Chapter Text
“Hello there, little girl,” the tall, skinny man with the scarred red eye crooned at Powder. The sight and sound of it made Ekko’s blood run cold. So did the glinting, blood stained knife in his hands, angled out of Powder’s view but clear from everywhere else. And if that didn’t scare the shit even further out of him because whose blood was that- whose? Who was dead? Oh fuck, they were all dead, all of them, Vander was lying there (because who else could it be other than Vander, changed as he was) and Powder was the only survivor-
“Powder!” Ekko’s head snapped towards the voice, one that sounded as if a messenger sent from above because he knew that voice- he had grown up with it, listened to each syllable like gospel pour from her mouth.
Squinting from the dark ledge of the desolate buildings he was perched on, he saw to his left the trembling but standing form of Vi, stumbling a step towards them. A tension in his shoulders eased slightly- he wasn’t alone, he had help. Powder wasn’t going to die even if it seemed she didn’t hear her sister over the roaring flames, which was good because it meant that creepy fuck didn’t either.
She took another step forwards, a spring in her body that indicated her ready to sprint with everything she had in her when it all went to shit (again).
Ekko had no idea who he was, barely recognised him past an Enforcer uniform from this distance, yet there was no mistaking the white cloth covering Vi’s mouth and his arms pulling at her writhing form. Still fighting, still doing whatever it took to protect them all, it made Ekko’s heart swell in admiration and warmth if the situation unfolding before his eyes didn’t make it want to stop beating entirely. Because as soon as he blinked, it was over and Vi was gone. And it was just him, the crackling pops of flames and the looming threat overhead Powder she was apparently oblivious to.
A cold sweat broke out over his skin, his eyes darting between the dark tunnel Vi had been snatched off into and below to his right where Powder’s death inched closer with every second. He couldn’t decide what to do, either way he loses. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he willed his darting eyes to cease their frantic search for answers between the two sisters’ and took a page out of their book and leapt head first into shit. Except, he was still Ekko, so he wasn’t about to go into a knife fight empty handed.
Instinct led him as he twisted the metal casings from his belt, using teeth to pour in the dust before sealing it shut and setting the timer with a twist of the switch, all the while leaping downwards into the alley below. As gravity swept him downwards, he hurled with all his might the small device into the air and directly towards the people who had torn their family apart, a fire in his chest he finally let burn like the one around them.
He didn’t keep his eyes on it, trusting himself as Benzo had always told him that it would work and focused on landing on his feet rather than his face. Except he adjusted last minute, letting his mind lead his body knowing he needed to roll for momentum along the cobbled street. Just as he returned to his feet, the clap of the half-assed trinket he’d tossed made it’s announcement and the alley became an ash cloud to the back up the one-eyed freak had behind him. Shouting erupted, confusion and anger amidst the pieces of scum goons already lashing out at the unknown that surrounded them but he paid them no mind.
Ekko charged at the ringleader, who sat perplexed at the edge of the grey cloud of coverage that didn’t entirely consume him as it did his lackeys. Not that it mattered, not with Ekko retrieving the first solid thing his hand found from his tinkering belt and making a war path towards him. One red eye landed on the boy, threatening to make him buckle out of fear, yet nothing stopped him from crashing the metal wrench directly across his face. And while Ekko had nowhere near the power Vi had when she threw a right hook, it still sent the fucker sprawling, an eruption of blood staining the pavement and metallic wrench he kept in his hand.
Whatever damage he accomplished, Ekko didn’t care. Instead, he turned and grabbed a shell-shocked Powder’s hand, hauling her up with what little muscle mass he possessed and turned tail and ran. He did his part, he’s saved Powder and right now that’s all that mattered. As much as he told it to the fire within his heart, adrenaline kept screaming for repentance, for blood. He didn’t glance back once, keeping a tight grip on Powder as he leapt from trash to abandoned fire escape to rooftops, jumping gaps and sliding down run down ledges.
After what felt like an eternity of running, he dragged them into the tunnel of a sewer pipe that spewed a steady trickle of grey water into the Undercity’s bay. Hauling over on his knees, they became a duet of heaving breath and sighs, hearts racing and bodies steadily draining with enough energy to stand as the exertion caught up with them. No matter how many times they had run in their lives, from Enforcers to desperate gangs, this was different.
Ekko half expected the comforting weight of a hand on his back that he’d look up at and greet bright blue eyes that twinkled proudly at him or the booming cackles that could never sound like anything but wheezy followed by mockery or the solid, steady presence that towered over him and muttered soft questions of reassurance to him. But none of that happened. Instead, he caught his breath and looked up before his entire body froze.
Powder was desperately clutching the curved wall of the sewer pipe so hard it looked like her nails would snap off, a desolate, horror ridden expression across her face. Her breaths were coming out high pitched and jagged, chest heaving with a weight that told him it wasn’t from running across the whole of the Undercity’s bay.
Carefully, he made his way to her, a tentative hand outstretched. “Powder?” It didn’t get the chance to rest on her shoulder before he was sprawled in the inch deep sewer water. Any other night, he would’ve immediately started whining.
Except Powder was clutching him like an anchor afraid to lose itself to it’s boat, scrawny arms wrapped around his chest so hard he thought his ribs would snap. He made no motion to remove her from him. Instead, he let his own face crumple at the sound of her gasping sobs and rested his own arms over her in reciprocation of the hug. It was pathetic how any other time his face would be hot from being this enclosed with her. Not tonight with smoke and death permeating the air.
“I know,” he whispered in the eerie trickling of the pipe, tears slipping down his cheeks, “I know. I’m sorry.” Both of them had lost their family tonight. He felt the minute shake of her head at his words.
“No,” she sobbed, “you don’t! They’re all dead!” More heartbroken sobbing turned into angry snarling that made Ekko flinch. “Vi- she left me! I didn’t mean to do it- I told her -but she left me anyway!” Ekko frowned at her words, confused, his already throbbing head trying desperately to piece together what she meant.
