I DECLARE WAR

crew: jinx. | powder. | sevika. | cait. | zeri. | vi. | felicia.

no rules. i'm.. likely not gonna follow many people. staying low-key.

character info below!

there were barely any pennies to his name. so sometimes, he wondered what he was doing here, hands on the joystick, pretending as if he were really playing. or if it had always been like this. if it had always been the illusion they fed him the day his parents gave him life.

maybe he was tripping.

he was tired as all hell. pure willpower had gas in his legs. he sat behind zeri, tools spread out beside him, working on what was virtually her lifeline – the final adjustments to her unstable backpack.

careful with it. always careful with her.

his fingers worked with precision, checking seams, tightening bolts, smoothing over the parts that could betray her mid-run. he didn’t rush the process. didn’t allow the exhaustion to bleed into the work. beside.. he didn't know the next time they'd be so close.

whatever the game was, however rigged it felt, he could at least make sure her machine ran clean.

his thoughts drifted. his hands did not.

ekko watched from the shadows of a dimly lit street corner, casual in posture if not in thought. patrols of four pigs snorkeled through every shop they could wedge themselves into, bombarding zaunites with inquiries no one could answer. one might imagine the same people they were attempting to apprehend were the very ones who aided them when their leader, caitlyn kiramman, sanctioned a brutal occupation by one of the planet’s fiercest militaries. ekko had long since learned that crimes against humanity were easy to sweep aside when the alternative meant admitting who actually kept the undercity breathing.

nothing had changed. still pushy. still puffed up behind badges and borrowed authority. still believing volume could replace legitimacy.

if they hadn’t found what they wanted, he knew exactly how it would play out. the enforcers would turn the circus into spectacle. the bomb would be in the firelights court now. the options were slim: either play hot potato and hope it detonates in someone else’s hands — or step off the court entirely and let them claim victory over nothing.

ekko faced zeri. the look betrayed him before his mouth did. he was about to do something reckless. the inside voices raised objections — practical — but he stubbornly ignored them. the stench of pig queef and turd was a bit much for him, even for zaun. he wasn’t about to let this spill over and watch them turn this into their playground.

it was ironic... this must be how vander felt, ekko thought.

time to crawl out of the spider hole.

he stepped forward, hands lifting to adjust the mask on her face, movements diligent, careful, and appreciative, as though the last thing he wanted to do in life was to ensure their symbol sat prettily on her beautiful face.

“ i know we were suppose to be celebrating valentines, but—” he sighed. his stomach was too weak for apologies and excuses. they both knew what it was. “ you can hold it down with scar for a little while, sparkplug? ”

yesterday, it was the eyes of a bunch of fatherless bastards that tried to pick on them. tonight, the walls were their targets.

primary green had been the first to bloom, bold and unapologetic—firelight; his luminous mark sinking into the grime like it had been waiting to be activated for the purpose of rebellion all along. but he had never been one to stay married to a single color. he had dropped the can, caught another in mid-fall. blues, reds, pink, and a slash of yellow.

colors had come together in wondrous design, stylized and loud enough to garner both admiration and disdain, depending on who looks upon the finished work. within the invisible borders only he could see. his imagination had run wild, and he had been good with it, good with the rush of it, good with the danger and the rush and the dopamine high. for every time he had committed to his imagination in a place where it was forbidden, he had felt closer to untouchable. closer to the danger, and closer to the thrill of it.

it had been crazy.

but he had been a crazy kid.

he’d be a sorry excuse for a human being if he did not afford himself a great level of adventure every once in a while. he owed it to his childish zeal, a certain amount of excitement that fell into the spirited spell of mortal danger.

and that had been how this blue-brick walled pigsty had become his. he had tagged more than a name, had left a caricature behind, enforcers as snouted tyrants in stained uniforms, cheeks bloated, bellies sagging, devouring shit out of each other's booty holes. satire had been a much cleaner alternative to rocks denting their helms and busting their kneecaps with pipes. satisfied, he had stepped back, head tilted, chest pumping with pride, and looked over to see how powder was faring on her end.

