The night over Piltover was deceptively calm. Most of the Progress Day crowd had dispersed, leaving behind a trail of confetti and abandoned stalls. On the steps of the Academy, Cadet Caitlyn Kiramman kept watch, her sharp blue eyes scanning the tents and shadows while her colleagues relaxed.
Three men and one woman—all Enforcers—loitered nearby. One of them, a red-haired woman, took a drag from her cigarette as she threw out a mocking remark.
"And what are you doing here, Kiramman…" she teased, "don't you have a cocktail party to go to or something?"
"Hahaha," the group's laughter rang out as smoke curled from her lips.
Caitlyn sighed inwardly, her gaze fixed on the perimeter. The chatter behind her continued—a murmur of complacency that made her skin prickle.
And then, the sound began.
It wasn't an explosion. It was worse. A sonic assault—a cacophony so hideous it defied description. It sounded as if a dying leviathan were gargling scrap metal while being tortured with a rusty saw. It was unnatural, discordant, and above all, unbearably loud.
All the guards leapt to their feet, their cigarettes forgotten.
"What the hell is that racket?!" they shouted over the noise.
"It's coming from the east plaza!" the red-haired guard pointed. "Move!"
They sprinted toward the source of the audio-terrorism, Caitlyn in the lead. Rounding the corner, they saw the cause of the chaos. A single figure stood in the center of the empty plaza, as if playing to a stadium crowd.
He wore a ridiculous mask—something like a plague doctor's mask, painted with manic neon pink and blue grins. His bass, which Caitlyn recognized instantly, had been modified. Now it bristled with glowing vacuum tubes, wires jutting in every direction, and a gramophone horn crudely bolted to the body, blasting the horrible sound to inhuman levels. He played with suicidal abandon, his body contorting in a parody of a rock star.
Caitlyn froze. Her mind, trained to connect patterns, pieced it together instantly. The battered bass. The tall figure. The absurd confidence. And the monkey graffiti on the nearby tents—just like the scene at the docks.
"The Poro guy," she murmured, a mix of disbelief and a strange I knew it running through her. "And the one playing when the alarm went off. It's the same man."
"Hey, you! Shut that trash off right now!" one of the guards barked, stepping forward.
The masked musician stopped mid-riff—one that sounded like the death of eardrums. He tilted his masked head toward them. "Ah, the authorities," his voice, recognizably monotone even through the mask, said. "Late for the main act, but just in time for the encore. Requests?"
And with that, he launched into playing again—louder this time, as if their arrival was the cue to crank the volume.
While the four Enforcers—and two more who arrived, drawn by the noise—focused on subduing the raucous lunatic, who now dodged their grabs without missing a note, Caitlyn hung back. Something didn't add up. It was too obvious. Too stupid. It was a distraction.
Her eyes swept the surroundings. The shadows near the Academy entrance. And there—just a flicker of blue. A small, agile figure slipping through the front door, taking advantage of everyone's focus on the hell-concert.
"It's a trap! The entrance!" Caitlyn shouted, but her voice was swallowed by the bass's cacophony.
She turned to sprint for the Academy, but it was already too late.
A series of muffled explosions rang out. Not the sharp blasts of standard grenades—these sounded… wet. Seconds later, the nearby tents ballooned outward, not with fire, but with shockwaves and massive clouds of vividly colored smoke—eye-searing pink and electric blue.
The guards surrounding Kaen turned in confusion. In that instant, the shockwave hit them. It was like being struck by an invisible hammer. The force hurled them into the air like rag dolls, dumping them meters away with dull, bone-thudding crashes, unconscious and smeared with sticky, vividly colored goo splattered across their uniforms.
Caitlyn, closest to the blast, took the full brunt. The world became a maelstrom of color and pressure. Pain stabbed her chest as the impact ripped the air from her lungs. She slammed into the ground, her head striking the pavement. The world spun violently, colors from the blast bleeding into her vision.
The horrible bass noise stopped abruptly.
Through her blurred eyes, she saw the masked musician lower his instrument. He removed the mask, revealing the expressionless face and silver-white hair she remembered. He surveyed the scene of unconscious, paint-splattered guards.
"An explosive finale," his monotone voice observed, as though reviewing a play. "Bold use of color. Ten out of ten."
A figure sprinted out of the Academy through the clouds of colored smoke—the girl with the blue braids. She carried a bulging bag, and in her hand gleamed a polished Hextech gem pulsing with immense power. She was grinning, triumphant.
"Got it!" Jinx shouted.
Kaen gave her a theatrical bow. "Your backstage performance was flawless, number-one fan. Now, the exit."
They turned to flee. For an instant, Kaen's violet eyes met Caitlyn's. There was no malice in them, no anger—only a detached, almost curious calm. Then he turned away, disappearing with the girl into the pink-and-blue-stained night, leaving behind silence, chaos, and six downed guards.
Caitlyn tried to rise, but the pain was too much. Darkness closed in at the edges of her vision. Her last conscious thought wasn't fear—it was cold, furious resolve, fixed on the image of a masked musician and his chaotic partner.
They had humiliated the Enforcers. They had struck the Academy. And she, Caitlyn Kiramman, would personally make sure their next performance took place inside a cell.