Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Their third encounter hadn't followed the usual little pattern of Jinx trailing Ekko wherever. Instead, it started with Ekko passing through the gates of an impossible, absurd, utopian fairy-tale, brought out of nowhere by an apparent “All-Healing Savior”.

Rumors of this miracle worker had spread like wildfire through the Firelights’ camp. Naturally, it reeked of a trap. Someone magically offering salvation to the people of Zaun, this forgotten, hollowed out pit? Yeah, right. Still, curiosity won out. Ekko and Scar set off to investigate the gossips this very morning, their heads brimming with contingencies and their pockets heavy with ammunition. And suspicion.

And so, on this unnaturally sunny afternoon, Ekko found himself standing before the gates of a place that looked like a fever dream.

A vast blue sky cradled the commune, where bright, vibrant tents were scattered within. People moved in and out, drifting with a haunting serenity, as if they were all caught in the glow of the happiest day of their lives.

Ekko and Scar press forward with cautious steps, their eyes darting around in unease. Unarmed, just as the gatekeeper had instructed. So much for their careful preparations.

The two traded leery glances, their focus shifting between each other and the task of assessing a place that felt far too good to be true. Nothing seemed outwardly treacherous so far. People—some leaning on canes, others springing about as if walking on clouds—smiled as they passed by. Their soft conversations hummed through the air like a gentle melody. Ekko wonders how two things can be too loud and too peaceful at the same time.

One such conversation was being held by familiar faces just a short distance away.

Vi, her hair a striking shock of pink—black now?—stood casually, handing a piece of fruit to a small, blue-haired girl. There was another blue haired figure standing beside them, her back to him, leaning in toward Vi as they spoke.

“Either way, we have to keep an eye on him tonight,” Vi says, her gaze fixed on her sister as she hands another piece of fruit along. The little girl reaches for it eagerly. Jinx casts her a fleeting glance, pausing for a brief second of thought before her eyes drift back to Vi.

It was strange territory—sisterhood.

So much history gathered only to be scorched, time and time again; so many burnt bridges, yet here they were. Brought together again, to help their father.

"Unless this guy’s got some fancy magic-woo-woo-grade chains hidden somewhere, they’re basically just throwing him a bedtime snack," Jinx shrugs, fiddling absentmindedly with something in her hands.

Suddenly, Vi’s eyes shift to somewhere behind Jinx.

“Ekko?” Vi calls out after spotting him, her face instantly brightening with surprise.

Ekko stops short, his mind blanking at the sight in sheer confusion. Jinx turns around at the sound of his name. She lets out a sharp, dry exhale through her nose.

"Great. Got the whole squad now." she mutters flatly.

Ekko’s gaze darts from Vi to Jinx, his features tensing as the confusion deepens.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave,” Jinx says, throwing Vi a mock salute as she begins to step away. “Come on, kid,” she gestures to the girl. Isha follows immediately, taking one last large, crunching bite of the fruit.

Ekko nods to Scar, signaling him to keep moving and scout the perimeter further, while he approaches Vi. He moves toward her with pure curiosity, something visibly loosening in his shoulders—it was genuine sense of relief at the sight of a familiar face. It has been far too long since they last spoke.

“Vi,” says Ekko, half a question, half a consolating load off his mind. “What is this place?”

Vi pulls him into a quick, firm greeting hug and lets out a long, weary sigh. She doesn't really know herself.

“A utopia,” she says, almost rolling her eyes at the word. “No sickness, no worries, all peace.”

“…So what is she doing here?”

_____

Jinx and Isha find themselves a quiet patch of field, further from the camp. It’s overgrown with grass that is far too long and far too green, surrounded by birds chirping far too melodiously. Jinx is lying on her stomach, kicking her feet in the air idly, her head propped up on her hands.

“Can you believe this? 'Cause I don't. But hey, maybe the beetles here have more fight in them than the ones back home, huh?” Jinx shoots the girl a challenging look.

Isha bounces around her, chasing a few red butterflies fluttering over her head. She glances at Jinx, cocking her head with a shrug, before mindlessly continuing the chase.

“Damn. Even you don’t wanna play? Guess the spark’s gone cold for everyone.”

Jinx scratches at the dirt with a snapped branch mindlessly, dragging the wood through the dust in repetitive, uneven lines.

One thing she has always been good at is going with the flow.

Whatever life throws her way, she lets the current take her, somehow finding a way to catch the wind in her sails. People flickering in and out of her life; everything shattering into jagged shards, only to rearrange themselves into some fractured, haunting mosaic. But she always survives the tide, somehow.

She supposes this is just another turn of the water.

Granted, she’s never encountered a godsend quite like this. A haven cradled by silence and healing, one where she is back with her sister, despite how frayed their bond has become. One where there is still a chance for her father, whose death dictated so much. One now joined by someone who once knew her through and through, long before she ever became this haunted mosaic herself.

“Jinx,” a familiar, warm voice pulls her from her thoughts. Vi approaches, the setting sun failing to soften her blacked out look, a sharp contrast against the glow. “Viktor, this miracle guy assigned us tents. Looks like we’ll be staying here for a few days.”

“Hospitable. Do we also get a welcome basket?” Jinx mocks, pushing herself up and brushing the dirt from her clothes. She turns back to Isha, already stepping back into the camp. “Hey, butterfly runner! We have to endeavor all of those five-star spa amenities.”

And so, once the unnatural brightness of the day finally began to bleed away, Jinx found herself sitting inside a spacious tent, draped in heavy white cloth. Four makeshift beds lined the corners—functional and honest. It was simple, but it’ll do. After growing up in the Lanes, snobbery isn't a luxury one ever learns to afford.

The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving a hushed, expectant silence in its wake.

Isha was off washing up at a nearby bathhouse; Vi’s jacket lies discarded on one of the other beds inside the tent, though Vi herself was nowhere to be seen, likely prowling the perimeter of the camp. Jinx has already settled in, having scrubbed away her dark eyeshadow. She’s been given something like a nightgown—a length of soft, earth-toned fabric, slightly cinched at the waist. Comfortable, she supposes, though the softness felt alien against her skin. Claiming the spot closest to the exit where there's the most room to breathe, she kneels on her chosen mattress.

A few flickering candles serve as the only light, their amber flames dancing against the pristine, quiet night. Outside, the muffled rustle of the commune settling into sleep drifted through the canvas walls like a collective sigh.

Comb in hand, she works through her hair, carefully detangling her long blue strands. With the braids undone, her hair spill out like a heavy tide, blanketing the bed and pooling onto the floor. It was a tedious process, though self-care is still self-care, after all.

The quiet is abruptly cut short by the rustle of the tent flap being lifted. A figure ducks inside.

Ekko.

He’s still wearing the same gear he arrived in, the white hourglass painted across his face, his dark coat heavy with the gathered dust of the Lanes, the fabric stiffened. He looks like he hasn't had a moment to sit down, nor like he has any intention of settling down for the night.

He freezes the second he sees her sitting on the mattress. There’s a flash of pure surprise—a startled awkwardness in a mistake he just made, that he just stalls in place mid-stride. Jinx meets his eyes with an unimpressed look, her hand continuing to brush her hair rhythmically. Ekko’s gaze lingers, falling on the free blue strands spilling across the floor. For a heartbeat, there’s this wordless, heavy… something.

“…Wrong tent,” he says after a moment, his hand still gripped onto the canvas, caught halfway through the threshold.

“Not up for a sleepover?” Jinx asks with mock sweetness. “You brought your teddy bear?”

Ekko’s expression deadpans at her bait, giving her a look of raw, unimpressed irritation. “Shut it.”

Jinx cocks her eyebrows, a smug grin tugging at her lips. She’s all too pleased with this; even a small crack in his composure is a win in her book. Look at her getting under his skin, even here, in this quiet, sterile utopia! Isn't that hilarious?

“You and Vi... are staying here?” he asks, his voice laced with uncertainty, a new caution, as if he’s trying to map out a minefield he didn't expect to walk into.

“What’s it look like?” Jinx retorts. Her gaze shifting from him to the wall straight ahead, focused entirely on the steady rhythm of the brush.

Ekko lets out a long, ragged sigh that seemed to deflate his entire posture.

“She told me about Vander.”

Jinx shifts again, her gaze snapping to his. Her hand stalled as their eyes lock, and silence holds. A million things go unspoken. Somehow, they both hear it. That’s how it goes, they both know—the mention of Vander’s name.

It was an intuitive, bone-deep understanding; a shared history settled too deep to be chased away by whatever came after. A history stitched too tight to be undone and a gravity not to be escaped.

The fragile quiet is shattered by the sudden, frantic flapping of the tent’s entrance once again. Isha bursts in, draped in a brownish nightgown, similar to Jinx’s. The sheer energy of her entrance throws Ekko off balance—both the sudden movement, and the sight of the girl herself. This small, blue-haired child streaks across the floor and throws herself at Jinx’s side, tumbling onto the mattress with an adorable lack of grace.

“Hey there. Got rid of that peach stain?” Jinx asks, her voice and her whole composure softening. She looks down at the girl with a genuine, effortless smile.

Isha’s hand clings to Jinx’s arm, eyes darting back and forth between her and Ekko, wide with curiosity. She nods excitedly at the question, but then turns her full attention toward the figure standing in the threshold, her expression a silent, searching question. Jinx realizes the need to explain. She gives a relaxed, almost dismissive shrug, the motion pulling at the blue sea of hair around her shoulders.

“He’s...”

He’s what? What is there to say? How do you even begin to understand it, let alone explain it?

An enemy? no. maybe.

A friend? no. maybe.

How do you even introduce someone whose soul is tied so closely to yours?

“It’s fine,” Jinx settles on.

Isha studies him a bit longer before nodding. She scampers over to take the brush from Jinx’s hand to work through her long blue hair herself.

The sight sent a sharp, unfamiliar twist through Ekko’s chest. Suddenly, he feels like an intruder. This isn’t for him to see. This is hers. And this version of her, soft and unpainted, belongs to a world he wasn't a part of.

It throws him into a loop, then. He’d seen the girl at Jinx’s side earlier that day. She follows her around like a duckling; she brushes her hair. Since when is this her life?

A strange, stinging sense of respect—or perhaps just the weight of his own displacement, make him want to look away. He shouldn't be here. Without a word, he begins to back away, the words he’d come to say dissolving on his tongue. His retreat is silent; the canvas curtain already falling behind him in its slow, heavy descent, beginning to seal the world away once more, when Jinx’s voice cuts through the darkness.

“Wait,” she calls out suddenly.

Ekko pauses, halting as he turns back. He waits, his hand still resting on the tent’s fabric.

“You’re staying?”

“Yes,” he answers.

“...Good.”

And with that, the night finally settles.

_____

The morning sun was just starting to cut through the haze of the commune, casting long, dusty streaks of light across the camp. Ekko reaches out, his fingers wrapping around the warm mug Scar handed him. The heat seeps into his palms, a small grounding force against the exhaustion settling in his bones.

“So, what’s the verdict?” Scar asks. He stands by the entrance to their shared tent, his frame silhouetted against the light, looking as restless as Ekko feels.

Ekko takes a slow sip before answering. “You can head back to base. I’ll have to stick around for a day or two.”

He couldn't leave yet. Not after last night, after seeing Vander.

Or at least, the unrecognizable shape that remained of him. Vi had led him to the glass-walled chamber, her voice low as she tried to explain the impossible.

There are things that bypass the eyes entirely. It didn't matter that the form behind the glass was twisted beyond recognition. It was him. There was no doubt. Ekko knew it by raw ache that made it hard to keep the tears back. That lump in his throat that he’d felt standing there in the dark, was still there this morning, lodged somewhere deep. Oh, Vander. You have no idea.

This morning, they had let him out to roam the perimeter again. Viktor—the man they called the miracle worker, the one responsible for... well, miracles—seemed cautiously optimistic.

Vi, Jinx and Ekko stood in a eager circle around him, listening to the briefing. He had announced that they were making significant progress. He spoke of the framework, or the mental cage holding Vander’s mind prisoner, equating it to a complex lock. It had been constructed with terrifying precision, he explained, a fortress of chemistry and wicked curses. But piece by piece, he was able to start to break through, reaching for whatever was left of the man inside.

“Take care of yourself, man,” Scar says with a brief nod. He pats Ekko’s shoulder before turning away, his boots crunching on the gravel on the way to the entrance.

There was no reason for him to stay; there were other pressing matters back at the Firelight base that needed attending to. Ekko had deemed this place legit-adjacent—or as close to it as anything could be when viewed through this strange lens.

A short distance away, Jinx, Vi, and the girl were moving through the camp with Vander at their side. They were talking, their voices low and indistinct in the morning air.

