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Ekko felt a little guilty about enjoying the pit fights as much as he did, but being the de facto leader of the Undercity's resistance against both Piltover and Chembarons was a stressful thing, especially for his young shoulders.
He often told himself it was better than any of the other vices on offer in the Undercity. At least this way he could clean himself off and get back to the Firelights tree, unlike if he shot up with Shimmer or got drunk with alcohol.
He felt doubly guilty about enjoying seeing Vi's matches in particular. She had fallen so low. First she became an Enforcer and now she spent her time doing this. But she had made very clear to Ekko she wasn't interested in trying to crawl back up when he approached her and tried to get her back on the right track.
"And now, for the match of the century that those of you in the know I'm sure have been waiting for!"
Ekko leaned forward in his seat alongside several others. They all knew Vi was the champion here, yet the announcer was hyping up her opponent like Vi wasn't about to knock them flat. Were they made of metal or something?
Ekko's jaw nearly fell off his mouth when Vi's opponent entered the ring.
Wearing the same black hair dye and face paint as Vi, yet still recognizable because of her unmistakable braids, was Jinx.
Vi's shocked expression gave away that no one warned her she would be fighting Jinx next, but it quickly set into a grim snarl and she balled up her fists.
"Vi versus Jinx! The grudge match to end all grudge matches!"
Ekko annoyed the other spectators when he turned around and started shoving his way past them.
I have to stop this, Ekko thought. They'll kill each other.
"Are you insane, Jinx?" Vi asked. "You know you can't take me on unarmed."
"Lot's changed since you left your Enforcer girlfriend," Jinx taunted.
"Don't you talk about her!" Vi snarled.
"Oh, still sweet on her even after she dumped you in a ditch?" Jinx mocked. "That's half your problem, Sis - you try to pretend everything is the same while the people around you change!"
"You did this just to piss me off, didn't you?" Vi asked.
Jinx laughed. "Oh, sure! Because everything I do is about you. Ever think maybe I might do something for myself? Maybe I got tired of always having to hide behind my gadgets? Of not being able to look my enemies in the eye? That I didn't want to be a coward anymore?"
"You are a coward," Vi spat bitterly.
"Not anymore," Jinx growled. "Especially not after today when I put you in the dirt."
"Fat. Chance."
The bell rang.
Vi and Jinx both screamed and rushed straight towards each other, fists at the ready. They managed to strike each other at the same time, both of them socking the other in the cheek and making the other stumble and stagger.
For all of Jinx's practice, Vi still had more experience recovering from blows like that, and she steadied her position first and gave Jinx an uppercut.
Jinx reeled back, but launched herself back forward and gave Vi a punch in the gut.
"Low blow, Sis!" Vi grunted.
"Wah wah wah, everybody is so unfair to me! That's what you sound like," Jinx countered verbally, before countering physically when Vi did a lunge-punch. Jinx ducked underneath it and punched Vi in the gut again.
"Powder, I'm warning you!" Vi snarled. "One more hit like that and I'll -"
"You'll what?" Jinx teased. "Finally go down to your knees where you belong, you topsider trash!?"
Vi's eyes widened in shock and something almost resembling a tear formed in her left eye.
She reared her hand back and got ready to deliver the mother of all haymakers.
"STOP!"
Ekko shocked and annoyed the crowd in equal measure when he jumped down from the stands, smoothly rolled as he landed, then ran in between Jinx and Vi.
"Security!" the announcer said.
"Stop," Ekko pleaded.
"Ekko, get out of the way," Vi growled.
"Yeah, Boy Savior," Jinx said. "You're interrupting the show." She held her hand up as if she was personally directing the boos the audience was throwing Ekko's way.
"Vi," Ekko said, "I know Jinx has changed. I know she's done horrible things. But you can't do this."
"You were the one who told me Powder was gone!" Vi snapped.