He tried his best to look down at her from their position, admitting defeat at it’s awkwardness before deciding to steadily sit them up. With any of the others, he’d failed miserably at the attempt but with Powder, she barely weighed as much as he did. Always a ‘runt’ as Mylo had continuously teased her (at which the blue haired girl had always bitten him). Gently, he eased her face away from his chest and frowned at her, the tear tracks staining her face in a way that made him wonder if they’d ever fade. He wondered absently if his own would if there were more of them- why weren’t there more of them? Why wasn’t he crying?
Was this what it was like for Vi? Being the eldest, staying strong even if she wanted to fall apart under it all sometimes? It then shook him to his core that it was him now that was all that probably remained for Powder now.
Fighting past the threat of his voice cracking at it all, he managed to ask, “what? What happened?” Powder sniffled, looking at her open palmed hands before meeting his gaze.
“I killed them,” she told him, a cutting admission in the emptiness of their hiding place. “I killed them all- Mylo, Claggor, dad- ”
Her voice cracked and she started to heave in breaths, clutching her head and shaking where she knelt. In shock, Ekko watched in horror as he came to terms with it all. Powder…killing them? No. No, she wouldn’t. A wrenched, aborted scream fell from her mouth along with some bile that mixed with the already discoloured water. She wasn’t lying. The realisation made his eyes flutter closed, urging the stinging in them to die down.
It didn’t for a good several moments, a torrent of emotions inside him. Anger, confusion, grief, all of it forming into one giant tornado that wanted to wipe him away into the despair of it all. Parts of him itched at the proximity to her, the rejection of what she said combined with the messy but beautiful perspective of her in his heart. He was a kid, he pleaded and reasoned with the universe, the gods, anyone, that this shouldn’t be up to him to decide how to be or feel.
Except it was. And there was no changing that. Benzo was dead, splattered on the sidewalk, the pack of hooligans he had followed like an eager shadow wiped from the earth, their father dead in a street where he would likely never be properly buried. All that was left were two little orphans and, Ekko realised, within the churning tides of everything that had happened, he didn’t want to lose that too.
When he opened them, Powder had stopped making the anguished noises and had regained control of her breathing slightly. Her tiny hands still clenched the sides of her face, turning all the skin pressed together white under the pressure. Steadily, he eased the hands away from her face, securing them together in a move he would’ve considered bold before- now, they both just needed this. She let him, a gasp leaving her as if it had brought her back to the real world, but not without the small bite of her nails into his skin.
When she looked at him in stunned confusion, the purpling ring around her eyes and blood smeared across her nose and lip became evident to him. His anger flared again and he bit his lip to temper it- she didn’t need him losing his cool right now. “Who did that?” he muttered for lack of anything else to say. Because what did you tell your best friend (slash crush) when they admitted to accidentally killing their own family?
Her eyes widened as his question sunk in before something sharp that sent the hairs on the back of Ekko’s neck rising entered them. Nothing could have prepared him for the answer though.
“Vi,” she hissed, “she hit me. Because of what I did- I didn’t mean to!”
Perplexed, all Ekko could do was repeat, “Vi?” Clear disbelief clung to his words, as if he might have heard her wrong.
“You don’t believe me?” Powder snapped, pulling her hands from his and against her own chest. She eyed him up and down, as if he was about to hit her. The notion made his stomach queasy for the umpteenth time that night.
“No,” he eased at her, wincing. “It’s just…It’s Vi! She’s your sister- when would she ever- ”
Powder wasn’t listening anymore, her eyes becoming sharp unseeing of Ekko right in front of her. “Some sister, she left me!” Her words tasted like venom in his blood and all she did was spit between them. She glared at her balled hands on her knees. “She’s not my sister anymore!”
“Don’t say that!” Ekko argued, glaring as his patience after everything began to crack.
Powder turned on him, fists hitting the sewer pipe beneath them and cascading the shallow water around them in splash. “Why not! She abandoned me! Left me!” Her voice dissolved into a heartbroken whine, the reality she thought she knew hitting her again as she spoke it.
“No, she didn’t! She was coming back!” he yelled, his voice carrying throughout the pipe they sat in until silence rang in their ears. Wide eyes stared at him.
“What?”
Ekko sighed, drawing his hands into his lap from where they’d also hit the water in frustration. “I saw her, Powder- Vi didn’t leave, she was coming back when she saw that fucking creep almost stab you!” From the rapid inhale, he figured she hadn’t seen the blade hovering inches from her.
At his words, she shrank in on herself, becoming small as if it would save. Eyes once so livid and vengeful became wide and watery as they glanced around them, scanning for any sign of proof. The way they settled over his shoulder before screwing shut, he wondered how much she was seeing now.
“Then…where is she?” It was a plea between them.
Face twisting at the bitter memory, he reluctantly told her. “Some Enforcer fuck took her. I couldn’t stop it. I had to save you, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.” He hung his head, ready for the anger he deserved. Never would Ekko regret saving her but he would always regret not being able to save Vi too. Powder’s accusation of blame never greeted him.
“But...she’s alive?”
He raised his head and was greeted with the eager eyes of a little sister. He had no intentions to crush them.
Nodding, he confirmed, “yeah, alive. I think whoever it was that took her just knocked her out. Don’t know why though.” He bit his lip, hand coming up to his chin as he thought. What did a topsider want with Vi? She was tough but she was still seen as just a kid, no worthy prize. Although she did cause the explosion in Piltover- could that be why they took her?
“What are we going to do?” Powder’s question took him out of his brainstorming, pulling his attention to the present. And it was a good question. What were they gonna do?
Ekko looked away from Powder and to the entrance to the pipe behind her. Across the bay, the Undercity’s dim lights winked at them and he could almost hear the whispering. The whispering of the city, begging for vengeance and life, the whispers of his fallen family urging him on to live himself; whispers that he had actually overheard spill from Benzo and Vander’s lips, riddles of the past about an Undercity that ruled itself in peace and harmony and light, no longer cast in topside’s shadows. Whispers from Powder who was muttering to herself in words Ekko did not understand.
