27 - Powder

If he wants to talk to that ginger leprechaun more than me, sure. He can do whatever he wants. I thought, storming off. The one day we decided to take a break, my first day as Powder, he felt Heimer-something was more important.

And, of course, I went back to Vander's. 

"You're back already? Where's Ekko?" Vander asked me as I sat on a stool, pouting.

"My perfect boyfriend found some other scientist to talk to." My index finger played with the coaster in front of me, swaying it in circles.

"Oh sweetheart, cut him some slack. He's a busy man."

I continued playing with the coaster. Without looking at Vander's expression, I heard him sigh.

"Why are you pouting?" He asked.

"It's like he left me on purpose."

"Left you?" He shook his head. "Come on, Powder. You think the purpose was to hurt you? It's Ekko. He'd never think anything like it."

Hah. I hated admitting it to myself but he was right. Perhaps I did overreact. I mean, is it really a big deal? It's not like he abandoned or betrayed me. He just went to socialize for a few hours, and he'll be back in no time.

I sighed, feeling calmer. I let the tranquility dissolve all the tense emotions that were squeezing my nerves. It all dwindled away so easily that even I was surprised. Is this how it feels to "let go"?

"Okay, Vander, I'll be back later." I said, leaving. He gave me a wave goodbye.

I walked through the streets, feeling my heels whining from all the dancing we did last night. Every step reminded me of the magical moments Ekko and I shared. Memories to last a lifetime.

Eventually, I arrived at the mine shaft again. My boots clicked over the metal blades, sending echoes in the space. This sound was always my greatest comfort.

Without any objective for being here, I looked around. Vi's memorial, the part of the fencing I broke, the round table in the middle. I walked up to it, moving all my blueprints aside to observe what's under them. More blueprints, but they were not mine. I don't know why I never looked at them before.

A diagram of a semi-circle caught my attention. There were plenty of labeled measurements, thousands of notes in the margins. Cool.

I didn't feel like reading them, so my eyes wandered to the stuffed animal on the edge of the desk. A bunny, its long ears down, staring into blankness with its solid, round eyes. I picked it up to move it out of the way, finding a sticky note at the bottom. "I ♡ U", it said.

I chuckled to myself at the adorable message. The writing kind of looked like mine, although, I would never come close to writing anything intimate of sorts. It was the other Powder.

Placing the bunny back on the sticky note, I sat back on a nearby chair. The only chair. Fair enough. I never liked sitting on one anyway. The floor was much more comfortable.

I spined on it, anchoring my legs to the floor, when, suddenly, the spinning stopped. My eyes were hooked on a drawer right below Vi's memorial. It was the label that caught my attention: VI

It was a faint engravement on a slab of metal, looking almost like a decoration. Perhaps that's why I haven't noticed it before. 

I breathed in deep, feeling a longing for my sister. The blues came over me as childhood memories nagged at my heart. Even with our family ripped apart then, we found a new one. All together we build a new home. And... I destroyed it.

Walking up to the drawer, I hesitated to pull at it, unsure if I wanted to revisit a past that pained me so badly. Despite the delay, I placed my hand on the drawer's edge and pulled.

The sound of friction, wood pulling against wood, did a poor job of distracting me. There was something comforting yet something so unsettling about the dull sound that I briefly thought about pushing the drawer closed. But before I could begin choosing my next move, my senses worked against me.

The sight sent a thrilling, lingering shock through my nerves. I waited for it to go away but it didn't. My eyes glued to the gleaming, blue contents of the drawer — arcane crystals.

__

I don't know how long I spent with my hand on the open drawer. Whether it was minutes or hours, I couldn't tell.

Frozen all this time, I ignored the stiffness of my body. My muscles went cold, from the lack of movement.

A handful of crystals right in front of me. What do I do with them? What do I do knowing of them?

Ekko was sure nobody knew about the crystals in this universe. He was wrong: the other Powder knew. And she probably wasn't the only one.

