Ill Omen's Light (Lux/Jinx)

Chapter 23: Game On

The dropboard hummed and trembled beneath his feet as Ekko brought it down to ground level of the junkyard and stepped off. A quick kick sent it to his hand, and he slung it with ease over his shoulder, barely breaking stride.

By now it was muscle–memory. His freed hand going to his chest, though, rubbing the fresh scars...that was new.

They were a stark reminder of all–too–recent events, of his world turning upside–down again.

Jinx.

It was always her, wasn't it? Like a bolt coming loose in an engine. A spark igniting a gas leak. Every time she showed up, things would suddenly, erratically change.

It wasn't always her fault. That was something he'd come to see. But, like some harbinger, she would always be there, just before the breaking of the storm. And always right in the middle of it.

Ekko rubbed his chest again.

If Jinx had it right, the monster's appearance in the Sump and its first few kills must have immediately followed its escape from the Mad Chemist's lab. That poor babbling chem–prophet they'd found at one scene had dubbed it 'the Uncaged Wrath' a few moments before he'd bled out from the slashes in his femoral artery. They'd probably never know how many of the missing had been its prey.

They'd been trying to track it when they ran into her. Despite their whole history, she'd tried to warn him, and he hadn't listened, and that had almost ended everything...

"Vander..."

Ekko flexed his fingers and paced, searching the familiar piles for anything new and neat he might pick up for his latest projects. His eyes, though, wouldn't focus, not with his thoughts racing behind them.

No, they'd never know how many of the missing had been Vander's work, because he wasn't the only thing down there. Because something else had butchered Tavi.

His and Javen's funeral had been small, simple, heartfelt. The Firelight way. They'd wrapped his body for the furnace, but Ekko couldn't look at the broken cat mask and not see his poor mutilated face, frozen forever in that horrible expression.

How terrified he'd looked.

Ekko had slipped away quietly. Needed some air. But now he was out here, it wasn't better. There were just less distractions.

Out here in the gloom and stillness of the scrap heaps, he could almost believe Lux's story.

Ekko bit back a shudder and tried to collect his thoughts. He stepped around the corner of a junkpile...

Something plinked off his shoulder, and a prickle went up the back of his neck. His hand crept to the cord of the Z–drive, the other to his club.

Plink.

Another pebble hit him in the back of the head, jostling his hair. This time, he clocked the trajectory...

⧖

...his hand crept to the cord of the Z–drive, the other to his club.

Plink. Another pebble hit him in the back of the neck.

Something plinked off his shoulder, and a chill shot right up his spine...

⧗

...Ekko stopped right at the edge of the junkpile, unhooked his club and darted to intercept his assailant–

"Gack!" Zeri started, the pebble falling from her hand, staring down the glowing tip of the bat, "You gotta stop doing that, dude!"