Ekko POV
"Are you sure this'll work?"
The two of them stood on the roof of a building adjacent to the carriage system that allowed access to Stillwater Prison. Eight guards patrolled the dock beneath them, carrying rifles and short-range pistols. Their blue uniform jackets stood out against the grime of the Undercity.
Jinx grinned at him. "Have some faith."
"And you won't kill anyone?" Ekko asked in all seriousness.
"Cross my heart," she replied, moving to make the motion across the left side of her chest. Her eyes flicked back to the guards. "I'll play along if it means I can see Vi again."
Somehow that didn't make him feel at ease. Jinx was only agreeing to Ekko's terms because she knew it was the only way to get to her sister. If anyone else knew what she was trying to do they'd run and tell Silco. The crime Lord who ruled the Lanes would definitely have some issues with Jinx attempting to free Vi. He'd kept the fact that Jinx's sister was alive a secret, but the motive as to why was unclear. Ekko was her only chance, so it meant they needed to trust one another.
But once the job was done… Who knows what'll happen between the two of them.
"Now!" Jinx leapt from the rooftop while Ekko was still watching the guards.
She was fast, a blur in the night as she darted between storage containers and shadowy crevices. It was hard to believe that someone who had been beaten down earlier in the night, with a dislocated shoulder to show for it, could move so quickly and effortlessly.
Five of the guards were out cold by the time Ekko caught up with her. Two rushed him the moment he became visible in the low lighting from the gaslights that rimmed the edges of the dock. He went toe-to-toe with the larger one, using his weight against him to unbalance the guy before landing a hard enough blow across his jaw that it knocked him out. The second guard was smaller, obviously a female beneath the layers of Enforcer uniform and mask. But she was faster than Ekko had anticipated, landing a few jabs to his stomach, ducking out of his reach each time.
"Stop playing around, Ekko," called out Jinx.
The guard used his momentary distraction to hook her leg behind his knee, toppling him over. She yanked the pistol out of its holster and aimed it at his chest, finger moving to squeeze the trigger.
A streak of blue hair and Jinx was suddenly there, crashing into the guard until they were rolling on the ground. They struggled with one another for control of the gun. Jinx landed a hard enough blow to the guard's head that her mask came off, revealing a younger looking girl than Ekko would've guessed.
With one final tug, Jinx tore the weapon from the guard and jumped to her feet. The barrel was pointed directly at the frozen guard's head and her eyes widened in panic. Jinx's shoulders rose and fell with each deep breath, but the gun remained steady in her hand.
"Don't do it," he warned her, taking a single step forward.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, and he saw the conflict waging a war in the depth of her eyes. "She would've killed you. It's only fair."
"No, I -."
"Shut up!" The back of Jinx's hand struck the guard's cheek, sending her sprawling. She whimpered as she slowly sat back up. "Can't you see we're having a conversation?"
Ekko took another step forward, earnestly trying to reason with her. "You promised, Jinx."
"Okay…"
"Thank you," he breathed in relief.
A shot rang out through the night air, startently loud in the quiet. The guard managed to scream right before Jinx punched her, rendering the girl unconscious. Bright red blood pooled on the ground beneath her leg where a hole had blasted through her uniform and dug deep in the muscle.
Jinx let out a breath of air and turned to Ekko with a smile that quickly disappeared. He was unsure what expression he was wearing, but he couldn't make himself care enough as he stared at the bloodied leg of the young female guard.
"What? You said not to kill anyone, and I didn't," she pointed out casually.
"You didn't need to shoot her," he spat out, barely concealing his anger.
Jinx crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "You have so many rules. I can't be expected to know all of them."
"It's not that hard! I told you not to kill anyone -."
"And I didn't!"
"Do you think she's going to walk away from this? She's going to bleed out! Down here, all alone, her friends are all knocked out; no-one is going to be able to help her." Ekko was moving towards Jinx without giving it much thought, too wrapped up in his own anger and hatred towards her to notice when she started to move back. He advanced on her, all the while picturing her bathed in the blood of all the innocents she had murdered. "I know you're deranged. I know you've been raised by that psycho into thinking you're good for nothing else in this world besides destruction. I know you believe that everyone abandoned you. But do you truly think Vi is going to be happy to see you? To see what you've become?"
