A/N: This an epically long story about Ekko, who simply deserves way more love, and some other characters that are mainly there to create a suspenseful storyline.
Any sort of feedback is highly highly appreciated and will earn you my eternal gratitude.

"Are you ok? No broken bones or anything?"
It took her a moment to coordinate mind and limbs but after a few seconds she was able to test legs and arms for injuries. Nothing too painful. Seemed fine so far.
She rubbed her eyes to get out some of the dirt and blinked at the outstretched hand before her. It belonged to what could only be described as a scrawny teenage boy with a white Mohawk. He also had the shape of an hourglass on his face, painted in white on his dark skin. How funny, she thought. He got more style than most kids on these streets, rather plain.
"Yeah sure. All good.", she pulled herself up with his hand and brushed the dirt off her clothes. "May I ask what happened?"
"Oh, of course.", scrawny-boy said and scratched the back of his head. "I saw you getting in a fight with that big guy over there." He pointed to somewhere to her left and she turned her head to follow his gesture.

Laying on the ground was the body of an enormous bald man. Both of his arms were amputated and replaced by artificial hextech limbs, so were his eyes. Yep, she must have faced off against that guy, if having been unconscious was anything to go by. She vaguely remembered him blocking the entire alleyway off and looming over her menacingly. The girl had not really been impressed by the muscle, there were scarier things around in Zaun, but the small fight that had followed clearly had her at a disadvantage. He had gotten a straight kick in pretty quickly and the heavy boot had hit her square in the chest. Hitting the ground must have knocked her out. Now that she was thinking about it, her ribs ached a little and she could practically feel the bump at the back of her head coming on.
"So you jumped in like a knight in shiny armour to safe the damsel in distress.", she summed up.
He smiled awkwardly and shrugged. "I don't like bullies."
"I see...", the girl murmured and rubbed at her chest. Her breathing felt a little off and something poked at her fingers from underneath the blue jumpsuit. Her eyes widened in horror.
"..oh no.", she whispered.
"What is it? Broke a rib after all?", the boy leaned over and gave her a worried look.
Hastily she started unbuttoning the front of her suit and even more hastily hourglas-boy retreated to a safer distance. Definitely teenage.
Unbelieving, she stared at the damaged device on her chest. A few connecting wires had been pulled out of the flesh. They were what must have been poking out.
"He broke my thing!", she screamed. "He broke it, how… What… HOW…"
"I came in a little too late. Sorry." Hourglass-boy put a hand on the girls shoulder, while pointedly not looking at her. "Thing... You said? What does it do?"
"It's... Well, it's important ok?… Would have been anyways…" She was still trying to assess the damage done properly when another thought crossed her mind. "Wait. How DID you turn up at that very convenient time?" She lifted her gaze to scrutinise her saviour again. The sign on his face and the funny looking device on his back rang a distant bell on what felt like the very far side of her brain. Then it clicked.
"You're that Ekko-kid people are talking about! The one that supposedly never loses a fight?! Who meddles with time!?" Now it was her turn to be all up in his face. The leaning forward made the blue jumpsuit slip off of one of her shoulders which she didn't notice and he tried hard not to.
"Yep. That's me", Ekko replied, leaning back a little. "I.. I saw you start fighting so I turned on the z-drive just in case. When you got beat up pretty badly I jumped in but I couldn't stop it any earlier. Is… is it hard to repair?'
She looked down at herself again and then back up.
"It's manageable." A sigh. "WAIT. You built this thing yourself right? That time-winder z-drive. So you have some tools and a place to work at, right? Right?"
Ekko just nodded.
"Can I use them? It won't take long!"
Again she had moved in so far that their noses were close to touching. Damn, did that girl even know what personal space was?
"S-Sure thing.", Ekko replied and mentally kicked himself. It was never a good idea to show people in Zaun where you lived. It could have been a scam, it... she took him by the hand and dragged him off down the street.
"Hey. That's the wrong direction!"