"And she is!" Ekko said. "But you can't go through with this. You can't do this to yourself . I know you, Vi. And I also know if you do this ... you'll never forgive yourself. You'll be even worse off than you are right now."
Vi scoffed.
"I'm not asking you to hug and make up and pretend like everything's okay," Ekko continued, pointing emphatically to the floor. "I'm just asking you two not to kill each other today, here, right now."
Jinx pursed her lips.
"I hate to say it," Jinx said. "And I mean really hate to say it. But. I think he might be right."
Jinx ran a hand through her hair and calmly approached Vi, extending her hand out.
"Call it a draw?" Jinx said. "Walk away this time?"
Vi's fingers tensed and her lips danced up and down as she struggled to contain her boiling rage.
"I remember what happened the last time I walked away from you. I won't make that mistake again."
Vi lunged forward with a punch.
"No!" Ekko shouted, putting himself between them.
He ended up taking the punch from Vi that had been intended for Jinx, Vi's knuckles colliding with Ekko's cheek.
Ekko went flat on the ground, eyes rolling over.
Vi and Jinx looked down at his immobile body, neither of them able to comprehend what just happened.
Vi panted heavily. Everything about the night that went wrong came back to her. The moment when she punched Powder, then abandoned her, and set so much of where they were now in motion.
"N-no," Vi stammered, curling one set of fingers around the other as if she hoped to contain the deadly weapon on her arm. "I can't - no. Not again!"
Jinx gnashed her teeth. She and Ekko had been at each other's throats for years. Ekko was Jinx's nemesis, as far as Jinx was concerned, at least until Vi came back into her life and threw her lot in with the Enforcers.
But something about seeing him lie defeated on the ground made something inside her churn and whirl, like a gear being forced to rotate against its natural position.
Vi shouldn't have done that. Vi was not allowed to do that. Not to Ekko. Only Jinx got to do that to him. Ekko was her enemy, but Vi's friend. Vi, Ekko and Caitlyn were all in the box of people opposed to Jinx, so therefore, Vi and Ekko were supposed to still be allies, and how dare Vi break the careful categorizations Jinx had so selectively organized in her mind.
"Ekko," Vi stammered, coming closer, "I am so sorry -"
"STAY AWAY FROM HIM!"
Jinx picked up Ekko's unconscious body and held him close, cradling him.
"Powder," Vi panted, "let me help -"
Shocking all present, including the staff on hand whose it had been to make sure Jinx only brought her fists into the ring, Jinx drew her pistol, clicking it into firing position and aiming at Vi.
"I said, stay away ," Jinx growled.
Jinx got to her feet, throwing Ekko over her shoulders and keeping her gun trained on Vi.
"This match is over!" Jinx called out to the audience and she backed out of the arena.
"Well ... I don't think that was quite what we had in mind, but what a show!" the announcer said. "Everyone give a big hand to Vi, our new reigning champion!"
Vi stared at the empty space where Jinx and Ekko had been. She made no reaction as one of the pit staff came up to her and raised her arm up in triumph.
Ekko groaned as he came to. He looked around, trying to figure out his surroundings.
"Hey," Jinx greeted him from across the room in a plush looking chair.
Ekko bolted upright from the couch, knocking the ice pack on his cheek to the floor. "Where are we?"
"Babette's place," Jinx said. "Figured that was a good neutral ground."
Ekko looked at Jinx, bewildered. "You saved me. Does that mean -"
"Ugh, you're almost as bad as Vi," Jinx said. "No, this doesn't mean there's still a part of Powder left somewhere in me. Yes, it means Jinx has some morals, and yeah, she is surprised as you are by that. I couldn't ..." Jinx crossed her arms and tried to make herself smaller. "I couldn't let her treat you like that. Not the same way she treated me. I deserve it. You don't."
"What ..." Ekko looked Jinx up and down. She was still a second place compared to Vi or Sevika, but she had put on muscle and bulked up. She wasn't the stick-limbed rag doll Ekko remembered. "Happened to you?"
