlyn gave the man a deadpanned look.

"Don't make this anymore difficult for us, please. I really don't want to have my friend here use her . . . less subtle methods."

As Vi cracked her metal knuckles, causing the man to tense up in a cold sweat. Caitlyn was sure to get an answer now . . . but what she got could only be described as something between Urf the seal and someone having breathing difficulties.

"UHHHUHHHH," he wheezed. Caitlyn pulled back, as if the unintelligible sounds were a contagious virus. She looked at Vi with a raised brow, who looked just as confused as her.

"Hey, don't look at me,"

Caitlyn frowned, "How hard did you hit this man, he can't even speak properly."

Turning her attention back to the man, she said, "Are you alright?"

Now the man could have done a number of things, like nodding or shrugging. Instead, the man gave her an annoyed scowl huffed a breath of air. Then he, from what Caitlyn and Vi could see, motioned to his primitive baggy prison.

Caitlyn sighed, "Get him out of the bag please, Vi."

Vi gave her an shocked look to which Caitlyn shot back with a glare. The pink haired back off at Caitlyn's stare and shook her head. "Fine, cupcake. Don't blame me if he starts flipping out."

Vi's oversized metal gauntlets grabbed the bag around the man's neck. He froze, but before the man could react, she tore the bag in two. He sat in place until Vi moved away to lean against the wall, much to his relief.

As soon as he was sure that Vi would not punch him, he gave a hand sign, signaling his need to write. Caitlyn looked at Vi, who gave the tried and true shrug, took a piece of paper and a pen from her desk, and gave it to the man. He wrote ferociously, a vein or two forming on his forehead before he finished his angry scribbles.

He flipped it up, showing his handwriting to the two women. Though at this point, they weren't really focused on the handwriting.

"Ms. Caitlyn,

I am sorry for the inconvenience I have caused, but I am quite confused at the current circumstances behind my arrest because, as it turns out, I AM FUCKING DEAF,"

The sheriff's gave nothing in response and read the paper over and over again. Vi read, skeptical at the information presented to her.

"Yea," she said shaking her head, "and I'm the princess of Lala Tutu land. What kind of an excuse is this crap?"

Caitlyn, on the other hand, was massaging her temples, "Vi, please meet me outside. We need to talk,"

The enforcer gave a startled look, but complied as Caitlyn pulled away from her room. The sheriff lead Vi out the door and slammed it shut as soon as Vi went through.

"OUR CULPRIT IS NOT DEAF!"

Vi raised her hands, "Whoa there, sugar plum. Just cause he says he's deaf, doesn't mean he is." Caitlyn calm down at this, but not by much.

"Ok, yes, that is a possibility, but it's not like we can test if he's deaf."

"Sure we can," Vi cracked her knuckles as she mused, "I just gotta make sure he doesn't notice me."

Caitlyn gave her a confused look, "What?"

"You'll see, just wait here."

Vi crouched down as she looked through the door's small window. The man was turned away at the moment. She opened the door; the metal hinges didn't even give a single peep as she made her way towards the side of the room. Once there, she made her way to a tea set of clean china and tea cups. A single cup made its way into her hand as she readied it to throw it.

"VI!" Caitlyn said, "NO!"

But it was too late, the cup had already left her hand and was traveling at high speeds towards the wall right next to him. The man didn't even flinch as it shattered into a billion pieces.

"Huh," Vi said. The man still didn't even know she was there. "Oh well, better break some more!"

Vi pulled a plate this time and threw it even faster. She prepared to throw another of Caitlyn's dishes, only to be tackled by Caitlyn. Both the two woman began cat fighting, throwing punches and pulling hairs, as the man continued to stare at the wall.

Sil sighed to himself as he kept staring away from the two women. This day was getting weirder and weirder by the minute.