"Oh no"
PART 1
EKKO
"Well, that was certainly something," Mylo muttered, not knowing what to say to end the awkward silence in the room.
"I don't understand," Vander said, rubbing his face with his hands. "What happened to her? Powder isn't capable of hurting anyone."
Ekko sighed as he leaned back on the couch. "Look, things happened, nothing justifies what she did or will do but she... She didn't have a good time."
"But where am I? Why am I not with her?" asked the teenage Vi, looking at the adult Vi.
The adult Vi looked at her, hesitating whether to answer the question, but in the end decided that maybe it would be best to give them some answers. "We're in Stillwater."
"What?" Powder asked in a trembling voice, hugging her older sister tighter.
The teenage Vi looked at her counterpart, unable to answer from the shock. That meant that Jinx or well, Powder had been alone for who knows how long. His little sister had to live alone and fend for herself, her family was dead or in jail or whatever happened to Ekko. Oh, little Pow.
"Why were you there?" Vander asked worriedly.
"I think I'll tell you guys when things calm down a bit more," said adult Vi, subtly pointing at Powder who was sobbing softly.
Vander nodded, putting his hand on Powder's back, trying to calm her down.
The projector lit up the room again this time with colorful, irregular words.
"The following scene contains highly sensitive content for minors. We try to censor as much as possible, but if you want, you can cover your eyes, thank you."
"What?" asked little Ekko. "What does that mean?"
"We just saw people die, is there more sensitive content than that?" Claggor asked confused.
Ekko didn't know why but he didn't have a good feeling about this.
The projection of the 2nd scene began showing how the rain fell on Zaun, the deteriorated buildings were illuminated by neon signs, there were few people on the street, it was clearly visible that it was night. There were addicts hiding in the alleys getting wet with their shimmer syringe hanging from their arm.
"What happened?" Benzo asked, looking sadly at his city.
"The Shimmer contaminated everything even more," Ekko said in a bitter tone. Seeing Zaun like that was always painful.
The scene moved to a hooded figure entering a room in the abandoned buildings, his face could not be seen but he could be seen rummaging through drawers throwing the few clothes on the floor, hi grabbed the slightly torn sheets from the rickety bed there and stuffed them into the brown leather backpack he had on his shoulder.
Wait, Ekko thought, he knew that place, that was the place where...
"Oh, no." Ekko whispered as he realized what was happening. Please Janna, he thought, almost on the verge of dropping to his knees and praying.
Adult Vi turned to see Ekko upon hearing his whisper and saw him pale and scared. "Ekko are you okay?"
Adult Vi's question made everyone present turn to look at Ekko who was not looking at anyone.
"Yeah, l-let's just watch the scene." He said, stuttering from his nerves.
Everyone looked at him one last time, surprised, but decided to let him pass.
In the room there was a window that was wide open, letting in the freezing wind and wetting the creaking wooden floor. Another hooded figure came through the window, but it was smaller than the first. The person who was rummaging through the room quickly grabbed the second figure and slammed hard against the wall, pressing his gloved hand against the small figure's pale neck.
"Choke me harder." The second figure said, dropping her hood, revealing the blue hair now tied into two pigtails of a 16-year-old Jinx.
Ekko blushed completely when he heard Jinx's words in the projection, oh god, someone kill him now.
"Ekko." Adult Vi said, looking at the scene in surprise. "You didn't tell me anything about this."
Ekko didn't answer him, he simply looked away.
"Why would she want to be choked?" little Ekko asked, making the adults in the room nervous, not knowing what to say to him.
The first hooded figure released her, removing his hood, revealing a 17-year-old Ekko. "Oh, it's you."
"What do you mean, it's me? I'm not threatening?" Jinx asked, complaining about his lack of fear towards her, she looked at Ekko with a frown.
"This is what you always look like when you get angry, Pow." Teenage Vi said jokingly to her.
"Pigtails look nice on you, PowPow," little Ekko said shyly.
"Thanks, tuff tuff." Powder replied, blushing.
"You can scare everyone but not me." Ekko said, walking away from Jinx who was looking at him angrily. He turned his back and crouched on the floor, rummaging through the drawers again.
Jinx removed the cloak that covered her revealing a pair of short violet and black shorts, a small t-shirt reaching above her waist, her left leg had a fishnet stocking while the other had a silver metal knee pad with a smiley face on it, on her feet she wore worn leather boots with small heels. Her pigtails reached down to her thighs and were decorated with small pieces of metal and braids. Her hair moved softly as she approached with silent steps to Ekko who still had his back to her.
"Those clothes are too revealing," Vander said. "You're not wearing those, Powder."
Powder simply frowned in annoyance at what he had said.
Too revealing, Ekko thought, that was one of the least revealing outfits he had ever seen Jinx wear.
Pale hands with long, colorful nails touched Ekko's back, startling him. "I scared you." Jinx whispered in his ear causing Ekko to freeze at her touch, she crouched behind him with her hands running around the boy's neck.
Ekko shuddered softly as he remembered Jinx's nails scraping against his skin, he remembered looking at those marks so many times never wanting them to go away.
Adult Vi looked at Ekko for a moment, puzzled by what she was seeing. Those people in the projection didn't seem like friends or even enemies. They seemed like... lovers.