Jinx shrugged.
"Well, my sis and I got into it again, and I nearly let her finally finish me off," Jinx said. "But Sevika had other ideas and dragged my sorry ass out of there. Then she gave me a choice; either I could toughen up, or she'd ditch me too. And ... I didn't want to be alone. So I toughed up."
Ekko looked at the floor, not sure how to proceed.
"Well," Jinx got up from her chair and headed for the exit. "You seem to be in one piece, so I'm going to go look around and see if there's any other decent fighting pits around, preferably ones with a lower sister-to-fighter population ratio."
"Jinx, wait!" Ekko ran over and grabbed her by the arm to stop her leaving. "We've been trying to kill each other for years. You can't just save me like that and not talk about it."
"Uh, yes I can, like this." Jinx flicked a finger against his forehead. "Bye bye now!"
"Jinx!" Ekko called as Jinx walked away.
"Later, Boy Savior!" Jinx waved him goodbye. "We can try and kill each other again some other time, yeah?"
"Could you at least call me a ride?" Ekko asked.
"Well, seeing as all of your Firelight friends would sooner stab me than talk to me ... no!"
"I can give you a code phrase so they know its from me," Ekko said.
"Right," Jinx said. "And how are they supposed to know I didn't extract the phrase from you and it's not a trap? Actually, how am I supposed to know you're not trying to trick me into a trap right now? Maybe you'll give me a code phrase that actually means 'bring the whole army, we're catching Jinx tonight'."
"That'd be a rotten thanks for you saving my life," Ekko said.
"One time, after how many times we tried to bump each other off?" Jinx said. "Besides, Vi wouldn't have killed you."
"I'm not so sure about that," Ekko muttered.
"Babette can take care of you until you're back on your feet," Jinx said. "She's sweet on us."
"Us?" Ekko asked.
"You, me, Vi," Jinx said. "You know. All the surviving members of our gang."
Ekko sighed, then chased after Jinx. He caught up to her and ran around in front of her, cutting her off the exit.
"Jinx, please," Ekko said. "We need to talk."
"We have nothing to talk about," Jinx said, trying to make her way past him, but he continued to block her off.
"Five minutes," Ekko asked. "Five minutes to help me make sense of this, that's all I ask."
"Forget it," Jinx growled. "You want to 'make sense' of something? Slip Babette some cash and lose yourself in someone's thighs like the other sad-sacks around here are doing."
Jinx took a bold, confident step forward, but Ekko took a matching one backwards, placing himself square in front of the door.
Jinx grit her teeth. "Ekko. Move before I make you move."
"Then make me," Ekko said, raising his fists.
Jinx grimaced and raised up a fist.
Ekko held his position.
Jinx held her fist in place. She had tussled with Ekko many times before. Why should this time be any different? Because he didn't have his mask on? Because she didn't have her usual array of guns and bombs to take him on at a distance, meaning she had to look him in the face while she inflicted violence on him?
Or maybe it was because every other time they fought before, she hadn't seen Vi betray him and treat him the same way she did to Powder on that horrible night.
Jinx screamed and launched a punch, missing Ekko's head and punching the door behind him, her arm hovering over his shoulder.
"Ekko," Jinx growled, "please. Move. I don't want to fight you."
"Now there's a phrase I'd never thought I'd hear," Ekko said dryly.
Jinx sighed. "I know. But still."
"Then don't fight," Ekko said. "Talk."
"I don't want to talk!" Jinx shouted at him, her spittle flying right into his face.
Ekko glared at her. "Okay. So no talking. No fighting. Where does that leave us?"
Jinx huffed and crossed her arms. "I guess we both just stand here until someone else comes by and wants in or out."
Ekko crossed his arms to match her. "I guess we do."
They stood there in silence, neither of them moving or speaking except for the infrequent impatient grunt.