Ekko finished the last of his tea, the dregs bitter on his tongue, and starts to walk toward them.

“Ekko!” Vi calls out, her voice bright. Her hand rests on Vander’s shoulder as they walk slowly, and as he approached, Vander’s heavy gaze shifted to follow her lead. He looked at him, really looked at him—with a slow, quiet recognition once again. “Have you figured out your apology yet? You know, for all those times you broke something in the bar while you were messing around?”

Ekko’s smile came easy at the mention of their carefree past.

“I’m pretty sure I’m still banned from the glass storage room for that one,” he said, his voice light. He looked at Jinx briefly, but left out the ‘we’.

Vi let out a laugh—that smug, older sister-like sound, that hadn't changed at all. It was the look of someone who’d spent her early teenage years perfecting the walk, the talk, and the cover-up of the latest disaster before Vander could even reach the top of the stairs.

Jinx let out an amused scoff despite herself. She had been compliant, after all.

“We already played hide and seek,” Powder huffs, crossing her arms.

“Yeah, but it’s raining, and Benzo said I can't go out or I’ll get sick again,” Ekko says, leaning in like he’s about to share a huge secret. “And there’s a catch this time. The seeker starts at the bar, okay? And if you're hiding, and I find you, you have to run back to the bar before I catch you. If you get there first, you win. Everything.”

“Uuu… okay, you count!” Powder’s face lights up, her boredom gone in a second. “And I get to use Whisker.”

Ekko throws his hands up, offended. “That’s rigged, Pow!”

“Is not!” Powder shots back, her jaw set. “I don’t even know if he’ll work. It might give me away! Besides, that sounds like something a loser would say. Count to twenty, slow!”

Ekko didn't even get a chance to argue. She was off the sofa in a blur, her light footsteps already pattering out of the room before he could open his mouth.

Vander didn’t allow them to disturb the bar during work hours, but those rules felt a world away the moment any play began.

“One... two... three...”

Ekko knelt just behind the counter, unnoticed, putting his hands over his eyes, his voice muffled against his sleeves. The air under there smelled of old cider, and felt entirely like a huge, dark kingdom just for him and Powder to play.

“...eighteen... nineteen... twenty! Ready or not, here I come!”

He filled his lungs and shouted into the rafters of the bar, his voice cracking with excitement, then sprang up, his feet hitting the floorboards with a dull thud.

A dozen heads turned toward him at the sudden shout. The patrons sitting at the tables paused their drinks, startled by the noise, but Ekko never noticed their stares. He was already a blur of motion, eyes locked on the shadows at the back of the room.

Tending to the bar, Vander didn’t have time to argue either. The kids were already too deep into their shenanigans, faster than any lecture he could muster up. All he could do was let out a long, tired sigh and offer a disapproving shake of his head.

That is, until a loud, violent cascade of cracks echoed from above. That structural scream seemed to vibrate through the floorboards and ring across the entirety of the Lanes.

“Uh-oh,” Powder piped, her voice small and shaky as she stopped dead in her tracks in the darkness of the room.

Ekko’s hand slipped from her shoulder, his grip loosening on the fabric of her sleeve. Just a second ago, he’d been lunging for her, pulling her back, trying to stop her from sprinting to the bar and claiming victory. The victory didn’t matter at all now.

Whisker laid on the floor between them, a mangled heap. Thick, acrid smoke was chugging out of the toy, rapidly filling the room—a room that, until a heartbeat ago, had been lined with neat rows of glasses and heavy beer mugs set on the shelves.

Until now. Now, the contents of nearly every rack laid shattered on the floor, a million jagged shards of glass covering the wood.

Ekko stood frozen, breathing heavy. His eyes wide, blown out with terror, his mouth hanging open. If he had looked at Powder, he would have found her in the exact same state.

“We’re dead.” He whispered, his voice shaky and thin.

They barely had a second to process the terror before the stinging, hot rush of tears spurred by the sheer weight of what they’d done hit them.

And then, the sound they dreaded most cut through the smoke.

thump.

thump.

thump.

Heavy, rapid footsteps were coming up the stairs, taking them two at a time. The wood groaned under a weight that could only belong to one person.

Powder’s breath hitched in a sob she was trying to swallow, her small hands balled into fists at her sides.

The door behind them slammed against the wall with a force that made the remaining glasses on the shelves rattle. Vander filled the doorway, his massive frame blocking out what little light was left. For a heartbeat, he stood motionless, his chest heaving, his eyes darting through the thick haze of smoke to find them.

"What," he began. He didn’t yell. In fact, if he had screamed, it might have been easier to bear. But the sheer depth, the guttural rumble of his voice was much worse. It felt like the walls themselves were trembling under his disappointment. "In the name of the Lanes... were you thinking?"

Vander took a step forward. Ekko felt his knees go weak. He wanted to look at Powder, to see if she was still breathing. He wasn’t sure she was. He wasn’t sure he was, either.

“Out. Now.” he gritted through his teeth, short, sharp, and heavy as a lead pipe.

It had been almost half an hour by now, of the two trembling balls of fear huddled together on the sofa, with their knees tucked tightly under their chins, waiting for the final judgment to descend from the stairs.

“It’s okay, Pow,” Ekko whispered, though his own voice was thick with tears. He nudged her shoulder with his, trying to be the brave one. “It was my fault. I'll tell him I pushed you.”

“No,” Powder sobbed, her face hidden behind her knees. “You couldn’t even see through Whisker. He just… he exploded with all that smoke. Vander won’t ever let us play again. What’s the point if I can’t play with you?” Powder wailed softly, a fresh wave of tears spilling over.

The floorboards at the top of the stairs groaned.

Vander appeared in the archway. He walked up to them, the heavy footsteps stopped right in front of the sofa. Ekko and Powder squeezed their eyes shut, waiting for the storm to break.

But it didn't. Instead, the sofa dipped as Vander sat down on the edge of it.

"Look at me," he commanded.

They peered up through wet lashes. Vander’s large, calloused hands reached out to gently turn Powder’s chin, then Ekko’s, checking their faces in the dim light.

"Are you hurt? Did any of that glass catch you?"

"N-no.” they stammered in unison, their voices thin and high-pitched.

Vander let out a breath so long and heavy it sounded like a sail deflating. He closed his eyes for a second, his shoulders dropping.

"Good," he muttered. "Now. Tell me exactly what happened before I decide just how long you’ll be scrubbing those floorboards."

Vander knew well that the two trembling kids were already acutely aware of their blunder. There was no need for a screaming lecture to hammer it home. The lesson had been carved into them, both by the sound of the breaking glass and the cleaning shift of the entire bar, day after day, for a whole month.

A long, long time had passed since the doors of Vander’s Last Drop were closed for good.

Ekko still looks like someone always trying to be brave, the one standing tall.

And Jinx looks like someone who won a game no one else wanted to play.

Chapter Text

“…you could be of great service to this commune.

Powder.”

“So… what exactly do you expect me to do?”

“I am familiar with the man who built the machinery that transformed your father. I have suspicions as to how these forces intertwine. His forms are overlapping, shifting. The man and the beast fighting for the same space. It is a biological paradox: self-replicating and self-annihilating at once. My task is to stabilize that collapse.”

Jinx watches Viktor closely, her arms crossed in a defensive display of skepticism. She leaned casually against Vander’s massive, furred shoulder. Usually, this kind of mechanical technobabble was painfully boring. Except this was important.

He was important.

Viktor continued, pacing slowly toward the creature.

"By anchoring the human element, I am forcing the Apex Shimmer to reconstruct what it usually destroys. It is working… to a point. However, as I said, I am fighting a biological paradox," he reaches out, his hand hovering near Vander’s face. "The energy generated by this friction, this constant state of transition… has nowhere to go. It is building up within, a feedback loop of raw power, like-”

 “-like a reactor with no exhaust." Jinx finishes the sentence for him.

“Exactly,” Viktor nods and turns to her. "I need a vessel, Powder. Something capable of siphoning and storing this excess energy before the pressure vaporizes what little is left of the man inside.”

He looks back at the glowing, volatile fractures in the beast’s skin. "I can do it manually: I can guide the flow myself. But the process is slow. Everything would move faster if we had a dedicated power source. A battery for the Arcane."

Jinx tilts her head, her eyes narrowing in thought. She didn't know why she hadn't flinched at the name. Or maybe she had flinched. It was more that she didn't understand why she had recovered from it so quickly. Perhaps it was because her mind was already consumed by her father, standing beside her. The man who had always called her that name.

"So..." she starts, her voice surprisingly steady. "You need me to build an Arcane vacuum?"

_____

Jinx was rifling through the wooden crates, her hands moving in and out of boxes as she tossed various tools and components aside. One by one, she inspected the technical salvage Viktor’s…—workers? subjects? —had dragged into his master sanctum. They had opened the doors to his private hoard, giving her free rein to pick whatever scrap or treasure she needed to begin the work.

To her surprise, Viktor had managed to squirrel away some seriously high-end gear. It made sense, she supposed. If you spent half your life in some ivory-tower laboratory in Pilltover, it would be weird (and pathetic) if you didn't skim a few shiny toys off the top.

"Can you really do it?" Vi asks, kneeling behind Jinx, her posture uncharacteristically small. There was a raw, aching hope in her words, tangled with a sense of disbelief. Not in doubt in Jinx’s abilities;

The disbelief came from the crushing weight of the irony.

Only days ago, they had been at each other's throats, fueled by blood and betrayal. And now, the fate of their father’s soul rested entirely in the hands of the girl who had spent years tearing the world apart.

"Of course I can. What, did you forget already?" Jinx retorts so casually it was biting.

After inspecting the last of the components in the crates, Jinx stands up. She wipes her palms on her pants and plants her hands on her hips, surveying the mountain of tools. She is silent for a moment, the gears in her head visibly turning as she mapped out the impossible blueprints in the air before her.

Viktor watches her too, his hands folded neatly over his cane, observing the way she navigated the his workshop. "And? Does my collection meet your... unorthodox standards?"

Jinx kicks a crate shut with her foot, the metal clang echoing against the stone walls.

"Fancy stuff. Good enough," Jinx states with a dismissive shrug. She slaps her hands together, dusting off the brass shavings as she turns toward the exit. "But I’m gonna need some of my own toys to make this work."

It was time for a little stroll back to her cavern.

There was no time to waste. It was all utopian and peaceful and all the superlatives you could think of. Yet, she couldn't shake the feeling of a ticking clock hanging over it all. A countdown, echoing in the back of her mind.

She catches Isha’s eye and gives a sharp, playful whistle, jerking her chin toward the door.

"Hey, kid! Lace up your boots," Jinx calls out with a jagged grin, walking to the door.

"I’ll go with you," Ekko says suddenly.

The words cut through the room, and everyone turns toward him. Up until now, he had been a silent shadow in the workshop, quietly assessing Viktor’s stash, watching the gears turn—both in the machines and in Jinx’s head.

She stops in her tracks. Her eyes lock onto him, her hands still halfway through a gesture to Isha. Ekko crosses his arms.

“I got the hoverboard,” he says simply. “It’ll be faster.”

Jinx looks at him, then at the board strapped to his back. Well... he had a point.

"Time’s a-wasting, then," she mutters.

_____

Ekko stands on his hoverboard at the entrance to the commune. The sun bathes the sanctuary in its bright rays, as it always seems to do. Birds chirp in the distance, their songs mingling with the low hum of soft conversations from the people nearby.

The hoverboard itself is far cry from a limousine, so Jinx decided that Isha would stay behind while they made a quick run for supplies. She doesn’t like leaving her.

But Vi is here.

Regardless of the state of Vi and Jinx’s relationship—or whatever it’s mutating into now—one truth remains: Jinx trusts her sister. She trusts her, especially when it comes to keeping a child safe. Vi will keep a watchful eye on her. The girl doesn't seem too bothered by the arrangement, anyway; she’s spent most of her time lost in carefree play. Perhaps here, she’s finally getting some pathetic glimpse of a semblance of childhood, Jinx supposes.

"And I just… what? Stand on top of that thing?" Jinx asks, eyeing the board.

"Yeah," Ekko steps to the front of the board, making room for her to stand behind him. He doesn’t reach out a hand to help her up. She doesn't wait for one, either.

Jinx narrows her eyes, then hops on with zero grace—stumbling slightly as she finds her balance on the hovering surface. Again, Ekko doesn’t move to steady her. And she doesn’t ask for help.

"If I fall off and crack my skull open," she mutters, "I'm haunting you first."

"Just… hold on. Tight." Ekko says unimpressed without turning around, waiting for her to settle.

Jinx hesitates for a split second, wondering where the hell she should even get a hold of him. His shoulders? Yeah, that’s the safe bet. She grabs the material of his jacket in her fists.

