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“Wait, so rewind for me for a sec.” Ekko said, clutching his head while looking around at the various unfamiliar notes and machinery around him. “You're saying I built all this?”
“Ummm… Kinda?” Powder answered, not entirely sure herself. “You really don't remember anything?”
“No, last I remember I was just taking notes in Benzo’s shop.” He said. “A-And What do you mean ‘kinda’?”
“I dunno, I think you were… possessed or something.”
“By what? A ghost?”
“No, at least I don't think so.” She walked over to the platform where… ‘it’ happened. “All I saw was you on this platform surrounded by this weird, glowy, slime lookin shit, and then a bright flash of light, then all of a sudden you were on the floor but also still on the platform.”
“There were two of me?”
“Yesh but he-you-the other you was different.”
“Different how?”
“He was dressed differently, like a scavenger or something, his hair was like a combover with dreads, and he had some white face paint shaped like an hourglass.”
“Oh, God.” Ekko said exasperatedly, plopping his ass down on the platform while clutching his head. “So what was that? Time travel? Alternate realities?”
Powder sat down right next to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I’m just as confused as you are but if anyone can figure it out, it's you.” She says with a smile.
Ekko smiles back while looking at her. “I think you mean ‘us’. Genius and madness, remember?” He responded before leaning in for a kiss, one that she reciprocated.
They eventually let go and just stayed there for a moment, leaning on each other while they took their time to process.
Powder thought about the time she shared with the… other Ekko. It dawned on her, it probably started last week, when he started acting all weird. So all that time building together, their dance, that kiss, it was all with the other Ekko, and she's not sure how to feel about that.
Ekko thought about the time he missed. What the hell happened? Who was in his body while he was gone. Did anything bad happen? Did anything good? How good? Did he do anything to Powder? With Powder? Does that count as cheating? Even if it did, it's not not like she knew it was someone else. Wait, did the other Ekko even count as ‘someone else’?
“My head hurts.” Ekko groaned.
“I think it's best we went home anyway. Who knows what side effects a multiversal freaky friday would have.”
“...maybe we should go to a hospital first.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
It’s the next morning, Ekko’s still alive (thank god), and they’re back at Powder’s lab.
“You mentioned something about time travel, right?” He asked, staring at the chalkboard full of runes, sketches, and equations.
“Something like that. It was a time loop.” Powder responded while cleaning up some of the mess from last night’s chaos.
“Think we can recreate it? The Z-Drive?”
This shocked Powder, enough to make her stop at her tracks. “Why would you wanna do that?”
“C’mon, it's time travel!” He said in excitement. “And we're doing it by combining magic and science! This is two of the biggest scientific breakthroughs since… ever!”
“I think it's best if we leave this behind.” She said nervously.
“What, why? This is huge, Pow-Pow! Think of what we could do if we could go back and fix anything!”
“I am.” Powder responded quietly, looking behind her to Vi’s shrine.
Ekko picked up on this and calmed down. “You’re afraid what might happen if she survived?”
She just stayed quiet, standing still, not really wanting to talk any further.
He sighed. “Yeah, it was a bad idea. I’ll drop it.” He said before picking up an eraser and getting rid of everything on the board. “We should probably get rid of the notes too, just to make sure no one else can mess with time.”
Powder let out a laugh. “Who would be smart enough to do what we did?”
“Uh, Mylo?”
There was a beat of silence before they both burst out laughing.
“God knows the mayhem that would come out of him time traveling.” Powder joked.
“Might as well set the doomsday clock to zero.” Ekko joked back.
They spent the rest of the day like this. Joking and laughing while cleaning up the mess.
After a hectic night, they needed something relaxing.