Time passed, and no one else came through the brothel's halls either in or out.
Jinx sighed, admitting defeat. "This is ridiculous."
"So, ready to talk now?" Ekko asked.
Jinx narrowed her eyes at him. "Ekko. The only interest I would have in you right now would be as a sparring partner."
"Okay." Ekko resumed his fighting position. "Let's spar."
Jinx raised an eyebrow, then chuckled and smiled. "You don't give up, do you?"
Ekko shrugged nonchalantly, smirking back.
"All right," Jinx said. "But I'll warn you - I'm not the weakling I was when we were kids."
"Yeah," Ekko said. "Kinda got that."
Jinx launched her attack, socking Ekko in the cheek faster than Ekko could react.
Ekko stumbled and staggered against the door, the blow knocking him for a loop. He looked at Jinx in shock.
"I thought we were just sparring!"
"We are," Jinx said, sounding genuinely confused.
" That was your sparring punch!?" Ekko asked, rubbing his sore cheek.
Jinx flashed a shit-eating grin. "I tried to warn you."
"All right," Ekko raised his hands in admittance of his mistake. "Understood. I got it. Let's go again."
"Are you sure?" Jinx asked.
"I'm ready for you this time," Ekko said.
Jinx gave a laugh that showed she didn't believe that, but she rushed forward and unleashed a flurry of punches.
Ekko blocked most of them and managed to duck under the one he couldn't block, and the two of them continued to exchange blows.
"So how did you end up at the same pit as Vi?" Ekko asked while ducking and blocking Jinx's blows.
Jinx groaned. "I didn't agree to any questions while sparring."
"You got something better to be doing?'
Jinx sneered, but she answered the question. "I heard that was where the biggest, meanest fighters were. That's all. I didn't know Vi was going to be there."
"Do you know what happened to her?" Ekko asked.
Jinx laughed. "What do you think? She couldn't kill me when she had the chance, so her topsider sugar mommy dumped her, and now she's trying to find someone tough enough to beat her senseless until she can't feel the pain anymore. Too bad she's way too strong for that."
"Is there anything we can do for her?" Ekko asked.
Jinx laughed. "Ekko, I couldn't help when I was trying. I couldn't help her when she was looking for me after getting out of prison. What makes you think I can do anything for her now?"
"I don't know," Ekko said. "I tried to talk some sense into her. She wouldn't listen to me. But maybe if we both approached her, the sheer shock of seeing us together might get her to pull herself together."
"You think she wants to hear a word out of me?" Jinx asked.
"You'd be surprised," Ekko said. "Maybe all she wanted was to talk, but you two just kept getting into fights for one reason or another."
"And you wouldn't know anything about what that's like, would you?" Jinx teased.
Ekko clicked his tongue, then gave her a sucker-punch that knocked her back.
"Ow!" Jinx groaned, covering up a nosebleed with her hand. "Now who's the one not sparring, jackass!?"
"Jinx, I'm so sorry," Ekko said. "Here, let me..."
He acted without thinking, running towards to the back of the brothel. He came back with a tissue and helped Jinx to apply it to her nose.
"Thanks," Jinx said, seemingly more out of obligation than anything.
Ekko watched and the two of them leaned against the same wall while Jinx continued to dab and mop the blood.
"You could have made a run for it out the door while I was gone," Ekko observed.
"And miss my knight in shining armor bringing me my handkerchief?" Jinx asked quizzically. "No chance."
Ekko sighed, looking up at the ceiling.
"You know ... you still killed my friends," Ekko said. "None of this changes that."
"Yeah, and you killed some of mine," Jinx replied, to Ekko's visible and apparent surprise.
"Okay, so they weren't really friends," Jinx admitted. "They were more like Silco's henchmen who I hated less than the others. But still."
Ekko sighed. "I guess we've both done things we're not proud of."
"You can say that again," Jinx said.
"I guess we've both -"
"I didn't mean that literally, you goober," Jinx said, lightly punching him in the shoulder.