"Tighter," Ekko commands. "Unless you wanna eat dirt."

Jinx scoffs, but her grip tightens. He probably knows what he’s talking about.

Once she’s settled, the hoverboard shoots forward.

The return journey is a long stretch, but time blurs as they gain speed. Below them, the landscape dissolves—first into a smear of deep caves and open fields, then into the jagged silhouettes of buildings as they reach the outskirts of Zaun. The wind rips through her hair, stinging her skin.

Damn. He’s really drifting this bitch.

As they hit the more populated sectors of the gray city, Ekko shifts, reaching for his mask. The movement makes her stomach drop. It isn’t the danger; she is not exactly faint-hearted when it comes to high stakes like that, but it’s her first time on a machine quite like this, after all. As if she’s just cargo and her life is a gamble she exactly didn't place. And right now, Ekko holds all the cards.

Ekko, who is now casually preoccupied with his gear, while they’re soaring at a breakneck pace. Jinx almost growls at the way her heart skips a nervous beat, her brain trying to catch up as the cold, grim outline of the Undercity comes into view.

"Eyes front," she snaps, her grip tightening, as if her life depends on him. It kind of does. Then again, it’s far from the first time.

Ekko feels her grip on his forearms go white-knuckle tight.

"Jinx," he says, his voice low and steady, the way one might soothe a high strung animal. "You're good.”

So they fly. And god, it’s fun. The sheer freedom of going anywhere, reaching any height.

He’s lucky.

Jinx feels the lightning buzzing in her blood. Every time Ekko leans into a sharp turn to avoid an obstacle or to change direction, she has to fight back a stupid, adrenaline-fueled grin. Holy hell, this is fun.

It is then that some dormant part of her mind brings out a slightly faded memory. Because it is also a far from the first time when she was tearing through the world in this euphoric setting, with Ekko by her side. She remembers the raw, intoxicating rush of the world blurring at the edges—that blissful, weightless momentum that made her feel untouchable, where everything but the two of them became a blur.

Whether it was a bike or some other machine they’d scavenged from the scrap heap—a contraption held together by nothing but spit and a prayer, with no more right to function than a pile of rusted nails. Or even just their own legs carrying them at a desperate sprint through the alleyways of the Lanes. It didn't matter.

There had been laughter, too, a sound that bled into the wind until they couldn't hear anything but the mingling of their high-pitched squeals and the frantic thrill of whatever mischief they were instigating. Back when their joy was as loud as the trouble they were causing.

She grips his shoulders tighter, leaning just a fraction closer to his back, as if trying to anchor herself to the only thing in the world that feels solid. And it somehow feels just as solid as it did back then.

When was the last time she could let go like this?

As they reach the heart of the city, the hoverboard dips lower to navigate the labyrinthine streets. Ekko waits for her lead, his movements fluid as he mirrors her directions. Jinx offers a clipped "that way," "take this turn," or a simple "right," her finger cutting through the air to point the way every so often.

A sudden thought stops her breath. This will be the first time Ekko sees where she’s been hunkered down all this time. It’s strangely stinging. She has no idea where his Firelight camp is hidden; and for good reason, of course. Opposite sides of a blood-soaked conflict for long enough, and all that.

But now, he’s going to see. It almost feels like a betrayal—not of a cause, but of herself. Like she’s handing him a map to her own haunting.

Somehow, she finds it hard to care. Whatever happens, happens. Silco is gone, and somewhere in the deepest, darkest corners of her heart, a steady rhythm tells her that maybe, just maybe, this feud between them might finally freeze over. Or at least, it won’t burn hot enough that showing him her home would be a death sentence.

Besides, there is a more pressing matter at hand.

Ekko brings the hoverboard to a halt in front of a structure that looks like just another rotting, abandoned husk of a building.

That’s the point. No one would ever suspect the network of underground tunnels hidden inside, twisting their way toward her massive cavern. Jinx hops off and disappears through a window in one fluid motion.

Ekko dismounts, lingering for a moment, unsure of himself. He hadn't come all this way just to wait around indefinitely, so he follows her lead. This derelict, stony shack? This is where she’s been all this time?

But Jinx doesn't stop in the main room. She heads for a loose floorboard, pries it open, and slips inside. She moves forward through the familiar tunnels, flicking on strings of colorful fairy lights to lead the way. The rhythmic click-click-click of the switches and the thumps of Ekko’s footsteps a few paces behind are the only sounds lingering in the air.

As she reaches the main chamber, she lets out a long, relaxed sigh. It’s the effortless lightness of being in a familiar place. She doesn’t know if she could call this place home, necessarily. What is home, anyway?

Belonging?

The thought is fleeting, impossible to pin down.

With a graceful leap, she hops onto the massive propeller, heading straight for the office perched in the center. Ekko stops dead in his tracks as he reaches the mouth of the cavern. His eyes widen, pupils dilating as he tries to take in the sheer, staggering scale of the space.

It’s a cathedral of scrap and neon.

A massive, industrial turbine core hangs like a chandelier from the ceiling, casting a low, mechanical glow over the abyss. The heart of it all is a central platform—a makeshift office built into the wreckage—glowing with a feverish hum of violet and teal. Neon graffiti crawls over every surface, lines of color cutting through the shadows. It’s magnificent and horrifying all at once.

He had expected a hideout, a hole in the wall. He wasn't prepared for a kingdom of lonely brilliance.

Ekko just stands there, taking it all in—so much so that he doesn't even register her voice at first.

“…Earth to Ekko? I said you could come in,” she calls out, snapping the silence. She’s already crouched by a crate in the heart of the office, half-disappeared under the desk as she rummages through the clutter frantically.

His brain finally kicks back into focus, his eyes darting to hers for a long, lingering moment. A strange sense of bashfulness washes over him—a nagging feeling that he’s somehow trespassing, that maybe he wasn't meant to see this side of… her. He lets out a long, heavy exhale, finally taking that first tentative step onto the propeller to join her near the desk.

"Hm, no... not that... Aha! There you are!" Jinx continues her frantic search, tossing aside scraps with a distracted commentary.

Ekko stands by, trying to narrow his focus, forcing his eyes to stay on her, ready to lend a hand. But as he nears the workshop, the rest of her world bleeds into view, demanding to be seen.

Sketches and blueprints are plastered everywhere. Toys and ragged dolls dangle from wires around the workstation like silent sentinels. There are prototypes of weapons—guns and grenades that he knows all too well, in the worst possible way. In the distance, perched on one of the propeller's massive blades, a small tent is bathed in a soft, warm glow.

His gaze drifts over unfinished projects—shards of metal adorned with bright, painted patterns. Patterns, like a green hourglass. His green hourglass.

“Once you’re done sight-seeing,” Jinx chirps, catching his wide-eyed stare. She points a finger at another crate tucked under the desk. “You can start going through that box over there.”

Ekko looks at the crate she pointed out and drags it from under the workbench. The metal screeches against the stone floor. He crouches down, glancing at the mess of wires and glowing canisters inside.

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"It’s a siphon," she mutters, tossing a heavy, brass-rimmed glass coil onto the desk. "A vacuum for the 'leaks.' Vander’s... change: raw shimmer, raw arcane… It’s all just building up like steam in a boiler with no lid. It needs a high-capacity containment unit. A battery that doesn't just store energy, but sucks it out, I guess.”

Jinx explains it, fueled by that old, familiar spark; she had always loved talking about her inventions. The creation process was one of the few things that ever offered her a trace of solace—a rare, fleeting glimpse of happiness and self-fulfillment. She rarely had anyone to talk to about it. That, and the fact that somewhere deep down inside, she knew that Ekko would get it.

She finally pops her head up from behind the desk, a stray blue hair stuck to her forehead.

"So, I need Flux-Stabilizers. Big ones. And heavy-duty thermal plating. Check the bottom of that box. There should be some old Enforcer scrap I… borrowed. That'll do for the casing."

Ekko listens intently as she explains, visualizing the schematics in his mind. Jinx pulls a jagged, multi-ported manifold from the crate and slams it onto the desk.

"I’m going with a triple-intake valve," she mutters, her eyes already scanning for a wrench. "More suction, faster stabilization."

Ekko frowns, leaning over the workbench to inspect the part. "A triple-intake? Why? That’s just going to split the energy into competing flows. You’ll lose the core pressure, and the whole feedback loop will destabilize before it even hits the battery."

Jinx pauses, tilting her head.

"Huh. Yeah... but a single flow would run too hot. It’d melt the casing in seconds. I’m building a miracle, after all. Or a disaster. They usually look the same until you flip the switch."

Genius and Madness.

"Not if you use a staggered induction," Ekko counters, his hands moving instinctively toward a piece of scrap to demonstrate. "If you spiral the flow, you keep the velocity without the thermal buildup."

He was right. It’s a different perspective, one she hadn't considered. Jinx stares at him then. For a few staccato beats of her heart, she feels it: that effortless, terrifying click of their minds fitting together. It’s too easy. Too seamless.

Suddenly, the air feels entirely too much, pressing against her lungs. It’s too warm. It shouldn't be this warm.

“Right. But the flow wouldn’t be consistent. Just get on with it,” she mutters, her voice suddenly distant as she drops her gaze and turns back to the desk to tear through the crates again, the clatter of metal masking the sudden thick silence.

Ekko doesn’t try to salvage the moment. This passing moment of connection was hanging on by a thread, anyway. So he turns back to his own task, the minutes stretching out as they work in a rhythmic avoidance, only occasionally trading short, clipped comments about parts and voltages.

Time passes in a focused search. Eventually, Ekko goes to set down a finished crate and moves toward yet the next one Jinx pointed out.

As he steps to the edge of the propeller, something stops him cold.

There, tucked away, but impossible to miss, is a doll. A haunting effigy of Mylo.

It’s a grotesque piece of…grief? The head is oversized and bulbous, with massive, cracked goggles stitched over its face. Its skin is a patchwork of dirty grey fabric, held together by thick stitches that look like scars. Painted scrawls of "BLA BLA BLA" cover the surfaces around it, as if the doll itself is leaking the chaotic noise.

Ekko takes a breath, the words already forming on his tongue. There’s nothing really left to lose, he supposes, so whatever snarky comment he’s about to toss out couldn't possibly undermine their situation any further.

But the words die in his throat when something else catches his eye, pinned to a piece of wood near the workspace.

It’s a drawing on a scrap of dull green paper—a practical choice, he realizes, because the white crayon wouldn't have shown up on anything else.

He realizes, because he was the one who picked it out. A long, long time ago.

Two small figures are holding hands. One topped with a messy shock of blue, the other with a sharp crop of white. They’re both wearing wide grins that stand out in stark, waxy red against the green background. Beneath them, in shaky, vibrant letters, it reads: BEST FRIENDS!

Ekko stares at it, the air in his lungs feeling heavy.

He recognizes the exact way the lines wobble in all the same places. It’s a steady, manual reconstruction of a messy childhood memory. A drawing that was given to her. By him. Given how much time had passed since that time, he’s sure that the original drawing would have crumbled, molded, or turned to ash years ago. This is a replica. Jinx must’ve had sat down and redrawn it, stroke by stroke, from a map she still kept in her head. It was a perfect copy of the gift he'd given her, once.

Ekko’s chest twists in a way that defies his perception of her as the traitor who turned her back on him and left him out in the cold. As the one who forgot and threw it all in the trash.

Jinx lifts her head at the sudden silence; he was supposed to be moving the next crate, but he’s standing still, frozen. She looks up to see what he's doing, and her breath hitches. She notices the recognition in his eyes, and there's the briefest flash of vulnerability in her expression, before it’s forced shut, her jaw tightening.

There's a moment of charged silence as he stares at the drawing. Then he turns to her, his eyes fixed on hers.

"You kept it."

Jinx tenses, like an animal caught in a trap, exposed and cornered by a snare of her own making. She look down at the crate in front of her again.

"It’s just a good drawing, that’s all," she says quickly, too quickly. Her voice wavers just enough.

There’s no use in pushing further.

Besides, Ekko might have had an answer, if not for the suffocating lump in his throat.

He glances at the drawing one last time, his gaze lingering. It’s more than wistful. It’s a devastating longing.

I am looking at a ghost from the past that can never return.

He shifts his gaze to Jinx, then, kneeling in front of a box on the other side of the propeller.

Or am I?

_____

The final haul from Jinx’s chaotic stash filled two large sacks. An impressive collection, Ekko had to admit. He shouldn’t have expected anything less; if she was capable of building those horrifying weapons by herself, she clearly had the right connections. Or the right ways.

Curiosity got the better of him as they packed. Among the scrap and salvaged parts, one item in particular caught his eye—a heavy, matte-black power regulator. It was high-end Zaunite tech, the kind of rare, black market component even he had been struggling to source for his own projects. It didn't belong in a scrap pile, and it certainly didn't come from Pilltover.