Ekko really had no idea what he had gotten himself into. Just who was this girl that was sitting at HIS workbench, using HIS tools to fix her thing (he had found out that "thing" was the official name for the small device she had attached to between her… not that he had been staring or anything) and what did the thing DO?!
When they entered his workshop-home, she straight away unbuttoned her blue jumpsuit yet again. This time he had been prepared and had pointedly looked away, mostly.
Now she was sitting with her back to him, suit still peeled down to her waist for easy access to "the thing". Her ashy blond hair was up in a high ponytail, revealing that a) she had the lower half of her hair shaved short up to her below her ears and that b) she had not been wearing anything underneath.
"So..", Ekko said in an awkward attempt to distract himself.
"Hmh?" came the muffled reply.
"You never told me your name?"
"Ah. Wigh. I'n Ungeen."
"Could you please take my screwdriver out of your mouth?"
"Shuw… eh. sure I mean. Call me Undine. Thanks again for saving me."
"Don't worry about it.", Ekko responded automatically. If all you did was run around trying to stop everybody from dying you soon stopped worrying about their gratitude.
"And how exactly could the… your thing have saved you? I still have no idea what it does.", he inquired further.
It took her a little to respond. The silence was filled with the protesting sounds of metal pieces scraping against each other and eventually some more organic noises that Ekko didn't want to think about too closely. Then, when all noises had stopped she said: "It makes me able to flicker." from behind him.

Ekko spun around, hands already raised to defend himself. So it was a scam after all… yet she stood calmly in front of him, looking him straight in the eye. "You distort time, I distort space."
The thing was back in her chest, the skin still red where she had had to reconnect the wiring. It was vibrating softly with her heartbeat.
"But where you just make time forget about you in one time line and you yourself jump to the next, I use my body's own energy to infuse the particles I'm made out of. The more energy, the faster they move, and so I can move them to a different location."
She flickered again, reappeared by the worktop and started to put things back into order."But I can't go far because it gets to hard to keep check of all the particles and since it's all fuelled by my body's energy resources, I have to eat lots." She chuckled at the thought and turned around to look at him. "But I also get to eat lots without having to worry about weight." Hands on her hip, she beamed, oddly proud.
The girl… Undine sure was lean and skinny. Pretty much all over, though not as bad as Jinx. He'd give her a 6/10. Oh shoot, what the hell!

"Can you please put your thing back on?", Ekko pleaded, looking away again.
"But I just fixed it and put it back... oh OH." She blushed profoundly and quickly turned away. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't even realise... that must have been uncomfortable for you."
"No, no!", Ekko cut in. And the realised himself just how wrong it must have sounded. "Uh.. that's not what I meant at all! I... I.."
She gave another little laugh that made her shoulders tremble and Ekko found himself wondering if the end of her ponytail tickled where it danced between her shoulder blades.
"So, now that we've both been properly embarrassed, how about we just leave it at that?"
"Right.. ehrm, so, do you know why that guy decided to pick a fight with you?"

Now, her shoulders stiffened visibly under her jumpsuit and her hands dropped from where they had been doing up the last button. Ekko wasn't sure if she didn't want to or for some reason simply couldn't answer straight out but some sort of conflict was clearly displayed in her stance.
As if to come to her rescue though, the door swung open and bounced of the wall, sending some plaster flying. In the doorway stood a boy with safety glasses strapped around his head, panting for breath.
"Ekko.", he wheezed. "Ekko… huff… need you… hhh – Mrs. Jefferson's… f-fire."
Before the little boy had even finished saying the name, Ekko was pulling the handle on his z-drive and sprinting out the door. Undine was hot on his heels, shouting for the little boy to stay behind.
"The name is Ajuna, not little boy! And I'm nearly 13!", he called after them.

Undine followed the trail of blue light that in turn followed Ekko like a comet's tail. It left a tingly feeling on the skin, but now was not the time to think about that. Ajuna had come running because something… somebody was still inside the burning building. Even the smart Ekko couldn't prevent the fire any more. Which meant they would have to go inside to get whomever out.

Even from further away one could feel the heat of the flames and hear the desperate cries of Mrs. Jefferson.
"My little girl!", she wailed. "My Estee is still inside! My poor Estee!?"
Ekko grabbed her by the collar before the mother's sobbing got out of hand and she went into shock.
"MISS.", he said as calmly as he could. "Where did you last see her. Where was Estee?" No reaction.
"You need to tell me!"
"I-I don't know, she was... pl-playing somewhere, and I – I was cooking.. my girl!" Tears were running down the Ladies cheeks and she started shaking like a leaf.
"I'll find her!", Ekko said, face set in grim determination.
"No, WE will."
The white haired boy turned around in surprise and opened his mouth to say something to her but Undine quickly cut him off.
"You will need me."

