Confessions: I am and will be cherry-picking old lore and new to fit this story. Some parts will allude to old lore; some parts will be original concepts. That said. I am a little nervous on how you folks will take it, since there are some original ideas set in this fic that may or might not feel too... uh... self-indulgent? I don't know. I wanted to see how far I'll take this as I said earlier.

Also.

AAAA OH HI THANKS AGAIN EVERYONE FOR TAKING INTEREST IN MY PLOT BUNNY IDEAS THAT'S RUNNING RAMPANT IN MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW. I hope you like this chapter, enjoy this unedited mess. xD

Tenacity and fortitude have often been the two most prominent virtues that Zaun and Piltover shared. Tenacity to persist beyond their limits and fortitude to endure the brutish nature of failures. But to survive in Zaun, these were the two worst traits one ever has to contend against; especially when fighting against augmented thugs. A real pain in the ass.

Even at his sixth loop while memorising his latest pursuer's fights; bruised and staggering, Ekko found it in his good humours to goad at the thug.

"Bring it!" he huffed.

Was that stupid of him? Yes.

But he wouldn't allow himself to lose. Especially not to this guy.

And so, taking a bull by the horns, the thug charged straight at the boy; swinging the bulky canon arm at Ekko. Like a routine of a dance pattern, he dodges the swing; avoids the second hook right before he breaks the chem tank with his bat. The green fuel leaked through the cracks. Followed by a single misstep, making Ekko slip and fall.

Shit!

He dials the crank again right before his body could reach the floor; making him do another routine. Except this time at the breaking of the fuel tank, he leapt onto the thug and gave him one final blow with his clock bat.

The thug in question was now down for the count. For good this time 'round.

Seven tries. I'm getting sloppy.

Not a second too soon did he find his head wracked in a spike of pain; numbing all other senses. Vision in static flashes; like the seconds that rewind but now plagued in different outcomes. One where he saw the thug standing over him. One where Ekko's knuckles were bleeding. One where he stood over a puddle of blood.

And then, it stopped. Both pain and visions alike. He grimaced.

Again?!

The headaches have gotten worse these days. Though this wasn't the worst of the attacks this time, it didn't change the fact that it was excruciating. He cocked his head over the z-drive strapped to his back. Prodding suspicions were slowly reforming in his mind until he could hear a set of familiar proud clicks of shoes stepping on cobblestones.

"Congratulations on your victory, boy. I must say, you have a knack of making things easier on doing my job at throwing out the competition."

Ekko raised his gaze to find an older woman dressed in a refined, white suite, her face donning a half-mask and a finely crafted prosthetic arm. He knows a chem-baron when he sees one; but only one of them would have the audacity to dress like a Pilty out on this dreary city.

"Renata Glasc," he spat. "No matter how many times you're gonna ask, I'm not interested."

"It doesn't hurt to try now, does it?" Glasc remarked. "I was hoping to find the opportunity to thank the hero who brought back the bloodless nights to our streets a year ago. Poor shame they don't want to be found."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I said no and that's final."

"Who was it that slayed the beast Warwick? Was it you? Or was it-"

He gritted his teeth, his grip on his bat tightened.

"-Ah yes, Silco's daughter. How could I forget," she taunted him, then turned her heel towards the now fading graffiti on the wall.

'Jinx was here' it wrote.

Even in death, her presence lingered in places like this.

"Poor shame the man was intent on hoarding his treasures and was unwilling to put them to better uses. Even in death," Glasc continued. "Then perhaps Jinx wouldn't have gone forthwith on the hunt-"

"-Are you done?" Ekko said darkly. Glasc of all people have no right to regard his dearest friend's fate so sparingly.

Even with her ornate mask covering the lower half of her face, he could sense her frowning at the show of disrespect. The confident poise she held now had the woman tucking her hands to her pockets as she gave him a condescending gaze.

"It's only a matter of time before someone gets a hold on you, boy," she sneered. "Between the man of tomorrow and the machine herald, I'd rest easier if your talents were allocated to the benefit of this city. That is, of course, if the rumours are to be believed."

Ekko scoffed; "Hmph. What can I say, it's hard being popular."

"It would be a shame if another one of Zaun's geniuses turn into yet another tragedy on the wall. Wouldn't you agree?"

Despite the pain and all the aches coming back to him, he straightened his stance; his bat ready in position for a fight.

In turn, Glasc gave out a disappointed sigh; "It seems I may have to think of another incentive."

She strutted over to the unconscious thug, her bright, magenta eyes looking down on him. From her inside pocket, she brandished a round bottle of glowing purple liquid. The sight set Ekko into a panic; right before he could react, she smashed the bottle onto the ground, releasing a plume of purple fumes into the air. He covered his nose and mouth with his hand as the thug began to twitch and move.