"Where did you get this?" he asks, holding it up.

"Silco," Jinx answers matter-of-factly.

The name sours the mood a fraction.

"Did he do that often?" he asks. It’s a genuine question, stripped of judgment. He told himself he has made some kind of peace—more or less—with the fact that things turned out the way they did. "Play the provider? Getting you whatever you needed?”

Jinx looks at the regulator, then shifts her gaze to Ekko, meeting his eyes with a bold, unflinching stare. He started it. Now is the time for a defensive. She steps into a guard, shielding the memory of the man who took her in.

"Yeah, actually," she says, her voice biting and sharp. "Silco had a lot of resources. And I was useful."

It’s a provocation—an edge designed to draw blood. It’s playing with fire, and she knows it. It’s on him for touching that topic, she thinks. Ekko feels the beats of anger thrumming in his chest, pounding against his ribs. His brows knit together, his expression darkening as he stares back at her.

He thought he was done with this; finally purging the 'what-ifs,' the old resentment. But by the way she says it, apparently not.

"So that’s it?" Ekko sneers, his voice suddenly thick with a decade’s worth of repressed helplessness. "Is that all it took for you to throw everything else away?"

“What?” She glares at him, a warning in her eyes.

Jinx can feel her own anger rising to match his like a tidal wave. It’s a familiar feeling. One she welcomes. It’s easier than the guilt that usually trails its path.

"That’s why you stayed?" the words spill out, and it’s already too late to catch them. "What the hell were you thinking, Jinx? What kind of lies did he whisper in your ear to make you forget who you were?"

Ekko hadn’t intended—truly hadn't—to open this particular can of worms now. But she seems to know exactly how to push his buttons.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jinx hissed. “You don’t understand anything. Not him, not me.”

“Do you?”

“He loved me!” Jinx snaps, her voice cracking with a frantic, defensive edge. She’s vibrating with it, her hands trembling as she stares him down.

“He poisoned you against the world!” Ekko scoffs. He’s still pulsing with anger, but his voice is not raised. It drops, turning low and dangerously steady, which somehow feels even more piercing.

“Maybe he did love you,” he concedes, though the words taste way too bitter on his tounge. “That lost, hurt child. And that’s the version he fostered. That’s the girl he isolated from everyone else! He didn't build you a home, Jinx. He built you a cage!”

In this quiet that fell after his pained accusations, Jinx has no choice but to give in to the trembling of her heart. The tears beginning to sting at her eyelids felt hot and unwelcome. Suddenly, she feels very small. It’s storm she can’t outrun. Just like everything else.

She hates him in this moment. She hates the way he stands there looking like he’s got it all figured out.

Most of all, she hates the way his words crawl under her skin and ache.

“He took care of me!” Jinx’s words were strong and spiteful, but her voice cracked. She wanted her words to bite, to lash out, so he feels just as shattered as she does. To drag him down into the same jagged mess of guilt and grief that's tearing at her chest.

“I would’ve taken—!” Ekko cuts himself off mid-sentence.

The anger is gone now, frayed to nothing by the sheer weight of this pain. This hollow, weary sadness, and that old, familiar heartbreak. Broken by this unfinished promise.

I would have taken care of you.

He can’t look at her anymore. He drops his gaze, staring at the floor in the empty space between them.

The fight fizzes out of Jinx, too, after the way his words die on his tongue. The anger that had been keeping her upright just drains away, leaving her feeling extremely sick.

Because she knows. She knows he would have looked after her. Because she sees the way he stands before her now—strong, resolute, a leader ready to face the world, and she has imagined this a thousand times. She’d felt the weight of it every time she clashed with the Firelights, hearing his commanding voice, watching his crew move as one lethal, unified blur of green.

She had wondered, in the quiet dark afterwards, what it would be like if she weren’t the one staring down the barrel of his gun. If, instead of being the target he was tracking, she had been the one standing at his shoulder. She imagined her hand not white-knuckled around a trigger, but steady in his, anchored by the same strength he gave to them. But those thoughts were always drowned, smothered to nothing by a tide of never-ending hatred and a blinding rage.

Silence.

Jinx swallows hard, her throat tight as she sniffs and wipes at her nose, her gaze dropping to the floor as well.

More silence.

“Happy now? With the blame game?” she asks, her voice hoarse. There’s was supposed to be a bite to her words, but there’s no strength behind it.

“No. I’m not.”

Maybe he shouldn't blame her.

Ekko replayed the scenario a thousand times in his mind. He had dissected the tragedy a million ways, trying to find the seam where Powder ended and Jinx began.

He didn’t know how Silco had sunk his poisoned, manipulating claws into her, but what he did know was that she was just eleven years old. It must’ve been her fractured heart, and the isolation to the point until his voice was the only one she could hear. And while the blood on her hands now was hers and hers alone, he knew the venom had been pressed into her long before she ever learned to enjoy the sting.

Still, Ekko had to say it. He had to bleed out the resentment that had been festering for years. This weight had kept him awake in the quiet corners of the Firelight base, mourning his dearest friend in the dark; tethered to the floor, weeping for the one who was gone but still breathing.

He had built a sanctuary wrapped in the emerald embrace of a tree that breathed hope into the very lungs of Zaun. He was surrounded by people who were brave and resilient, a family born of choice and determination.

And yet sometimes, one absence seemed to outweigh it all. One absence held the greatest weight.

Ekko wipes a hand over his face, shaking off the last of the adrenaline.

“Let’s just finish packing. Unless we wanna stand here all night,” Jinx says flatly.

She stares at the half-packed bags on the floor. She doesn't look at him, either. There is nothing else left in her to say. What is there to say, anyway? Some kind of apology? There are not enough words to convey what barely even fits inside her. They had both said far too much, and yet, far too little. The vast, empty space of the last years still sits between them, insurmountable. She wipes a stray tear falling from her cheek, hoping he hadn’t seen it.

_____

They take the two bags and head out of the cavern.

Ekko hops onto his hoverboard, the engine humming to life under his feet. He swings one of the heavy bags over his shoulder, bracing himself. Jinx stands on the ground beside him, hoisting the other bag onto her opposite shoulder to keep them balanced.

Ekko reaches out a hand to help her up.

Chapter Text

“Hatred is a powerful thing. Hold on to it.”

Silco’s words echoed in her mind.

She must have been barely sixteen then, returning from a mission that had spiraled into disaster. They had been caught in a trap no one saw coming, blindsided, the shipment compromised; someone must have had leaked the details of the newest Shimmer transport, and the ambush was surgical.

At that particular mission, Jinx’s role had been negligible. It was one of the first major operations Silco had allowed her to join, and his instructions were clear, a simple tether: Observe. Be the ghost in the wings. Listen.

The fact that the wagon gears had ground to a halt and the cargo was lost, wasn't on her—not technically. She was supposed to follow Sevika’s lead, who, as usual, was visibly seething at having been cast in the role of babysitter once again. But Jinx had listened to her, for the most part. There was no logical reason for her to be so consumed by the failure. Back then it was grown-up business, and the weight of the loss belonged to them.

For the others, the mission had failed because of a tactical error.

But for Jinx, it had failed, because she found herself staring into the eyes of a white owl mask for the very first time.

And she knew exactly whose face was hidden behind it.

She stood tucked behind the corner of a dock warehouse amidst the chaos. The air was thick with the whistle of bullets cutting through the smoke. The gunfire wasn’t frightful, both because she was no stranger to it, and because most of the rounds were being fired by Silco's men, anyway.

She was fumbling with a weapon in her hands, her mind racing to keep up. Think fast, Jinx. Think faster. One cargo crate hit the water with a heavy splash. Then the second. Then a third. More smoke, more screams.

And then, a silhouette tore through the smog. A figure in a rugged brown mantle, a flicker of bioluminescent green painted in patterns all over it; and that white owl mask.

She stopped dead in her tracks. He did, too.

For a few stolen heartbeats, the surrounding chaos blurred into a dull, distant hum. It was him. It was him. She couldn't see his face, but her own was a twisted amalgamation of shattered recognition and stinging disbelief.

It was the vertigo of seeing a ghost suddenly grow teeth.

Ekko didn't have the luxury of lingering in that moment. The crossfire was a closing vice. He shouted a command, his voice distorted, low and mechanical through the mask’s modulation, calling out to someone. At his signal, the group of masked figures moved as one, with the fluid grace of a single shadow, retreating into the yawning maws of the vents.

He didn't fire a single shot at her, but he might as well have.

Jinx had known that Ekko was connected to the Firelights. For a while now, the pieces had been clicking into place. They were a new group—a bold flicker of green in the dark. Just in a few months, they had become the sharpest thorn in the side of Silco’s expanding empire. She had kept her own silent vigil over him, watching from the Undercity’s rusted rafters, catching glimpses of familiar movements, or otherwise gathering scraps of gossip that drifted through the streets.

But she hadn't known this. She hadn't known he was the one leading them.

“I hate them. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!”

The words came out in a desperate loop, seething, once she got back to her cavern. Silco had come to find her after the mission, checking to see if she was still whole. He would sit beside her, calm and immovable, while she huddled in her chair with her knees pulled tight against her chest.

He had asked her what had happened. She’d told him it was the Firelights.

It was the truth, but it wasn't the whole truth. The reality that sat heavy beneath the surface of that answer was a weight she carried alone.

Through the years, Jinx never told Silco she knew exactly who was behind the mask of the one holding the reins behind it all. Never whispered a word of their shared history. Never explained how the boy who was now barely an obstacle to be dismantled, was the same one who used to race her through the vents. How the enemy they haunted was once her best friend, before she could even spell ‘best friend’.

She couldn't quite untangle the why of her silence. Perhaps it was because to speak of him would be admitting that a piece of her was still breathing.

Hatred is a powerful thing.

Finding out Ekko was the heart of the Firelights recalibrated her pain entirely. It was a slow, corrosive realization. Because Jinx knew their work; she’d heard how they plucked Shimmer addicts from the gutters and offered them a clean slate. A breath of air. A second chance. She knew of how he reached into the filth of Zaun to pull out the broken and the dying. Like a savior, like a collector of lost causes.

So, how come could he pull all those strangers off the streets, give them a home, stitch them back together, save them—

—yet he couldn’t even save her?

A small, fractured part of her mind whispered a faint, frail: He tried.

But another part, louder, sharper, and far more violent—smothered that whisper, trampling it. It screamed back: Only once? Was I only worth a single reach into the dark?

Any other parts of her that might have joined the debate were already colonized. They spoke now with a borrowed tongue, a different voice. They spoke with the low, velvet rasp of Silco.

“Yes”, the voice would murmur, echoing through her ribs. “Because they always leave, child. They are all the same. Traitors. It is only us.”

It was a fortress. And every time the world failed her, Silco was there to hand her another stone, helping her build the wall higher, until the sun was nothing but a memory of something that used to burn.

The Boy Savior.

I hate him.

_____

“Son of a bitch!”

Jinx’s voice tore through the workshop as she recoiled, the metal part clattering across the floor with a ring. A hiss of steam rose from the machine in front of her.

She cradles her hand, the skin already blooming a fierce, angry red where the weld had bitten into her palm.

At the sound of the outburst, Vi turns. She was sitting on the bench at the far end of the room, her legs stretched out loosely in front of her. Beside her, Vander’s form sat like a rusted god, his massive frame casting a shadow over Isha. The girl was tucked against his side, her focus entirely on the dirt at her feet as she traced shapes into the ground with a stray piece of scrap metal.

“What?” Vi asks, a single brow arching.

Over the past few days, a strange, fragile habit had formed between them.

In this makeshift commune, they would usually spend their time together, passing the day in a shared, quiet gravity. They didn't speak of anything that held too much weight; their presence at each other’s side was weight enough, Jinx supposed. Anyway, the two of them were drifting in the same orbit. Perhaps it was the relief of a familiar face. Or the pull of their shared goal that anchored them together.

Nonetheless, Vi’s presence brought Jinx a terrifying dissonance.

On one hand, it was a breathless lightness—the pure, childish joy of having her sister back, a spark of something old and bright. But that spark was usually smothered by a violent clench in her chest.

Of course, Jinx loved her sister. She loved her with a ferocity that bordered on agony. In fact, the entire problem of their sisterhood was that those borders usually blurred. They bleed into one another until she couldn't tell the difference between the warmth of a hug and the heat of a wound.

To love Vi was to suffer it; to be near her was to feel the phantom ache of everything that was lost. There were invisible, barbed wires of "before" and "after" that tightened every time they shared the silence.

Vi’s gaze lingered on her now, a silent question. And a quiet concern that always felt a little too heavy for Jinx to carry.

“This thing hates me,” Jinx mutters, glaring at the machine like it could feel the insult.