Ekko closed his eyes for a moment allowing himself to relax into Jinx's touch. Pale hands ran over Ekko's chest, unbuttoning his cloak and gently removing it. A large hand stopped the smaller one. "what are you doing?"
Jinx's hands stilled and she gently released Ekko's grip. "I wanted to apologize." She whispered shyly.
Ekko turned to look at her in disbelief. "You? Are you going to apologize?"
"Yeah, why is that so hard to believe?" Jinx asked, waving her arms in complaint.
"You never apologize," Ekko replied, getting up from the floor to walk to the other side of the room.
"And how do you know that, huh? You don't know anything." Jinx said pouting, crossing her arms.
"She's still pouting." Adult Vi said, looking sweetly at her sister in the projection. She looked so young, different from the Jinx from the previous scene but at the same time so similar.
"How old were you back then?" Benzo asked, seeing how young they looked.
Ekko sighed, trying to shake off his nerves. "She was 16 and I was 17."
"And how old are you now?" Vander asked, his heart aching at the sight of his youngest children so grown up but so damaged.
"I'm 21, Jinx must be 20." Ekko replied.
So young, he thought, so broken.
"You're right, I don't know anything because you pushed me away." Ekko said in a more annoyed tone, dropping the brown leather backpack on the ground with a soft thud.
"Just... Shut up." Jinx said, waving her hands to silence Ekko. "That's why I came to apologize."
"Two years later you come to apologize." Ekko said, crossing his arms, causing his brown long-sleeved shirt to fit snugly around his biceps.
"I tried to apologize weeks later but I couldn't find you anywhere and if I did you were there with your group of bugs and you didn't pay attention to me." Said the blue haired girl with a sad look.
"What did she have to apologize for?" little Ekko asked curiously.
"I tried to help her and she screamed at me and hit me," Ekko explained vaguely, there was a lot more behind but it was too much.
Everyone present looked at Ekko with concern, how had those two children come to this?
"Obviously I wasn't going to pay attention to you Jinx, you were shooting at us." Ekko said exasperatedly as he shook his head.
Jinx looked at him with a pout as she gently moved her body back and forth. "In my defense, I never shot you."
Adult Vi had a hard time seeing her little sister behave so shy and adorable compared to the previous Jinx who was so wild and out of control.
"Oh, good thing you didn't shoot me," Ekko said sarcastically.
"Hey! Something's something." Jinx said as she approached him, sitting down on the rickety bed making the springs creak. "Listen, I didn't mean to hit you or yell at you. You don't deserve that, little man."
Ekko stared at her hard for a moment before his gaze softened, he sat down next to her on the bed.
Jinx ran her hands over her bare legs that were cold to the touch. "I... I'm not okay, Ekko. You've probably noticed that." She laughed bitterly.
"What happened, Pow?" Ekko asked, watching as Jinx flinched at the nickname.
Vander felt his chest ache at seeing his little daughter like that, seeing her admit that she was not okay. Who had hurt his little girl?
"As long as I can remember I have these... these scribbles in my head. I know they are hallucinations, I'm not stupid. I told Vi and she told me it was nothing so I just ignored it I guess." Jinx said playing with her hands. "My head... It's a mess and I can't fix it, I don't know how. Everything got worse since the... Incident, but these flashes, these hallucinations were already there when everything was 'okay'."
Teenage Vi looked worriedly at Powder in her arms after hearing Jinx's words. "Pow, you... you see things we don't?"
Powder didn't answer her, simply hiding her face in the teenage Vi's chest.
Adult Vi felt useless, so dumb and stupid. Powder/Jinx had told her that once but she, like an idiot, ignored it.
"There were times when I had to hit my head to get them to stop," Jinx said, her voice shaking.
Ekko looked at her, wanting to hug her, to comfort her in his arms like when they were children, but he didn't know if he had the right to do so after so much time. "Why didn't you ever tell me? Why didn't you tell Vander if Vi didn't hear you?"
Jinx shook her head causing her two pigtails to sway gently. "I didn't want you to push me away, I was afraid that if I told you, you would see how bad I was and you would be scared of me."
Little Ekko looked sadly at his blue friend, he would never have been afraid of her, he would have helped her at all times, he would have found a way to make life easier for her. He... Would be able to make a tree grow from the dry, abandoned land of Zaun for her.
Ekko moved closer to her, taking her hand in his, noticing the difference in size. "I would never be scared of you, you fool. I... I would do anything for you, THAT scares me."
"How romantic, little man." Mylo said, teasing him.
Ekko blushed seeing his feelings revealed to everyone, he knew that his family probably already knew that he loved Powder since he was a child but knowing was one thing, seeing was another.
Jinx looked at him with those bright blue eyes overflowing with tears, her free hand went up to Ekko's cheek, caressing him. The boy's face rested gently on the soft, cold hand.
"You were always a romantic." Jinx whispered, looking at him with such sweet eyes, her gaze with dilated pupils overflowing with tenderness.
Everyone present remained silent, not wanting to interrupt the sweet moment between the two teenagers.
Ekko laughed softly as his cheeks blushed. Jinx smiled softly at him and brought her face closer to his, their lips touched but did not meet, they simply looked into each other's eyes. Blue and brown facing each other in a soft way.