Chapter Text
Ekko felt sick, he imagined that this must be what being suck by a tornado must feel. Being pull from every direction while being hurl a hundred miles per hour through space with no notion of up and down, while being twisted into pretzel at the same time over and over. Please let it be over soon, and please let be the right world, his world, back to his home, his people, and… maybe...
Then it was over, he felt like he was being compressed with so much force that he thought he probably would fit in a food can, but no, the vortex was putting him back together, one atom at the time; intellectually, he knew this, living it was another matter altogether.
He hit the floor, hard. Flat on his stomach it took him a moment to get his bearings, the room was spinning in one direction while his head was spinning the opposite way. The nausea didn’t wait for him and his stomach protested by returning anything inside; he gasped for air, and rolled to his side, turning his head away from his lunch and rest his face on the cold floor.
As his breathing returned to normal he opened his eyes, he was once again in the Hexgate's core room, he gathered himself and pushed himself up to his knees, he looked around, he was alone, no Jayce, Ekko wonder if he had managed to return own his own from whatever or whenever he ended up to. Then stopped, he wasn’t alone, there was a… a body.
Jayce…! he thought.
Ekko rose to his feet and ran to him only to skid to a halt, this wasn’t Jayce, he didn’t know this man, but something or someone had crushed him with brutal force, his mangled body was almost cut in half from shoulder to hip, twisted by blunt force damage, but despite that, Ekko was too stunned by the man's strange body to do anything else but look, his legs in particular, laced with… metal? It looked almost organic but the metallic sheen was very strange and unsettling, the man’s eyes were darkened, no irises no lumen; after years of struggling for survival, Ekko had learned to trust his instincts, and right now they were telling him there was something terribly wrong with this man, unnatural.
He started to walk back and move to the doorway, stopping in front of the door, he saw that the safeties were up.
“Well shit, now what?” he exclaimed.
Last time, Jayce used his hammer to move the lock, but Jayce wasn’t here, and even if there were other ways to open it, he didn’t have any sort of key. Maybe there was a way to bypass them, but he didn’t know what alarms might be in place.
“Mhmm…come on, Ekko, think,” he told himself.
There was also the matter of what to do beyond the door, last time he got to enter the complex only because Heimerdinger and Jayce were with him, security was tight, if someone sees him walking out of the elevator alone there will be a lot of trouble… He started pacing in front of the door lost in thought, frustration was getting the best of him so he crouched and took a deep breath, then he suddenly focused on what was in front of him, or rather bellow him, the floor was glass and metal framework, and just past that there was…
“The utility ducts! the same utility ducts that carry our water and facilitates our ventilation!” he exclaimed aloud, remembering the conversation he had with Jayce in this room.
Ekko rose to his feet, thinking furiously, given the position of the tower he could make an educated guess as to where to go, years of traveling the pipeworks have sharpened his ability to navigate this kind of environment, he started to half run around the room, deliberately avoiding looking at the dead man’s body searching for an entry point, it didn’t take long, a hatch.
“Ok, now we are on business.”
It took longer than expected but he managed to get out by the river, just beneath the main bridge; it was getting late and the sky was already dark, after crossing the river he climbed the nearby stairs to take the streets, to get to the closest tunnel that will take him to the Firelights’ hideout.
Sadly, he didn’t get far when suddenly he was bathed in sharp bright light, sudden memories came to him of a similar light, on a bridge, surrounded by enforcers, it didn’t help when a shout of a filtered voice, accompanied by the sound of boots surrounding him.
“Freeze!” the voice commanded
The sound of rifles being loaded and cocked forced him comply.
“Whoa! Easy, easy! I’m just heading home! Don’t shoot!” Ekko exclaimed.
“Just another rat running late as always” Another masked enforcer added.
“What you carrying there, boy?” Asked the first enforcer.
Thankfully Ekko had the forethought to hide the Z-drive in a box with some disguise, as it would surely attract unwanted attention.
“Just some food and stuff” Ekko said trying to look sheepish.
“Food and stuff? Huh… is that right?” The first enforcer said. He came closer, and Ekko now could see the colors of his uniform, the enforcer peeked into the box, tilting it with the muzzle of his rifle.
“Forget it, you won’t find that Jinx lass inside that box, let’s just toss him to the other side, unless you want to go all the way to Stillwater just for a box of rat food while dragging the rat,” said the other enforcer. Ekko’s patience was growing thin with the insult, but managed to stay calm.
The first enforcer scoffed, “Yeah, you’re right. Come on move it, boy, I don’t have all night.”
The enforcer grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him not too gently, it was then that Ekko stopped and took in what he was seeing, an ugly cage-like assortment of fences and concrete barriers and more enforcers, with two entry access, a checkpoint.