Vi shifts on the bench, the leather of her jacket creaking under her. “Maybe you just need to try... a different way?”

Her voice was almost pitiful in its lack of certainty. To be fair, she couldn't offer a single piece of technical advice if she tried.

“Wow. Thank you for enlightening me, you visionary.”

Jinx shakes out her burnt hand and drops to her knees again, crouching amidst the skeletal remains of the siphon.

‘Staggered induction’, Ekko had said.

Jinx narrows her eyes, trying to trace the geometry of a solution that wasn't quite hers. She ignored the sting in her palm, already diving beneath the surface of the metal. Shifting on her knees, her fingers moved over a heavy, brass-rimmed coil. The logic was there, hovering just out of reach, like a taunt. If she realigned the stabilizers... if she tilted the manifold just five degrees to the left...

The heavy door groaned, and the rhythmic, metallic tap of a cane announced Viktor’s arrival before his shadow even hit the floor.

“The pressure is mounting,” Viktor says, his voice a dry rasp that commanded the room’s attention. He moves with a stiff, focused urgency, his eyes locked on the volatile, pulsing fractures on Vander’s skin.

Both Jinx and Vi stand up instinctively, a synchronized movement of raw worry.

"The resonance has shifted," Viktor murmurs, his voice tightening with a sharper edge of alarm. He points the tip of his cane toward Vander. "Look."

Viktor reaches out, his hand hovering inches above the creature’s head. A faint, sickly violet hum began to emanate from his palm—the Hexcore’s influence reaching out to touch the beast. As the energy bridged the gap, connecting the two of them, Vander’s body buckles. His breathing changed from a heavy rattle to a wet, sharp wheeze. He let out a low, guttural roar that vibrated through the camp.

Jinx’s mouth hung open, her eyes wide as she watched a faint, shimmering haze begin to leak from the cracks in Vander’s hide. “It’s outgassing. Why?”

"The containment is failing," Viktor explains, his voice strained as he fought to maintain the connection, his eyes wide with a clinical sort of terror. "The man who built this, calculated for a beast. He didn't account for the will to free the man trapped inside."

Vander lets out another roar—a sound that was half-human sob and half-predatory snarl.

"He is overheating his own soul," Viktor says, putting his hand down, leaving Vander a shaken, stuttering wreck of twisted magic. "If we do not draw the excess out now, the friction will burn away everything. The man will be the first thing to incinerate."

Vi stand up abruptly, her hands already curled into fists, eyes darting between Viktor’s grim face and Vander’s shivering frame.

"So fix it! Jinx, give him the battery, whatever it is—"

"I can't just give it to him, Vi! It's not a sandwich!" Jinx snaps, her voice pitching into that familiar, frantic register.

Viktor raises his hand again, his palm hovering inches above Vander’s heaving chest. A steady, rhythmic pulse of violet light bled from his fingers, weaving into the fractures of the beast’s skin. He wasn't fixing the leak, he was dampening it. Manually balancing the resonance to keep the pressure from reaching the point of no return.

"It is... stable. For now," Viktor exhales, his own face glistening with the strain of holding back the tide. "I am able to balance the collapse, still. We have a moment of breath."

The room feels twice as heavy, the air thick with the metallic tang. Jinx and Vi stand frozen, their lungs burning as they exhaled the breaths they’d been holding. They shift instinctively, towards each other. Just a single step, until their shoulders almost brush. In the face of primal explosion of that terrifying power, it was a reflexive need to stand together.

Isha huddles against Jinx’s leg, her small hands fist-tight in the fabric of Jinx’s trousers, her eyes wide with fear. Vander’s breathing was a wet, heavy drag. He lays there, a mountain of trembling muscle, his eyes vast and pained.

As Jinx stands there, looking at the broken pieces of her machine and the glowing wreck of her father, she knows what the missing piece is.

The Arcane was a fractured, beautiful scream—a dialect of primordial force and the sublime. It was a complicated language. But she wasn’t the only one who spoke it.

She was trying to answer a call that was never meant for one voice alone.

_____

Ekko walks through the sprawling paths of the commune, finishing the rounds supervision he began with Scar two days ago. He moves with a steady, practiced rhythm, but his thoughts are miles away.

There is a letter in his hands. It’s the latest report from the Firelight camp—an envelope sealed with the familiar hourglass wax. A status update from the world he has momentarily stepped away from to be here.

He skims the lines, the ink sharp on the page:

...one shipment intercepted near the docks... Kavo is still in the infirmary, though the fever is breaking... rumors of Noxian ships sighted off Piltover’s coast…

His brows knit at the last verse.

Ekko has never been one to complain. He would never say it aloud, but the dull pressure behind his temples speaks clearly enough. The weight of it all is beginning to show.

He is balancing two worlds on a single edge, after all. On one side is the importance and wellbeing of the Firelights; on the other, he is here, in this commune, because this is where his second-hand family is, or whatever remains of it.

He already pieced together the state of things with Vander. He’s spent enough days with Professor Heimerdinger inspecting the pulsating conduits, earning the language of Hextech, its intricate world.

“You do not have to pretend. I saw you in Vander’s memories. Not as a fighter. As a mind. You possess the kind of intellect that can catch this fire before it consumes the rest of us.”

That is what Viktor had told him once he got to the commune. His gaze had been absurdly steady, like he was an oracle who had already seen the end of the story. Ekko shakes the memory away, putting the letter into a pocket. His boots crunch as he bypasses the main gates, slipping instead onto a narrow path that skirts the edge of the vibrant farming fields.

Every so often as he passes, he stops to inspect several resonant clusters—crystalline structures embedded in rocks and soil. They emit a faint, violet glow. The sight reminds him too much of the time he’d spent with Heimerdinger and Jayce inside that underground sphere, staring into the very heart of the Hexcore. Same power. Same cost.

The path dips sharply, and the vibrant colors of the commune begin to bleed away. He leaves the lush greens behind, entering the mouth of a secluded canyon. The narrow walls of the canyon twist and turn, swallowing the sunlight. Ekko doesn’t know where the barren path is leading, but something deep in his gut tells him to keep moving. He follows the bends of the rock, his footsteps the only sound in the stagnant air.

He walks. He walks.

Until the silence of his rhythmic steps is suddenly broken. There is a sharp shift in the air, a sudden, dissonant noise that cuts through the stillness. It’s the vibration of a hundred boots and the heavy, metallic smell of iron and woodsmoke.

Ekko slows, his body tensing as he inches toward the final edge of the canyon wall. He peers around the rock.

Spread out in the basin in front of him is a sprawling hive of activity. Heavy, crimson-red tents are pitched across. Massive iron crates marked with gold sigils stack high, guarded by soldiers clad in heavy, dark red plate armor.

Noxians.

Well, seems like he’ll be getting to the bottom of that problem Scar had mentioned in his letter faster than expected.

So the rumors of Noxian ships aren't just rumors anymore; they are a living, breathing occupation. This is a foothold. And it can’t be good. Of course, Ekko came here to find a moment of peace, and all he found was a war waiting to happen.

He stands tucked behind the edge, watching as the soldiers haul heavy equipment across the dirt, others hammering iron stakes into the ground, securing even more crimson tents. Ekko remains deathly still, locking his eyes on the rhythmic efficiency of the Noxian camp below. Inspecting the perimeter, his mind cataloging the number of tents, of the soldiers, of their movement.

Until his sixth sense screams a warning.

There is a subtle shift in the air behind him. A snap of a dry twig? Or perhaps just the displaced wind of someone moving too close. One thing he will not be right now, is ambushed.

In one fluid motion, Ekko spins. He launches himself at the intruder with the speed of a coiled spring. He slams into the figure, the momentum carrying them both backward until he has them pinned hard against the jagged stone wall of the canyon.

His forearm is pressed firmly against their throat, the weight locking them in place. His eyes dark and lethal—until they focus.

The figure pinned under his arm yields to his violent motion, her back pressed painfully into the rock. Long, familiar blue braids drape over his sleeve.

Jinx stares up at him, her eyes blown wide with genuine surprise. She looks small against the stone, caught completely off guard by the suddenness of his attack. Ekko is just as surprised as she is. His heart, already racing from the sight of the Noxian army, skips a beat for an entirely different reason. The tension in his arm remains for a split second too long before he realizes he’s still crushing her against the canyon wall.

He releases her instantly, recoiling as if he’d been burned. The suddenness of it sends Jinx stumbling back, caught off balance by the abrupt loss of his weight against her. She leans against the canyon wall, one hand going to her throat to soothe the sting of his grip.

“You could’ve just said ‘hey’,” she says, her voice raspy as she tries to catch her breath, rubbing her neck.

Ekko stares, trying to process where Jinx had come from.

They hadn't really spoken in two days, since the night in her cavern. In fact, they were beginning to master the art of balancing the friction of being in the same space, and licking their own separate wounds.

“What are you?” is what eloquently comes out of his mouth. “Shouldn’t you… not be here?”

“I was looking for you. If I knew you were going to rip my head off, I would’ve stayed in bed—,” Jinx retorts, her voice rising with a sarcastic tone that rings far too loudly against the canyon walls.

The sound of her voice makes Ekko’s blood run cold. He steps back into her space, moving close enough to feel the frantic heat of her breath, and slams his hand over her mouth to cut her off.

“Shhh,” he hisses, his eyes darting toward the bend in the rocks, toward the mechanical thrum somewhere.

Jinx freezes, her wide eyes flickering up to his.

Ekko is pressed close, one hand firm over her mouth, the other braced against the rock beside her head, boxing her into the shadow of the wall. He is closer than he has any right to be.

Close enough that she can feel the weight of him through the thin space between their bodies. Close enough that the warmth of his breath ghosts across her cheek.

For a moment the world seems to hold its breath with her. Everything else falls away, leaving only the steady beat of his heart against her chest and the warmth of his breath in the narrow space between them. The stillness becomes something electric, a sudden tension that Jinx wasn’t prepared for, at all.

Ekko doesn't seem to share the moment, his head eyes still turned to the side, locked on the bend of the canyon.

“You need to see something,” he says, his voice a low rasp. It’s so quiet it’s barely a sound, but the proximity makes the words a physical vibration against her skin, sending a shiver through her that has nothing to do with the cool air. Just what is going on?

He slowly slides his hand down from her mouth, the sudden absence of his touch leaving a cold trail on her skin. He steps away, moving with a cautious, grounded grace toward the edge of the ridge.

“Look,” he commands softly.

Jinx leans out from behind the jagged turn of the rock. The view is a brutal transformation of the landscape. The basin stands a blur of obsidian and crimson red.

Oh.

Chapter Text

It was one thing to return to Viktor’s camp bearing news of a foreign occupation at their doorstep.

It was quite another to walk into that tent with Jinx to deliver such report, only to find the room punctuated by the deep navy capes of Enforcers. Especially with one particular figure among them, with her deep navy hair, talking to Vi as if the world hasn't just shifted on its axis.

"I thought we could only have one problem to give us a headache,"  Jinx drawls at the sight.

Faces in the room turn toward them at their sudden entrance. Ekko’s brow furrow at the sight of Caitlyn, his mind bringing forth their last encounter — that bridge to Pilltover, a path taken with the best of intentions that had gone so violently awry. Perhaps it wasn't her fault, strictly speaking, but the sting of the past doesn't care much for excuses. Besides, seeing her here with her pack of Piltie guard dogs in tow could only mean trouble.

"You," Ekko says pointedly, his gaze locking onto Caitlyn.

She turns fully toward them, her expression flickering with genuine shock. Her eyes dart between Ekko and Jinx, processing the impossibility of seeing them standing together.

"Since when is she invited to the party?" Jinx asks, shooting a sharp, suspicious look at Vi.

"You’re working with her?" Caitlyn shoots back, her eyes fixed on Ekko with an intensity and wary curiosity.

"We don't have time for this," Vi cuts in, waving a hand to dismiss the impromptu reunion. "Caitlyn’s here because we need every resource we can get. If Vander’s situation wasn't enough of a crisis on its own."

Jinx lets out a dry, mirthless cackle. "Yeah? Let’s make a game of it. Let’s see who’s got the shittiest news to win the prize tonight."

Ekko’s brows furrow even deeper as his gaze sweeps over the Enforcers.

And as the explanations begin to pour out from Vi, Caitlyn, and Ekko himself, it really does sound like a competition of who’s got the worse thing to say. It’s like a race to see who can deliver the final, crushing blow to any hope left.

One by one, the pieces of the nightmare fall into place. They trade those revelations like shards of glass: the looming shadow of Noxian machinations, the movements of their bolstered troops, and the devastating truth that these maneuvers were enabled by Caitlyn herself. The air in the tent grows heavy, leaving Ekko feeling almost claustrophobic.

