Chapter Text
She was gone. Pulverised from the fall. Blown up by her own monkey bomb. Slashed into ribbons by Vander’s husk. It didn’t matter. The blue-haired girl vanished. It shouldn’t have bothered him. Ekko was no stranger to saying goodbye. Benzo. Vander. Powder. He had done enough grieving for one lifetime, but Jinx’s death hurt differently. He feels amputated, a phantom organ beating uselessly in his chest cavity, vainly trying to recapture a feeling once so tantalizing that now leaves a gaping wound in his soul.
How can he mourn something that he never had? He never thought he would spill tears for an arch-enemy, the reason for seven years worth of sacrifices and funerals. Ekko had buried Powder along with the rest of his family after that day at the dock, sharpened his grief into rage and hatred until it became a weapon, a fire he stoked that fueled his burning obsession to end Silco and put down the Undercity’s loose cannon. Jinx was something to loathe, the reason plans went awry and firelights had to be mourned.
But now, as the dimming embers of joss paper illuminate the Piltover skyline like fireflies, Ekko finds himself reaching for his pocket. The pages of his alternate-self’s notebook, his memento from an unreachable universe, feels like rich silk to his calloused fingers. A leaf bookmarks the sketch of his final collaboration with Heimerdinger and Powder: his beloved Z-Drive, now shattered and absorbed by Viktor’s singularity; cymbal-holding monkeys designed to amplify the inverse-acceleartion rune; a portrait sketch of his academy-self and the prototypes of his projects. He flips to the first page of the notebook and traces the cursive.
Go show those topsiders what the Lanes can do.
- B
Was this the kind of life he could’ve lived without the curse of hextech? The other Ekko seemed to have it all, a family whole and unfractured, a thriving Undercity, prosperity shared between topside and bottom. Ekko gazes up at the ruins decorating what’s left of his home and the gaping hole caused from Jinx’s ship. Not for the first time, he wondered if it was a mistake to return.
A cacophony of fireworks rouse Ekko from his stolen notebook. After mourning their losses, Piltover has began their celebrations. The fight was won. Jayce’s plan worked, and defeating the Noxians has began to mend the relationship between topside and bottom. But where did this leave himself now? All those he had fought for have started to move on. The firelights had been integrated into the Zaunite collective following his absence, finding strength in numbers. Even Vi, the old friend he had looked up to the most, now cozied up topside with an aristocratic enforcer. The entire world took a leap forward… and he got left behind.