I won't let you!

He pulled the chain to start the z-drive, cranking the dial back before Glasc could throw the bottle onto the ground. Time dilates on reverse right before the glass departed from the woman's prosthetic hand. Ekko bolted towards her, ready to bat the glass as far away from the thug. Except, this time around, she grabbed her gun and made her shot, the bullet grazing his good arm.

"Don't even bother," she said, the barrel pointed at his head.

He reset the dial once again. This time he ran forward, bodies himself against her stature before she could pull her gun at him. The impact had her stagger back; the bottle slipped from her fingers and by the barest inch, he caught it before it reached the hard ground.

And then, he ran.

Adrenaline rushed back into his system as he grabbed the hoverboard that was knocked out of him earlier. He knows anything was better than to underestimate that chem-baroness. Not like Silco who used either Jinx or Sevika to his advantage; Glasc was dangerous because of what she possessed in her arsenal. He had heard the worst of her effects; how it spun the mind into making them do things with her command after a single whiff of those fumes.

He then jumped onto his board and kicked its booster, letting him fly above the buildings and deep into the chasms.

Renata watched the boy fly out like a knat in the air, agitated yet amused at what she had witnessed.

"Thank you Ekko for confirming the rumours," she laughed, noting on the quick reflexes the boy had displayed.

'Time looping'. No wonder the machine herald wanted a taste of him.

The thug she intended to use as a puppet coughed on the ground, his burly body twitching as he showed signs of regaining consciousness. Without a word, Renata fires a shot at his head and the body lies still.

"Thank you for your time," the woman turned her heel; leaving the body behind as the pool of red began to sink in-between the cobblestone gaps.

The journey home was a nightmare. Even as he manoeuvred his ride in the thicket of the fissures, the headaches were coming back in full force. Visions coming in flashes; spikes of pain that made the stifling air difficult to breathe; sights of places he has never seen. It was as if the world had stripped itself off of old paint and splashed his sights with obscure colours. Something was wrong. Something was definitely off and Ekko was powerless to break himself out of it.

I can't think! It hurts-

He needed to land. He needed to touch the ground before he might fly himself onto a wall or fall into the mining depths or something. The obscure flashes in his sights were not helping him distinguish where the hallucinations starts and where reality ends. Then, strong winds began to billow through him before he swore he felt it carry him like a loose page fluttering by the breeze. The painful headaches ended but his sights were now a blur. Ekko trusted his gut to ride by the wind's direction, blindly following it before he found himself facing the entrance to the abandoned sewers.

It was a better deal than to risk falling off into the deep.

And so Ekko flew right into the mouth of the tunnel and stumbled off his board to rest on something solid. He gasped lung-fulls of air as he leaned against the curve of the wall. That was the worst of his episodes yet and thus did this confirm his suspicions.

The z-drive. Why is it doing that?

He needed to take it apart once again for a review. There clearly was something he must have done that made the device suddenly give him these momentary attacks. Ekko unlatched the device from his back and placed the glass casing in front of him. His brown eyes widened.

The centre of the device that once held a tiny speck of a strange sphere now seemed larger than before. Its size was now as large as a small pebble that could slip into the barrel of a gun. The sight made him grow cold as he pressed his back against the curve of the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor.

Why is this happening?

The only other person who helped him fine-tune the device had long since been dead. Even if he were to bring it up to someone who could offer a proper insight, the chances were limiting due to Glasc's expanding network. The more he reflected on the matter, the more he realised Glasc's influence over Zaun may have been far worse than Silco's had ever been.

He drew in a deep breath, letting go of the growing anxiety in his chest.

"Alright, Ekko. We're taking it from the top," he told himself.

Strapping the device on his back once more, he trailed his steps into the darkness of the tunnel; following a route he had almost abandoned since that tragic day.

At the arrival of the former sanctuary, the sight greeted him with a dead tree. Its wood had long since lost its rich, brown lustre; in its stead the bark had turned into an ashen colour. No leaves to shelter him from the rain. Despite its death, the tree continued to stand proud atop the abandoned structure like a gravestone. And beneath it, tall reeds of grass and vines grew on the ground.

"I'm home," he said to the ghost that was once a thriving community.

Zaun was a city full of scars. But of all the wounds it offered, Warwick was the worst affliction. The wounded's the scent of blood led to the attack. The nightmare of it all left the remaining survivors broken and unable to get themselves back up. And those with a strong resolve joined hands on the hunt to avenge their dead. Even after the beast fell, no surviving firelight had the heart to return or was just unable to. And thus, this place became his and his alone.

He climbed the steps to his abode, setting his things down before he slumped onto his makeshift bed. The boy knew he's going to need to patch himself up, but exhaustion was begging to be satiated. And so, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Calloused fingers poke and prod at him. Followed by a playful hum.