He watches the way tension coils through Jinx like a tightly-wound spring. She is restless, her fingers twitching with a nervous energy.

A quick thought tells him that this must feel like a triple threat for her. It’s a threat to Vander, it’s a threat to the Undercity—though Ekko isn't sure how much she cares about that particular fact; but most of all, it’s a threat to the fragile ceasefire she’s managed to scrape together with Vi.

"This is fixable,” Vi starts, her voice dropping into that low, grounding register, taking a few steps forward toward her sister. “Cait and I have a plan to undo this. We can handle the Noxians."

Caitlyn steps forward then, her posture shifting into something professional and precise as she outlines the strategy. She speaks of infiltration and subterfuge; Vi is to enter the Noxian camp, a calculated Trojan horse.

"We wait until their commander arrives," Caitlyn says, her eyes narrowing as she calculates the risks. "Everything hinges on her. She has to be the primary target. We take out the head, or the rest of this won't matter."

Ekko truly tries to listen, wants to weigh the merits of the plan. Only he likes none of it. Every word out of Caitlyn’s mouth feels like a heavy, clinical abstraction of a tragedy that never should have happened in the first place. It’s a fire she helped light, and now she's explaining the most efficient way to fan the flames, at their expense.

He can see the same repulsion reaching a boiling point in Jinx, until she just stalks out of the tent before Caitlyn can even finish her assessment, the tent’s canvas flap snapping shut behind her like a gunshot.

Ekko follows a heartbeat later, but not before casting them one last, scathing look.

The knowledge of how the Noxians infiltrated and hollowed out the Council feels like a cold weight in his chest. It isn’t merely a failure of Pilltover’s bureaucracy, when it also poses a direct threat to the Undercity. To his people. How can Vi not see it, when it is right there before their eyes?

He’ll recon with that thought later. For now, one thing he does know is how done he is bending over backwards for barely a chance for the better, only to have every gesture of good faith blow up in his face in the end. He has no intention of remaining in that space with the enemy.

And there is another person who shares the sentiment. By the time Ekko steps out of the tent, Jinx is already halfway across the clearing.

“Hey,” he calls out, his pace quickening as he catches up to her.

She glances back at him over her shoulder, but she doesn't break her stride.

“What? You’re not part of the dream-team back there?” Jinx spits.

Her face is a mask of defensive snarl, but there is something else, too. Etched into the tightening of her jaw is the look of someone who expected to be let down, and is still devastated when it actually happens. Ekko shakes his head, keeping pace beside her.

"We’re all getting screwed by this, every single one of us," he says, staring straight ahead, his voice low, anchored by a quiet, unwavering certainty. "I don’t exactly trust the Council. Or those two right now."

Jinx shoots him a fleeting glance from the corner of her eye, the defensive tension in her shoulders easing a fraction.

"That makes two of us," she murmurs.

The sounds of the camp fade into the periphery as they walk, swallowed up by the shadows of the cool night. The biting chill in the air is a stark contrast to the suffocating tension of the tent they just left.

Ekko doesn’t really know where or why he’s following her into the dark, but he doesn’t question it either.

He supposes he can feel the sudden shift in the balance. Earlier, there was a truce of sorts between Jinx and Vi, a fragile tether holding them together. Has that tether weakened now? Not that Ekko likes drawing lines in the sand, or turning it all into a bitter game of us versus them; but right here, in the quiet chill of the night, something settles between him and Jinx.

It is something forged in the fires of their mutual disdain for Topside authority, and it leaves only the two of them: two kids from the Undercity, waking up to the reality that they are on their own once again. The truth hangs in the cool air, unspoken but absolute, solidified by the steady harmony of their steps side by side in the dark.

Against all odds, the circumstances have given them yet another reason to stand on the same side.

Their footsteps trail off into a silence thick with the weight of the plans still spilling from Caitlyn’s mouth, and Vi standing firmly at her side.

The pace slows only once they reach the entrance to the glass chamber, where Vander is being kept restrained at night.

Inside, his massive form lies sprawled across the floor, a mountain of fur and muscle anchored by reinforced chains that bite into his limbs. He seems asleep, but the moment they approach, his eyes snap open—bright, glowing embers in the shadows. A short roar rips from his chest but it cuts off the moment his gaze clears, as he recognizes the two faces staring back at him.

Jinx’s expression is a map of pure, unadulterated pain. She is the first to move, breaking away from Ekko’s side and drifting toward the center of the chamber. As she nears, Vander lets out another roar, a soft, low vibration, like a greeting; a wordless question: ‘What is wrong, my child?’  He shifts toward her, watching her with the softest expression a creature of his making can manage.

She stands before him for a fleeting second, her small frame dwarfed by his mountainous shadow. She lets out a heavy, shaky exhale. It’s a sound that teeters on the edge of a sob. Ekko watches from the threshold as she sinks to the floor beside him, leaning her weight against the thick, furred muscle of his forearm, pressing herself against his side as if trying to disappear into the only safety she has ever known.

That too, is a jarring contrast to the image he had carried of her for so long: the agent of destruction, the manic force of chaos, the one to be feared and mourned.

Then again, he’s beginning to lose count of how many times she has defied that perception.

After a few heartbeats of silence, Ekko steps tentatively further into the chamber. He keeps his distance, eventually sinking down to lean against a stone pillar across from them.

"I... I shouldn't have piled on you like that," he says, his voice low in the quiet. "That night in your cavern. I shouldn't have just... thrown it all at you at once."

"Don’t sweat it," Jinx rasps, shrugging. "You should have."

“Well, I could’ve been better about it. I was... caught up.”

Caught up in the sight of the drawing he’d stumbled upon—of the two of them immortalized in this relic of a life before the world broke.

Caught up in the insurmountable rift that circumstances had carved between them. During that night, that distance felt so tangible the words had pressed against his teeth like arrows notched and strained against a bow, desperate to be released.

And Ekko knows he’d had every right to lash out then. But seeing her now, in this picture of fragility in the hollow quiet of the night, guarded by the very man who had once looked after them both—back when they were thick as thieves—the rhythm of his anger faltered, replaced by a dull, aching need to explain.

“I had it coming,” Jinx says simply, like she's stating the obvious, a faint, defensive edge to her words. “There’s a lot more things you could’ve thrown in my face.”

Vander lets out a sound—a low, soft vibration that hums deep in his chest and rings across the chamber. Despite the reinforced chains that bite into his limbs and keep his frame awkwardly contorted, he shifts slowly. With a grunt, he nuzzles his head into Jinx’s shoulder as she sits leaning against him, a wordless attempt to make her comfortable. He closes his eyes then, his breath coming in slow, rhythmic huffs.

“Who’s that little girl with you?” Ekko asks then.

Jinx doesn't look up, her hand absentmindedly brushing against Vander’s shoulder. “Isha,” she says, her voice leveling out. “She’s been with me for a while. We just... hang out.”

Her tone is intentionally casual, though the way she says it betrays a sense of routine. She takes care of her.

Ekko knows there are already enough kids in Zaun cursed with a destiny too heavy for them to carry alone. He looks down at his hands.

And so, the night folds around the three of them like a velvet shroud. Ekko glances over; Jinx’s eyes are already closed, leaning into Vander’s warmth for support. The exhaustion of the long day finally takes its toll, pulling at his limbs like a heavy tide. Giving in, Ekko lets his own eyes drift shut, surrendering to the dark.

_______

Ekko wakes to a sharp, rhythmic clinking of metal. He is disoriented for a moment, the harsh glare of the morning sun cutting through the grime of the windows and stinging his eyes. As the world blurs into focus, he sees Viktor standing over Vander, methodically unfastening the heavy chains. Vi stands just a few paces away, her arms crossed.

“I was under the impression Viktor offered you a tent with an actual bed, Ekko,” Vi says, cocking her eyebrow.

Viktor doesn’t look up from his work, his movements precise and clinical.

“I did indeed,” he replies. “It was his prerogative to opt for the aesthetic discomfort of a stone pillar instead.”

Ekko rubs his eyes and forces himself to stand, his muscles screaming in protest after a night spent sleeping upright on the cold ground. He stretches, feeling his spine pop.

“I’ve slept in worse places,” he mutters.

Viktor raises a hand over Vander’s head. A faint, violet glow emanates from his palm—the shimmer-infused energy humming as it interfaces with the beast's mind.

“And?” Vi asks, her voice tight.

“The architecture of this psychic cage is… curious,” Viktor says, his voice shifting into a scholarly drone. “It appears the one who built this metaphorical prison is not currently attempting to further constrict his subconscious. It is a suspicious lull, sure, but it grants us a window for progress. Powder should continue her work on the machine. Her input remains vital.”

With a curt nod, Viktor leads the lumbering form of Vander away. Ekko watches them go, then turns his gaze to Vi. She looks worn down, her face etched with that specific, deep tiredness.

“He still calls her that?” he prompts.

Vi stares at the spot where they disappeared. “She doesn't seem to mind that much,” She takes a few steps toward Ekko, her gaze softening. “Maybe we’re… maybe we’re actually going to be okay, Ekko.”

Those are the words that she says, but from the way her voice wavers, he isn't sure she even believes it herself.

Truth be told, Ekko isn't buying any of it. This sudden stroke of luck, promising to raise the dead and stitch a broken family back together? In their world, miracles like that usually come with a body count. It doesn't feel like a new beginning, it feels like a setup for a harder fall.

But knowing it's too good to be true doesn't stop him from wanting to breathe it in. Even if it’s a lie, it’s a reprieve.

He lets himself linger in this space, soaking up the stillness and the impossible proximity of those who are usually out of reach.

“…Okay with Noxians knocking on the door?” he asks, his skepticism evident.

Vi doesn't flinch. “Like I said, Caitlyn and I are handling it.”

“Is she even still here?”

Vi shakes her head, looking toward the horizon. “No. She headed back to that soldier’s camp of hers. Said she had things to straighten out.”

Ekko nods, a slow, heavy movement of his head, and the two of them begin to walk, leaving the cavernous chamber behind.

“What do you think?” Vi asks suddenly, her voice dropping an octave. She doesn't need to say her name; they both know who she means. “About her?”

Ekko slows his pace, the question hanging in the air. For years, his worldview was simple: Jinx was the enemy, the one person he had to survive. Only now that clarity was gone, replaced by an aching confusion.

“I don’t know, Vi,” he says finally, his voice low. “I spent a long time looking at her through a sight. I laid a lot of things at her feet. It’s hard to just... stop.”

Yet here Jinx is, doing exactly what he’s doing: clinging to the wreckage of their past. And the scariest part of it all is the sudden, piercing realization that for the better part of a decade, they might have both been drowning in the same sea, only from opposite sides. It feels like there is nowhere for the hatred to go anymore. She is like a ghost, to him and Vi, he thinks. One that forgot it’s supposed to be haunting them.

“But I...” Ekko begins, his gaze dropping to the floor. He looks weary, a deep, nostalgic sadness clouding his face. “Well. You know how we used to be.”

The dearest to his heart—that’s what she used to be.

Vi cracks a soft, nostalgic smile, her eyes searching his with a profound, aching tenderness.

“I know,” she whispers, knowingly.

He should probably ask where she is. Except she herself beats him to it.

Jinx emerges suddenly from a nearby tent, looking frayed and agitated, her movements sharp and restless.

“Oh, look at that. Sleeping Beauty is finally awake. How wonderful,” she says, already pacing toward a makeshift workbench. “What do you say to balancing differential equations so you can help me figure out why the power draw is spiking like a heart attack?”

Wielding some kind of a heavy-duty wrench, her determined stride never faltering as she disappears into the clutter of the workshop.

Ekko looks at Vi for a split second, and then follows right after her.

Chapter Text

Jinx spent most of her teenage years nestled within the heart of her cavern.

It had been a sanctuary gifted by Silco, a ragged playground where she could be whatever she wanted, yet simultaneously remain within his reach.

Before the cave, she had claimed a room of her own in Silco’s mansion by the docks. It wasn’t that she was so accustomed to the grandeur of such a place that she grew bored of it; it was that, over time, the shared walls began to feel like a cage. It wasn’t Silco himself who stifled her—but rather the silent need to contain herself. Jinx found that the house demanded a stillness she didn't possess. It put quiet limitations on her projects, on the frantic tinkering, the invention, and the blasting of her favorite songs.

But the air there grew thick and suffocating for another reason, too. That room was also frequently visited by uninvited, untouchable guests. Those horrible, painfully familiar ghosts would gather in the shadows, watching her with hollow eyes; more often than not.

Jinx adored her new cave.

She had transformed the damp stone into a sanctuary of her own making, draping it in tangled fairy lights and littering it with grinning effigies. Neon patterns and circular motifs bled across the dark cavern walls. Every decoration was intentional, though to a sane eye, it looked like the wreckage of a mind turned inside out. To her, every ragged poppet and chaotically colored trinket had its place.

