Chapter Text
“Jinx?”
“No, sorry, um, my name’s Pow–uhhhh Powner…son. Violet Pownerson.”
Wait, Vi exists in this universe too, shit. She could feel herself wince at the realization. Oh well, too late now. Who’s this Jinx chick though? And this person looks… familiar. She definitely doesn’t remember the arm though.
“That’s not funny. We thought you were dead for TWO YEARS and you’re just going to waltz back in like nothing happened?! Sneaking around my–” This weird version of someone she used to know gave her a weird look. “Your eyes… what- the shimmer? It’s gone? But how-”
Okay now there were too many questions. This person seemed so sure that she was Jinx. Ekko did say that in his dream she was ‘a different person,’ but… Dead?? She thought Ekko would have mentioned something about that. I mean yeah, he was terrified, and this person doesn’t seem afraid, so it could have been because she died, but nothing he said or did hinted to that. But the device they made before also manipulated time, so who knows how long it’s been since Ekko got back? Wait.
What if Vi wasn’t here anymore. What if… What if this version of her actually killed Her sister as well? Ekko thought it could happen.
No, she’s not going to panic over that yet. There’s so many things she could find out before she panics from asking this person. I mean, she probably already knows that her name clearly isn’t Violet Pownerson. Of course, she’s super pissed right now, buuut she seemed almost glad to see her at least. She didn’t even know they COULD be glad, she was always all business. Especially not over Powder.
“Hey, Sevika, I’m sorry it’s been so long, but uh, I'm Powder. I have another question, but what the hell happened to your arm? I mean it looks badass, but I don’t remember… that,” she said, gesturing to the metal bitey thing that lived where an arm used to. She was reeeeally hoping she wouldn’t mess things up or piss her off too much if she said something wrong.
“You’re going back to that, huh? Good, I hated that name. And what do you expect when the psychopath who built it just vanished off the face of the earth and let everyone think she was dead? It’s not like anyone else knew how the hell you built this thing. And hey, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a city to run now that you fucked off! Yeah it’s a little rusty and dented, look at where we live!” She huffed before eyeing Powder again. “You… actually look… normal? What happened to all that color you used to wear?”
Hang on, this Jinx person, or in other words, the other version of her built that thing? Now that she thought about it, it looked weirdly similar to Vi’s favorite arcade game, that punchy thing. Also, why didn’t she just get a new arm if no one else could fix it? Also, Sevika of all people ran the undercity now?
As she was still staring at the arm, trying to figure it out before she even processed Sevika’s last sentence, she heard another slight gasp before it all went to shit.
She let out a small scream as she was suddenly shoved against the wall, a snarling Sevika in her face with a metal mouth ready to bite not far behind.
“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? Your tattoos are GONE! The shimmer maybe, but you can’t get rid of those too! Your impression was already lacking, clearly you didn’t study up on her quite enough. Who are you with? The black rose? Other mages?”
Desperate, she pleaded, “NO, no no no, listen I’m Powder, I swear, I just- where’s Ekko? Please, he’ll understand. I swear I’m not a mage or anything, just-”
She was quickly pulled off the wall right before slamming into it again. Her mind spun as her head bounced off the wall and her injured arm sent yet another jolt of pain through her body, her breath halting at it for a moment.
“You listen to me,” Sevika sneered as she leaned in closer, “I wasn’t that close, but we’ve heard of shapeshifters before. You show me who you are and maybe I’ll let you die quickly.”
Powder pulled her head to the side, trying to get as far away as she could from that massive metal jaw, trying to think of how to survive this. Like she thought, Sevika was all business, and her business was to keep people in line.
“Wait, please,” she whimpered, a tear escaping from her closed eyes. “I’m Powder. I’m Powder. Ekko knows. He’ll know who I am.”
Sevika pondered her for a moment, and Powder could sense that the metal ticket to her death had dropped a millimeter. She opened her eyes, hoping that Sevika would at least hear her out. But then that thing rose again and her hope was snuffed out.
“Yeah, right. I gotta say, you’ve got the Powder impression down pretty well, but that was a long time ago. You’re just trying to stall so you have time to save your own skin. Too bad. We just rebuilt this place and we’re gonna have to clean up already.”