“Move it, I said, you deaf?” said the enforcer with a hard push on Ekko's back, Ekko stumbled but kept going, doing his best to look normal, though the enforcers barely paid him any mind. He noticed the banners with an emblem he had never seen before, the enforcers had it on their gear.
They let him through with no much fuss and he pressed forward as calmly as he could until he reached a turn, away from their eyes, and then he broke into a sprint, didn’t take long for him to get where he wanted, he spotted a green graffiti mark that signaled the presence of a Firelight entry point. And again he stopped, the wall was almost completely covered in wanted posters of Jinx looking menacing, or at least what the Pilties thought what ‘menacing’ looks like, for some reason the posters looked too cartoonish for him to take them too seriously. He stood there for a while, watching the mockery of the face he knew too well.
One thing at the time, Ekko, first things first. He thought, shacking his head.
A couple more turns and he will be almost home. But again he was forced to stop one more time on the next turn, this time he had to blink several times and shake his head, his mind refusing to make sense of what he was seeing, it was like being told that a new rule of the universe said that two plus tow was now five and no four, it just made no sense.
Before him there was a full mural painted in painfully artistic detail, several feet tall, was Jinx like she was being carried by the wind, holding a large and very long blue flag that swirled around her naked body covering her nudity, and it was her, there was no doubt about it, the artist had go as far as to paint the blue tattoos and purple-pink eyes and the long braids, and just behind her many people in detail but all had blue hair, they were following her, some yelling some with very serious faces, their fists high; and opposite to them were enforcers in their gold and blue, and there were others in red and black, all carrying a single banner with the same emblem as the enforcers at the checkpoint.
He took several steps back, trying to see the whole of the mural, hypnotized by Jinx’s image, he chuckled and shook his head. Wondering if he ended up in another different universe.
“Here we go again, one more time, a new dance…”
Ekko finally reached the tunnel, feeling safe enough he pulled the Z-drive from its disguise, pulling the strap over his head, then started moving through the familiar tunnels that he knew like the palm of his own hand. His heart was beating so loudly, so eager to see his friends once again, praying they are ok, they will update him as to what is going on and the current affairs.
When he found the door disguised as a dead end he didn’t waste no time and proceeded to use the secret knock. A heavy clank let him know they were about to open; he was so happy and eager that didn’t noticed the shadow creeping behind him, when the door open he didn’t get to take a step before someone tackled him from behind with enough force to knock him forward, falling face first and knock the air out of him. Before he could say anything several Firelights jumped on him with sharp poles and batons.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing? It’s me!” he said as soon some air returned to his lungs he did his best to turn and looked back at his assailant, it was a boy he didn’t know, someone he has never seen before, but he was wearing the Firelights’ colors. He frowned.
“Wait!” yelled a familiar voice, a woman’s voice. Ekko turned to her and recognized her even with her bird mask on. When she removed her mask, her face was one of complete shock. “Ekko?”
“Mira,” Ekko said, relieve washed over him like wave, “It’s me, Mira!”
Before she could recover from her shock, a tall figure opened his way through the crowd, a familiar face and a friend, Scar, always so composed and collected, his shock mirrored that of Mira’s.
“Ekko…” he said in a gasp, she hurriedly pushed away the spears and poles, “Back away, back!” he ordered.
Only then the others obeyed, and removing their masks and pull back their hoods, Ekko didn’t recognized any of them, how long he have been gone? Scar help him on his feet, still not believing his eyes, as Ekko proceeded to dust himself, two more faces joined the group, these ones he did recognize, two boys: Pip and Vince, his friends, as he looked around more familiar faces started to show up, all saying his name in astonishment and awe, not quite believing he was there, he spotted Mrs. Penny, a plump woman and the closest to a mother figure to the orphans of the refuge, her hand covering her mouth with tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
He barely had time to take all in, before two strong hands grab him by front of overalls with great force and lifted him from ground several inches and Ekko found himself staring to a pair of very angry glowing green eyes.
“What the FUCK happened to you?! Where have you been?! We thought you were dead! I was sure you were dead because you would never just disappear the way you did!” Scar said with a very loud voice and practically growling, he never screams, while shaking him not too kindly.
Ekko open his mouth but no sound came out, he frowned, how to explain what happened, he looked at Scar’s angry face.
“It’s… a very long and complicated story…” Ekko smiled sheepishly.
“I like long and complicated stories” Scar answered in a tone that left no room for argument.
Ekko sighed, “Ok… can you… put me down now? Please?” Scar’s nostrils flared and put him down slowly.
By the time he was done retelling his story of what happened to him the sky was starting illuminate with the dawn, he told how he been caught in the anomaly along with Heimerdinger and Jayce, how he ended up stuck in a parallel world for weeks and the difficulties of returning home, Heimerdinger’s sacrifice, and his trek for the utility ducts, Everybody was rapt listening to his story, they made questions about the other world, the people there, some smiled thinking in how different it was, the veterans who had fought alongside him against Silco’s Shimmer empire made incredulous faces of him alive and well and working with Vander, surprisingly enough they smiled when he got to the part of Jinx, or rather Powder, genuine smiles, if only a bit sad ones.