"It’s not like I have anyone to spend time with anyway!" she calls out to Silco one evening. He stands perched high above her on the edge of a massive turbine blade, arms crossed.

By that time in her life, the only person even remotely her age was the daughter of one of Silco’s lieutenants. She was a girl who appeared only in glimpses, drifting through the hideout whenever her father was called in for one of Silco's long, grueling meetings.

She was nice enough company for those few hours; they’d sit in the dim light, sharing whispered jokes about the self-important figures huddled behind the heavy doors, Jinx would even try to pull her into her world of gears and sparks, spreading half-finished gadgets across the floor between them like offering pieces.

But that connection had a shelf life. As soon as the meetings adjourned, the girl would vanish back into her own world, and leaving Jinx be in hers. It was a semblance of a friendship that existed only in the gaps between Silco’s business deals; a fleeting connection built on borrowed time, measured in the centimeters of cigars burned down inside the office. And so, Jinx’s only peer was a girl she’d see once a week in corridors choked with smoke and politics.

"Do you feel lonely?" Silco asks.

Jinx didn't really know. She supposed she did.

But to voice the loneliness would be to insinuate that she had ever expected not to feel alone. She never harbored such illusions. Loneliness wasn't exactly a tragedy; it was a habit. She had been with Silco for about five years by then, and a steady companion was a foreign concept.

There were only those fleeting encounters with the children of Silco’s associates, or the evenings when she wandered the neon-soaked streets of Zaun, stumbling into some dark alleyway that briefly turned into a playground for a gang of street kids.

Besides, to acknowledge that loneliness would be to lean on some kind of baseline—a fading memory of a time when she hadn’t felt this way. If she allowed herself to acknowledge it, she would remember the days in her youth when there was someone else at her side.

But because this was the present and not the past, there is no friend waiting around the corner. That version of the past was out of reach now, a blurred horizon she tried to could no longer see. That baseline had eroded into nothingness; the faces and voices of 'before' were so far gone they might as well have been erased from existence.

Silco would eventually leave her to her vices, retreating without obtaining any answers he could actually use, despite his quiet want to offer her some semblance of comfort.

Jinx rises from her desk chair, pacing across the propeller blades toward the cavern’s edge. Her eyes wander instinctively over the clutter of her life as she walks by. Her momentum is only broken once her gaze inevitable snags for a heartbeat on one specific drawing. It’s pinned there, hanging by a rusted industrial bolt driven deep into the cold stone of the wall. The crude lines and the two wide, paper smiles seem to pulse in the dim light.

She doesn’t stop for long. There was no point. 

On her way, she reaches out and picks up one of her newest grenades that was left laying on the ground in front of her feet. It was a jagged, colorful creation, still smelling of fresh lacquer and volatile chemicals. She turns it over in her hands. It was some kind of a specific request from Silco, she recalled.

Jinx knew it wouldn't be used for any noble cause, which didn’t exactly stop the faint, sharp smile that tugged at her lips as she weighed it in her hand. The mechanics were quite impressive; the trigger housing was a masterpiece of tension and release. She had implemented a new kinetic firing pin, a technique she had never managed to stabilize until now.

She glances at the drawing once more, despite herself.

She wishes she could tell him. 

He would have appreciated the craftsmanship. He would have understood the elegance of the spark.

Í̷̧̈́̽̏̽͝ ̷̱̦̋͒̄́h̵̜͎̪̾̂̀̈́͒̕ͅa̸͚̳͕̖̟͒t̴̢̗̀̈́̿͑e̷͖̯͚̰͋̕͜ ̸̥͈̥̯̦͉̉̏̕̕h̷̡̛͔͈̭͎̺͠i̶̢̤͙̒m̴̙̟͍͔͐.̷̦̤͚̬̱̌͊͂̑͂

But does hate truly manifest in such quiet pondering? 

In seeking an audience in the mind of your enemy? Do you weave the one you hate into the very fabric of your inner world? 

Does one still wonder about their likes and tastes?

If not, then what do you call this constant look behind?

 _____

"Jinx, pass me the caliper. I know what’s wrong," Ekko mutters, his knees pressed against the cold floor as he leans into the gut of the machine. The two were working in a frantic, synchronized rhythm for a couple hours now.

"The feedback loop is oscillating," he continues, gesturing toward a glowing crystalline valve. "If we don't dampen the resonance, the whole core is going to turn into a localized sun."

"Are we really supposed to mess with Hextech like that here? It's... touchy," Jinx hands him the tool, her eyes narrowing as she watches the blue energy pulse erratically.

"Since when did you grow a moral compass to be concerned with what we should or shouldn't do?”

"Just saying!" Jinx snaps, leaning over his shoulder. "If the thermal venting fails, this whole place doesn't have enough clearance for the blast radius. We're gonna be vaporized before we even hear the bang."

"It won't blow," Ekko counters, his voice strained with focus. "I’m rerouting the energy flow through a secondary shunt. It’s the same dampening mechanism we use for the Firelight hoverboards."

"Yeah. And it’s outdated as hell," Jinx says, letting out a sharp, mocking scoff.

"What?" Ekko pauses for a second, his wrench hovering over a bolt as he looks back at her with furrowed brows, offended.

"You and your little swarm of bugs have been riding those same hoverboards forever," she says, leaning back, her eyes glinting in the Hex glow. "I would’ve thought your 'brilliant' revolution would have upgraded to a high-frequency pulse-buffer by now.”

“Well, if you paid any attention at all, you’d know we stopped having the same ones,” Ekko shots back, turning his back to her again, focusing on the machine's inner workings. “We swapped the cores out ages ago."

"Oh, right. My mistake," she purrs, her voice trailing off into a dangerously playful lilt. "I must’ve been distracted during all those fights looking at you! Or was that more of your thing?”

Ekko scoffs at the jab, his jaw tightening as he processes her suggestion that he was the one losing focus, caught staring at her amidst the whistling lead and flying sparks. He opens his mouth to fire back a retort, a sharp denial already on the tip of his tongue.

But the machine interrupts him.

A shockwave of pure force slams into them, throwing them both backward. There’s no fire, no roar of an explosion; just a sudden, violent release of pressurized energy. That silent, invisible fist hits with enough force to send them both soaring. The world blurs for a second as they hit the ground.

When the dust settles, Jinx lies pinned to the ground, with Ekko’s arm sprawled awkwardly on top of her.

“Get your elbow off my back!” Jinx hisses, her face pressed against the grit, her voice muffled by the dirt.

“I don’t see why you can’t get your back off my elbow,” Ekko shoots back, but untangles himself with an ungraceful scramble, and pushes himself up to stand.

His eyes immediately dart to the machine with a look of frantic concern. It doesn't… look destroyed. He breathes a curt sigh of relief. Whatever just happened, the chassis is still intact. He stands there for a moment, chest heaving, while Jinx continues to grumble from the floor. She finally pushes herself into a sitting position, brushing dirt from her hair with an annoyed huff.

"I told you it would blow!" she snaps, glaring at the sand-covered device.

"It didn't," Ekko counters, his voice regaining its steady edge. "It was just a pressure purge. The internal seals held. Everything’s fine."

Jinx narrows her eyes, scanning the machine with a practiced, predatory gaze. She looks for cracks, for the telltale hiss of a failing core, but she finds nothing. To her relief—and slight irritation—the thing isn't ruined.

Ekko reaches down, extending a hand to help her up. Jinx stares at his palm for a heartbeat, then takes it. He pulls her up with a firm, effortless tug. As soon as she’s on her feet, she brushes past him and kneels back down in front of the machine to give it her own assessment.

She hums, her fingers hovering over the valves.

"Hmm. The purge actually cleared the blockage in the secondary shunt," she mumbles, her eyes widening, then looks up at him, a wide, smug grin spreading across her face. "Huh. It fixed itself. Guess your outdated tech just needed a little kick in the teeth."

"Sure, keep mocking," Ekko says, rolling his eyes as he wipes a smudge of grease from his forehead. "Don't let me stop you from saying, 'Thank you, wonderful Ekko, for your priceless assistance! It’s just so amazing that you’re here, helping out of the goodness of your heart, because I definitely couldn't have done this alone!'"

"Don't trip over your ego on the way back to the controls, Ekko.”

Suddenly, the heavy canvas of the tent is ripped aside. Vi appears as if she materialized out of thin air. Then again, she’s always somehow lingering nearby. 

A look of pure, unadulterated concern, mixed with a "seriously?" expression, is etched across her face. Her eyes dart between the two of them, flickering from Jinx’s dirt-streaked face to Ekko’s grease-stained forehead. She quickly assesses the scene, checking for blood or broken bones. Only after she’s certain they are both still intact and standing does her protective stance soften, replaced by a sharp, demanding edge.

"What the hell happened?" she asks, her voice echoing through the tent.

Jinx doesn't even look up, instead focused on wiping a stray bit of grease from her thumb. "Relax, sis. Just a little creative feedback from the machine. Little Man’s genius was just too much for the pipes to handle all at once," She waves a dismissive hand toward the humming device. "That thing is practically purring now."

Ekko just lets out a smug, satisfied "mph-hm," as he crosses his arms, leaning back slightly with a faint, knowing smirk.

Vi stands there for a moment longer, her gaze bouncing back and forth. She looks like she wants to argue, but she just rubs the back of her neck tiredly instead.

"Maybe you two should take five before you actually manage to level the sector?" Vi grunts, her tone that classic mix of bossy sister and exhausted peacekeeper. "Go. Breathe some air that doesn't explode."

Before Jinx can snap back with a denial, a small blur of movement in the form of Isha interrupts them. The girl skids into the tent, her eyes wide and bright. She tugs insistently on Jinx’s sleeve, pointing toward the flap of the tent and then mimicking a grand, sweeping motion.

Jinx’s expression softens in a way it only does for the kid. She sighs, tossing a glance over her shoulder at the machine. "I guess the work can wait while I attend to more pressing matters," she pats the device one last time. "Don't break it while I'm gone, Ekko."

With a wink, Jinx follows Isha out into the light. Vi watches them go, then turns her attention to Ekko. Her expression shifts, becoming more grounded.

"Actually, I was on my way here to find you anyway," she says, reaching into a pocket of her vest. "This arrived for you."

She hands him a thick, cream-colored envelope, sealed with a familiar, sharp silhouette of the Firelight hourglass on the wax. Ekko’s brow furrows as he breaks the seal. "Another report?" he mutters, more to himself than to Vi.

So quickly? This doesn’t bode well.

_____

From: Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger

Dear Ekko,

I trust this letter finds you well and that your efforts within Viktor’s commune continue to yield the progress we so fervently hoped for. I am writing to you from the quiet solitude of Jayce’s laboratory at the Academy, though I’m afraid I find myself in a state of considerable distress. I’m afraid I do not have good news.

You see, Jayce and I returned to the site of the distortion a few days ago, to inspect the dome where the Hexcore’s heart once resided. There were residual fluctuations that demanded our immediate scrutiny. However, in an act of…characteristic impulsiveness, Jayce made direct contact with the Core. The result was... catastrophic. Jayce seems to have been pulled in by the Arcane itself.The laws of our physical reality seemed to fold in upon themselves in his presence.

My preliminary calculations suggest a displacement not just of space, but of time itself. 

Needless to say, he is gone, Ekko, and I fear the breach he has left behind is only the beginning of a much larger instability.

However, all is not lost. While the Arcane is a fickle mistress, its patterns are not entirely beyond our reach. I am theorizing the possibility of an anchor, a bridge of sorts. If I manage to construct a portal capable of resonating with the specific frequency of his displacement, I might yet pull him back from the threshold. I have already begun the initial schematics here at the Academy, though the energy requirements are... daunting, to say the least.

For the time being, do not let this news distract you from your vital work. This is not an immediate summons; you are where you need to be. I merely felt it imperative that you be informed of the risks we are currently navigating. 

Continue your watch over the commune. I shall remain here, tethered to my calculations, until the way is clear.

Yours in science and hope,

Professor Heimerdinger

_____

Chapter Text

Ekko pushes open the wooden door to his quarters. What greets him is a comforting weight of a familiar sight. 

His room basks in the late afternoon sun, the golden rays filtering through the windows in thick, honeyed streaks. Ekko usually prides himself in being the type to maintain a strict, disciplined order–a habit poetically instilled in him during his youth by Benzo. 

Back in the shop, surrounded by the messy, chaotic nature of broken gadgets and salvaged parts, Benzo would often impart his wisdom whenever Ekko left a stray clutter behind. "In a world like this, a clear workbench is a clear mind," he would say, his voice steady and guiding. "You have to respect the tools in your hand if you ever hope to fix what’s broken!". He carried those words with him into adulthood, finding a deep sense of truth in them; keeping things in their place was truly a way of keeping himself together.

