Chapter Text
After Benzo bought the farm in the most disgustingly violent way possible, after the decaying warehouse by the docks went up in fire and smoke, Ekko spent the little time in which his parents were home crying, wrapped up in and rocked in their arms. All that they knew: he lost his apprenticeship. He couldn’t find his best friends. It was like so much of the suffering that happens in Zaun: senseless, confusing and cruel.
And so, for the brevity of their single day off, Ekko let himself cry. But then it was back to the grindstone, back to the mean streets. He knew the Lanes like the back of his hand. If there was the slightest chance his friends were out there, he’d leave no nook or cranny unscoured. And if they weren’t there— well, he didn’t let himself think that. If he searched every haunt and came back empty-handed, then Vander would know where they were. The man was simply invincible in Ekko's young mind; he must've gotten out, he had to.
As long as Vander walked and drew breath, he wouldn't let his kids die. And as long as Ekko did, he wouldn’t dare to abandon Zaunite kids like himself by choking on the feeling of doom. He went looking for clues in the first place he knew.
It took a week and a half to sneak into The Last Drop.
First, it was the Enforcers. Always the fucking Enforcers. Without someone to "make an example of" as Grayson had said, they were raiding every place related to Vander, trying to terrify the Hound of the Underground's faithful into submission, desperation and grief. At first, Ekko wondered if they were hunting the man down. Had the Enforcers finally caved? Did they finally decide to lay this to rest by putting Vander in cuffs as he’d willingly offered, rather than attempting to wrangle his children? By Janna, Ekko hoped that was true. If it was, then he could know for certain the other kids were okay. But it was on one of those first aborted sneak-in attempts that he caught wind of reality. From how pleased with himself the man sounded, Ekko knew it was Marcus. It had to be him, of all pigs. It had to be him, prattling on revenge, on how the Hound died like a dog.
This time, Ekko’s tears were not of grief, but of teeth-gritting rage as he paced in his room, occasionally kicking the wall. The Enforcers didn’t do this for shit. They had no goal in mind as they decorated The Last Drop with bullet holes. No ends for their means as they wounded the regulars! All of them— glorified, pampered Pilties throwing an armed-to-the-teeth temper tantrum! And to make matters worse, the only person left who could remotely know the whereabouts of Vi, Powder, Mylo and Claggor had been made into a feast for the flies!
Ekko knew he should’ve been a big kid about it. He should’ve sucked it up, like Vi did. Because for that brief handful of hours, the Lanes were all hushed. The quietest they’d been since he knew them. The Last Drop was essentially abandoned then, with any clues inside left ripe for the picking. He could’ve gotten in and out and been fucking done with it, but then the shockwave came crashing back in. The power vacuum collapsed into chaos and all Ekko could do was monitor the situation as it developed. He slept on the roof of an abandoned hostel about a block from the bar, waking up every few hours to scope the scene out with binoculars he constructed himself. He didn’t catch everything, hell…
He didn’t want to catch everything.
Because even in Vanders absence, The Last Drop remained highly symbolic, an unofficial seat of power in Zaun— power for which various factions were so desperately, violently vying. Smeech’s gang of augmented minions went head-to-head with Renni’s combatants, all of whom were armed with smoke grenades that expelled clouds of poisonous gas. Finn’s assassins made quick work of whoever so slyly approached the door in the night, but even Madame Margot’s clever girls got the one-up on them once or twice, seducing Finn’s lackeys into back alleys where they would find themselves shanked and gutted.
All of this, Ekko saw from his stake-out, his tired eyes surveilling horrors that no child ought to be subject to. He found himself… becoming numb, physically. He didn’t cry anymore at the sight of spilled blood but the ache in his heart never left, only tinted by chest-tightening fear as the fights began to grow more erratic, as the yelling became animalistic growling, as punches left clawmarks and fanged mouths pierced skin, as veins burst from contorted, gnarled muscle and shined a sickly pink light— everyone now, just like Deckard. Everyone, under the influence of a slim, nameless vial.
And then one night at dusk, a screaming match between the Barons and a stranger erupted. The sound of it leaked into Ekkos nightmares through the milky haze of his sleep. Desperate cries of: dilute it, Silco! Stop playing both sides! You’ve pilfered them from under our noses! And when Ekko woke up, the cobblestones had been scrubbed clean of dried blood. It was around that time that a man began to come and go frequently from The Last Drop. A man with a tall-collared jacket and half his face scarred, his right eye like a red-hot coal dropped in ash, guarded fiercely by a broad-shouldered woman sporting a slick, bronze prosthesis. The same despicable man whose obedient underling killed Benzo. He knew it in his gut. This was Silco.
Now this— yes, he could barely stand seeing him, but this was something Ekko could work with. He started keeping time by those two. With his only company being the pocket watch he put together himself, a pen and the notebook that fit in his pocket, the Zaunite child meticulously noted when they arrived and departed. After a couple of days, he felt ready as ever, and snuck into The Last Drop at long last.
