Snap! Jinx destroyed the silence by snapping her fingers. "Ekko," she mischievously whispered it to irritate him. "Before we talk business, we should eat."
Jinx crouched down and opened the basket. He looks calm. He doesn't think I'm about to whip out a secret weapon. He's wrong. She took out four small boxes of fried seafood.
"Jericho's," he noted with interest.
She nodded. "Probably been forever and a day for you. Though I know he's an informant, so maybe he hooks you up with some cold grub." Can't let you get too comfortable.
Ekko kept his face impassive. "Thank you, but the Firelights usually supper together in the last of our sunlight and we did today."
"Oh," she blinked. They operate from the promenade? From the above outskirts? Must be nice to get sunlight all the time. "Hey, Squeaks and Meowster!" Jinx shouted to the sentinels above. "Either of you still peckish?!" They both slowly shook their heads. Jinx shrugged. "More poison for me." She started devouring it.
After almost finishing the first box she took out an orange soda bottle and drank. "Let me know if you change your mind." She smirked. "You've been looking rather underweight."
That one caught him off-guard. "Really, Miss 97 pounds?" he asked and guffawed.
Sheesh. I'm not that thin. "Yeppers, I hate to tell ya. People are starting to talk," she added.
After the laughter died down, she finished the second box and put the other two back. "Now," she clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "Let's talk about one Violet." She spent the next minutes updating him on what she had learned from Chuck, the other released prisoners, and Marcus. Ekko listened.
"So, the gears in my head have been turning on how to rescue her, how to make it worthwhile for the Firelights, and how to hurt our enemies while we do it."
She picked up the papers and moved next to him so they could read it together. Their shoulders rubbed and Jinx felt like her face was near a fire. Calm down. His team wants you dead and deep down the Boy Savior dislikes Jinx more than Little Man liked Powder. Focus on the person from then who can be saved.
The plan seemed solid by Ekko's reactions. After she finished he checked through the other ideas to see if any were worth incorporating. Some made him chuckle which got a "fair enough" expression from the Loose Cannon.
"Some of these could be worked in, but from my experience the more moving parts the more things could malfunction. The core is strong. I can commit to action after we discuss it," he claimed.
Jinx pouted and grabbed his arm closely. He is more muscular than he looks. They feel nice when they aren't trying to knock me out. What was…? Oh, the timeline! "That leaves me high and dry, doesn't it? Especially since tonight is the night for Operation Fancy Wedding."
"Fancy… oh, the heist," Ekko recalled.
"How does your gang work, anyway? Don't they follow your orders?"
Ekko put a hand on the back of his head. "Yes but no."
Her tongue clicked at that. "More trust issues?"
"We operate more on consensus–except during combat–than Silco and his chembarons do. We trust each other fine. We have group discussions, unit training, team games, hoverboard trust falls–"
Her hands formed a T. "Woah, woah! You all take the hoverboards up high, intentionally fall off, and rely on each other to be caught."
Ekko nodded causally. "We started them shortly after I created the first few. Only when we're confident the group is ready for it, of course. The idea came for E—E," he fumbled at the end.
Jinx picked up the tiny monowheel and extended it at the Firelight lookouts. She let it go abruptly, but caught it in her other hand once it reached waist height. "9.75 m/s/s," she muttered. Her stardew eyes looked in her old friend/old enemy/new something umber ones. "I can't imagine you would treat a girl to a demo? Just a smidge of showing off."
"No. Sorry, but I won't test them like that for an–for a non-member."
"No fun, but fair," she replied with a sigh. "I'd have enjoyed seeing them catch you." Vi caught me from falling before we robbed the hex crystals. Not too many people would do that for me now.
"I'd enjoy seeing you with Vi again," he transitioned roughly. "The plan goes up to getting away from Stillwater. What happens after that?"
Shrugging, Jinx frowned at the question. "Live happily ever after? It'll really be up to Vi. Maybe she'll say 'Thanks but stay away,' maybe we'll leave Zaun, maybe we'll make Piltover respect us and pay for imprisoning and torturing her for seven years." Jinx had clenched her fist and narrowed her eyes as she finished.
After a pause, Ekko touched her elbow gently. "What of Silco?"
Jinx snorted. "Yes, we should kill him too. I don't think I can, but you or Vi can." Her eyes lit up at the idea.
"They both want to, after all. But do you?" Claggor asked.
"She doesn't know. Maybe she can only kill him if she isn't trying to," Mylo mocked.
Ekko shifted his weight. "Then what, though? Sevika or a chembaron takes his place or there's an ongoing gang war. We've been trying to destroy his shimmer business, but we've never been assassins."
"Perhaps that's why you haven't won yet." Jinx was back to staring at him. She felt re-energized and took a fighting stance with a grin. Ekko was unenthusiastic.