Everything slowed down. This was it. That arm was pulling back to kill her. She left everyone behind just to face a gruesome death here. They’d never know what happened to her. Why didn’t she think about this before? Clearly Ekko came from a more violent world with how afraid and on edge he always was. She should have known. Her family had already suffered enough with Vi, and now they were going to go through it again. She knows they’d learn how to cope without her, even if they always questioned it, she left knowing that. But that was when she knew she’d be going back.
She heard another door open. The movement above her stopped, and she opened a singular eye to see what was going on. She felt herself let out a shaky gasp. There’s no way he had such perfect timing.
“Powder? What- Sevika, let her go, it’s okay!” Her savior shouted.
“Ekko, this isn't her! She’s gone, you know that as well as I do. Look at her! The tattoos, her eyes- it’s all gone!” she snarled as she turned back to Powder, that thing still hovering above her.
“Ekko, please…” she whimpered, feeling more tears fall down her cheeks in fear, relief, anxiety, pain as her arm was still shoved into an awkward position against the wall.
“No, Sevika, I know, just,” he sighed, clearly overwhelmed from the shit storm he walked into. He looked over at Powder, aching at the unbridled fear and hope and pain on her face. Then he caught Sevika’s gaze again. “Please just trust me. I’ll explain later, I know it’s not who you were expecting, but she’s not lying.”
She scoffed, before going back to study Powder and her pleading eyes. Her face changed slightly as she considered her, and a moment later, her grip relaxed, just a touch. “You… aren’t Jinx, are you?”
Powder shook her head, the slight movement making her wince as her shoulder muscles tightened.
“You’re really Powder?”
This time she nodded, ever so slightly. “I am.”
There was a pause, a sigh, and then Powder was released, slumping against the wall as she went to hold her shoulder, as well as to recover from what just happened. “Seen weird enough things already, I guess.” She heard Sevika say.
She heard quick movement, jumping violently as a hand landed on her uninjured shoulder. She let out a gasp of pain as, once again, her shoulder decided to revolt. That thing was really getting annoying.
“Powder what the hell happened to your arm, how are you even here? Are you okay?” He showered her with questions as he dropped to kneel next to her.
“Jeez, just give me a sec, man. So pushy.” She laughed, taking a second to look up at his face, full of worry and curiosity. Not that that was super new, but it was new for it to be directed at her.
Then another voice cut in again. “Just, tell me one thing, kid. Do you… remember Isha?” Well, another new thing was the tinge of sadness in Sevika’s voice.
Powder shook her head. “No.”
Sevika nodded. Her body was sideways to them now, but Powder could still see the way her stature had drooped a little at the new topic. “That’s probably for the better, honestly. She was destroyed. Just… be careful, okay? Even if you aren’t really Jinx, everyone will recognize you. Fans, the people she saved in that battle… the people whose families she killed. Just lay low, alright?”
“Ok…” Powder said, her eyes wide. She suppressed a shudder. She knew the other Powder- or, Jinx, she supposed- must have done a lot of bad, but how many people did she kill?
“Sevika, don’t tell anyone yet, okay? We need to figure this out first.” Ekko called after Sevika, only getting a nod in response as the brawler, and apparently now leader, turned completely away from them.
She watched Sevika walk down the hall, waiting for the door to shut before she turned back to Ekko. She watched him study her for a moment, his face still full of confusion and something almost like happiness. She shot him a small smile, so grateful that he was here, that he had recognized her so quickly.
Suddenly he looked down and that expression shifted back to worry. “Powder, your arm. We need to take care of that. The doctor here is out right now, but I can take care of it, I’ve done it countless times. Can you get up?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m fine, it’s just- Shit!” She yelled as she tried to get up, accidentally jostling the pissed off arm as she tried to rise before sinking back down.
“Hey, go slow, all right? That looks bad. What happened?” Ekko offered a hand, slowly guiding her back up and down the hall to what was apparently his workroom within the building. As they walked, she told him about how she had rebuilt the machine (more solid, she didn’t need any panels flying off like before), and she had jumped into what was supposed to be a ventilation shaft WITH A FAN.
Ekko winced, getting where her story was going. “Yeahh, that’s kinda my fault. How did you survive that?”
Powder attempted to shrug, wincing again in the process. She noticed hands backing away again as she recovered. “I grabbed a ledge when I fell, nearly tore my damn arm off, but hey, I’m alive. What do you mean it was your fault? It was still there when you got back?”