Ekko swallowed hard, a shudder running down his spine as he gingerly shut the window behind him. A small tap! echoed as he leapt to the floor. In the quiet, it was like a gunshot. He never imagined The Last Drop so thoroughly wrecked… or so pin-droppingly silent. Several tables were knocked on their sides. Billiard balls had been hurled like grenades. Bullet holes riddled the soft, velvet fabric which once lined the cushioned booth seats. Ekko scrunched up his face and traced his fingers along a careful trajectory. That’s where an Enforcer fired their gun… that’s where the bullet found purchase. Shit, the child sucked in a wince through his teeth, Vander wouldn’t like that. The liquor bottles lining the wall were all shattered; the liquid soaked into the hardwood and reeked. Not to mention the jukebox was broken. The little claw that grabbed records was gone. If Powder were here, she’d know how to fix that.
(If Powder were here, she’d fix a whole lot more than the jukebox. Little Man’s heart stung like a papercut from how much he missed his best friend.)
He headed down to the basement and came back up empty-handed. Nothing amiss there, save the door hanging off its damned hinges and clear signs the whole place was searched. That only left him one place to check: Vander’s room, which was a strictly no-kids-allowed zone. He might’ve already been breaking and entering but this was the only part that felt like it.
The familiar sign that hung across the window flickered and buzzed discordantly. It illuminated the room at irregular intervals, permitting and depriving Ekko of vision, lending him insufficient snapshots bathed in an eerie bronze light. The pillows on Vander’s bed were threadbare. His blanket was covered in patches. The floor was littered with crayon drawings that Silco must have ripped from the wall. Rummaging under his bed revealed a locked box, which was surprisingly easy to pick. Ekko held his breath as he pried off the lid, but there was nothing useful inside, only photos of Vander as a young man flanked by people the child didn’t recognize.
The most apparent thing in the room was the pile next to Vander’s desk. Silco must’ve shoved his broad arm across and sent everything clattering to the ground. In place of his belongings now rested a map. Ekko pensively ran his tongue over his teeth and smoothed it out with his hands. He’d drawn up his own maps of Zaun before this, even snagged one that was officially sanctioned complete with a Piltovan stamp, but this map… no, this map was different. He'd never seen anything like it.
A translucent sheet with the texture of wax paper overlaid the map underneath. Where the base sheet was blank the top one was not; precise lines in pencil carved a network of nerves extending into the walls of the Undercity. Notes detailing the vast ventilation system were scrawled wherever they’d fit. When it was built, which family constructed it, uncharacteristic in their altruism. There was plenty written about The Grey too, alongside diagrams of shimmer supply-chains. Ekko was getting discouraged, stuck without hints. He traced his finger along the map mindlessly. Where else could he look?! Who else could he talk to?! Did he waste eleven whole days?! He was about to toss the map in with the rest of the trash until his fingertip ran over an unexpected texture.
Wax-like. The texture of crayon.
Ekko inhaled sharply, his eyes darting after his hand, and right there. There it was. A small enclave circled in messy pink crayon with turquoise hearts all around it, a little sketch of a purple monkey and scribbled in bright, neon green: SECRET HIDEOUT!!!
Ekko swore he could feel the floor drop out from the way his stomach fluttered. Hope was a rare, cherished feeling in Zaun. Sure, he had no clue why Powder drew on Silco’s map of all places, but that couldn’t matter less. Powder was fine! She was okay, and he knew where to find her! Ekko bounced on his feet and nodded to himself, his barely-there smile widening to a grin, and with so much delight bubbling up in his chest like a shaken bottle of seltzer, he jumped and thrust his fist in the air, laughing out a FUCK YEAH! to celebrate his small victory.
…Which was right about when he heard the floor downstairs creaking under steel-toed boots.
Shit. Shit.
Silco was back early.
This wasn't part of the plan.
In a split second, Ekko’s overwhelming excitement condensed into cold, iron dread. He scanned erratically for a way out— and there, above the bookshelf, a grate! The vent was slim enough to be tight but wide enough he could bear it (with enough time spent snooping around, one develops an instinct for that). While one hand shoved Silco’s map in his pocket, the other withdrew a small screwdriver. Placing the tool between his teeth, Ekko scrambled up the bookshelf. His hands shook as he contorted himself with an ear to the ceiling and began unscrewing the grate. Catch, slip, steel-toed boots on the stairs. Slip, slip, catch again. He didn't even bother to screw the grate back into place.
And despite the rat shit he slid through on his way down and the open dumpster that cushioned his fall, Ekko never felt more proud than when he sprinted away in the pouring rain, watching The Last Drop grow smaller behind him. Maybe he was cut out for stunts like this too, the more dangerous side of sleuthing around. Ekko took that fleeting thought for the favor it was and held it close to his heart.
After all, it’s not often the Undercity makes a kid feel like they've got potential.