"Well then, here's the plan.", Ekko had dragged Undine of to the side for a second, talking quietly and fast. He'd rather be safe then sorry and they had enough time on their hands if necessary. "The house is big and we will have to search through all of it. Also, doors and windows will be jammed, ways blocked, air smoky. We'll have to get you something to cover nose and mouth. Do not take that off, no matter how restricting it feels."

"You want me to flicker us in, right?", she asked, grabbing a cloth from a near bystander's hand without bothering to ask. Ekko nodded and pulled up his red scarf over his nose.
"Ok.", Undine said. "I'll get us inside. Be ready to take us back if we land inside a table or something."
Ekko went on, looking for water to drench their makeshift masks with and snatching some child's waterbottle: "We'll search the room and get the girl out if we find her. If we don't, I'll have to turn back time and we start over again from my apartment. But you will not remember what happened. I'll fill you in on the way and then we try a different room of the house. I don't know, maybe I could include you in the jump, but it'd be tiring. Would you have the energy to flicker us in and out 80times if needed?"
Undine looked a little shocked. "Never, no. Even half of that'd kill me."
"Well, either way you should always have full strength like this. Just be careful, though."
He started off towards the burning building, but Undine grabbed his hand from behind. He stopped and turned around.
"Let me do the searching once we're inside.", she begged. "You won't be able to recover in between tries. Just… breath as little as possible! Ok?"
Ekko looked a little bit overwhelmed but immediately mentally kicked himself. Time was not his to waste on anything. Still, Undine's worry for him made him feel warm inside.
He gave a decisive nod and pulled the dripping wet cloth he had prepared in the meantime over his face. "Ready."

Undine took his hand again and dragged him as close to the building as they could get.
"I'll start with the room bottom front left.", she said and hugged him close to her chest. Ekko could feel the soft vibration of the thing through his clothes, out of beat with the sound of his own heart. He couldn't help but smile a little at how they were nearly perfectly the same height. Suddenly, there was a yanking sensation on the nape of his neck, an overall hot pressure, then emptiness.
Before he could even start to think about it, the blasting heat of the fire hit him like a solid wall and he might have stumbled, where it not for Undine's arms still holding him close.
They were in the kitchen and rapidly started checking all the cupboards, shouting Estee's name in hopes of an answer, under the table, in the hallway. Nothing.

Rewind #1
"You took us to the kitchen first.", Ekko pressed out between his teeth while running. He handed Undine a kitchen-towel he had grabbed at home. "The fire seemed to come from the living room behind it, I think the girl Estee would have tried to get away from the heat, but we should check anyway."
The burning building came into view and Undine took his hand again, pulling him forward in full speed.
"Ok.", she said. " Jump!"
And they jumped, right into the window. But before they hit the glass, Ekko felt her arms wrap around him again and the weird sensation of the flickering and they were standing in the livingroom-inferno.
No Estee.

Rewind #2
"We have to go up to the second floor now. Can you do that in one jump?"
"Yeah, but third floor will require stopping on the second. Same as rooms up in the back. LET'S GO!"
Flickering, the master bedroom, burning curtains. No Estee.

Rewind #3
"Second floor, back right!"
"Ok."
This time two flickers, Undine staggered a little.
"Two people is so much harder than only me..", she choked out but immediately started looking for the girl with determination set on her face.
This was a child's bedroom and it took them a while to look into the boxes and corners. No girl.

Rewind #8
It took a few tries to get to the guest room, because the floor was caving in already. No Estee.

Rewind #11
"Top floor.", Ekko coughed. His lungs were on fire and his head was feeling dizzy from all the smoke and running. He had an oozing burn on his left arm but thankfully Undine noticed and looped hers underneath instead of over. Two flickers.
Nobody.

Rewind #15
"We have to find her soon, or you'll get carbon-monoxide poisoning!"
"We have to find her, no matter what!", Ekko bit back.

Rewind # 17
Retrying the kitchen.
"Estee, where are you! We're here to save you, take you back to your Mum!", Undine screamed at the top of her lungs. Ekko could barely whisper any more.

Rewind # 19
The living room.
"Estee, you brat, this is not the time for hide and seek!"

Rewind #20
The child's bedroom.
"Estee!"

