Chapter Text
The smog in the Lanes is unusually thick that night, the air dusty and suffocating to those who are not used to them. Not even moonlight could breach the smoke emitted by the fissures. The docks are also uncharacteristically quiet tonight; where the sound of yelling fishermen and shanties sung by ship crew could be heard, tonight there are only the creaking of ships tied at harbor, the trills of a passing crow and the gentle sloshing of river water.
Ekko, ahead of tonight’s raid team, surveys the harbor from his hoverboard. He glances to the side, gaze flickering to Jinx, sitting cross-legged on her own board, their only team mate who refused to go masked — because it’s not like she’s real Firelight anyway, she had said. Besides, it’s easier for Sevika to disassociate her from the Firelights. She’s dumb that way. If she comes for her, the Firelights stay safe. For all Sevika knows, she’s only lending her wily ways, she had told Ekko with her eyebrows wiggling. It’ll be totally fine. It doesn’t make him any less worried though.
She catches him anyway, as she always does (to his total embarrassment), and sends him a dangerous, 1000-kilowatt grin and a wink, before jumping up to stand on her board and maneuvering herself in a steep dive closer to the ground, with an ease that had Ekko slightly awe-struck from where he is standing. Goddamn, he says to himself inwardly, feeling his cheeks and ears warm from behind the mask as he watches the pink-and-blue trails of her board make swoops in the fog. She picked up those board lessons fast.
The others follow her lead and when Scar passes him by, even through the mask, Ekko could feel his deadpanned, disgusted gaze. He flips him off before diving down himself in an electric green blur and knows from the way Scar’s shoulders slings back, that he was laughing.
In the farthest part of the docks, closest to the pier where the smog is only slightly less prominent, Ekko signals the team to tread slowly onwards. The lenses in his mask zoom in and focus on several burly men dutifully unloading a cargo ship’s previous load, and replacing them instead with vats and vats filled to the brim with pink. To the side, someone lights a cigarette, providing a solitary, temporary illumination in the smothering darkness. So, Sevika is personally delivering this shipment of shimmer tonight. Ekko scoffs, getting a hint of the bigger picture: can’t keep cleaning up Silco’s shit forever while some very important clients are waiting for their share of the drug.
She takes a drag of her cigarette and Ekko can see her thinking, contemplating. Information has it that they have a new demographic: shimmer has started penetrating the market all the way up in Topside. But of course, to the discretion of their customers, no questions asked as long as the payments are on time and the suppliers are well-compensated for their troubles. Some hush-hush money also goes a long way; it could ensure a long-lasting business relationship even. Ekko grimaces as Sevika smiles and flexes her newly-minted arm.
Silco’s body was discovered at an abandoned warehouse months ago, at the head of a dinner party. From the decor, it was easy to surmise that his ultimate undoing was his cherished daughter; and according to Ekko’s informants, Sevika’s own personal thorn at her side. To make matters worse, said cherished daughter had fired a fucking missile at the counselors’ chamber over at Topside, meaning a war between Zaun and Piltover is imminent and that shit has officially turned out for the worse here in the undercity.
But Sevika is smart; right after Silco and Jinx, she was the head honcho who has had her own personal dealings with both suppliers and clients. They all knew her, they all trusted her. Of course they would, even Ekko could admit that she is reliable after all. At the time of catastrophe, his birdies had overheard, to his fury, that she had half a mind to hunt down the blue-haired little jinx to offer to their topsiders as their bargaining chip to prevent the war. But a room of dead councilors versus a blue little shit at the heel of her boot is probably not a favorable-enough sacrifice to guarantee things won’t change.
And though he hated her for slandering Jinx’s name – who would have undoubtedly cackled her head off and worn “Sevika’s Blue Little Shit at the Heel of her Boot” like some badge of honor – he thought that she had a point.
Even if she had given them Jinx, the relationship between Zaun and Piltover is still forever changed.
Besides, to Sevika’s knowledge, nobody’s seen Jinx these days anyway. It’s a heavy and hard truth that, even in the lanes, Jinx was generally stayed away from – too much of a ticking bomb to be worth anything to anyone. And as far as Sevika knows, Jinx didn’t have anybody else. Except maybe Vi. But that’s still not something Jinx wants to talk about yet. And Ekko’s not exactly sure where Vi is at the moment.
The smoke thickens around them and with an upward flick of his wrist, his band of five Firelights and Jinx, swoop upwards to hover over the cargo ship. It looks like they’re about done with loading their supply of shimmer. He looks at his Zero-Drive and lets out a puff of breath against his mask, anxious about Jinx; though this isn’t her first time raiding with them over Sevika’s operations, they had been careful to conceal her as much as possible. Sevika didn’t know where she was, didn’t care to know, and they had wanted to keep it that way.
This would be the first time Sevika would see Jinx since Silco’s murder.
He sees a boor-headed grunt say something to Sevika which is the only signal he needs. He focuses on Scar to his left and cocks his head towards them. The bat vastaya nods in acknowledgement and signals for the rest of the team for the dive ahead. Weapons are armed, cocked and ready as blazes of green zoom towards the cargo ship below them at near-lightning speed.
Ekko skids his board towards Jinx, who hangs back and knows to wait for her own signal. She has ZapZap on the ready and checks, re-checks PowPow slung on her shoulder. A rumble of explosions and yelling is overheard below them. She notices him and smirks, done checking her arsenal for tonight’s raid.
“Ready when you are,” she says, rolling her ‘r’s, electric pink eyes and grin turning manic. Ekko can’t help but feed off her contagious energy as a boost of adrenaline shoots up his own spine. Before any of that though, he reaches out to run a thumb over her cheek, and for a moment, Jinx’s crazed expression softens to a genuine smile.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he tells her, voice distorted through the mask. She cackles, loud and shrill, but leans herself further into his gloved hand.
“Can’t promise nothing,” she reassures him cheerfully, and like a rocket about to burst, she dips down ahead of him in freefall, braids flowing wildly in the wind. A second later, PowPow sends a rain of bullets towards the cargo ship, Jinx’s laughter ringing amidst the pained screams of the men below.
Taking a deep breath, Ekko cracks his neck to the side, takes into stock the metal bat on his back and the Zero-Drive on his wrist. He watches the green trails that blaze through the smog, the one pink-and-blue trail on the other side, the flashes of the barrage of bullets she’s unloading on the operation, and he plunges into the darkness to follow suit.