Jinx was backed into the side of a shipping container with nowhere to go. She made no attempts to fight Ekko off as he stood over her, his larger build encompassing her own. He stared down at her, a small part of himself wishing she'd make an attempt to fight him just so he'd have an excuse to end her life. Vi would understand - she'd have too.
"She'll make me better," she said softly, all the usual cockiness and sass gone from her tone, replaced by an emotion he couldn't understand. "Vi will make the voices go away. She'll forgive me."
Ekko could see just how much Jinx was forcing herself to believe what she was saying. "If she doesn't?"
"Then it'll mean everything I've feared is true." Round, blue eyes bore into his own as her expression hardened once again. "That I was always meant to be… this."
A single carriage grounded to a halt on the docks edge, its breaks on the thick cable creating sparks that cast a glow across the two of them. With no guards to operate the pulley system, they'd need to work together to get it moving once more. It was the only way into Stillwater Prison.
Shoving past Ekko with her shoulder, Jinx made her way over to the small control panel on the platform. She pressed a few buttons before pulling on a lever, and the door to the carriage slid open.
"You jump in first. One of us needs to stay here to get it moving again," she told him without so much as a glance.
"What about you?"
Jinx lent over the control panel, assessing the drop into the chilly water below. She scoffed and said, "I can make it."
Not knowing what other option he had, Ekko stepped into the carriage, immediately feeling like he was walking into a trap. If this was going to work, the two of them needed to stop arguing and wasting time. He knew Jinx was crazy, unhinged, no longer the girl from his childhood, but seeing it rather than hearing it from others was beginning to take its toll. Ekko wasn't so sure anymore if Powder was still in there.
Jinx watched him expectantly, and he gave her a small nod. She smashed a few buttons before kicking another lever with her foot. The carriage began moving, slowly at first, and then picking up considerable speed as it was carried along the cable. She took off running alongside it, gauging the distance of the gap. A few droplets of rain hit the pavement a short second before it began pelting, unrelentless in its attempt to drown the entire world.
A meter before the platform ended, Jinx made the leap, reaching out for the metal frame of the carriage. Ekko watched as her fingers slipped off of the metal bar next to the open door, but she managed to clutch onto another metal rung further down. The carriage sped away from land until there was nothing but darkness and a deep, churning sea beneath her.
"Ekko!" Jinx called out frantically, using all of her strength to hold onto the bar. She pulled herself up, grabbed the next metal bar, but slipped once more due to the rain.
The pure panic in her voice snapped him out of whatever trance he was in. He'd happily let Jinx fall to her death, but he hadn't entirely given up on Powder yet. Ekko gripped her forearm and yanked her inside the dry carriage, immediately releasing her once she was safe.
"You were gonna let me fall," she accused between heavy breaths.
"Thought 'bout it," he admitted, sitting down across from her and leaning against the wall.
Jinx pulled herself into a cross-legged position, eyeing him closely. "But you still think Powder is worth saving."
It was a statement, but Ekko answered anyway. "Maybe you both are, who knows."
"Jinx isn't worth anything, and I don't want your pity."
"You don't have to be this way," he told her in frustration, striking the metal wall with his fist.
Jinx gave him a twisted smile, one that made his skin crawl. "What if I like the way I am?"
There was no arguing with that. It had been too many years since he'd seen the Powder from his childhood. Ekko had grown up, changed, learnt what morally grey areas he was okay with, pretending all the while that his opinions were what mattered. Not anybody else's. It would be hypocritical of him to judge Jinx for surviving in this world. However, he never blew up innocent people, never did the dirty work of a crime lord responsible for releasing Shimmer onto the street.
"Do you remember the game we played as kids? With the stupid armor made out of metal sheets and paintball guns?" Jinx asked out of the blue once the silence had drawn on long enough for Ekko to become lost in thought.
He watched her carefully, trying to assess what angle she was working from. "Yeah. You were always a better shot than I was."
