16 - Jinx

I woke up standing. I've never woken up standing.

My head was pounding, my vision was blurred. I had to sit down. I looked around, the only sittable thing was a box, so I sat on that. I kept rubbing my temples until the pain slowly went away.

Before I got the chance to realize where I was, the door opened. At least I now know that I was in a room.

A man walked in. He was older, bigger than the average male. His eyes were deep in his sockets with round glasses sitting on his nose bridge. Eyebrows were thick and short and he had a natural frown, although, it seemed like he was smiling.

I couldn't believe who I was seeing.

"Good morning, little lady!" He said walking in, with boxes in his hands. "Can you take these to your study? I'll grab the heavier suckers." He added, placing the boxes in my hands. I almost dropped them from the shock.

"B- Benzo?"

"Mhm. Oi, old man's always here for ya."

I just stared at him. Eyes stretched to the ceiling.

"What's gotten into ya today?" He asked. "Told ya! You children working too hard." Noticing I still wasn't moving, he added, "Oi, you want me to take those too?" He started to reach for the boxes he just gave me, but I pulled back.

"I got it." I said, quietly, trying to get myself sane enough to speak properly. "Hey, listen, my heads been... kinda wondering around in looney places these days. You think you could remind me where the study was?"

"Oh, you've lost your mind, poor girl! Down the hall and last door to the left. Don't get lost, dear."

I left the moment I had the directions, needing to get out of there to wrap my mind around all this. Benzo's here? Alive? What kind of universe did we go to!? And where is Ekko? 

Turning the knob to the so called "study", I opened the door. Relief went over me at the sight of Ekko pacing around the room.

"Oh good. I was starting to worry the machine sent you somewhere else." I said, noticing his very odd appearance: his hair was different, his clothes all modern looking, no hourglass face paint.

"Powder?" 

"Um. Maybe try Jinx? You'll have a better shot." I replied, irritated. Was he really going to start all this Powder talk now?

He closed his eyes in comfort, placing his hand on his chest to take a deep breath. "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"You thought I was Powder? What does that even mean-" I noticed my reflection in the glass behind him. My jaw dropped. I was unrecognizable. Except my hair, it was blue but...

I started yelling, "Space buns? Really? Out of all the hairstyles-" My own gasp cut off my sentence. The box fell out of my hands. The sound it released from striking the ground was probably loud, but all I heard were muffled noises.

Space buns? I was the space bun girl? All this time I thought he was in love with her, but, turns out she was me?

I stopped myself. Maybe delusions were a side effect of universe travel. I could be anyone, for all I know. I suddenly felt the same pounding in my head from earlier. My hands shot up to my temples.

"You'll feel shit for a little while, but it goes away." I heard Ekko say.

Before I got the chance to speak, the door creaked open. It was Benzo again. 

"Oi! What in the seven sumps is all this racket?" He placed the boxes he was carrying on the ground when Ekko jumped to embrace him.

"What's gotten into him?" Benzo asked me.

"Nothing. Good pals need to... hug time to time, you know?" Ekko covered for me, hesitantly.

"Hah! You're a good man, Ekko. Listen, kids, I've got business to do, you care to join me?"

"Sure, Benzo. You can get a head start, we'll catch up." Ekko patted my shoulder, which felt incredibly unnatural. Was he putting on an act?

"Whatever you say, boy." Benzo said, closing the door behind him. I've never been more confused.

"Ekko, what's going on? How is he..."

He placed his hands on my shoulders to get my full and undivided attention. "I'm not sure how to tell you, but we... nothing's changed since the last time I was here. Everything's the same. In fact, we seem to be reliving the same timeline..." He doze off, thinking.

"Is your tongue tied up? What are you saying? Reliving what timeline?"

He released a sharp exhale in frustration. "Okay. I'll explain later, but we need to go." He let go of me, on his way to the exit but something stopped him. 

"Couple things before we go. Please, don't freak." He looked to me, expecting a reaction of some sort, but I stood still. "You're Powder. You never changed your name in this universe. Vander's here. Silco-" 

"Ugh! Shut up!" I pushed him. Something clicked in me. I haven't heard or said those names in forever. My mind melted in sharp and edgy scribbles. Involuntary voices spoke in my head. Monsters were eating my alive. Instinctively, my fists hit my skull, attempting to silence the eerie voices.  