his eyes lingered on sevika a fraction longer than the words required. he wasn't passing judgment. he wasn't holding them under any unwarranted suspicion. it was genuine care. with ekko's rowdy childhood from puberty to adulthood, he saw the highs and lows of many older folk in the community.

the rise.

the fall.

the relapse.

poverty grinding pride and dignity down to atoms. love curdling into something horrible. shimmer seeping through the cracks of grief. he had seen strong backs bend in ways a human body shouldn’t be able to do. it was hard to come back from the hard places.

shadow work was not easy work. surviving zaun meant surviving yourself first. you don't ever clock out from that kind of work. it did not wait at the door. it followed you home. it sat in your chest. it lingered there until something gave.

so when he asked them; “ how are you doing? ” he was not asking for a placeholder answer. he was asking: are you sleeping? do you feel right in your body? are you still white-knuckling it, or did the shimmer find its way back in? are you eating enough to stay upright? are they — piltover — leaning on you harder than they should? are you carrying something you haven’t set down?

every part of him had responded when word began circulating that vi would be fighting. he could have fought himself. he knew the program that produced talented bruisers, that knew how to give and take nasty bruises and split knuckles as well as any of the current combatants. but tonight, he was happy enough to just watch.

this was art.

not the refined sort that would have been on display at some gallery up top. this was a form of how zaun liked to express themselves. slick with sweat and unashamed. love expressed via impact. religion spoken via bone, blood and breath. a reprieve for people who needed something in their veins that still worked.

ekko leaned forward slightly, his eyes on the ring attentively.

vi didn’t waste motion. she’d never been one for flair. ekko observed her cut through the space between her opponent and the center of the ring with an economy of movement that said she’d already measured the angles. her shoulders rolled loose. her jaw was clenched. her eyes — frightening eyes born hell hounds — locked with a great intensity.

the other fighter was good. strong. somewhat disciplined. punching with intent rather than desperation, and allowing their lankier stature lead them to advantages at certain points in the bout. two titans in a ring too small for either of them.

ekko observed the micro-movements. the nimble and sudden weight shifts. the infinitesimal hesitation in vi’s shoulder before she threw the right hook to make a difference in the fight. he’d studied enough fighters to recognize a multitude of patterns. he’d fought enough to know how quickly those patterns unraveled and the fighter were losing themselves.

but he was impressed nonetheless.

there was something holy about watching someone you trusted let go without hesitation. something that felt less like fighting and more like affirmation.

both fighters were reaching for the same thing. dominance. finality. to be the last one standing. to walk away from the battle unchallenged — because in the pits, there are no draws. you're fighting a war that ends their coexistence.

ekko did not cheer at first. he did not need to.

but the corner of his mouth curved slightly when vi slipped a punch by a hair and answered with something impressively crisp and decisive.

" good shit, sis! " he said aloud, punching his fist in the air. he didn't know what she learned in prison — or if it was from her training with scar, but she evolved into a sharper fighter than he remembered. by the looks of her opponent, this was about to be a body bag. but before the fight even began, his heart was already betting on vi.

zaun is not metaphorically dependent on piltover for clean air. it is materially dependent. its an infrastructure defines their quality of life.

the ventilation systems that circulate breathable air through the fissures were engineered topside. the undercity’s survival — against industrial runoff, mining byproducts, factory smog — is structurally tied to piltover’s control.

and then there is the gray.

in convergence and supplemental lore such as arcane, the gray's effects are corrosive, carcinogenic, and cumulative.

in episode three, we see a sketch of human anatomy marked by necrosis — decay spreading across the left side of the face. that is the biological consequences of long-term exposure to it. the gray is not theatrical gas, something inconsequential to the point it can simply be ignored.