With deliberately slow movements, Jinx raised her arm up and mimicked a gun with her fingers, pointing it directly at Ekko's chest. A second later she brought the pretend gun upwards until the tips of her fingers were pointed directly at his forehead.
"I'd always wondered what it would've been like to use a real gun." Her thumb came down on the imaginary trigger as her eyes closed, and Ekko would've given anything to see inside of her mind for just a split second. "Even back then, when we were just kids. I think Jinx has always been here, Ekko."
"Perhaps," he agreed. "But maybe Jinx isn't a bad person. She's just been through a lot."
"She's damaged. I'm damaged."
"You know, I haven't exactly grown up to be a Saint," he told her. Ekko wasn't sure why he was trying to make her feel better. All he knew was that the Jinx sitting across from him, fighting back the sadness that was creeping into her eyes, needed someone to talk to. "I helped build the Firelights gang when I was still young. We started out as a refuge for kids caught in the war, but it grew into something more. Some of us wanted to make a difference, to take the Lanes back from Silco and ban Shimmer once and for all."
"You're a real hero," she said sarcastically.
"Yeah, that's what I thought - at first. I soon realised that we couldn't change anything without… killing a few people." He looked away when Jinx raised an eyebrow, not wanting to see the approving look that flashed across her face. "I kept trying to justify it, telling myself 'we're the good guys'. But as I've gotten older, it's become clear that everyone believes they're the ones doing the right thing."
"Not me."
"What?"
Jinx threw herself back, placing her arms behind her head and stretching her legs out. She stared up at nothing as she spoke. "Nothing I've ever done has been for the right reason. I build things that explode because it's fun. I shoot people because it's fun. I let Silco fill my brain with all of his evil schemes and dreams, not because I was a kid and had nowhere else to go, it just all made sense."
"You can't mean that," he said incredulously.
"I don't like it when people lie to me. Why would I do it to you?"
"The Jinx I've heard countless horrors about wouldn't care enough about anyone to place herself in a risky situation like this."
"Risky, huh?" She rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one arm, sizing him up from across the carriage. "Am I in danger, Ekko?"
It was obvious as to what she was referring to. Could she trust him? For all her deranged shortcomings, he could tell that this meant a lot to her. Being able to rely on someone else instead of constantly being betrayed.
Ekko hoped that his own eyes conveyed what she wanted to see as he replied with, "No from me. Not yet anyway."
"Good! Glad to hear it. Otherwise, this would've gotten real awkward, real fast," she laughed.
Jinx reached for something behind her and Ekko didn't have any time to assess what was happening before the small pistol that had belonged to the Enforcer slid across the ground towards him. It clattered against the metal wall, shining softly in the overhead light. A smear of blood stained its barrel.
"How did - You know what, it doesn't even matter."
She winked at him. "The less you look, the more you'll see, little man."
"You were planning on using this," he stated matter-of-factly.
"Now I know I don't need to," she replied softly, rolling onto her back once more.
The two of them remained silent for the rest of the ride, each lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, the carriage grinded to a halt and they crept towards the exit. Two more Enforcers were stationed on the platform.
Ekko took the lead this time, rendering the two guards unconscious before Jinx could jump in. He dragged them out of sight, only stopping when an idea struck him. One of the guards was roughly his size and shape, but undressing a defenseless person was a line he didn't feel comfortable with crossing. Desperate times call for desperate measures, though.
Jinx took one look at him in the Enforcers uniform when he came back to stand on the platform and burst out laughing. "I don't even wanna ask."
"Good." He tossed the pair of cuffs at her and was thankful when she caught it rather than letting it hit her in the face. "Put these on."
"Why?"
"The only way into Stillwater is by the main entrance. It's crawling with Enforcers. You're going to pretend to be my prisoner. Unless you have a better idea?"
She glanced up at the looming cement building, the very top of it shrouded in rolling storm clouds and barely visible. A determined look crossed her features as she turned back to him.
"Yeah, okay."
Ekko was thankful she wasn't fighting him on this. "Alright, then let's go. It'll be dawn soon and that's when they do a guard rotation."