"But you understand it now, right?" she continued. "They die, yet live on. So why not kill, especially when it helps the living? And if Vi and you are willing, we could take over. It would be a hard fight, but if we decapitate the organization, then our combined strength, skills, and knowledge would make us the natural rulers. People wouldn't look to a Slickjaw commander or an upjumped alchemist. It would be the son and daughters of Benzo, Vander, and yes, Silco who would inherit Zaun and we'd finish the fight."
She could see he found this last of her temptations compelling, but was trying to keep it at arm's length. He just wants to negotiate more. This could actually work.
"That would require a lot of resources we don't have," he countered.
Her smile widened more. "Not yet. But we'll have brand spanking new hextech after tonight. I don't know the specifics of it, but even if it isn't readily usable by us, we could ransom it back to Pilotver for a wealth of resources or funds."
He adjusted his stance and was moving his eyes around. They eventually settled on the watchers. "And what of shimmer?"
"Hmm," her brow furrowed. "Caught the tiger by the tail, there. Ceasing it would mean losing a lot of economic power, many suffering withdrawal, and it would be a focus of resistance, and that's just the recreational street version of shimmer."
Ekko didn't hide an impressed expression. She noticed and scoffed. "I'm more than a pretty crazy face, you know. I've had some people I know deal with kicking the stuff. And even Silco has been conflicted about shimmer for its ability to compete with hextech."
"So what's the answer?" he pressed.
Biting her lips and flexing her hands a couple times, Jinx committed. "We'd keep it until we're stable."
Ekko brought a hand to his throat. "I can't and shouldn't convince the Firelights to compromise on street shimmer. I lead them, but I also serve them."
Of course! Can't tarnish that perfect image you created for yourself. The selfish selflessness of the Undercity's perfect young martyr.
"Maybe you can go with one of the other plans," Claggor suggested.
"Even she knows she'll fail alone," Mylo gloated.
She knelt down and started packing up the items on the picnic cloth. "That's all she wrote, Boy Savior? I clean up here, raid the prison alone, and if I survive we'll go back to trying to put each other out of our misery?"
Joining her on his knees, he took her hands with softness before she reached for the ammo. "No. I know I can't kill you and I don't believe you can kill me. You are not alone."
With her lips quivering slightly, Jinx had trouble looking at him right now. "I–we need to do the heist soon. I'll need to be armed."
Ekko shook his head. "We can–"
"INCOMING!" Scar roared. He swooped down and had his crystal bombs at the ready.
"A set up?!" Eve half-asked, half-accused as she stayed high and lobbed a smoke bomb. Ekko saw the unpleasantly familiar lights of hot pink and fluorescent green off in the distance as the bomb went off. It wouldn't buy a lot of time and they might be approaching from several directions.
"Damnit! Damnit! Damnit, Silco!" Jinx spat. Her eyes met his again. She hadn't tried to pull her hands from his yet. She swallowed. "Ekko, please take me."
"Huh?"
"Take me on your hoverboard. Don't leave me."
Ekko breathed out and let go of her hands and reached for his weapons. "Minimal fighting. We leave yesterday."
Nodding, she swiftly reloaded her weapons. Ekko tossed the board off his back and redonned his mask as she rolled up the blanket and stuffed it into the bag. A second and third smoke bomb went off, much closer ones in two new directions and they could hear them advancing.
"Jinx, do you REALLY need to bring the picnic basket?" Ekko challenged as he signaled for her to get on the back. Scar was using the crystal bombs to cover their face shields while Eve had dived down and was trying to bait them to chase her until they could get airborne.
"Oh, it's not for me," she explained and reached into the basket. She pulled out from under the false bottom a chain of three chompers. "It's for them." Jinx pulled a string and aimed them at the three closest chemtanks.
Ekko moved close and she hopped on just as the now danger close explosions happened. One chemtank was able to knock it off, but the other two went down.
The blast shifted their balance, but they weren't hurt by the debris. The hoverboard was nicked, but only cosmetically as it lifted off. "Reach around me," he ordered.
Jinx laughed. "I've slapped boys for saying less, Boy Savior." Still, she did reach around with her right arm and grab his jacket while she kept her left hand free to fire with her pistol at the chemtank that had taken off the chomper.
Scar had moved to help Eve, since she had to deal with them on a higher terrain. This left more to attack Ekko, who had gained air, but the chemtanks had a lot of reach with their blades and could jump higher than he thought.
Ekko evaded while she continued to fire. "I wish I could use Pow-Pow now," she lamented.
He risked a dive down causing two of them to collide. "You named the machine gun after y–her old nickname?" he asked surprised and shifted the board to high speed.
Jinx was swung back, but was holding onto him tightly enough to stay on. "Not exactly. Later." One chemtank, looking shinier than the rest, must have jumped from the nearby building. Swinging well, it almost decapitated Jinx, but Ekko swerved enough so it only slashed off one of her left braids.
"Helluva way to save on going to the barber," she sighed.
Ekko shook his head and rendezvoused with the other Firelights. With Jinx's firepower and Ekko's well placed blows, they pushed back the chemtanks enough for Eve and Scar to get away.
They ascended back to the sky and soon were close enough together from the scrapheap to look like a star over the underground.