Work Text:
"Wait!"
Powder nearly falls off the wall. Her sweaty hands slip, fingernails catching against rotting wood. Below her, the ground yawns like a pitch black void with teeth made of metal spikes. Something moves down there, just out of sight.
Don't look down, she hears Vi say. Too late. Powder clutches desperately at the small protrusion of wood, no larger than a windowsill, as her vision swims.
When it clears, it leaves her shaking and trembling from the exertion.
"Ekko!" she hisses. "What are you doing here?!? It's not safe!"
On the ground, already setting his toes against the same footholds Powder had found, Ekko looks up at her. His eyes are so large that they seem to fill up his entire face. He's just as scared as she is.
Despite everything, Powder can't help but be glad to see him. It's good to know that she's not alone.
"You shouldn't be here," she says anyway. But she can't hide the relief from her voice. Below, she thinks she catches a hint of resentment in Ekko's small shrug.
"Same goes for you," is all he says, and begins to climb.
They pull each other up onto the tiny ledge. It's not big enough for the both of them, small as they are, so it's a delicate balance of leaning on each other and holding on to the cold metal supports for dear life. Ekko turns and braces his feet against the small indent the window makes into the wall. Powder puts her back against him and shakes out her toolbox.
"Don't look down," Powder says, just as Ekko is about to look down. If he loses his balance, they will both go tip over into a fall of what seems like hundreds of feet. She can feel Ekko take a nervous breath. She hopes he can't feel her shaking, but he probably can.
"What's in there?" she hears Ekko ask.
Powder pushes her head against the window, trying to get a better angle. There's a brightly lit bridge inside, with people on it. Sounds of screaming and shouting. It's mayhem in there, and too many bodies to pick out Vi's distinctive hair, or Clagger's distinctive size or even Mylo.
"I don't know. I can't tell."
"Switch with me."
Powder grunts in annoyance as Ekko pushes back against her. The toolbox rattles as he cranes his neck to look.
"Careful!" Her hands clutch the strap convulsively. If she loses those blue stones, if they fall over and break against the pavement below -
Behind her, Ekko goes rigid. Powder freezes.
"That's him," Ekko says, his voice so tight with fear that Powder can feel the effort it takes to get the words out. "That's the thing that - that killed Benzo."
On the bridge, there is a thing that Powder can only really describe as a monster. He has huge, hulking shoulders bent at an odd angle. His head is tilted like an animal's, and the veins in his body and face glow a terrible, distorted purple. He's lumbering forward, making snuffling, inhuman sounds, towards -
"Vi!"
Powder lunges at the window. Ekko yelps and grabs at the wall to counterbalance her sudden motion.
On the bridge, Vi is on the ground, scrambling backwards on her hands. Her face is a mask of blood, her teeth bared in a defiant snarl.
"Oh no," Powder whispers. "Oh no oh no oh no -"
She can't look any more. She flips her toolbox open, furiously digging out the parts she needs. Behind her, Ekko has found a better foothold, and has settled into a more stable, if slightly panicked, breathing rate.
"We gotta do something," he says.
"I know, I know! I'm trying!"
The blue stones come out of their bag. Their soft glow distracts Ekko from whatever is going on inside, if just for a moment.
"What is that?"
"It's a bomb." Or, at least, she thinks it's a bomb.
They nearly lose their balance as Ekko twists around to look at it. "That's a bomb?!?" Then, before she has the chance to respond, he says "Okay, go, go go go! Vi's got the door closed, but that thing is -!"
Powder is already halfway done. The monkey stares up at her from the ground, eyes wide and unseeing. She puts two in the body and ties one to its chest. The head goes on last.
"Do you think it'll work?" she asks hysterically as she works. None of her other bombs have worked, and this is so important. She can't jinx it now. Not when it matters so much. "Please, please, please, please work, it has to work -"
"We don't have much time," Ekko says. His fingers catch her wrist as she reaches to throw it through the window. "Shh! Don't let him see you!"
Powder nearly screams in frustration. She needs to act now, now, now, before it's too late. There are terrifying thuds going through the whole building each time that monster slams against the door. Powder can imagine her family, can imagine Vi, trapped inside that room with a monster howling outside. She needs to get them out -
Ekko's fingers tighten around her wrist, small but surprisingly strong. His eyes are narrowed as he looks through the window, watching the monster clawing at the door, watching for something that she can't see.
"Okay," he says. "Now."
They let go of it together.