Chapter Text
The orange fiery blaze lights up the worst night of Vi's life along with Vander's disfigured body. His lifeless corpse lays lifeless in the shadows, but his blood radiates a purple glow due to the shimmer in his veins. The smell of smoke from burning dead bodies and shimmer rises into the already suffocating, heavily polluted air of Zaun. Tears form in Vi's eyes, but they don't fall as she struggles next to Vander’s body, comprehending what just happened to her family—her world—in an instant. The deaths of Claggor and Mylo, her siblings and partners in crime. The sacrifice of Vander, her adoptive father and mentor. His last words.
"Take care of Powder"
She falls to her knees next to the horribly disfigured corpse of her father as tears stream down her face. But a familiar and playful voice interrupts the ringing in her ears. Her remaining little sister, Powder.
"Vi, it worked!"
Vi blankly stares back at her, dumbfounded.
"...What?"
"Did you see me? My monkey bomb finally worked!"
The explosion that killed her family was Powder's fault? Her sister that wasn't even supposed to be here? The sister who blew up the heist? The thing that just murdered her family? The thing that ruined her life? Her body moves instinctually at the Jinx that killed her family. She looks at her hand as it begins bleeding again from punching Silco's henchmen all night and now Jinx . Her mouth opens involuntarily.
"Mylo was right, you're just a Jinx ."
Vi's facade begins to crumble after seeing her innocent little sister cry because of her. Wrath quickly transforms into guilt as tears begin to form in her eyes, but it's too late to take it back. She clenches her fist as she looks back at her clumsy little sister crying on the ground before abandoning Ji- no-Powder to think for a second, leaving Jinx alone as reality kicks in for the both of them.
" Please! Don't leave me Vi! Please come back... please … Violet- "
Jinx curls up into a fetal position next to Vander’s body as her skin is ripped apart by her nails clawing deep into her legs. Mylo's, and now Vi’s, words echo throughout her mind.
“You're just a Jinx . You're just a Jinx . You're just a Jinx .”
All she wanted was to earn acceptance from her family, but she's finally let go of her childish dream, left only with reality: She's a Jinx, the harbinger of pain and tragedy. Her desperate cries for Vi, or somebody, anybody at all, fade into the rainy night, swallowed by the isolation of the undercity.
Vi lays down with her back on a wall as her state of disbelief and wounds linger. Her mind is screaming at her what she just did to Powder, she needs to go back. It's what Vander would've wanted. However, her facade is broken once again as she looks over and sees Silco approaching the crying Powder with a bloodied knife. She wipes off her tears and tries to charge over and save her, but her movements are intercepted by an enforcer. She lets out some muffled screams to try and get Powder’s attention, but then, the enforcer releases her and falls to the ground. He's been knocked out by the boy savior, Ekko. She doesn't have time to thank him or question why or how he's here right now though. She has to protect her little sister.
“Little man! You take Powder! I'll hold off Silco.”
After a reassuring nod from Ekko, she rushes over to Silco and his goons, but her wounds reopen as she starts running. But the blood doesn't matter as she pushes through the pain as she becomes a big enough distraction for Ekko to grab Jinx and escape.
Vi can't think straight. Maybe from that rag the enforcer had, or maybe from the deaths of her family. But it doesn’t matter now, as all she can think about is protecting Powder from Silco. No time for anything else. Her feet splash in the newly forming puddles as she charges over to Silco. She weaves her head right underneath a punch, and, with a twist of her torso, she sends a thug flying with an uppercut, but her vision blurs from the impact, her entire arm erupts in pain from her own punch, and her side feels like it'll collapse from her broken ribs. All she can do is buy time for Powder to escape with Ekko. Adrenaline pumps through her veins. Dodges left. Fires a right hook. Another thug is sent flying into a brick wall. Two more to go, but she is slowing down, her arms are too heavy to continue moving, let alone fight. Weaves right. She grabs the goon's arm and throws him at the last one. But, he ducks as the body flies over his head. Dodg—She's knocked to the ground by a fourth goon as she attempts to dodge his punch, but she's moving too slow. Right in the liver. Her head is left ringing from a single punch. Her wounds finally catch up to her as her entire body burns in pain and darkness seeps into her blood red eyes. She can barely hear Silco as she fades in and out of consciousness.
"—ahetic."
"—sister just killed—sacrifice yourself for her?—Pointless—just like Him —not half the person—"
Vi clenches her fists hearing Silco disrespect her father. Her vision expands as memories of him play through her mind, but the memories end as she sees his corpse laying still on the ground. Gotta save Powder. She gets up one last time, wobbling a bit, but then she manages to block a punch from the fourth goon and slam his gut to the floor. With all the strength she can muster, she jumps to punch Silco in his pitch black eye.
"I don't need to be even a quarter of what he was to kill you."
As she flies through the air, she’s tackled from the side by a woman with only one arm as more goons begin to emerge from the shadows. She slams into a brick wall and collapses to the ground. Her vision goes dark. At least Powder got away.