“Uh, yeah, so we kinda used it to build a war balloon?” He responded with a hesitant face, knowing that the sentence was rather outlandish.
“A WAR BALLOON? What the hell did you need a war balloon for? Who would help you with something like that?”
“Well, you did. Or, Jinx did. After… well we had a uh- a talk.” He looked down as he said it, sadness and conflict in his face. He shook his head after a moment, then turned to the door they had stopped in front of to open it. “I’ll tell you everything after we get that arm fixed, but this is me. It’s uh, a little disorganized, but I’m not really here all the time, just when the undercity council needs help with something.”
As the door opened she could see a few knickknacks and machine parts scattered, as well as- “Is that.. That looks just like my record player. Or you know, it did before you geniuses used it for your machine.”
Once again, his sad smile came back. “Yeah that’s uh, it was Jinx’s. It got a little busted when the balloon crashed, but I fixed it the best I could. You should sit down, I need to look at that shoulder.”
“Yeah, it definitely sounds like you have a lot to tell me.” She carefully slipped off her usual vest, letting it slide down her injured arm as she sat on the bench within the room. She slid the top of her sleeveless shirt up some more to let him take a better look at the joint. As she did she heard a hiss and looked up to see a sympathy wince.
“That looks bad, but it’s probably just dislocated. Why didn’t you just pop it back in before you walked all the way back up here?”
“What, like you think I remember how to do that?” She let out a quick laugh. “I’d only seen Vi do it a couple of times, and we stopped going on jobs after, you know…” She trailed off, suddenly remembering the main reason she came here in the first place.
“Oh, right. I forgot that’s probably not normal anymore there, is it?” He reached for her arm, clearly trying to keep up the conversation as a distraction.
She shook her head, dwelling on how much this was probably going to hurt instead of properly responding. He clearly noticed the apprehension on her face as he reached a hand up to her cheek in an effort to calm her.
“Hey, it’ll only last for a second, okay?” Shocked at the physical comfort, she nodded, then turned her head away and braced in preparation. Then there was a massive yank on her arm.
“FUCK!” she panted for a moment, before turning back to him. “No warning, really?” She took her arm back, moving it around for just a second. It still hurt like a bitch, but definitely better than it had been.
“Hey I was holding it, that was a warning” He chuckled for a second. “Better?”
“Yeah, I guess, still hurts though.” She looked up as he nodded, and after taking a moment to study him, see just how different this Ekko was in his smallest movements, in the way he carried himself. “So what, you help lead Zaun now?” She reached out to grab her vest, needing that extra layer to comfort herself in a very unfamiliar world.
He let out a sharp exhale, nearly a laugh, saying “Hell no. I tried that before. Took in people who were hurt by shimmer, Silco’s gang, and… Like I said before, I lost myself, lost my vision. I want to help people, and I have a better way of doing that now. I make things, try to make things easier and more liveable for everyone down here. Sevika gave me an office here so I could have a space in the middle of it all, but also because people still come to me sometimes. Scar is her right hand, just like he was to me, and they trust him, but it helps to have another face around that wasn’t part of Silco’s regime.”
She nodded at first, not understanding most of what he was saying. She had so many questions. After thinking for a minute, she let out a laugh, shaking her head to herself while still cradling her aching arm.
“What’s so funny?” He asked with a smile on his face.
“From my universe to this one you’re still the same. Inventing things to help the people. Hell, you even fixed my arm. The boy savior.” She looked back at him with a smile, not expecting the stricken look. “Ekko? What’s wrong?” She stood up to fully face him again, reaching a hand to his arm.
He cleared his throat before saying, “Um, it’s nothing, just, Jinx.. She said that to me once…” He trailed off, caught in a memory Powder had no awareness of. He looked back up to a concerned face. “I haven’t said it yet, but I’m so glad you’re here, Powder,” he said as he rushed forward to hug her, carefully avoiding her arm.
She briefly stumbled with the unexpected reaction. “I was beginning to get worried there. I thought you’d hate me or something.” She said it jokingly, but the memory of his initial fear when he showed up in her universe that day was playing in the back of her mind.
He pulled back to look at her, noticing the hesitance in her voice that still showed on her face. “Never. Never again, Powder. I’ve missed you so much.”