when caitlyn uses the kiramman key to reroute the ventilation systems and flood zaun in pursuit of jinx and the chem-barons, it is framed as tactical necessity. a controlled measure, with no consequences to the civilian population. a calculated risk to avoid broader war.

but materially, what occurs is different.

gas spreads.

she redirects a civilian ventilation system — one built to mitigate industrial toxicity — and turns it into a delivery system for hazardous exposure. shutting down breathable air in a city already compromised by industrial smog is not wise. it's not the "safest option". when cait consciously committed to unleashing the gray, it became an unfair collective punishment that damaged the lives of many.

arcane does not hide the cost. we see notes referencing increased coughing. we hear older generations reference the gray as something promised never to be used again. here's a quote from a note left by a zaunite in the jinx mini-game:

HAVE YOU BEEN COUGHING MORE THAN USUAL LATELY? experts warn that this could be due to the chemical warfare deployed by piltover against us. older generations may remember "the gray", a toxic gas topsiders vowed to never use again. it will come as no surprise to our well-read audience: those gold-plated pigs went back on their word.

children are uniquely vulnerable to airborne toxins. smaller lungs. faster respiration rates. higher long-term risk of damage. real-world environmental health data mirrors this reality: particulate matter harms children and the elderly disproportionately.

the shows reflects that truth deliberately, as evidenced in the scene where we see the firelights trafficking in civilians to their hideout in s2. victims of environmental injustice. again, you cannot "target" airborne particulate matter in an open, interconnected ventilation system with perfect containment simply by turning a valve. once the gas is released into a shared atmospheric network, several things occur:

1) diffusion is immediate.

2) the pressure gradients shifts airflow unpredictably.

3) particulate matter disperses based on temp, humidity, and not to forget to mention structural leaks.

4) heavier particles may settle, while lighter ones linger.

5) ventilation cycles recirculate what was meant to be "directed".

even industrial facilities with sealed chambers struggle to localize gas exposure without secondary containment systems. when we look at zaun, we can clearly see that the undercity possess a cavernous ecosystem due to how structurally porous it is among other factors.

now enter ekko.

canonically, his parents work factory labor. his father even requires ocular augmentation due to chemical exposure. in the convergence story, both of his parents health deteriorates to the point of there's a serious conversation they have on forced relocation.

for ekko, the gray is not some academic / armchair theory. it very familiar.

he does not distrust enforcers because of jinx or even silco. the enforcers were a problem before silco's rise.

let me re-emphasize: he grew up in a city where breathing is conditional. where ventilation is not guaranteed but permitted. where chem-barons demand labor in hazardous workplaces that produce toxins and piltover controls mitigation. he understands the dynamics as nothing but leverage that allows no zaunite the mobility to rise above their means, let alone improve their quality of life..

when caitlyn chooses to reactivate the gray to flush out jinx and destabilize chem-barons, despite their personal street wars, ekko would have never cosigned that strategy and lent support.

piltover built the systems.

piltover controls the systems.

piltover determines access to breathable air.

when air becomes leverage, trust inevitably collapses. so, naturally, what comes after is escalation. public unrest.

caitlyn’s stated aim is to prevent large-scale war. that goal is noble on paper. it's a nicely built copium machine for xenopobic/class apologists that pine over lesbian girlbosses that perpetuate systemic harm. the day of ash demonstrated the cost of open conflict. then we later see how pilties face no repercussions for their brutality. jayce killed a child in those mines. no consequences. children and teenagers were recruited into criminal syndicates because those structures were the only ones offering power and a reliable channel to be useful to their families and feed their stomachs.

but dehumanization makes escalation easier; if a place is not humanized, its suffering is easier to justify.

ekko learned early that when a population is considered disposable, order becomes a justification for anything. this is why he does not grant blind faith upon first impressions. this is why he was close to popping cait in her jaw when she naively denied the corruption that was happening in-house and infecting the streets of zaun.