Rewind #23
The guest room.
" ESTEEE!"
A sob from somewhere.
"She has to be here. ESTEEE! Where are you!"
Ekko tried to shout for her too but only a croak came out. The cloth in front of his mouth was suffocating him.
"Estee!", Undine screamed again. She rammed her shoulder to the door from the guest room to unhinge it. It had gotten stuck due to the heat and metal parts were starting to melt. The sobbing grew louder, but so did the creaking of the floor and wooden walls. Ekko could barely hear her crying out to the girl over the crackling of the flames.
"ESTEE!"
The door slammed down in the other side, onto the sleeve of a heavy black coat. It belonged to a piece of clothing, stuffed into the small space underneath the stairs. Undine pulled at the sleeve and finally the tiny girl wrapped inside it fell out of the cranny under the stairs. She pressed the childto her body. Ekko felt the weight of a world drop from his shoulders. Finally. They had found her.
Undine said something, but Ekko could barely make out the movement of her lips over the wavering heat.
Just as she stood up the wall behind her get gave away and the ceiling of the top floor came crashing down. Undine didn't notice at all over the ongoing noise. She was crying happy tears that washed away the soot on her cheeks in two streaks. She turned to smile at Ekko when the first burning wooden board connected with her head.
The look on her face was the last thing Ekko saw before he pulled the handle on his z-drive.

Rewind#24
"Second floor hallway.. haah... Under stairs", Ekko managed before he started coughing.
They half ran half stumbled towards the house and flickered twice. This time Undine found the girl instantly and pulling the child and Ekko into her arms, flickered them back out into safety. They reappeared a meter above the street, fell down and collapsed in a panting and coughing tangle of limbs.

Half an hour later found Ekko sitting propped up against a wall. Undine had made Ajuna, who had just arrived, fight off all the "thank you"'s and "forever grateful"'s from relatives of Estee and even bystanders. So far he was doing quiet well as a PR-manager. She herself sat next to Ekko, legs sprawled out in front of her, water bottle in hand. She had repeatedly forced the boy to have some sips between his coughing fits and he was now breathing with only a slight rasp still to it. This was quite an improvement to when he had tried to cough his entire lungs up earlier; bending over on his knees and no soothing back-rubs and no amount of water or fresh air had seemed to help.

Even with the girl safely returned to her mother's arms the place was as busy and loud as ever with fire fighters trying to prevent the flames from spreading to any of the factory buildings (especially those with explosives in). But the two of them heard none of it in their little bubble of exhaustion. Silence lingered between them. Sitting with their shoulders touching, because neither wanted to feel alone nor had the strength to keep themselves upright at that moment.

Undine felt like she needed to say something, not because the silence was uncomfortable, but rather because the words wanted to spill out of her. They seemed to get stuck in her throat though, and after a while she swallowed the feeling she couldn't quite put her finger on alongside with the words. Soon Ekko's head dropped onto her shoulder. His hair was tickling her ear but she didn't dare to move and wake him up. After a few minutes his breathing had evened out and he didn't wake up when Undine picked him up and quietly left.

The route from the burning house back to his flat wasn't that long but sprinting it all these times must have worn him out. Every step she took with the sleeping boy on her back filled Undine more and more with the feeling from earlier. Her heart felt heavy, her chest tight, as she dragged her feet along the dirt and stone alleyways.

It was already dark when Ekko woke up.

His entire body hurt. His lungs ached, there was a hammering pain in his head, his legs were sore and his left arm with the burn was itching terribly. He breathed in sharply when he tried to sit up, which sent him into a terribly coughing fit. When he bent over the side of his bed with the cramps he noticed that he was ON HIS BED and that his shoes were neatly lined up next to it. There was also a glass of water on his bedside table which he quickly downed to help with the cough. A more thorough check of the current situation also revealed that he was only in his baggy trousers and underneath the blanket to keep him warm. A bandage had been wrapped around the burn on his left arm. It must have been cleaned and whatnot, because by the itch of it, it was healing well.

His hair was all over the place AND in his eyes so he just stuck most of it behind his right ear and dragged himself into the dark living room. He flicked on the light and turned it off straight away when his head burst into pain again. In the solid dark left behind by the shock and the lack of actual outside moonlight and street lamps he reached the worktop that took up most of the space simply by memory and found a simple dinner of rice and fried vegetables sitting on it. It was already cold. He felt around some more but could only find a spoon with all of his tools still littered about. No note, no letter. No sign that Undine had brought him here, except for the food.

He sat down alone in the dark and ate in silence.