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And Jinx is a fucking genius, after all. She sees Ekko's swinging watch, smiles, flicks her hair aside. She lines up, just like she used to, all those years ago. And suddenly, they're both young again; in the space of a heartbeat, they're seven years in the past. They look at each other, and Ekko raises his watch - time to ride.
Click.
Riding the timestream is always, always a surreal damn trip. Ekko's running, now. Playful innocence mirrors violent finality, rolling through the spliced realities and. They're oh so fucking real, those bullets and paintballs ripping trails of fire and fun across space and time.
Duck, slide, flip, roll - crunch.
Twin blooms of fiery pain ignite in Ekko's chest; the pain of losing, and seven years later, the pain of a bullet tearing through flesh.
Click.
It always fucking hurts, being ripped back and forth across time, but Ekko doesn't spare the seconds to dwell on it. Twin realities, bridged for a brief moment across time, collapse into one, stitching themselves back together, and Ekko is back, seventeen and staring down his childhood friend on this midnight nightmare of a bridge. The phantom bullet wound and the stinging shame of loss echoes through his head, curling like the smoke drifting between them, now.
The giggle again, but this time, no swinging watch.
It's real now.
Ten seconds, now.
Duck, slide, flip, roll - turn, leap - he's on her.
Ekko sees the shock and fear widen Jinx's eyes, the impact of his wrench shocking up his own arm. Jinx hits the bridge hard, two steps, another blow; Ekko is ten years old, slumped, kneeling, as Powder giggles and offers a hand to help him up. The gun flies, skittering across the bridge like all of his echoing memories. His fist drops, and Jinx cries out and falls back, spitting blood; Ekko's hand closes around Powder's, she pulls him up and into a hug.
A breath; hands.
Oh fuck.
He kicks blindly, it connects.
It's graceless, it's risky, it's all Ekko has left. It's the sixth sense he awakened in the timestream, screaming pink and neon terror in his mind.
A blast of violet fire and light shatters the night; Jinx and Ekko are thrown across the bloodied bridge, chunks of stonework torn from the bridge by the explosion.
There's an endless moment, Ekko gasping for breath, heat from the blast and the chill river air contrasting strangely in his lungs. Ekko can see stars, normally blacked out by the deep walls and neon lights of Zaun. Stars, so beautiful and useless, watching this violent mess unfolding below. Just like Piltover, useless pretty things watching from afar. What the fuck is he even doing here.
All he can hear is the ticking of his watch, the crackling flame, Powder's giggle echoing across time.
Ekko wants to stand, blink and realise this was all some messed up daydream, laugh at Jinx, Powder, kill her and tell her he'll win next time. He knows that none of that will happen.
Ekko manages a hunched crouch, if not to stand; there's steel railing shot through his calf, after all. He glances around - where's Jinx?
He spots her - she's laying in a heap against a pile of rubble; blood oozing from her mouth, a jagged gash in her shoulder. Her right arm is bent at a horrible angle, dislocated or broken, Ekko doesn't know which. In stillness, Jinx looks smaller. She looks like the broken seventeen year old girl Ekko knows she is. The sight is enough to stop his heart, from fear or shock, he isn't sure which. Jinx, more dangerous than even Silco to Ekko's vision of Zaun, Powder, the energetic girl he grew up with. Her chest rises, falls, and Ekko's heart keeps beating.
It's still there, that thrill, the need for smoke and blood - to win, to stop Jinx now, and take away Silco's sharpest weapon. But he can't.
Because Jinx is more than that, she's a person, a child of Zaun that's been beaten down, over and over and over again. Because Vi swore to him that Jinx can understand, that she can stop all of this shit. Because laying broken and tiny on this bridge, Ekko can't see anything other than the girl he grew up with.
What the fuck is he meant to do now; a useless leg, damaged board, and to top it all off - footsteps, growing louder in the smoke curling across the bridge.
Everything is broken, again.
A broken bridge, a broken peace, a broken girl.
But Ekko is the boy saviour, after all.
Five steps to the board; he can do it. He has to.
Click.
One.
'Hey little man,'
Two.
'Vander told me, once,'
Three.
'People look up to you; you don't get to be selfish.'
Four.
'He told me, violence just makes more violence.'
Five.
'The thing is, little man? If Stillwater taught me anything, it's that sometimes violent and selfish is what you need to survive. But here, you've built something, Ekko. And sometimes, you have to choose hope.'
He grabs the board, flicks his wrist - click.
He's stepping through time, five steps again. Vi is fifteen again, bloody and proud, holding Caitlyn's hand. There's fire in his steps, and it's just as crippling in reverse.
Ekko collapses, leg an inferno, sending jolts up his spine. But. He's got the board.
It's pretty busted, and even if it wasn't Ekko is too fucked up to fly.
He needs to be quick, now. He hadn't missed the tell-tale hissflash of Sevika's chemtech arm. Jinx on the board, drag it along, a few metres to the edge, both of them over and into the water. It'll have to do.
So, twenty seconds, five metres, one boy, one girl, and a lifetime of shared memory, shared trauma.
Ekko always had loved a challenge.
He moves, and it's torture. At least the board holds Jinx's weight, slight as the young woman is. He can hear the footsteps speeding up, voices now - Silco's voice, shouting for Jinx, in... fear? Jinx groans.
Fuck.
She's coming to, and if she struggles he's screwed. He couldn't take a firelight right now, let alone Silco, his fixer and a handful of shitty goons.
He isn't going to make it.
Shit.
He has seconds left, now. But boy, Ekko can play with time. Five seconds on his watch, now. Alright.
"Sorry for this, Jinx."
Her eyes fly open, and Ekko winces at the fear in them even as he tips her off of the board.
She screams as she hits the floor, and oh look, that damn hextech gem was in her palm the whole time.
Click.
Duck, palm, roll -fuck, ow- falling now, over the edge.
The footsteps are there, now. Silco's got Jinx, Vi and her topsider girlfriend have got shit-all, and Ekko has a fucking bar through his leg, a fucked up board, and the gemstone.
Well shit.
Click.