The comforting sounds of laughter echoing from the ground below.

And then that raspy voice he once tolerated teases him for the fruitless endeavours he spent at the cost of sleepless nights.

'If you really needed help, you could've just asked,' she says, throwing back the words he said to her before.

These moments were precious to him. Though he lay tired and dazed after failing to grasp where he went wrong, he found it assuring to know she had his back. Despite the rift between them in those long years, their shared tragedy was enough to reforge their friendship.

'If I said anything, you're still gonna make fun of me,' he mutters.

'What was that? I can't hear you~!'

'Menace.'

'Bug Boy.'

'Annoying.'

'...Softie.'

He smirks. 'That was not an insult.'

'Eh, worth a shot,' she shrugs. 'If the aim was to find something useful outta fragments of magic stones, you could've just stuffed them into a jar and made a lamp out of it.'

'-a lamp...' He considers. 'Maybe if I-'

The pain on his muscles throbbed, stealing his sleep and had him hissing at its sting. Outside, he could hear the rain pitter pattering against the walls of the shelter.

Great.

He forced himself up and dragged himself onto the medical box he nicked off from a random station some dozen weeks ago. He did all he could to disinfect any open wounds and wrapped the wound on his arm with a gauze. The rain and the silence permeating in the air.

To think it was a year ago that this space had once housed the two of them from the rest of Zaun. The thought brought an ache to his chest; made him close the medical box shut a little too hard. Days like this, he would seek the company of his remaining friends. But even that sounded like a luxury in the wake of everything.

And so, he grabbed his weapon and sat on his chair before the desk, hooking his arm along its length almost hugging it to his chest. He put himself to work by revising his notes. Whatever it was that happened after Warwick destroyed the z-drive, he needed to fine-tune it before things might go south.

Bad enough that Pilties caught wind of this.

He hated to suspect the worst, knowing that the z-drive was supposed to be a secret he kept between him, Jinx and the remaining friends of his. Either he pushed his luck too hard, or someone spilled. Having lackies sent after him left and right; a deranged cyborg enforcer at his back and a chem-baron trying to goad him into her entourage-

Ekko grunted, scratching his head. He shouldn't focus on that right this second.

He flicked the page and stumbled on a section that showed Jinx's contribution to the z-drive creation. Her signature doodles with all her bad puns written to explain her unique way of thinking. His fingers traced the scratches on the page, as if he was chasing her warmth through the scribbles.

Focus.

At the turn of a new page, he stopped dead at the sudden appearance of a sketch. The same anomaly that had grown at the centre of his z-drive was drawn over his notes.

"When did I do this?" he murmured.

An ominous, hollow sphere full of holes of different sizes. If he hadn't seen the anomaly with his two eyes, he would've thought the sketch as nothing more than a product of his vents of pent-up emotions. He glanced at the subject in question that sat next to his desk.

"What is it?" he asked. "Why-?"

Even after they both confirmed the perks of the device, never once had it assaulted him with spiked headaches and strange visions. Only after Warwick destroyed it-

Ekko held a tight lip. Though the beast had long since been dead in some unknown chasm, its effects still caused him grief. Was it something in the beast's claws that enlarged the strange thing in his device? Or was it possible he messed up in the reassembly of it that's causing these strange attacks in his skull?

His mind was going in circles. Bombarding himself with questions he had no answers to.

Then, he could hear singing.

The voice was obscure and the words were muffled by the rain.

Am I going insane?

He stood up and headed out towards the door and opened it. The rain continued to weep between the dead branches and spilling out below his shelter. The singing continued.

He grabbed his weapon, was about to reach for the z-drive and hesitated.

No, best not, he decided and left it on his desk.

Ekko stepped out into shelter's balcony entrance, clock bat in hand and ready to attack this faceless, singing intruder. The singing grew louder with each step closer until he took a turn. There, a black bird stood on one of the old, weathering crates; its beak was full of song and its voice an uncanny imitation of human speech.

He gave out a long sigh of relief.

The bird continued to sing in a garbled speech in an attempt at forming proper words to its tune. His wariness waned into a sudden fit of laughter. The bird seemed content to ignore him as it continued.

"You scared the shit out of me," he said to it.

He'd admit it was silly, talking to a bird. But at this point, it was better than being tormented by the limits of his own mind.

"Arr yuu aright?" the bird asked him.

That was new.

"Arr yuu aright?" the bird asked again.

"Wait, wait, wait," he took a few steps back. "The bird's talking?!"

"Arr yuu aright?" the bird tilted its head as it repeated the question.

By the fourth time it asked, Ekko thought back to the stories that spoke of sailors of Bilgewater having bird companions that could talk over their shoulder. Perhaps this bird must've been something akin to it.