he didn’t come at her neck because he cannot perceive nuance that vi magically was able to see from the cloud of her compromised emotions. he came at her because he understood patterns — cait was telling on herself from their first interaction. ekko might have a list of mental health issues, but that doesn't disqualify him from making good judgment calls and understanding how partnership with an enforcer makes them a liability.

author note: if i hadn't already made it clear by now, the gray is sentient and eldritch.

when we see the effects of the gray, we see that it intentionally/naturally causes necrosis on the human body. lung tissue exposed to corrosive particulate matter scars. prolonged exposure accelerates respiratory illness, ocular damage, and cancer risk.

the visual illustration of decay spreading across a face exists for a reason.

when you grow up inhaling chemical air, watching neighbors normalize chronic coughing, you do not forget the smell.

ekko would not forget.

and he would not ignore a topsider reactivating that memory under the banner of containment and their own brand of "justice". chem-barons are not innocent. we established how they exploit labor. they profit from suffocation — economic and literal. but internal corruption does not erase external domination.

so, from ekko’s perspective: caitlyn may not intend harm. but her intention does not negate the impact. zaun has never had the luxury of assuming good intentions. that is why he is wary. he's rightfully resentful. not only did caitlyn betray his trust, her actions affected people close to him. if your parents' lungs are under threat and face collapse from factory smog and someone who release a menacing lovecraftian gas into "strategic vantagepoints" where they happen to work....

you do not forget that. if the people who control your oxygen do not breathe it themselves, the power imbalance is too great to ignore.

you do not forget. and you do not forgive when someone who was suppose to be different resort to a series of actions that effectively positions them as an oppressor.

he had been through enough fallouts to recognize the symptoms. they made him sick in his own skin, as though his body revolted against the emotions it insisted on carrying around with it at all times.

love was never easy. it never had been.

and when the bullshit slipped in, it felt like people were wired for it — cortisol flaring, adrenaline flooding, words snapping across the air like live rounds instead of good faith conversations. everybody trying to land the last hit, like finishing last meant you somehow won.

when the surge burned out and the room stopped echoing, reflection stepped in. reflection never came with a gentle hand.

nobody wins when family feuds turn into battlefields.

what did he win just now? what ground did he take digging up graves already sealed and settled?

seven years of war. enemies rightfully dead and buried. some in marked graves, others not. so what was he fighting here? what's beef?

maybe it was the times her affection came in hot — too hot — and his nerves read it like a detonator instead of a touch.

maybe it was the way her joy could make something cold stir under his ribs — because somewhere deep in his marrow lived the memory of the explosions. of stray bullets. of friends dropping before they could even register the sound. never to walk again, never to breathe again, never to be seen again.

and always — always — that ugly question he hated himself for keeping alive: what if she sets off another bomb? what if she kills one of us again? what if next time it’s me?

at the back of his mind, the pain never left.

at the back of his heart, neither did the grace he gave her, because there was more to her than her worse days. he knew there was more to her than silco's image.

that contradiction bent him crooked more times than he cared to admit.

right now, he didn’t feel balanced inside himself.

boy savior — that’s what they called him. but in this moment, he felt closer to the villain. not because she dismissed his hurt. that didn't actually happen. not because silco's name didn't still stick to him like shit and gum under the boot. but because he fired off at her like she was the enemy.

and she wasn’t.

he dragged his hand beneath his eyes, smearing the wet hourglass paint until black and white streaked across his fingers like the grief he never fully rinsed away. he stepped toward her. his stride slower this time. no armor was constructed about in his posture, and no angle to seek forgiveness in his gaze.

“ i shouldn’t have popped off like that. I—ugh ” the words came off slightly rough, a sliver of the raw ache that had scorched his throat previously when he had shouted.