Ekko punched her in the shoulder back.
Jinx slowly turned her head to glare at him.
"Ugh," Jinx groaned.
"What?" Ekko asked.
"You know what?" Jinx said. "Screw you."
"What'd I do!?" Ekko asked.
"Can't believe you made me stop and think," Jinx answered, placing two fingers to her head in emulation of a gun. "All this time I've just had to go go go, from one crisis to the next, one fight to the next, first with you, then Vi and Caitlyn, without really stopping to think through anything, and here you go, calming me down and making me stop and really think for ... probably the first time in years."
Jinx sighed, and Ekko could swore he almost saw tears forming in her eyes.
"Oh, god," Jinx said, covering her mouth with her hand in shame and shock. "What have I done? The whole Undercity is suffocating because of those Noxian eels, and it's all my fault because I got trigger-happy and wanted to teach the Pilties a lesson!"
"Hey," Ekko said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It's not your fault. W-well, it is, but topside's always had its boot on our neck. If it wasn't you, it was going to be something else."
Jinx slapped his hand off.
"Okay, maybe they wouldn't have gone off the deep end as fast as they did if it wasn't for you ..." Ekko said. "And ... maybe the Council didn't deserve to die ... but they'd been oppressing us for years, Pow - Jinx. Since we were kids. Since before either of us were born. They were never going to change unless someone did something drastic."
Jinx pursed her lips.
"Hey," Ekko said, taking her hands and clasping them together with his fingers around hers. "If things had been different ... maybe I would have done the same thing."
"No, you wouldn't have," Jinx said, taking her hands away from him. "You're not a Jinx like me. You would have figured something out. Something ... smarter. Nicer."
"So would have you, if you didn't listen to Silco and cared more about impressing him than actually changing things!" Ekko snapped. "If you had just left him, maybe joined the Firelights, we could have done some real good without letting it get this far!"
"I couldn't have left him," Jinx snarled, her eyes taking on a dark, almost murderous gaze that Ekko found more familiar in her eyes. "You know that."
Ekko sighed. "I do. Now."
Jinx raised her brows, her expression softening into curiosity.
"Don't get me wrong," Ekko said. "He was still a bad, evil man, and we're all better off with him gone ... but he took you in, just like Benzo did for me. You couldn't ditch him. Took me a long time to understand that ... but I do now."
Jinx huffed and puffed. Her eyelids and face muscles twitched, and Ekko could see the war going on behind her eyes inside her head - she at once both wanted to rebuke him, to reject his arguments, his understanding, his sympathy, because where had that ever gotten before? But she also desperately wanted to break down sobbing and throw herself against him in gratitude for finally understanding her after all this time.
"I ..." Jinx choked out.
Much to Ekko's dismay, the first side of her brain seemed to win out.
"Forget this," Jinx said.
Ekko sighed and shook his head. "I don't know what I expected. You always do this. Someone tries to reach out to you, Jinx, and you bite their hand off because, what, they're not Daddy Silco? Vi and I can't make you feel special like he could? Well, you know what? Forget it. You don't want to admit you're hurting, Vi would rather pal around with Enforcers and get drunk ... I'm done trying to save both of you from yourselves. I'm done. Fuck you."
"Yeah, well, fuck you too," Jinx said.
"You first," Ekko growled.
"Don't mind if I do!" Jinx said confidently.
Then she grabbed him by the cheek, brought him forward, and placed a big wet kiss right smack on his lips.
She broke the kiss, a strand of saliva hanging between their mouths, both his and her eyes as wide as could be.
"I - I'm sorry," Jinx said, wiping the drool with her sleeve and quickly turning away from him. "I don't know why I did that. I don't know what came over me. I - sorry."
"Hey, hey," Ekko said, grabbing her by the shoulders when she tried to walk away. This time she didn't fight him, just let him spin her around so she was facing him.
