Undertow | Ekko x Reader

With one final breath, deep and searing in your lungs, you let your mind fall silent.

The weight in your chest—fear, panic, the heavy ache of too many thoughts pressing in all at once—gets shoved into a dark corner of your consciousness. You slam the door shut behind it, bolt it, and throw away the key like your life depends on it.

Because it does.

There's no room to think, not now. No room to hesitate, to analyze, to question. Overthinking means dying. You don't have the luxury of fear anymore. All you can do is react—one heartbeat at a time.

Your eyes sweep the chaos below, tracing the fractured battlefield from the airship's edge. Pillars of smoke bleed into the evening sky. The once-golden horizon of Piltover now glows red, like the sun itself is on fire. Flashes of gunfire crack through the haze, mixing with the deafening roar of engines and the pulse of bass-heavy music that Jinx wired straight into the bones of the ship. It thrums through your feet like a second heartbeat—wild, unpredictable, and ready to snap.

Then you see it.

A tall building rises from the smog, fortress-like and menacing. Huge cannons peek from the shattered windows, and that's when you catch a flicker of red—short-cropped, unmistakable.

Vi.

She's there. She made it.

Your breath catches just long enough to feel it burn.

From this height, you watch her heave a heavy body out from the window—some gunner, now slumped over the ledge, a spear embedded deep in his chest. His blood spills in slow, sticky drips, catching the last light in a macabre shimmer. His eyes are still open. Dead. Staring into nothing—and somehow, straight into you.

You shove the image down, locking it away with the rest. No time.

You step closer to the helm, reaching out to steady yourself against Jinx. Your fingers find her shoulder, cold beneath your touch. She flinches, head whipping around, those haunted pink eyes flicking to yours.

"It's Vi," you say over the music, voice raised. You point sharply toward the building just as Vi tosses the corpse aside and turns to deal with a fresh wave of Noxians surging in through a broken wall.

Jinx inhales sharply, her entire body going rigid. Then, like something inside her just snaps into place, she throws the throttle forward.

The ship groans in protest as it tilts hard to the left, carving a vicious path toward her sister.

You glance back. Ekko stands near the edge, wind tugging at his cloak. He meets your gaze, and there's no need for words—he just nods once. You return it. Then he takes two quick steps and jumps, disappearing into the smoke like a ghost on a mission.

Your attention is dragged back to the cockpit by a glint of red.

That button.

The massive red one dead-center on the steering wheel. You'd almost forgotten.

Almost.

Without hesitation, you lean across Jinx, hand slamming down on it with a satisfying click.

A second passes. Then, a sound like metal groaning from the earth itself as a hatch beneath the ship bursts open—and a rain of bombs falls from the belly of the beast.

Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

They hit the ground like thunder—but they don't kill.

Smoke erupts in thick, vibrant clouds—blue, yellow, magenta—colors swirling like madness as they coil and twist over the battlefield, obscuring vision and breaking line of sight. A perfect cover.