He clasped the cuffs over her wrists, knowing he hadn't imagined the small flinch she gave. It would be taking a lot out of her to trust him with something like this. For all she knew, this was a trap to deliver her on a shiny silver platter to prison.
Just before they began climbing the steps up to the towering prison, Ekko made her stop walking by tugging on the cuffs. Jinx turned a questioning gaze towards him.
"Jinx, I… Just let me do the talking in there. Okay?" He said lamely, pausing to slip on the mask that went with the uniform.
A barely there smile turned the corners of her mouth. "Probably for the best."
Inside of the prison somehow managed to look even more depressing. Mould grew on the damp walls as they walked down the long hall, exiting into some sort of entry room. Gas lamps cast the entire room in a haunted glow. A large, burly guard regarded them with suspicion from behind his desk.
Ekko pushed Jinx forward until they were standing a foot away from the table. He eyed the papers strewn about, some of them written in languages he'd never seen. It made sense, though, since Stillwater prison was notorious for being impossible to break out from, meaning countries from all over the world sent their most heinous criminals here.
And here they were, two unlikely partners with barely a plan trying to break someone out.
"I wasn't told of any new arrivals today," grumbled the guard as he shuffled some papers about. He stopped long enough to stare down at the two of them, sizing Jinx up. "What'd this one do?"
Her laugh rang through the room as she responded, "Boy, what didn't I do!"
The guard's eyebrows lowered, and he sat straighter in his chair, the metal legs groaning under his weight. Ekko pinched Jinx's arm in warning. She seemed to get the message and took half a step back from the desk.
"Caught stealing from a house in Piltover," answered Ekko.
"Kind of a steep sentence, don't ya think?"
He racked his brain for something - anything - else. "It was the Kirraman Estate. Not too bright, this one."
Jinx stared at Ekko through the mask as he and the prison guard laughed. He wasn't sure if she knew where or what the Kirraman Estate was, but she understood well enough that they were laughing at her expense. He just hoped she wasn't crazy enough to break character just because she was being teased a little.
Sliding some papers across the desk, the guard said, "Sign here and you can take her down."
Ekko squiggled a signature and swapped some more small talk with the guard before getting the all clear to head off towards the elevators. He waited until the doors were tightly shut before taking off his helmet, relieved to feel the air against his face.
"I don't know how Enforcers wear these all day," he exclaimed.
"Ahem." Jinx turned around to wiggle her fingers in Ekko's direction.
He sighed and produced the key so he could unbind her wrists. "What's the plan now? We can't just aimlessly wander around the prison."
"Don't worry so much. I have an idea."
The doors opened into a small space with a chain link fence blocking them from the corridor. Jinx skipped out and began pressing buttons at random on the wall. With a groan of complaint, multiple metal doors in the corridor swung outwards.
Prisoners emerged from their cells, some larger than the prison guard had been, and some surprisingly small, like Jinx. There was even a kid or two, their hands being held by an adult as they made their way to the fence separating them.
Positioning herself as close as she could get, Jinx stood on her tippy toes, scouring the bodies of people. Ekko watched as the light in her eyes dimmed once everyone was standing in the hall.
Ekko made a sound of frustration and faced her head on. "This is your idea of a plan? We can't go to every floor and let everyone out in the hopes that we'll find Vi."
"I know Vi," muttered a gentle voice from amongst the mass of bodies.
A small boy pushed through the legs of everyone else, no more than nine or ten years old. Apart from his torn pants and dirtied hands, he looked healthy.
Jinx crouched down, lacing her fingers through the wired fence. "Pink hair?"
"And a temper," the kid added.
"Where is she?"
"Underground. She helped me when others weren't being so nice, but she got into trouble for it," he told them sheepishly.
Ekko stepped forward. "Solitary confinement."
To his astonishment, Jinx pulled a single piece of candy from her pants pocket and offered it to the boy. The smile that lit up her face was so genuine that it froze Ekko to the core. An image of child Powder crossed his mind, then of Jinx as she was now, smiling as the little boy unwrapped the candy and popped it into his mouth. They were one in the same.
With a newfound spark, Jinx shot back up and headed for the elevator, calling out to Ekko as she went, "Let's go!"