“That’s it? This is all that Vander left behind? What a shame."
Rain is pouring down on all of Zaun. Ekko is dragging Jinx along with him through Zaun, his heart is racing, but she is stumbling behind him, unwilling to run. He yanks her through the cold streets of the undercity as the rain grows harder. Enforcers are patrolling the streets tonight. One of the enforcers spots the two helpless yet suspicious children and begins pursuing them. Ekko drags Jinx as quickly as he can into an alleyway to lose the policeman, but he's catching up anyways. The two turn a corner and Ekko lifts up a manhole cover. It's their only option. Ekko leads Jinx in before covering the sewer entrance back up. Now surrounded by the stench of sewage, the endless darkness, and the water filling the sewer, Ekko faces Jinx and frantically rattles her by the arms to wake her up from this trance.
"Powder, wake up, Please . We need to get out of here quickly, before the sewer fills with rain water."
Her hollow eyes only stare back at him blankly in response. She is being crushed as the weight of reality presses down on her chest. She just killed her family that she wanted to protect. She just wanted to help... But good intentions don't change what happened. Her surviving sister disowned her, but then that same sister sacrificed herself to stop her from being taken by Silco? And now Vi may be dead or worse? She just killed her entire family? She can't help but crumble under the weight. Ekko tugs on her trembling hand even harder to wake her up, but Jinx rips her hand away from him and screams at him instead.
"No! We have to go back... We have to save Vi... Please ..."
She wants to talk to the sister she remembers, the one she looked up to, the one that would win any fight, her last remaining family member, the person that still loves her. Ekko tightens his grip on Jinx's hand, he wants to see Vi too, he wants to see Mylo and Claggor, but he knows that they can't let Vi's sacrifice go in vain and that they can't win against Silco's men or the enforcers. They have to press on. There's no other option. Ekko's endless pull through the darkness begins again, but he can still hear her murmuring and sobbing,
~I'm just a Jinx~
Ekko desperately tugs on Jinx's hand once more as they're trudging through the sewer, but this time she wakes up from her trance due to the rapidly rising water. They're both going to drown if she doesn't follow Ekko. The water is up to their ankles, and there isn't much time until they won't be able to run at full speed. Jinx tries to ask Ekko how much farther they have to go, but the words can't escape her chest. She's already drowning in guilt.
After a few excruciatingly long minutes of running through the rotting sludge, Ekko lifts up a manhole cover and scans the surroundings, but he finds nothing, so he quickly lifts Jinx up and out of the sewer. They smell horrendous, but that couldn't matter any less right now. Ekko pats Jinx on her shoulders.
“Hey? Powder? We’re here.”
Ekko bursts through the front door of his family’s apartment with Jinx following behind him. His dad, Wyeth, seems to have been waiting for him while tinkering with a watch at his desk.
"Where have you been? You were gone so long that your mother already went to bed."
"And what's that horrid smell?"
After no response, Wyeth looks up from his desk, but he's met with Jinx staring back at him with a blank, hollow, empty stare as well as an Ekko with watery eyes.
"Oh no... What happened?"
Wyeth asks the question as he gets up from his desk, but it too goes unanswered as Ekko runs to embrace his father as Jinx stands still at the front door. Wyeth hugs Ekko while he cries into his shirt, but he tightens his grip on Ekko after a few seconds.
"Are you guys hurt?"
"I-I don't think so, b-but she's been quiet the whole run here…"
Ekko turns his head back up to look back at Jinx. His tears freeze as he looks at the frozen girl curled up on the floor. He lets go of his father to wipe his tears away, but Wyeth walks over to Jinx while he’s busy coming to his senses. Wyeth kneels down while placing his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but he can sense that her mind is elsewhere.
"Hey... Powder?"
She doesn't respond though, only looking back at the man with an empty stare as the words pass through her mind. Wyeth freezes with his hand on her shoulder. What should he even do? What happened to them? Luckily for him, Ekko interrupts the silence as he crouches down next to them.
"V-vander's gone. Mylo and Claggor too."
"...What? They're... gone? ...dead?"
Jinx clenches her fist as a whisper escapes from the blank void that she is, shortly followed by a stream of tears.
"...it's my fault... I'm a Jinx ."
The aged man briefly shuddered at the trembling sound of her voice, but he then tightened his grip on her shoulder.
"Sweetheart… don't say that, it isn't your fault. Just breathe... Ekko, what happened?"
"...Too much.”
"Fine... I'll take off from work tomorrow. We’ll talk then. You two need to wash up though, I don't know where you've been, but it smells like shit. And listen, Powder, we'll sort whatever happened out. It'll all be okay."
He takes his hand off of Jinx’s shoulder as he stands up.
“Hey, I’ll be here if you need me. Don’t be afraid to wake me up.”
As Wyeth leaves for his bedroom, Ekko and Jinx are left on the floor with an unsettling silence as the adrenaline begins to leave their veins. Ekko looks at Jinx, still curled up with her arms wrapped around her legs, but she doesn’t seem to be crying any more. He reaches over and taps her on the shoulder, but she flinches upon contact.