Hextech doesn't exist in this universe... yet. What if it will be invented later in the future? If someone finds these crystals, the invention would be inevitable. 

Besides all that, there was one revelation bright as a cosmic star: our plan to hide the gemstones here expired the moment I pulled open that drawer. We've been wasting our time.

As I stood still, a vague misery hovered over me. Maybe we were wasting our time from the very start. Maybe in every universe the crystals exist, Hextech creeping up on every person who discovers them. And maybe this means they can't be destroyed at all; that they are vital part in humanity's progression and inescapable self-destruction. 

It is wired in us to obliterate each other with war and pursue perfection of nature, both leading to the end of our life. It will happen with or without the arcane. We will find a way. I know. I've seen how reckless and selfless people can be to reach goals from the ambitious criminals in Bilgewater. I saw the trait in Sarah too. Even her kind soul can't escape the brutality of human nature.

There was no running away from this. Destroying the gemstones won't stop deaths of loved ones. It won't stop creations of powerful weapons. It's us that's the problem. The arcane was just a tool to accelerate this.

My eager want to get rid of the gemstones was an illusion. Getting rid of them won't change a single thing...

I heard footsteps, quick ones, getting louder and seeming closer with each step. I quickly pressed the drawer opposite of me, closing it. I turned around, finding Ekko running towards me. A subtle rush of oxytocin numbed the big realizations in my head from the sight of him, but he didn't look relieved at all. "Ekko?" I asked, meaning to ask what was wrong.

"You need- need to come with me." He said, mid breath. He didn't have to say it twice.

__

"It was the Heimerdinger." He said, as if almost thinking to himself. We were speed walking to a destination unknown to me.

"I can't read your mind, telepath. Elaborate." I demanded.

"He did it. He built the collider." I raised an eyebrow, not understanding why he was so amazed by this. It was cool news, maybe even good news, but was it worth running all the way here to tell me that? What's the rush?

"So you're taking me to the collider?" I guessed. He gave me a positive response.

"We're almost there."

As we neared the tunnel, Ekko suddenly stopped me. "I want you to show him the gemstones."

My eyeballs were about to pop out of my sockets.

"What the- Are you out of your mind!?"

"Trust me." He placed his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. "This is our chance to make things right."

As he said those words, the realization from earlier towered on me. The hopelessness spread like a plague. Ekko must have noticed the change since he placed a quick kiss on my cheek. As he had probably planned, it made me feel slightly better.

A quick flick of his wrist opened the underground door. The yordle was standing right at the front, waiting for our arrival. I felt nauseous from the continuous peculiarity of this creature.

"How wonderful to reconvene so shorty after our farewells," He said, the pitch of his voice being even higher than I remembered from our last conversation.

"You seem quite startled, Miss Powder... Unless you prefer to go by the name you've acquired from your original world. Jinx, was it?"

I sent an immediate, jarring stare at Ekko. "You told him!?"

"Oh, it is not a mistake to undermine the boy for," the yordle answered for Ekko, "I gained this knowledge from my own endeavors. You see, I've traveled multiple universes meeting the Jinx persona of yours in quite a few of them."

What in the bonkers is this carrot top talking about? I thought, for a split second, wondering if this was just a bad dream.

"What? You met me in... other universes?"

"Indeed. And I must add, there is no world where the two of you are apart."

Ekko gently took hold of my hand, fitting his fingers between mine, proving the professor's point. Despite the comfort I felt from Ekko's presence and how desperately I wanted to melt in his arms, I had to focus.

"And you must also add," I started, mocking the yordle, "why you are sharing what hasn't been asked?" I was getting irritated with the mystery.

He frowned before speaking. "Because, my dear, that means I must work with both of you."

A/N: Hi friends, forgive me for the slow updates, I've been a busy bee buzzzz buzz but things are slowing down so hopefully more frequent updates!

Heimer is so scary right now LOL but it's fun to write about him like this idk :PP

See ya soon!

Word count: 1556