However, his sudden departure and the stay at Viktor’s commune have left his room in a state that is decidedly... less than pristine. Dust dances in the light, settling over the tools he left mid-repair.

The inside of his suite is a capsule of a life lived in fragments. Scattered across the workbench are all kinds of gears and half-finished projects, buried under a sea of sketchbooks, worn journals, and loose papers. He looks at the chaos for a second. He’ll get around to it.

Even so, the room bathes in the amber, rhythmic glow of the Firelight base, a comforting warmth that feels like a steady heartbeat pulsing through the walls.

Ekko had tried—truly tried—to remain present in Viktor’s commune after receiving Heimerdinger’s letter. Yet, the news of Jayce’s disappearance was a stray piece of a puzzle that didn't fit. It left more questions than even the daily dilemmas about the hivemind of the commune could drown out. It was like a splinter in his mind that he couldn’t pull out.

By the next morning, he’d given Vi a brief heads-up and made the fly back to his base.

With a focused sigh, Ekko reaches across the desk. His fingers brush over a specific leather journal filled with frantic sketches and notes of hexportals and temporal theories. He tucks it firmly under his arm, takes one last look at the sanctuary he so rarely gets to enjoy, and steps back out.

The door clicks shut behind him.

“Oh, it really wasn’t necessary for you to go to all this trouble, my boy,” a high, melodic voice chirps.

Ekko nearly jumps as he encounters Heimerdinger on the stairs. The professor is already making his way down, his small frame moving with surprising briskness.

He quickly recovers, falling into step behind him. As they descend, he pulls the leather journal from under his arm, his thumb expertly flipping through the weathered pages until he finds the specific frequency charts he’s been obsessing over.

“You didn’t exactly give me much of a choice, Professor,” Ekko says, his voice low but steady.

Heimerdinger doesn't stop, his ginger hair bobbing with every step. “I believe my letter explicitly stated this was not a summons. Your work with Viktor’s commune is of the utmost importance.”

“Yeah, well, 'displacement of space and time' tends to jump to the top of my to-do list,” Ekko counters, holding the journal open so the Professor can see the jagged graphs of hex-resonance.”If Jayce really did step into the heart of that distortion, then we’re looking for a needle in a haystack that exists in an infinite different dimensions at once.”

Heimerdinger pauses for a fraction of a second, his eyes darting to Ekko’s sketches. “A needle that is currently unraveling the very fabric of the haystack, I’m afraid.”

Ekko stops on the landing, looking down at the Professor. “So how do we anchor a portal to a frequency that's constantly shifting?”

As they descend the stairs further, the quiet focus of the base shifts into a hum of activity. Members of the Firelights pause in their tasks; wide smiles break out across their faces as they spot Ekko. Some offer an endearing nod, others a wave of a grease-stained hand.

It’s only been five days since he left for the commune, but a profound, grounding warmth settles in Ekko’s chest. His heart really is anchored right here, in the rhythmic pulse of this sanctuary, in the faces of the friends who have become family, and in the laughter of the children playing in the shadows of the great tree.

They finally reach the ground, entering the sturdy stone annex that serves as their primary design hub. The air here is cooler, smelling of aged sap and fresh parchment.

Heimerdinger, moving with a sudden burst of academic energy, hops onto a raised wooden platform to reach the drafting table. He immediately leans over a spread of complex blueprints and schematics he’s clearly been laboring over since he arrived. He adjusts his goggles, his small hands already hovering over the ink-stained lines.

“Precision, Ekko! That is the only way,” he chirps, voice echoing slightly in the high-ceilinged room. “I have already begun the mapping of the hex-harmonic variance. If we can isolate the exact resonance of Jayce's displacement, we might find the traces he left behind. But look here—” he taps a series of dense, frantic calculations near the margin “—the power draw required to stabilize a bridge of this magnitude is staggering. My current designs are theoretically sound, but they are practically starved for energy.”

Ekko leans in, his shadow falling over the Professor’s work. He’s looking for the cracks Heimerdinger might have missed—the Zaunite shortcuts that a Piltovan scientist would never think to take. A faint, knowing smile tugs at the corner of his mouth at the thought.

"The math is perfect, Professor. Too perfect," Ekko says, his finger tracing a particularly rigid power-transfer coil in the blueprint. "You’re trying to stabilize the flow with pure symmetry, but the Arcane likes to move. If we stop trying to contain the surge and start channeling it..."

He flips his own journal open to a page of messy, overlapping circles. "We don't need a steady stream of power. We need a synchronized burst. We can bridge the gap by overclocking the resonance for a second. Just enough to pull Jayce through before the whole thing melts down."

Heimerdinger adjusts his spectacles, his whiskers twitching as he leans closer to Ekko’s sketches. "Overclocking? My boy, the thermal volatility alone would be… Well, it would be spectacular, and not in a way that benefits our health!"

"Maybe," Ekko shrugs, his eyes bright with the thrill of the gamble. "But down here, we’ve learned that sometimes you have to let the machine scream if you want it to work."

Heimerdinger stays silent for a moment, his head tilted as thinks. His eyes dart from the sketches in the journal to the young man standing before him, his the confident stance, and most of all—that spark of raw, unfiltered genius that is so often polished away.

Then, he throws his head back and erupts into a proud, resonant laugh. It’s a sound of pure academic delight, echoing off the stone walls of the annex.

"Ha! 'Let the machine scream!'" Heimerdinger repeats, wiping a tear of mirth from under his goggles. "Oh, the sheer, magnificent audacity of youth!” 

Ekko hands him the journal, a soft, genuinely happy smile spreading across his face. There’s an impossible lightness in his expression; pure, electric joy of discovery. There is a profound healing in the presence of a mentor who actually listens—someone who speaks the same language of gears and lightning. In this sanctuary of logic and shared curiosity, he is a student again, found and understood.

"Fine, leave the rest to me then," Heimerdinger says, tucking the journal under his own arm. He looks up at Ekko with a sudden, quiet gravity. "You have far too much on your plate already, my boy. Besides, I find myself with quite a lot of free time these days. And Jayce… He is my responsibility."

Heimerdinger gives him a playful, affectionate nudge with the corner of the notebook against his shoulder. "Go on, then. See to your people. I shall be right here, coaxing the machine to scream in just the right key."

Ekko offers him a once last smile and steps out of the annex, feeling the ground beneath him a little more firmly; the golden, shifting light of the base warmer than before. 

He takes a deep breath, barely having the time to exhale before a small blur of motion streaks across the horizon.

"Ekko! You're back!"

A young girl—no older than twelve, with a face smudged with dirt and a lopsided Firelight mask pushed up onto her forehead—skids to a halt in front of him. She’s holding a wooden toy hoverboard that looks suspiciously like a miniature version of his own.

Ekko’s expression melts instantly. He drops to one knee, bringing himself down to her level. "I told you I wouldn't be gone long, Miri. How's the fleet holding up?"

"It’s wonky," she says with a dead-serious pout, thrusting the toy toward him. "It keeps veering into the ferns."

Ekko takes the toy with genuine solemnity. He pulls a small multi-tool from his belt, the kind he always keeps handy, filled with the odd bits and bobs of his trade; after all, you never know when you might run into a child in distress. With a half-turn of a tiny screw, he clicks a gear back into place and hands it back. "Try it now. The wind up was fighting the torque. You gotta respect the tools, remember?"

The girl’s eyes light up as she tests the spin. Without a word, she lunges forward and throws her arms around his neck in a quick, fierce hug. "Don't go back to the top-side for a long time, okay? It’s boring when you're gone."

She’s off again before he can even answer and address the fact that he is not, in fact, Top-side, disappearing into a group of other children. Ekko stands up slowly, brushing the dust off his knees. Base is alive around him. He sees a couple of older Firelights sharing a drink, a mechanic humming while repairing a flare-launcher, all in the quiet presence of the tree above them. That whole day melts into a blur of shared meals, laughter, and the steady, grounding work of the group. 

It is only as the sun sets entirely, the vibrant gold bleeding into a deep, bruised violet, that Ekko finds a moment for himself. He has made sure to stay out of the Professor’s way, as affectionately instructed, instead letting himself simply exist within the heart of the sanctuary. He spent the hours catching up on everything he’d missed—poring over reports with Scar, reconnecting with his people. He knows, with a nagging certainty, that he has to return to Viktor’s commune.

The children are ushered toward bedtime, and the adults begin settling in for the night. Everything is as it should be, he supposes.

Ekko climbs the stone steps and sits down. His eyes dart towards the mural.

He looks at it for a long time, staring at the faces painted there, the sharp lines, the familiar eyes of those lost. For years, this wall has been a cemetery of pigment and memory, a static reminder of the price paid. 

But this evening, the air feels different. A strange, poetic shiver runs through him as he looks at the brushstrokes. What a strange, terrifying thought—that some of these faces might not remain just paint on a wall. That the finality of the past might finally be coming undone.

Wishful thinking, his scepticism creeps in and whispers.

The quiet is broken by the rhythmic clack-clack of small boots on stone. Heimerdinger appears, puffing slightly from the climb, and hops onto the step right beside Ekko.

For a long moment, the Professor doesn't say a word. He simply sits there, his small hands resting on his knees, and joins in staring at the mural. 

Finally, Heimerdinger turns his head. He looks at Ekko with tenderness, his large eyes softening behind his glass’ lenses.

"It is a heavy thing, isn't it? To be the one who remembers," he says. He reaches out, a small, comforting hand hovering near Ekko’s arm. "Tell me, how is it faring? The commune? The miracle worker?"

Ekko sighs, his shoulders dropping just an inch as he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stares at his hands—calloused, the hands of a fixer who isn't sure if this particular thing can be fixed.

"He’s convinced he can do it," he says, his voice low. "He talks about it like it’s just another equation to solve. There’s progress."

Ekko kicks a loose pebble off the step, watching it bounce into the grass below. 

"The line between a miracle and a catastrophe is often just a matter of decimal points," Heimerdinger says softly. "But if anyone can find that balance, it is someone who cares enough to look past the fracture and see the soul." 

Ah, there it is.

Ekko raises his gaze to the mural once again. His eyes search the wall until they inevitably find one particular face.

“She’s there, you know,” Ekko says, his voice barely a whisper.

The Professor follows his gaze, blinking slowly as his eyes settle on the girl with the blue hair and the wide eyes. Silence stretches between them, with Ekko eventually pulling his gaze away, looking down at the ground between his boots. 

Heimerdinger remains still, acutely aware of the conflict tearing at Ekko’s heart. He knows who the girl is. He knows the fire she brought, the trail of wreckage she left behind, the lives of his own colleagues she snuffed out. He knows. But now, he looks at Ekko’s broken expression and reaches for a different truth.

“I have lived a very long time, my boy. I have seen empires rise and fall, and I have seen many souls lose their way in the dark,” he begins softly, turning to Ekko fully, steady. “The only thing I can tell you is this: to leave someone to rot within the cage of your old perception of them, is a cruelty. It is a poison that withers both the one who is lost and the one who remains behind.”

Heimerdinger pauses, letting the words settle in the cool, quiet air between them.

“It is a matter of whether you are willing to do the tedious task of simply... forgiving. If you care enough to do it.”

The last part of the Professor’s sentence isn't a question. 

Ekko has enough care in him to make the constant snapping of his heartstrings every time he saw her hurt exactly the same.

It was easier to remember her as a traitor than a friend; easier to focus on why they parted ways than to linger on why her decision to stay with Silco had hurt so much in the first place.

She was something to him that nobody else is; most of all, she was the foundation of a sickening feeling flaring up in his chest. His former childhood friend and the Jinx were categorized as two completely separate beings in his head (most of the time, anyway).

Sometimes, it proved challenging to keep his heart clenched in the grip of hatred when the person in his sights had the eyes of a ghost. The look of a soul that had once been so deeply bound to his own, that he could still feel the phantom pull of it.

It was always despite. Despite what she did, despite what she became. Despite, despite, despite.

If you really loved someone, wouldn’t a little bit of it always linger?

There was something so terribly stubborn about knowing a person like the back of your hand. Even when you’ve been enemies for longer than you were friends. Because you could never quite unlearn each other.

It was one thing to wrestle with it all alone, in conflict with himself. It was quite another to hear words of forgiveness from his own mentor. The weight of this thinking lingers long after the Professor returns to the workshop to gather his notes and belongings, preparing for the journey back to the Piltover Academy.

Ekko says his farewells next morning, with his board in hand, and sets off on the long path back to the commune, the familiar hum of the engine beneath his feet a steady companion to his own newfound resolve.