But when her eyes landed on his, he knew he had to listen to what they were all saying, even the ones he couldn’t hear. This would not be the end. He would mourn, he would grieve, but he would also plot and plan and scheme. Him and Powder had been left nothing, any resemblance of comfort snatched away from them cruelly in one twisted form of events except for each other. And he had no plans of letting them fall apart, too.
Because, knee deep in stinky sewage water, they would stand, him taking her hands in his again, locking fingers and taking solid steps towards the edge. He looked out across the bay and hoped she saw what he did past the grime and tear stains in her eyes.
“We’re gonna take back this city,” he told her boldly, far too heated for it to be brushed off as a mere child’s dream, not now, “from that creepy fuck. From topside, even. And in doing so, we’re gonna avenge our family and find Vi.” Burning was her eyes and on him and he turned to meet her taken aback.
“You’re-” she stuttered in quiet disbelief, “I don’t get it. You’re not mad at me?”
He frowned again, tilting his head at her like the strays sometimes did when you spoke softly to them. “Why would I?”
“I didn’t…” she began then swallowed her mounting panic, looking at him with ablaze, wet eyes. “I killed them,” she confessed again, “why don’t you hate me?” Ekko’s face crumpled and he squeezed her hand in his, at which she looked surprised at him.
“I’ll never hate you, Powder.”
Her chin wobbled but she forced down whatever threatened to overflow, squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them, there was a ferocity that made Ekko want to rock back on his heels under the gaze of, feeling as if his skin had been stung a thousand times over by zapper bugs. Forcing himself to hold his ground, all that happened was his breath was stolen by the new face he was in awe of on Powder’s face.
Always she had been vibrant and feral but now there was a spark, an edge, a light that would sweep him under if he wasn’t careful. So he would be, so it didn’t control them both despite the burn in their veins and saliva of their mouths aching to latch onto flesh and bone and take their pound of repentance.
He licked through his dry mouth and offered a smile at her, eyes softening in retort to her blaze. Their hands curled around one another.
“One more thing,” she said to him. “Don’t call me Powder.”
Surprised, he rose a brown. “But it’s your name?” She shook her head insistently at him, a tightness in her mouth.
“No. Not anymore. She’s dead, she died with her family,” she told him venomously and for a moment, he wondered if she blamed him. Yet the burning in her eyes was not held for him, it was instead all consuming and he didn’t want to know what it meant.
“Then,” he broached carefully, “what do I call you?” Maybe he didn’t understand, but he would try.
She stared at the city and their grip together tightened like a snake’s coil. Without looking at him, she said one word in response.
“Jinx.”
Ekko delivered punch after punch to the scrapped together machine, barely managing to dodge a calibrated blow to his left side. Arms up, they already were blooming with poorly deflected punches and he embraced the lick of sweat down his back. Never did he understand how Vi could move like lightning against what she considered a kid’s game.
Dodge. Punch. Kick, kick, punch. Dodge, duck, dodge. A repetitive yet spontaneous combination after combination of battles, each becoming increasingly difficult the longer he stayed in the game. Part of him started to adhere to the simplicity of firing a gun or being long ranged. The burn in his muscles disagreed, fuelling his vigour and fire to make his knuckles ache. Refreshing, to punch something and not worry for the consequences.
One final blow to his jaw he failed to miss colliding with ended the round, the brass machine whooping and buzzing at him in mockery as it crowned itself ultimately victorious. Mylo’s etched in face spun at him and he couldn’t find it in himself to be entirely mad. He massaged his jaw and glanced at the flipping scoreboard, fighting the disappointment as his name landed leagues away from Vi’s top score. Part of him couldn’t help but smirk as it rested one spot above the name POWDER.
“Wipe that look off your face before it gets stuck there.”
Ekko didn’t jump- he didn’t. He did whirl around, arms raised in a now practised position of defence. Not that it was needed, immediately releasing all tension at the sight of a lanky figure saddled up against the jutting glass of the hole permanently exposing what was once a centre of childhood tomfoolery.
Huffing, he snarked at her, “gee, okay, boss.” The two shared a gentler smile, their previous caretaker’s grating comment a secret cradled between them. Benzo was gruff more gruff than affectionate, afterall. The moment passed, however, Jinx’s eyes strayed from him and landed on the machine behind him, her face slackening and dimming.
Guilt bit at him as he shoved off, doing his best to draw her attention away from the reminder. It wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped, however.
“I don’t know why you bother, y’know,” she told him, swinging her arms behind her back as she took one step in, surveying the place like it was from a distant dream. Ekko supposed it was, she rarely stepped a foot inside it. “You’re never gonna beat her score.”
He sighed, taking the grimy towel he’d scrounged up a week ago and deigned it safe enough to dry his sweat with. “I know,” he said, for that’s all he could say.
“Any word?” she pried, fiddling absentmindedly with a steam pipe’s wheel, acting unbothered while she eyed him from beneath her hood. He shook his head at her, not in the mood to admit verbal defeat.
Five years and not a peep about Vi. It grated on him, whoever took her was keeping the fact she was out there a secret, tightly wound and buried deeper than even the Undercity. Why he’d gotten his hopes up this time, Ekko didn't know. Maybe it’s because he wagered his last good can of beans for the information and the lead he’d been following led to nothing. He’d failed them all. Again.
A nudge broke him out of it and he looked up to where she spun away from him on her heel and headed out of the broken wall into the streets. When he didn’t follow, she poked her head around at him, blinking expectantly. “Come on!” she chirped, “I have something to show you! I didn’t come all this way just to watch you mope, bozo.” She dipped out of sight again.
He sighed again though this time, fondness was wrapped in it and he trailed after her without a word. Jinx didn’t so much as skip as she danced through the streets- a joyful sight compared to the retracting individuals and secretive crowds lining the Undercity yet not one that would immediately draw attention. Most who saw her twirling along probably assumed she was high off Shimmer dancing along with her in her veins. As if Ekko would ever allow that to happen. Even though his mantra that Shimmer be used only in life or death situations became a joking point for Jinx to show how up tight he’d become, he trusted she took it seriously.