“Well, that’s it, that’s what happened,” Ekko turned to look at Scar, who was looking at the ground. “Scar… you know well I would never abandon any of you.”
Scar cracked one of his rare smiles and scoffed, “I know.”
“Now maybe you can tell me what is going on here, new faces, more enforcers on the streets than usual, I even had to pass through a checkpoint coming here, that’s new.” Ekko asked.
Scar shifted not too happy, “You don’t know half of it”
Scar proceeded to tell him everything, the others decided they didn’t want to listening all so they break up to do their daily chores after his friends hugged him and welcomed him back. Ekko listened as Scar went on, his uneasy turning to turmoil to utter shock, and sometime even horror. Starting with Vi joining the enforcers, and Caitlyn opening the floodgates that kept away the Grey, a toxic gas, with short and long term ill effects on people, especially children as a consequence of the attack on the capitol building and a second attack at the memorial; turned out, one of the councilors killed was Cait’s mother, so she herself had released the Gray all in an attempt to capture Jinx, break the shimmer industry, and take out the Chem-barons, succeeding in only 2 of her 3 objectives.
Even before Scar could said what happened next, Ekko already knew that Jinx would only rise the stakes, and she did, Jinx’s response was as ingenious as it was scary, she went down the pipework's’ network and reconfigured the maze to served her new plan, cracked open some pipes there and for days, while Cait hunted her above, the Grey would be sucked down, freeing the undercity from it. The scary part was that somehow Jinx had learned of the existence of an old temple dedicated to Janna, Zaun’s patron wind goddess, at the very depths, and in there, was a contained underground wind river, a big one, Pilties use small ones for their stupid wind fountains; at the temple Jinx had cracked open the seal, and the powerful current had pushed all the Gray through the new configuration, all the way to topside in a colorful display, causing massive chaos.
As result, Piltover declared martial law, the council was relieved of their duties, and a new Commander in Chief was put in place, Caitlyn, who had joined forces with the Noxian General and doubled her efforts to capture Jinx but without success, much to the Commander's frustration; as time passed, the enforcers and Noxian soldiers started pressuring the undercity, and as a result of that and Jinx’s actions, a new group was formed, the Jinxers, with their numbers growing by the day. Even so, Jinx went underground and no one saw her for months, until a few nights ago when a checkpoint was attacked.
Sevika, Silco’s former lieutenant, was now the closest to a leader the people had; Ekko was surprised that Scar almost sounded respectful of the woman. People actually were listening to her, more so now that they know she is working close to Jinx. Together, Jinx and Sevika had infiltrated Stillwater and freed several people who had been unfairly imprisoned, including Scar and Mira.
Scar went on about some kind of cult or something, deep in the fissures, conformed mostly of former shimmer addicts, and their leader, a man they call The Herald and his Glorious Evolution, whatever that means, it was said he could cure almost any ailment, the marks of his work visible on the bodies of his subjects, as a sort of technorganic changes. That last detail triggered a more recent memory in Ekko.
“’Technorganic’ you said, like flesh laced with metal?” Ekko asked.
“Yes, had you seen it?” Scar asked back.
“I think so, and I didn’t like it, something seriously wrong is going on there” Ekko replied.
“Agreed, I have a couple sentries stationed there all the time, just in case. It looks too pretty, too perfect, and you know the golden rule” Scar said.
“’If is too good to be true…’” Ekko chanted.
“’It probably is.’” Scar finished with a nod.
Ekko rub his brow, so much had happened in his absence, he felt like a disappointment, but he was glad Scar managed to keep things running in his absence. Right now, he was fighting the urge to go and find Jinx, he had to remind himself constantly that she is not Powder from that other world, but he was tired, and he was feeling the effects of his travel across dimensions. It most has been plain in his face.
“Your room is still there, you should eat something and rest, you look like crap,” Scar commented.
Ekko couldn’t help but chuckle, “Yeah… thanks man, maybe I’ll do that.”
Mrs. Penny was in the kitchen, she only had a look at him and she offered a Sandwich that she already made for him and a cup of juice, he took a seat right there in a tiny table and stool and ate his small breakfast, his stomach seemed to appreciate the food, and after thanking her, he moved with heavy feet towards his old room, where he crashed on the bed as soon as he was on reach, his eyes closed in seconds, but his dreams seemed to take it upon themselves to tease him. In his dream he was looking at the mural, saw it as it came to life, first it was Powder, then changing to Jinx and the back, she would turn to him and reach with her hand; the only two differences between them was their hair and their eyes. Then he was at the rooftop sitting next to Powder, but when her hand reached to his face, when he looked up, it was Jinx who he was about to kiss.