I thought this part of me was long gone. Turns out all these years weren't enough to get the heebie-jeebies out of me. I have to admit that, as much as this hurt, the familiarity of this feeling was generously comforting.

Ignoring my outburst, Ekko went on. "Silco is here. Mylo, Claggor, everyone." Every name he pronounced felt like a bullet in my chest. The abrupt anger in me wanted to punch him and scream. I wasn't believing a word he was saying, there was absolutely no way that everyone, who I spent my entire life grieving, was alive. He couldn't be serious.

"Tell me you're lying." I said in denial, finally looking up at him. His eyes widened in fear. Or surprise? My judgment was cloudy, I couldn't tell.

"Oh, Jinx. Your eyes..." They must have changed color again, as there was a burning sensation. "You can't go out like this. Try to calm down." I closed my eyes to rub them.

Feeling Ekko's hand on my shoulder, I slapped it off of me. "Don't you dare." I opened my eyes to look at him. "You can't tell me they're all here and expect me to be all normal and nice."

"Believe me, I'm not expecting anything. I felt sick myself when I found out. I just want you to be ready when you see them."

"See them? Oh, I'm not going to see anyone, don't fool yourself."

"Remember why we're here." He said calmly. "If you want to do this job, we have to fit in. There's no other way."

I sighed, diverting my focus to our current mission over past trauma. "So, no one here knows about the arcane and you're sure of this?"

"Hextech was never invented here, so I'm assuming, no." I took a deep breath, opened the door and left the building. He followed. 

He brought me to the place where Silco took Vander that night. The night when everything changed. He reached for the handle.

"We're not going in, are we?" I asked, concerned. Ekko gave me a look that said, trust me.

I didn't expect to see tables inside. And a bar. And I sure didn't expect to find Vander behind it. His hair was grown out with streaks of grey. Deep wrinkles around his grin. He's aged. This was how my father would look like if he had lived. I felt tears build up in my eyes.

"You want to talk to him?" Ekko asked me, but I wasn't really listening. As I blinked the tears away, my feet walked me over to the bar themselves.

"Hey, Powder." The voice was low, somehow warm and stern at the same time. I felt like I was ten again. Going upstairs to ask for a glass of juice, where the same voice would greet me. I suddenly noticed I wasn't breathing. He had a voice. He could talk. He was real.

"H- Hi." I managed to force out, still feeling the pressure in my lungs from the lack of air.

"You're a bit dazed today, you alright?" He asked.

"Told ya! Tell the lady to take it easy. These two never listen to me." Benzo said. I didn't even notice he was there.

"You heard the old man." Vander poured us drinks as he laughed at Benzo's remark. They were both so happy... I've seen more genuine smiles in this universe than I have in the last decade.

Ekko took the drinks. "Thank, Vander. We'll be at that table in the corner." We left the bar side, my eyes still glued to the two men that raised us.

"Aren't you glad I warned you beforehand?" Ekko asked me. Still stunned, I stayed motionless. "Jinx?"

"This is insane." I leaned my elbows on the table we stopped at to lay my head in my hands. My neck was struggling to handle its heaviness. "Everything's so perfect, it's disgusting."

"Tell me about it." Ekko replied, taking a sip of his drink. I closed my eyes, trying to control the dizziness. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through the next hour, let alone the whole day, or week. However long we had to stay here.

"Ah, if it isn't Zaun's royalty." That wasn't Ekko's voice. I raised my head to find the source of the tenor. Mylo. With Claggor, right by his side.

"No freaking way." I mumbled under my breath.

A/N: I inconveniently got sick (sad), and wrote most of this with a pounding headache, so apologies for the typos, I'll fix those up sometime. I kinda just wanted to get this chapter out, the writers block was heaVYY with this one. It just feels so ehhh. Basically a repeat of S2 Ep7 but in Jinx's pov LOL.

I hope the next update will be more exciting! Thanks for reading, as always <3

Word count: 1574