Nowadays, her mood changes didn’t even make him bat an eye. He couldn’t blame her, the grief of their past had to either be accepted or they’d drown in it with no life boat in sight. She stayed within his sight, though, even if to the untrained eye they looked completely unknown to each other walking solemnly and sporadically in turn throughout.
For a moment, Ekko shuddered at the direction she was taking him until she took a hasty left that made him relax. If she took them to the bastardised version of The Last Drop, he’d seriously consider if she was on anything. Instead, she led him on an elaborate song and dance through the Undercity, including the pipes and tunnels and vents.
A few people glanced at them here and there, taking Jinx’s jagged turns for a threat before dismissing them. Keener eyed and familiar people’s eyes glinted in recognition before bowing their heads away. At each inkling of acknowledgment, Ekko tightened his fists and reached for his wrench, pace picking up to take sentry behind Jinx who without a doubt picked up on their recognition too.
While it was true that they couldn't have stopped Silco from taking control of the Lanes- no one could have except Vander -there was still the matter of people’s loyalty. It was no secret they had survived, in fact they had been hunted ever since the last person who took a stand against Silco’s implementation of power was wiped out. There’d been close calls too, the greed and desperation of some, the misfortune of the Undercity testing Ekko and Jinx’s survival be it with loose buildings they took refuge in or the sickness that plagued the streets more and more.
Never had they been more grateful for the sway Vander had had over the Lanes, many of the Undercity now reserved at the fact that if they weren’t directly working beneath Silco, Ekko and Jinx were left alone. A wide berth had been given to them, the respect and loss running rampant about them. The last two of the Hound’s litter.
Not the last, Ekko corrected himself, clutching onto the image of Vi viciously in his head. She’s still out there. He once again focused on the back of Jinx swaying ahead of him, ignoring a Shimmer addicted beggar at the mouth of the tunnel she led him down.
Part of Ekko wondered if the goose chase would ever end until she spun on him.
Fingerless gloved hands slammed onto his shoulders, a solid force after years of scraping by. He tried to ignore the feeling of her calluses on his broadening shoulders, looking at her grinning face that could easily spell trouble. A hand slapped itself across his eyes, making him grunt at the unexpected impact.
“Close your eyes!” She crooned as if she hadn’t done so for him already. He made no attempt to regain his eyesight, feeling her lanky presence take up residence behind him.
“I swear, Jinx,” he hummed, exasperated, “if this is anything like last time-”
“It’s not!” she bit at him, huffing indignantly in his ear as she bodily shoved him along. He nearly tripped over a rock, her arm snaking around him like a viper and hauling his balance back to him. He prayed she couldn’t feel his heated cheeks under her palm. “I made one mistake about a rat's nest and you never let it go!”
Smiling at her muttering, he squinted in vain at the light making the divots between her fingers glow, telling him light was streaming through wherever she was taking him. If she’d hoisted him topside, he was going to cut her hair while she slept but he had faith in her direction of down that that wasn’t the case. Hopefully.
A few more steps and she stilled them both, excited puffs of breathing tickling his ear. Just as he was about to ask what they were doing, she flung back her hand and gave a triumphant cry. “Ta-da!”
For several seconds, Ekko didn’t see anything. Adjusting to the sudden brightness, he blinked rapidly to regain pupil function, eyes settling against it all. Sound was what he heard first. Birds. Tweeting birds.
Then came the sight. His breath was stolen.
A tree. There was a tree growing in the centre of a canyon in the Undercity. Light streamed down from high above, casting the pale rock surrounding them gold. From the cracks between the ear, grass and weeds sprung and it threatened to make Ekko cry from sheer beauty. Jinx was more expressive in her joy, bounding around happily with her hands in the air as she ran laps. Eventually she threw herself on top of one of the arching roots of the tree, leaning back luxuriously, hood down as her shoulder length hair hung limp in the air as she tilted her head at him. Ekko never thought a tree could look more beautiful.
“Cool, right?” she hollered at him, throwing her head back and cackling again.
“Cool?” he murmured before calling back. “Jinx, this is amazing! How- how is this even possible?” He clutched his short coils in amazement, eyes wide and scanning every inch of the wooden grooves and vibrant leaves.
She snorted, “I don’t know, that’s more your job description, boy wonder.” Like a cat, she rolled back in the beams of the sun before overshooting it and rolling off. Landing on her feet, she pulled at his hand and giggled. “Come on!”
The tree was weird to climb, both of them rarely having seen one so close let alone interact with it. So unlike the harsh, cool edges of buildings and the warning barbs of rust or decay. The bark was rough and it offered no danger, merely the fall of gravity if they were to lose their grips. Thankfully, when he did lose his footing, he had a slender hand to retrieve him.
Sat in the dip where the branches met, the two overlooked the whole crevice the paradise was carved into. It was a jagged tear drop shape, plenty of breathing room for the tree to expand and grow and wasn’t that a possibility, Ekko buzzed. Pride swelled in his chest, twinning with the fire that had grown as he had. How deserved the Underground was to have something like this that the topsiders took for granted. Then again, he wilted, none could know about this. With Silco in charge and greed the winning factor now, such a creation would be destroyed within days.
“This can’t happen,” Ekko whispered to himself. Jinx turned her gaze at his words, prodding him in the temple.
“Hey,” she told him with a cheeky smile, “I thought it was my job to be crazy.” She giggled but her humour was not returned in kind. A scowl settled instead on Ekko’s face.
“You’re not crazy,” he argued firmly.
Jinx rolled her eyes, turning away from him and slinging an arm over a knee. “Traumatised then, whatever. Doesn’t mean anything different.” She pouted, not looking at him.