“ that wasn’t fair. ” he held her eyes when he said the next part. “ i can’t undo what happened back then. i can’t rewind it or make it different. time wasn't on anybody side back then, I know that. ”

his jaw flexed once before he forced himself to finish it clean. “ but silco still hurts. i’m not healed from that. i dont think too much on it until i do. ” he wasn't trying to justify himself. what matters above all else was the truth.

ekko was off to the side, in the shade of the tree, like he always was when he wanted to catch a quick snooze, undisturbed. he had just finished waking up from a cat nap, and observing everything in his line of vision. arms crossed over his chest. shoulder pressed against the tree. owl mask pushed up just enough for the night air to graze his features and kiss his dark brown skin. from a distance, it might’ve looked like disinterest or self-isolation — like he could careless about the happenings around him, and would rather stay to himself, in his own world, instead of paying attention.

but that wouldn't be factual. he was paying attention.

if his vision wasn't failing him, it appeared that jinx had a little light by the hands — the one with the prosthetic legs ekko built for her last winter. the carbon fiber braces were designed to grow with her. the joints carefully reinforced for running. for jumping. for not having to think about it at all. not the horrific accident that led to it.

the girl’s gait was uncertain at times, like they were now. tentative. testing weight distribution. jinx didn't share her disability, but it looked like she mirrored her just enough to make the correction look intentional. a twirl, kinda cute and comedic, to disguise the stumble. a laugh, maybe, to swallow the imbalance whole.

ekko’s jaw tightened. not from fear. from something heavier.

when the music dipped low and climbed again, jinx looked like she had forgotten the performance. forgot the theatrics. forgot the audience. her shoulders eased. if she was leaning close to the little light and whispered something meant only for her, then he obviously couldn't hear from his position.

ekko didn’t wonder if she missed isa. that was obvious. he wondered if this song and dance pulled her backward.

the prosthetics caught the light when the girl jumped — metal flashing gold for a second before the landing came clean and steady. this time, no hesitation, no fear — an improvement on the mindset ekko knew her to have before. the girl seemed more confident than he remembered.

ekko clapped twice, proud, but the sound was lost in the music and his distance.

ekko’s thumb tapped against his forearm in time with the beat. reluctant? maybe. celebration always felt like borrowed time, and with jinx, would something like this keep her with them?

but his gaze never left them.

“ careful, ” he called, voice low but carrying across, roughened by the mask’s modulator still resting against his throat. he lifted his mask fully off of his face, dangling it at his side as he laughed, voice normal now: “ we just got you runnin'. i'm not ready for you to outdance me, yet. ”

blue bands crowning the tips of his candy-pink twists caught the low light of the room, the color almost theatrical in the dim glow of mismatched bulbs strung lazily across the ceiling.

today, it was the former: love. love spent, love rationed, love laid out like an offering to the altar of the lost and damned.

his heart was the promised land. not perfect. not untouched. but genuine. a place he offered outward to those who needed an embrace from the unending pace of this strenuous race of simply letting live. one love—with him. always. if people gathered close enough, he swore the difference could be seismic.

the guitar rested against his thigh, the wood worn smooth where his hand had learned its habits. one of the tuning pegs had been slipping all week. he tightened it now, fingers moving deliberately, pausing to pluck the strings, tilt his head, and listen intently.

" damn. nah, it's still too sharp. " he muttered to no one, as he loosened it slightly.

it wasn’t an expensive guitar. a faint crack ran along the lower bout, glued once, sanded twice, held together by a great level of patience and skill, as he done this repeatedly as a teenager. his parents weren't much help, so it was up to his own budding ingenuity to figure out what works and what didn't. he liked it that way.

he adjusted the strap, ran his thumb over the fraying edge near the stitching, then leaned forward to retie the loose knot where the cord met the bridge. small maintenance that would make quite a difference in the long run. nothing in his hands ever stayed broken long if he could help it.

as he busied his hands, his mind tracked to the occasion that had brought him here. valentine’s day. it wasn’t some topside holiday to him. it was reclamation. red paper hearts cut crooked and taped to brick walls. chalk drawings bleeding into damp concrete. candles burning fast in their holders. love declared in the only currency zaun ever respected: effort.

