~ SPOILERS for the 1st episode of Arcane ~

(this takes place BEFORE "The Ice Cube" => unless it is specified, none of the short storylines (chapters) necessarily take place in chronological order)

(this is the setting for "Mouser")

Whilst the arrangement of flesh and muscles hanging off her bones was her greatest tool, she found pride in being, as the saying went, more than a pretty face. She looked up from her notebook, hiding most of the runes she had scribbled on the page with her hand. She didn't want her sisters to parade over and start inspecting her work, which was already of lesser importance and unlikely to cause irreparable damage. They'd only rarely let her experiment with the real artefacts they so avidly collected.

   "I need to leave soon..."

   "Can I come along?!" Dee's excited tone was hopeful, as always.

Unsurprisingly, Lee firmly stated she couldn't:

   "You cannot..." Her sentence was cut short by beeping, emerging from one of the monitors. Mee, who was in charge of surveillance, smacked her workspace with her hand five times. Doing so, a thread of her blonde hair slipped out of her messy bun. She wore at least a dozen rings, they banged loudly against the metal surfaces the mages had installed all over their research room.

The five sisters gave themselves the titles of mages, inventors, collectors, researchers, scientists... What they truly were was for whoever they met to decide. They were from another dimension, a faraway planet where the Arcane's power was but a mere rumor and reduced to a barely distinguishable strength. Nevertheless, they travelled this world relentlessly, fascinated by each and every one of its aspects.

The four inventors rushed over to the screens Mee was expertly watching over. Jee motioned at one of the colorful digital recreations of the area they were focusing on.

   "Looks like there's some action on that rooftop, but isn't that an Academy building?"

   "Yeah, Piltover's elite is finally getting what it deserves..." Lee threw her an inquiring look and she quickly added: "But this is bad, of course." She cleared her throat and stared at the screen. "Whose workshop are they breaking into?"

Her older sister lost the doubtful expression she was wearing and answered:

   "That office belongs to Jayce Talis, unquestionably, since we noticed the activity near it. Our interest towards the other scientists and students is limited, perhaps too lacking..."

Dee abruptly cut her:

   "What if they break something?!"

   "They might, however they're carrying a big ol' bag." Jee's nail bore chipped black nail polish, and ticked energetically against the glass when she pointed at it. "They are there to steal."

   "Unless they have hammers in there, or a bomb..." reciprocated her quadruplet, tucking away a strand of her wavy brown hair with an unusually thoughtful expression inside her large hazel eyes.

Mee punched a few commands in and one of the images zoomed in until it followed exclusively the intruders' bag. Amongst the flow of information streaming down the side of the picture in bright pink letters, she noticed the word "empty", which confirmed the redhead's theory. Her sister whirled around, apparently having seen it too. Her green eyes landed on the youngest of the five.

   "You should head over there immediately and at least find out what they took, if you can't retrieve it."

   "Me?"

   "Who else? You know Piltover and Zaun much better than us, and Lee's the only one out of us four who can speak their language half-decently."

She grinned back at Jee and sprinted for the door, grabbing her jacket on the way out.

Undoubtedly, she loved the quadruplets. They were incredibly older than her and basically raised their younger sibling. Even if they cared for her, and she knew they did, they had a gift for making her feel useless and, overall, inferior.

Climbing out of the opening, she stifled a cough. She shut the cover of the ship's door, the heavy metal disk clicked into place, and gave in to the increasing itching inside her throat. She coughed, covering her face with one of her arms, her nose digging in the crook of her arm. The polluted air of Zaun was filling her lungs. Luckily, her immune system had the ability to adapt to almost any toxins she could come in contact with, a hereditary perk from the one who had created her sisters, who then created her. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't born a regular human baby and neither were the quadruplets. She eyed the cliffside above the location where their vessel was safely parked. She slipped her jacket on, scanning her surroundings. No one in sight. She jumped off the tall metal shell, landing deftly on her two feet. A cloud of dirt sent brown stripes dancing across the edges of her boots. Straightening her legs to stand a bit taller, she still kept her knees contracted. With spectacular height, she propelled herself beyond the top of the obstacle with a single hop. Her unique genes granted her all sorts of powers, most of them linked to the fact that she had been crafted amidst the Arcane. Twisting and rolling in mid-air, she managed to land on the roof of a random building with ease. Using methods that were amusingly similar to the young thieves', she eventually reached roofs that stood nearer to the action. A gigantic chimney hiding her, she scoped the streets. An explosion sounded and she watched as an enormous cloud of blue light, along with sparks and dust of the same color, spread out into the sky around the Kiramman's workshop. Even when it destroyed, the Arcane's power was purely beautiful to behold. She brought a hand to her lower back, her fingers brushed the hilt of the knife that was inserted in an inner pouch inside her tight leather shorts. The blade was thick and freshly sharpened, it had both the shape and weight of a short feather, minus the indentations. Her current serrated knife was tucked in the space between her left-side ankle and boot.

Carrying multiple weapons was a habit that she had developed since the very first day she had been allowed outside the comfort of her childhood home. Although, compared to the lanes of Zaun, her hometown was a safe haven. The real danger lay outside of the colorful city's perimeter, within the dark and untamed forests or deep under the deceitfully calm surface of the ocean. To her great disappointment, she had been granted access to neither of those parts of her planet.

She ran her hand along the rough bricks of the chimney, covertly watching the young thieves as they hurriedly escaped a squadron of enforcers. She stepped back to gain momentum and followed them, masked by the convenient architecture of the roofs they ran past. Leaping spectacularly, from the first half of an opening bridge to its second, she began slowing her pace, tailing the group of enforcers from a wary distance. Having carefully analysed their escape pattern, she had guessed they weren't supposed to get noticed and perhaps the explosion wasn't premeditated.

Her sisters and her were invested in Jayce Talis' attempts to harness magic with only technology and extremely volatile crystals that contained energy from the Arcane. They thought it was riveting and were thrilled by the reality that someone was brave enough to try it. Consequently, the said-rogue inventor bought not-exactly-legal merchandise from Zaunite marketeers. Must be how those kids found out about his lab, she thought, simultaneously realizing that her sisters' hero would probably be outed after this incident.

Walking with purposely slow strides, when she entered the alley where the enforcers had last turned, they were gone. She lowered her eyelids, focusing on the emotions surrounding her. She couldn't waste precious time exploring every single possible passageway. Her eyes opened by reflex, wide and alert. Fear, pride, adrenaline... Indeed, that was them. They were falling down something. Disgust, fear, pride, adrenaline, shame, annoyance... The sewers! She spun, sprinting through alleyways and casually hopping on and off structures or objects to get there faster...

When she arrived where they most likely would have exited from, she was relieved to perceive their four shortish silhouettes further down the alley. Remaining out of sight, she silently crept behind them, sometimes getting ahead only to have a better view of their chosen route. More importantly, of their loot. The bag wobbled, its contents were still...

She felt a wave of greed and viciousness the second she caught a glimpse of Deckard. Him and his gang of petty criminals were undoubtedly planning to ambush the inexperienced thieves. She had encountered him briefly before, and once for a longer period of time, but that particular time happened at her workplace and... Not much conversation resulted from those types of meetings. All she knew was that he worked for Silco lately, but the pressing matter wasn't who employed those idiots. Was she meant to intervene, or let innocent children fight off older and crueller crooks?