Relenting the impending argument, Ekko stared at the flat wall of rock in front of them. Absently, he said, “we can make something here. Something that the people of the Undercity- our Undercity -deserve.”
“How?” she questioned with a frown. “You know I didn’t show you this place to incorporate into our plans, right? I just thought it was cool.” She bit the inside of her cheek, glancing around uncertainty.
“I didn’t think you did,” he assured her. “But it could be a place where we finally don’t have to run. A place to actually live rather than survive.”
“When did you get all optimistic?”
“When a crazy girl dropped into my life with colour and genius,” he teased her and she let out a bark of laughter at that.
“I’m not a genius,” she argued, sticking her tongue out at him. He smiled back, not bothering to correct her. So much progress has been made, Jinx’s gadgets actually working as her mind has sharpened and honed in on its craft. Now, she even rivalled him in their tinkering of tools and weapons. Getting her to see that was the difficult part.
“I’m serious,” he insisted, throwing a gloved hand around at what surrounded them. “Look at it! A place that can be ours.”
Eyeing him out of the corner of her eye, she repeated, “ours?”
He coughed heavily into his hand, stuttering. “I mean- not just ours -for all of Zaun- y’know, the dream, the people- I mean- everyones!” He exhaled strongly. “A place for everyone,” he finished solidly, looking at Jinx who was hugging her knees as she contemplated his words.
Sensing her distrust at such a fragile hope, he amended, “we’ll still have the airship underground if that helps- it can be your lab of sorts, so you can tinker freely like always.” He saw the way she shuddered and knew she heard something else beneath his words. Wincing, Ekko just hoped she heard no accusation hurled towards her; always was he careful in terms of her creations.
“I don’t know,” she settled on, fidgeting with an acorn off the trunk (and holy shit, there were acorns!). “It’s definitely a nice thought, though.” A smile etched itself weakly onto her mouth. “And I like nice thoughts better. Even when they’re not as fun.”
“Together then,” Ekko said firmly, holding out his hand at her. Jinx blinked once at it, like the concept was a startling new one to her, before sliding her own into his where he closed his fingers around them.
“Together,” she smiled.
It was dark and they were watching them, unassuming flies walking into a spider’s web. With bated breaths, they waited from the shadows for the twang of them stepping into their trap to go off.
Ekko feared his breathing against his mask was too loud but the blue uniformed people below them made no indication that they heard him. Slowly, he raised a hand into the air, the only sign that the others around him saw it was how they shifted slowly forwards on the edge of their boards, ready to spring off and downwards. His keen eyes, enhanced through the tech of the built in goggles of the mask help him see as one boot was all it took to trip the wire.
It had been pitifully easy, setting this all up. A few scattered tips here and there about a gang readying a rebellion against topside, gunning for an oh-so-precious councillor and here was a whole hoard of Enforcers ready for their picking. It wasn’t exactly a lie, anyway.
While Ekko wouldn’t call the Firelights a gang, they were a rebel force against Piltover. It was just that Piltover didn’t know that the tips came from their enemy themselves. Not that the Firelight’s should be Piltover’s enemy, not with Shimmer as big a problem as it was. But what didn’t concern the rich didn’t interest them to fix it either.
Hence no sympathy or love lost with Ekko when the alarms blared, a bass of music blasting away the Enforcers’ eardrums even past their mechanically masks. They didn’t need to breathe to be disoriented. It was with the funky beat emitting from the dangling speakers that Ekko threw down his arm, the signal spurring the Firelights into action. A green streak is all that showed themselves in the dark, the bursts of neon colours coming to life as the bright lights were cut too distracting for the stunned Enforcers’ to immediately notice they were not as alone as they thought.
They had trained for this so it was no difficulty. Enforcers were slammed away with the base of their hoverboards, projecting them into the metal walls of their doomed box of a prison, effectively knocking them out even beneath bronze masks. Some overzealous fighters decided to take more trigger happy officers for a ride, grabbing their rifles and hauling them up into the air with them still attached before happily letting them drop. Not high enough to kill them- a war was not the intention here, not right now at least. He’d been clear about that from the start of this plot.
Ekko was not shy himself, thankful for his training both with his role model and himself to be able to hold his own as he let his feet touch the ground. He only had eyes for the Enforcer at the head of it all, adorned in higher ranking uniform than the others. Not the sheriff, he snarled internally, but high ranked enough that this all wouldn't be for nought.
The officer saw him coming, more composed than his task force and Ekko found himself locked in a fight. Dodging a punch, bringing his arms up with his board across his back, Ekko found an opening for a punch and he dove for it. He got one in but sacrificed a swing to the cheek that hurt but didn’t daze him enough to drop his guard.
He went for another punch.
It continued for what felt both like hours and seconds. In reality, it was five minutes. That’s what he had given them to do this. Punches and kicks were exchanged in rapid succession, bruises already forming on his skin but he ensured he gave as good as he got, making a grab for the Enforcer’s shoulder and hauling him downwards right into his raised knee.
Put him on his ass, came the warped voices of Vander and Vi. He intended to not fail them. Not again. Not with this.
The impact of the blow had the officer’s mask clatter to the floor, he coughed up bile as he staggered back and Ekko advanced. He wondered what he must look like, white adorned mask and an imposing figure when the Enforcer looked at him and paled. He was not fully grown nor the most muscled of the Firelights but he knew how to swing his weight, sharp and precise with confidence he had learned from pink haired grit who had learned it from a Hound.
Ekko looked in the man’s wide, fearful eyes and internally hesitated. Was this what they saw when they came to the Undercity? People afraid of them? How could they not? Anger flared in Ekko and he swung his board off his back and across the Enforcer’s face. The man didn’t even hit the ground before Bat was scooping him up into the air across his shoulders.
Not even bothering to glance at the chaos left in their wake, Ekko slammed his booted foot into the face of an officer who lifted themselves with a groan from the ground. Blood spewed and Ekko mounted his board and followed the rest of the Firelights into the Undercity’s tunnels.