"Is that all you can say?" he asked.

"Arr yuu aright?"

"…"

Ekko gave out a long breath, lowering his bat and decided to sit on the floor next to the crate. He stared up at corner of the roof, watching the drops of rain fall every four seconds from its rusty edge. Where did everything start to feel so wrong?

Granted, he still held the trust of folks across Zaun; people who looked out for him and him returning the favour. The hope in which he had cradled in his hands now felt smaller with each passing day. He still clung to it; fought hard to make it a reality. But something died that day. Not just Jinx, but something about the spirit in Zaun that made it so alive now felt distant and dreary.

"Arr yuu aright?" the bird asked again.

"No," he finally said. His voice cracked in admission. "No, I'm not."

"Arr yuu aright?"

The black bird's borrowed words only opened up the pain in his chest. He gritted his teeth despite letting himself feel it. The loss. The disappointment. The frustration. He was running on empty and he knows it.

"Thanks for asking," he said to the bird, only for the bird to repeat the question.

Ekko then cautiously raised a hand to the bird, wondering if it would welcome the presence of a human touch. To his slight relief, the corvid flapped its wings before it accepted his hand when he tried to pet it with his finger. A momentary bliss followed, making him forget his woes as he paid attention to this unusual creature.

"Who knew you could survive in a place like this," he said in amusement.

The bird made no reply.

No bird, as far as he was aware, could ever survive this deep in Zaun. At least, anywhere that isn't by the docks or the river. Not with clouds of the Grey and the smog choking the air. The presence of this black bird was enough for him to reflect upon his current task.

I need to get to the bottom of this.

He needed to get that device fixed. He needed to get some answers. But for now, he'll have to work with what he's got. That was enough to push him off the floor and head over inside.

Right before he could close the door behind him, the bird swooped right inside.

"Hey!"

The black bird cawed and squawked as it flapped its wings in the air.

"You shouldn't be here!" he yelled.

The bird continued to circle around the room, right before it landed on top of the z-drive's metal brace. Ekko held his breath, knowing how much trouble its going to make if it'll try to peck its beak onto it.

"Don't you dare," he warned; knowing it was fruitless to talk sense to a bird.

The confounding creature cawed at him audaciously, as it was saying 'try and stop me.'

He stepped closer to his desk, setting his weapon aside against the wall. The little shit flapped it's wings at him before it tapped it's beak on the metal frame of the z-drive. This would've been easier to catch it if he used the thing. But the thing in question is held hostage by the very creature he was trying to catch. A paradoxical situation.

Ekko counted the seconds passing out of habit, the gears in his mind turning as he watched the creature continue to tap away at the device. The spherical anomaly continued to float at the centre of the glass. Ekko could've sworn he saw it pulse midway through his count. The last thing he wanted was having to replace the glass again. Glass beakers of this size don't come cheap and certainly are a rarity to find among the heap.

Focus, Ekko.

1...

2...

3...

Now!

He lunged at the creature and found his hands grabbing its feathery body. The corvid squawked as he managed to catch it in one try.

"Got you, you little shit!" he said in triumph.

"Arr yuu aright?" the bird brazenly asked despite its captivity.

"Is that all you have to say to me, huh?"

Then something dropped onto the floor, turning his attention away from the bird. His gaze followed the source of the noise and found a cog rolling on the ground. It stopped rolling midway at the foot of his chair.

Ekko blinked and raised his gaze up; wide-eyed and shocked.

Sitting on his chair by his desk, he saw her. Twin tails of braided-blue hair almost touching the floor. That familiar petite figure with a penchant for trouble crouching over an open notebook. And those eyes-

"Jinx?" he uttered.

He blinked again before the girl could look up his way. And in an eye-blink, she was gone. The desk remained empty.

What the fu-

"Arr yuu aright?" said the bird.

Ekko released the bird, letting it land on the desk as he drew closer to the chair. Not a sign nor trace of her was there. Everything except for the cog that lay on the floor.

A few more things to add.

-When I was looking into some of the characters, the one lore champion that really stood out to me was Renata Glasc. Her character honestly fascinates me among the non-arcane list of champions of the region. From her bio to her voice lines. Just 10/10 a fascinating character who feels right to add for this fic.

-Yes, I will be alluding to old-Viktor & Jayce lore here (on this version of Side A's dimension at least) with a dose of Arcane-ified touches.

-yes, Side A dimension/timeline is a bit of a hodgepodge of old league lore and a few Arcane notes. Side B is closer to Arcane's timeline but not entirely close to it either.

-I know that Swain is often alluded to the crows/ravens but... well, I guess I'll leave it at that.

-Also, no. I don't play league. I'm fascinated by the lore tho :)