“Hey… Powder? You there?”
“...yeah.”
“...Do you want to take a bath first? Or should I?”
“...go ahead. I’ll wait.”
Ekko gets up after the reassuring talk with her. A little closed off, but she seems okay. Ekko walks off to the bathroom and shuts the door, leaving Jinx alone with her dead brothers.
“Well, look what you’ve done. Great job. Classic Jinx .”
“Won’t be long before you kill Ekko and his family too.”
Curled up and alone on the floor, her nails dig deep into her shins, her crimson red blood seeps into the floorboards. Soon, she’s completely consumed by her thoughts as she hides her face and closes her eyes. But she can still see her brothers as they continue to berate her for eternity before a touch on her shoulder jolts her back to reality.
“Powder?”
She looks up through her legs to see Ekko. He must’ve finished his bath.
“Hey uh, you could’ve sat on the couch, even if you are covered in sewage.”
Ekko’s eyes widen as he looks at her and the blood stains on the floor.
“Woah, are you bleeding? You should’ve told my dad, I’ll go get him—”
“No! It’s fine, I’m fine. The wounds closed already. I’ll just go take a bath.”
She rises from her curled up position as Ekko looks at her with worried eyes, but she can’t bear to see that look on his face. She rushes into the bathroom and locks the door behind her. She turns on the water, and as it begins to fill the tub, her brothers disappear as the sound of running water drowns them out. Soon, the tub is full, and she begins sobbing as she bathes, her tears and blood dissipating into the water. After a much needed bath, she puts on some of Ekko’s clothes that he left for her, and she looks at herself in the mirror. Her brothers have returned behind her now that the silence has resumed.
‘You should just leave before you kill Ekko too.”
She lets out a cry as she punches the mirror and shatters it. Her hand is cut by the shards of glass as they fall to the floor. Her sobbing resumes as she joins them on the floor, hiding from her brothers. Ekko and Wyeth burst into the room.
“What happened?!”
The two are left speechless as they see the broken mirror, blood all over the floor, and a little girl in the center of all of it. Wyeth tells Ekko to go get a broom before he kneels down next to the crying girl amidst the glass shards.
“Hey hey hey, It’s okay. It’s okay. What’s wrong?”
She looks up at him while still crying.
“I-It’s my fault. I-I killed them.”
He reaches his hand over to her shoulder to comfort her again, but he is stopped.
“No! Get away! I’ll just kill you too.”
Wyeth looks at her for a few seconds before standing her up and hugging her, his feet are slashed by the glass as he does so, but it doesn’t matter right now. He rubs her head and back as she cries into his shirt.
“There there, it’s okay.”
Ekko shows up with a broom, but he is left speechless at the scene before him. He drops the broom as he joins the hug, and he also starts bleeding from the glass on the floor as he begins to sob as well. The pensive moment is shortly interrupted by Ekko’s mother, Inna, though.
“What the hell happened here!?”
Wyeth looks up from the kids to see his wife completely stunned. This is the most shocked he’s ever seen her.
“Hey hon, I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
The group hug and sobbing concludes after a few seconds though as Inna ignores the atmosphere and sweeps up the glass around them, and once she’s done with that, she makes them sit on the couch as she starts patching up their wounds too.
“What in the world is wrong with you!? Why would you walk on glass?!”
She grills Ekko and her husband as she plucks out shards from their feet and bandages the cuts, but her tone shifts once she gets to Jinx’s fist and shins.
“And you… Just make sure not to hurt yourself again. I don’t know why you did that, but it’s okay now. We’ll always be happy to help you here.”
Jinx stares at Inna’s while she patches up her hand, and she starts crying again at the kindness being shown to her. This time her tears aren’t out of guilt though. She winces as alcohol causes all of her cuts to burn, but the voices of her dead brothers die down as she breathes slowly and takes in the serene moment while watching the mother wrap bandages around her. Inna's voice cuts through Powder’s newfound tranquility though with a snarky comment.
“...wouldn’t want my boy to lose his girl.”
Powder and Ekko both begin to blush a little after the statement while Wyeth hisses back at her for them.
“Inna! A lot happened! Show some heart!”
“Oh what!? I'm just lightening the mood!”
The married couple starts laughing while they continue to jeer at each other, but the younger one is frozen in embarrassment as they look down at the blank floor, avoiding eye contact with each other. The night has reached its conclusion. After the laughter dies down, Powder is shown to Ekko’s room and lies down on his bed. Ekko has decided to sleep with his parents and let Powder have his room. Wyeth turns off the light in the room and closes the door as he leaves the room.
“Goodnight, Powder. Wake us up if you need anything, we’ll be in the other room.”
Darkness and silence envelop Powder as the door closes, and she curls up in the bed underneath a blanket. Mylo's voice pierces through the void, but it is shortly drowned out as she smells the blanket. Kinda smells like Ekko. She blushes a little, but her mind finally begins to rest as she falls asleep peacefully.