When the commanding officer came to, he was tied up to a chair. Concerning. His face also throbbed like fucking hell. Also concerning. .
What was more concerning was he had not a damn clue where he was and the fact it was way too chilling and damp. Glancing sporadically around, he tried to make sense of it all. They were on a mission, tips coinciding with other tips about a threat to one of the senators, all leading to an abandoned Undercity factory. They’d been dispatched, armed to apprehend the threat as necessary.
Wincing, he remembered they’d barely made it through the door before being plunged into darkness. Then immediately blinded by splashes of neon being splattered across greasy, creaking walls. And then…
“Fuck,” he uttered, it all coming back. It had been a damn ambush. All of it.
Straining against the chair, the ropes he was tied with didn’t budge which made his pulse quicken. Wherever he was it was dark, he saw no one. He had time. He writhed and forced himself to jump in place, ignoring the burn of friction it elicited. What he couldn’t ignore was how the metal floor beneath him groaned and he moved.
Giving a cry of surprise, his insides flipped as the chair veered back as the floor gave way under the weight of his attempts. Vertigo, he realised, thankfully regaining upright posture, sweat beading out of more than just effort against his temple now. Eyeing the floor, in the darkness of it all, he made out the edge mere feet behind him. A cavernous wind swept below them. He gulped.
“Careful now,” called a raspy voice.
The man jumped so hard he began to teeter over. Something slammed into him from behind that set him back in place. He gave himself whiplash trying to spot whoever- whatever -was in the dark, toying with him. Nothing.
A lighter flicked on in front of him, snapping his attention away. From the darkness surrounding him, there was little he could make out, the person holding the switch lighter barely visible. Painted nails and pale skin was all he could truly see. “We wouldn’t want you to fall, now would we?” they mocked.
Finding himself, he called, “what do you want?” He waited expectantly, shoulders tense as his ears strained for any sort of reply. All that greeted him was the echoing squeak of shifting metal.
Snap!
Flincing, the lighter was put out. Once again, the man was in darkness. Peering around, he tried in vain to make out anything, anything of where the one person he knew for definite was there had gone. A small squeak of metal had his head turning left.
Snap!
The face of a woman appeared directly next to his, eyes meeting in a flash that had him jerking. “What do I want?” she mirrored back casually, the flickering flame in her hand making her face glow yellow. “I want to know what you know.”
“I know nothing!” he insisted, sweat pooling between his shoulders. Straining up at her, he fought with everything he had for her to believe him.
“Oh,” She whined like she was disappointed in his denial, rearing back so she was upright. The platform they were on shifted at her movement, though she remained unbothered. “Don't do that, deputy.”
“I’m recently promoted, anything you would want to know, I can’t give you,” he sputtered, urging the tears in his eyes to not fall.
“Can’t? Or won’t?” the tone the woman used dropped deeper, making him squeeze his legs tight in the danger of it all. “I suppose with you topsiders, there’s not much of a difference.” Snap! Darkness flooded the area again.
Snap!
She loomed over him.
Snap!
Nothing but pitch black. Not even the wisp of her moving.
“There is, I swear!” he panicked, voice rising in pitch with every flick of the lighter, every wayward appearance she made. “We can make a deal, I’ll help you as best I can. Just, please! Let me go!” He couldn’t help the cry that clawed out of his throat.
“A deal huh? How enticing. And I was told you put up such a fight,” there was a teasing bite to her words, a clear dismissal of his prowess. Then, her tone dropped again except he eased in curiosity at the sudden…melancholy it held. “You know, my dad once made a deal with enforcers. Y’know where that led him?”
Snap! Sat on an oil drum in front of him, posture languid as she stared vacantly into the flame in front of her face. Blue eyes looked down at him from beneath her eyelids, glare heavy as her words. “Lying dead, unburied, dishonoured, in an alleyway. All because an Enforcer chose greed over justice.”
“That wasn’t me! I swear!”
“I know. I just need to know who did .” She gave a smile too large for her face, making her cheeks pinch her eyes in an unnerving implication that she still held baby fat despite the sallowness of her skin.
“How am I supposed to help?” he whimpered, wondering where this was all leading. It was clear she was after something.
“Tell me, officer. You believe in justice? Honour? Duty?” she toyed with him, waving the lighter about where it flickered. A soft kiss of wind, wherever they were.
“Yes! Yes, I do. Please,” he begged, bowing his head where sweat rolled off his nose and onto his lap.
“Oh? Well, I don’t. They’re just fairy tales our parents tell us to go to sleep at night.” A whimsical sigh escaped her. Snap! Snap! “Now, I can’t save my dad. But my sister? She’s still got hope for her. Just woosh gone! Into the night! But not dead! No body, no death- that’s my rule! He doesn’t seem to think so.” The hand holding the lighter had two fingers wrapped around it that she made a point of directing to the side of where they faced each other.
Shakily he followed where his fingers were pointing off into the dark. A scream stuck in his throat as he made out the two glowing green eyes at the edge of the darkness, watching. It came out a terrified, wheezing whimper as the man’s breath came out in short, gasping breaths.
It was made all the worse when an arm was slung around his shoulder, the weight of the woman saddling up to him making it all overwhelming. Why him? What did he do for this? Nonsensical pleas escaped his mouth, a desire to not be forfeited to whatever it was that loomed off in the darkness. The woman gave a raspberry of laughter at his apparently oh-so-hilarious panic.
“Oh, please! He’s harmless.” She slid her arm off of him, nearing what was revealed to be a ledge of the metal platform. Extending the lighter towards him, she leaned back into the darkness as the green eyes veered closer, kept to the shadow with the distance of the small lighter being blocked by her body. Whatever it was, she leaned into it with her full weight, humming happily with an added, “to me.”
Suddenly, she pushed off, the green eyes retreating as she came to stand in front of the officer again, a wry smile on her pink lips. “You…not so much.”
Tossing his head back, he told her desperately, “please! Please, please! I understand, just…just tell me what you want me to do! Just don’t kill me!” If he could, he would’ve been on his knees. Every ounce of strength he had left went into his begging, anything to convince them not to end him then and there.