he ran his fingers over the strings again. tested a chord. let it hum.

another.

the sound filled the space and it sounded just right.

he didn’t play anything complicated. just something light. something warm. something that settled soft against the ribs instead of rattling them. something that made the room feel less like a hideout and more like a place people could stay awhile.

it stirred butterflies in chests whose hearts had forgotten how to flutter. coaxed roses up through the cracks in uneven streets. turned rust into something almost golden in the right light. made the damp brick seem less like a barricade and more like a backdrop for a garden.

a small grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, subtle, knowing. the inspiration for a new song forms. lyrics were just needed to put from mind to paper.

love didn’t have to be loud to be overwhelming.

and somewhere between the third and fourth progression, he felt it—that shift in the air, that subtle pressure like the room itself had leaned closer to wrap around him.

he didn’t turn immediately.

just kept playing.

“ i can hear you creepin’, sasquatch, ” he said, snickering under the soft sounds of the untitled melody, his fingers never missing their place along the strings.

“ your feet too big to be doin’ all that. ”

he let the next chord linger a second longer than necessary, grin spreading gradually and unbothered.

his nose hitched when the smell hit—fresh urine layered over dried blood, baked into the concrete like history nobody bothered to scrub away. he kept his balance by habit more than effort, his boots sliding just enough as he pushed through sewer fog thick with things better left unnamed. fecal particles. slabs of rotten skin. funky heat that clung to the clothes. he stepped carefully around sleeping vagrants along the strip, bodies folded into doorways and shadows in an attempt to generate warmth.

the path led him toward vander’s old bar.

the last drop had outlived more regimes than most people. violent ones. sloppy ones. hopeful ones that died young. its purpose had been repurposed more times than ekko could count—sometimes for worse. lately, for better. nowadays, it was part of the community in a way that felt… earned. fragile. defended.

he didn’t know if this stigma was buried in the consciousness of other parts of the world, but he’d heard the way people talked about zaun when they thought nobody from it was listening. badlands. wasteland. graveyard. trash heap. no man’s land. eccentric boogeyman tales meant to strip the people here of their names before anybody bothered to strip their lives.

ekko had learned young that if a place wasn’t humanized, it was easier to justify bleeding it dry.

and somewhere beneath all of that—beneath the decay, the rumors, the repurposed ruins—someone like jinx could go missing without ever really leaving. living underground. making deals. relying on tight circles that knew better than to ask questions out loud.

he adjusted his pace, senses sharpening out of instinct rather than paranoia. fingers tugged once at the collar of his graffiti-scored army-green jacket, though the owl mask already did most of the talking for him. he eased down near the sleeping bodies clustered at the foot of the last drop’s entrance, folding into shadow without disrupting anyone’s hard-won rest.

zaun always announced its ghosts before they appeared. he waited patient, uncertain if she would come or not.

our small owl finished tightening a bent copper spring into place, his little fingers smudged with grease and graphite. the thing in his hands wasn’t a bomb, wasn’t anything meant to explode—just a wind-up toy he’d cobbled together from a busted pocket watch, some wire, and two mismatched gears he’d pulled from benzo’s junk bins. when he twisted the key, the wonky metal monkey jerked forward on uneven tin feet, cymbals clacking together with far more enthusiasm than rhythm. it leaned to the left when it walked, like it had a busted knee.

ekko thought that was a feature.

“ i don’t think milo can have a single thought without feelin’ his ass itch, ”

the words came out with a snicker, shoulders bouncing just a little. he glanced up at powder, grin crooked and unapologetic, hoping the small joke could elicit a positive reaction out of her, before setting the toy down between them.

the monkey stuttered forward. clack-clack-clack. stubborn as hell despite how clearly it wasn’t designed right.

“ ignore that geek! what do he know? ”

when the toy snagged on a crack in the floor, ekko nudged it gently, coaxing it back into motion instead of fixing the flaw outright. it felt important, somehow, to let it keep going even when it wobbled.