"It's okay," Ekko said. "I didn't mind. I liked it."
Jinx was eerily silent and still to an unsettling degree.
"Jinx?" Ekko called gently, and he took one finger under her chin and lifted her head up to look at him.
She was crying. Not nearly crying like she did before, but fully crying, streaks of tears running down her cheeks, making the black charcoal of the fighter makeup she'd been wearing smear like a cheap mascara.
"You're right," she sobbed out. "You're right, Ekko. I'm hurting. It hurts so bad. I just - I just want someone to hold me. The way Silco did. The way Vi and Vander used to. But everyone who gets close to me dies, so I can't, I can't . I wanted Vi to end it there in the tunnels, but she wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough. Maybe if I were tougher, I could have made her -"
"Hey," Ekko pulled her into a hug. "That's enough of that. You don't need to say anything more. I understand."
“No you don’t.”
“Maybe not. But I’m trying.”
Jinx wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his shoulder.
"Ekko ..." Jinx murmured softly into his shoulder. "You can't do this. You can't get close to me. You know I'll hurt you if you do."
"Oh, gee, as opposed to all the other times we hung out in the past five years when we ate cupcakes and played hopscotch?" Ekko replied dryly.
Jinx chuckled bitterly, then gave him a light slap on the cheek. "You know what I mean."
"I know," Ekko said confidently. "And I choose to get near you anyway."
"I'm a fire, Ekko," Jinx said. "You'll get burned."
"Maybe," Ekko said. "Or maybe you're a campfire and you just need some rocks around you."
"What does that even mean?" Jinx asked, though she laughed.
"It means ..." Ekko said. "Despite everything, I still love you, and I want to be there for you. Let me be there for you, Jinx. Even if I get burned. Even if it hurts. It's still better than letting you walk around there alone. We've seen what happens when you go it alone."
"I don't want to be alone," Jinx said, voice cracking between sobs. "I want to be loved. I want to be someone worth loving."
"I know," Ekko told her softly. "You are."
"No, I'm not!" Jinx dug her fingers into Ekko, wanting to hurt him for his naïve stupidity but also unwilling to let go of one of the few people still willing to hug and hold her. "You're just saying that to make me feel better!"
"I mean it, Pow - damn it, how do I keep doing that? - JINX!"
He grabbed her by the cheeks and made her look him in the eye.
"You are worth loving, and - and I'm sorry that for so long, I left you to where Silco was the only person who would tell you that."
Ekko hung his head.
"I'm sorry I gave up on rescuing you after only one try. Loving someone ... means coming back for them. Again and again." He ran his hand through her hair and through her bangs. "No matter how many times it takes."
Jinx sniffled, wrinkling her nose. "Do you mean that?"
"Yeah."
Jinx went to wipe her tears away, but Ekko grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
"Let me."
And he ran his thumb under her eyes, wiping her tears for here.
"You'll stay?" Jinx choked out weakly. "Even if I burn you? Even if I hurt you?"
"Yeah," Ekko said, smiling. "I'll stay. Even if it hurts. Because honestly, Jinx ... not being able to be there for you has hurt worse than anything you could possibly do to me."
Jinx sniffed again, wrinkling her lips. "I'm sorry. For everything."
"Hey. Me too."
Ekko cupped her cheek.
"You want to give that 'kissing' thing one more try?" He asked, an innocent, boyish smile on his face.
"I thought you said you gave up on your crush when I started talking to my guns," Jinx said cannily.
Ekko looked her up and down. "Well. I don't see any guns here. Except maybe this." He lightly patted her bicep.
"So if you can drop the guns ... maybe I can pick that crush back up."
Jinx smiled. "You are such a dork."
"Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it, gadget geek?"
"This," Jinx answered, and she launched forward and placed a kiss on his lips. The streaks of her tears left a salty taste on her lips that stung Ekko's mouth slightly.
But he wouldn't have had it any other way.