He was an officer, and Enforcer, but he was there to do his job and get paid. Whatever freak show of torment he’d been abducted into he had not signed up for. He wanted out. Fuck the badge at this point, he wanted to live!
Absently, he acknowledged her reaching into the back pocket, fingers curling around something. A sob escaped him as she held something round and shiny in her hand not holding the lighter. This was it, he accepted pitifully, here was how he died. Was this really-
“Alright then!” she chirped brightly. In one slick movement that it passed almost as a blur, her hand slid across his neck and a pinprick of a sting erupted across his right side of his face. Eyes burning with refractory tears, he blinked them away to focus on the happily humming face of his captor.
“Wh-what? What is this?” he gasped, feeling his blood fizzing around the pinpoint of his neck.
“You, my friend, are going to go and find me some documents! Anything that mentions a pink haired, roughly nineteen to twenty-ish year old being incarcerated around six years ago. Ya got that?” she told him simply as if discussing the weather. She was fiddling with what looked like a hand clapping monkey’s head. “Then, you’re gonna come straight back here and show us what you found! Simple, right?” Glancing at him once to ensure he was listening, she stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth, continuing to tinker with the toy.
In one bold, stupid act of defiance, the man wet his lips and questioned, “and if I don’t?”
The woman’s fidgeting hands stilled and her gaze became almost glassy. Part of the corner of her mouth twitched in a deranged millisecond of a smirk making the back of his neck prickle even more. It didn’t help that there was a soft scuttling from the direction that the two glowing eyes had flickered off into. His eyes snapped back to her from the noise and he felt his lungs seize. Staring into his very soul, she raised in her other hand a small rectangular remote that she pressed down on with a click.
The toy in her off hand gave a responding click before a thunderous boom erupted, lighting the area up for a mere second. The man tied to the chair shut his eyes at the intensity of bright, explosive light that went off. When he opened them, the woman was unmoving, skin merely singed, and smiled peacefully at him.
“That. Will be your head.”
His breath was choked out of him as a bag was shoved over his head.
Jinx held her hands on her hips as she watched some of the Firelights haul the unimpressive Enforcer off into the tunnels, ready to do what they’d asked. She slipped the clicker that would pop his head like a music box into her pocket. Soft footfalls she’d recognised in her sleep turned her attention along the stretching metal plate of her underground lair.
Ekko had his mask off, his face resting in it’s usual impassiveness. A small smile puckered at the corner of his mouth, though.
“Did I do too much?” She mused to him, looking back at where the officer had been hauled. Ekko came to a stop beside her, contemplating her words.
He smiled at her properly then. “Nah.”
Then her smile dropped, dipping her head as her hair fell across her eyes as a shield. “Sorry, if the whole, leaning into you thing-”
He raised a hand in nonchalant dismissal, a smile on his face, a fond one. “Don’t be.” She clearly didn’t buy it, hands tucked under her arms as she bit her cheek.
“No, really, I’m-” she tried again, stretching a hand out as a peace offering, like Ekko needed comforting. A nice thought, but unnecessary.
“It’s okay, Jinx. I…really didn’t mind.” Glancing up at her, she spotted a shining softness in his eyes. One she’s always seen, shared between the two of them. The edge in her back eased out, ducking her cheek to her shoulder.
“Okay.”
Seeming content that she'd accepted the brief moment of touch without overthinking it further, Ekko was hesitant to continue. Steeling himself, he probed, “we do need to talk though.”
She stilled, heart skipping a beat. “About?”
“About what he finds,” he glances to where their one final lead had been carted off. It had been risky to interrogate him within Jinx’s home, the heart of where she could be herself without fear of others judging or being in danger. Very few were openly welcomed here.
Ekko had truly thought it a death trap, still sorta did. But it was one he now had qualms about falling to his death in with one misstep that Jinx never seemed to have. It was second nature, clear from her manoeuvring in the darkness the entire time she snapped the lighter off for nothing more than dramatic effect. During the whole scene, he’d had to fight on what was being said over admiring her skill.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t continue to reminisce about the earlier experience, brushing away the imprint that burned through his clothes and to his skin where she’d leaned against him, trusting him to hold her there, hovering almost above the chasm below.
“He’s going to find Vi,” she frowned, nose scrunching in a distracting way.
“I know, but…” he trailed, not even wanting to voice it aloud himself. Jinx was having none of his cowardice.
“But what?” she pushed, eyes narrowing. The sharpness from all those years ago lit in them, daring him to get burned. “What are you trying to say, Ekko?”
He held up a placating hand, taking a step towards her that she eyed, unsure whether she should retreat. “I just think we need to be prepared, just in case.” For a second time, she glared at him, intensity growing the more he beat around the bush. He sighed. “Incase he doesn’t find what we’re after. If we’re told…the not so good news. The news that gives us peace rather than a reunion.”
Jinx took his heart in her hands and squeezed just from the shattering look that spread across her face as his words, their implications, set in. Her hand came up and clutched at her cloud-adorned bicep.
“You’re giving up on her?” she accused, voice weaker than he’d heard in a while.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Sure sounds like it!” she growled. A gun slid off from her hip and she whirled, pointing it across at the couch, stained with paint and glitter.
Eyes unseeing, Ekko ensured to stay out of shot as she waved it disapprovingly at where no people sat. “Shut up! Stop it! You’re wrong, he would never do that! He never blamed me- you’re wrong. Shut up, shut up, shut up! You’re all wrong!” Jinx snarled and hissed, voice reverberating throughout the underground cave.
Face crumpling, Ekko wasn’t surprised his words brought this about. Hopeful, yes, that they wouldn’t but they had. It wasn’t long after that night that Jinx had begun to hear voices, growing more and more as she aged, louder and louder the worse things got. It was why Ekko became so desperate, so determined to find Vi. So that maybe Jinx wouldn’t have another voice plaguing her. (So that maybe Ekko wouldn’t have to do this blindly).
Carefully, he took measured, slow steps towards her. She wasn’t an animal, but she had a gun and he’s seen her misfire during one of her episodes more than once. “Jinx, it’s okay. The voices, they’re not there. I promise.”
Gently, he eased his hand along the clouds of her arm, curling around the hand without the gun, playing with her slender yet worked fingers. Twitching her face towards him, he saw a flash of recognition. “Promise?” She murmured before something- someone -snatched her back. Like the tension of a Hexgate, Jinx reaffirmed her stance towards the other side of the, teeth bared in warning.
“Stop it! Ekko’s not a liar, he’s good! He hasn’t left me. He’s right here!” She stilled where she stood. Slowly, ever so slowly, she peered back at him over her shoulder, the one eye he could see open and yearning. “You are here right?” she asked so quietly like merely speaking would make him disappear.
“Right here,” he reaffirmed her, reaching for her other hand with the gun. In one grasp, together they held in as he brought her closer to him. Lowering his head, their foreheads touched, eyes closing so she could listen to the breath between them. “Not going anywhere. Okay?”
A sigh of acceptance. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” the officer gasped, standing almost hunched over on himself before them. There were no theatrics or convincing this time, the lights in Jinx’s place on, the string lights a soft glow compared to the harsh dark and light from before.
She stood at the centre of the giant fan platform, facing the man she’d sent off a day ago for her answers that had now returned, sweating and vein-bulging. Behind her, Ekko stood, mask off at the sight before him. He closed his eyes in defeat of what was being said.
“There was nothing!” the officer reasoned without anything being said. “I looked, I did, I swear! There’s no record anywhere of who you’re looking for. Not even in the deepest confines of Stillwater- I’m sorry, I looked. Who you’re after…they’re not here!” Silence met his words and he shuffled awkwardly on his feet.
Jinx released a shaky sigh, hands quivering in a way Ekko knew and was not surprised by. Part of him went to shift forwards, ease her back. A stronger part stayed still, vigilant like a flesh gargoyle. Jinx remained relaxed in disappointment as she approached the officer who froze. Ekko didn’t blame him.
Now saddled next to the man, Jinx placed one hand on his wrinkled uniform shoulder. The man looked from hand to Jinx, waiting with baited breath.
“I know you did your best,” Jinx whispered. The deputy visibly relaxed. He could barely blink before a bullet was embedded in his skull from the slinging of her gun.
Limp, his body fell into the cavern’s depths where it would later be blown to ashes under her continuous tinkering and testing. Ekko watched him go, only his eyes moving until his body made a distant thud. Then his attention swapped to Jinx whose back was to him.
She fell to her knees with a metallic thud. He was there, arms around her as soon as she hit the floor, pulling her weight into him. The screams that left her throat would make her sore later, chugging down as clean water as they could distil and resting silently in her makeshift hammock. For now, she screamed until her throat was hoarse, thundering fists on metal that groaned with threats of collapse that would never be unless she deemed it so. Ekko did not flinch or move, holding Jinx to him, a solid pillar holding her up as she fell apart.
When her nails and fingers went to pry at her own skin and hair, trying to tear and bleed, his larger ones intercepted, taking them gently like the most precious of coin to be cradled. He pressed her raw, bleeding knuckles to his lips, uncaring of the implications it may have later. If she had pushed and turned her anger onto him, he would have suffered it; suffered it a thousand times if it meant she did not undo herself instead.
However, she did not, burying her face into the still growing muscle of his neck, allowing herself to feel it all, the hope and losses of six years of searching fall over her. A single child. A sister with no sister.
Ekko’s own silent tears attached themselves to the tresses of Jinx’s hair that had become a messy braid in what little tugs she had managed, slipping down the silken divots before absorbing entirely. His cheeks were finally stained after so many years, finally mourning the girl he had not chosen and for that, let himself carry what was left of her and what was most dear to him.
And together, he thought, feeling Jinx finally go slack after minutes, hours, days, of unloaded anguish, they would burn the entire city for it.
Jinx rubbed her eyes, just letting Ekko lead the way despite knowing where they were going, having led him there the first time an entire year ago now. If you’d told her before, that the difference between being fifteen and sixteen felt huge, she would’ve dismissed it. Now, the last part of her family had been confirmed taken from her.
How large a year could change someone.
A hand tugged her forwards. Well, perhaps not all of her family.
The tree canyon the Firelights called home had expanded and grown, both the tree and the huts and houses inhabiting it. While the water wasn’t the freshest, streaming down from a gap in the rock, it didn’t ensure disease or death which was a win. Small bouts of crops managed to grow, small and pathetic but a strawberry was a strawberry even if it was more sour than sweet.
It was a marvel, what they’d accomplished. One that Jinx had no interest in. Not now. A day of digesting the news didn’t mean it was completely gone, that pain fresh and new with no indication of healing soon. The fire would come, the rage, she was sure. Just not now. For now, Ekko lead the way. Like he always had for her when she’d been astray and how she had for him when he was unsure.
Except what he brought her to was not food or a proper bed (read, not a hammock) to rest in. No, instead, he brought her to the remembrance wall. She huffed, eyes still downcast but every nook and cranny of their home known to her. With her head down, it fell to Ekko pushing her chin up with one finger to get her to look.
Her breath caught.
There, splattered in all her fearlessness and pride and youth was Vi. Painted against the rock, just like how Jinx had once known her and had been forgetting her. Had her eyes really been that shade of blue? That ignited with passion? Yes, they must’ve been, she was Vi.
Was. A small, happy sob left her mouth.
Ekko’s hand slipped from her face to her hip where he pulled her against him. Easily, she slid against him like she was always meant to be there, her head in the crook of his neck as they gazed up at the gift he had arranged for her. Right below Vander, Vi’s head and shoulders sat, forever immortalised for who she was, what she stood for- what they now fight for.
Her sister was gone. But she could never be forgotten.