A/N: Ooh, what is this?! I-is... is it an update? Oh my!
Excuse the wait and enjoy! ^_^

With the usual force Ekko's feet connected with the huge granite slabs that made up the blue team's fountain. The solid feeling of the stones, arranged in circles and sprinkled with target cores for the teleportation-function, was much welcomed after the actual teleport. To Ekko it always felt as if the runic algorithm took him apart like a puzzle and he couldn't shake the feeling that someday was bound to mess up when putting the champion back together.

Beside him, Jinx crumpled to the ground and onto her back, whaling in agony, face buried in her hands, legs kicking about. Next to her on the stones lay one single bullet, dented and stripped bare of its shell.
Ekko crouched down next to the girl, trying to make out words in her screams. At least the recall sequence hadn't been cancelled, he though in relief.
"Argahggaag.", she seemed to say.

"Jinx.", Ekko sighed, trying to get her to calm down. "Jinx, you're gonna have to be a bit more precise than that."
At that, she bolted upright, arms flailing about, revealing the dark smears of makeup around her eyes. "That bitch!", she exclaimed, pointing towards her forehead, where an angry head mark was forming form all the scratching she'd done. "Why she gotta have such good aim?! That! Hurt!"
Ekko had to hold back from smiling. "Such a drama queen.", he chuckled to himself, which luckily went unnoticed by the girl. Louder he said: "By the way, Jinx..." but got no response, as she was still busy informing the world of the unfairness that was a good gun in another person's hands. Ekko reached out, grabbed her arm and immediately all movement stopped.
"Jinx.", he tried again. "How much damage did she do?"
Still rubbing at her forehead, she took the port-core again and studied the display for a moment. Then, with a wide gleeful smirk, she shoved the device into Ekko's face, too close for his eyes to focus on.
"Haha!", Jinx laughed. "She didn't even do half the shield, what a loser!"
Leaning back, so he could actually see the display and reading, Ekko's brows furrowed. "Well she did nearly half the shield."
"But not all of it.", the girl chimed and jumped straight to her feet, full of energy and good to get going. "It's not a good shot if the target doesn't go boom!"
The look on Ekko's face did not speak of the same ease as Jinx's. A hint of worry in his voice, he mumbled: "You could also put it that it only takes Caitlyn three headshots to burst you down."
"What was that?", the girl asked over her shoulder, putting the core back onto one of her belts and picking up Fishbones and Pow-Pow with one hand each. Out of the corner of his eyes, the boy checked the display again. The shield's health bar had been fully recharged by the fountain, he noted with relief. Of course Ekko knew that every return to the fountain should do that, but it took time and it wouldn't be unheard of for Jinx to run off before full restoration.
"Nothing.", the boy shrugged. She wouldn't listen if he told her to be careful anyway. "Let's get going again. I think I've found Braum as well."
"Where?!", Jinx asked in surprise, looking left and right, running up and down the steps to the fountain, being buzzy as per usual. When she passed Ekko on his way down the steps of the fountains, his hand shot out, grabbing her shoulder to stop her. He nodded upwards. Jinx eyes searched the area in bewilderment for a second, then her face split into a broad smile. She bounced forward again, jumping in excitement, she called: "Hey Braum! Wanna go blow something up?"

At her call, Braum looked down from his high vantage point atop the left Nexus turret and smiled at them. Behind him the blue sky was blue and bright, the sun not even at it's highest yet, framing his warm smile with its warm rays of light.
"Braum vould rather keep you from blowing up yoorself.", he joked, his deep laugh vibrating in the air. With the ease of a mountain goat the huge man climbed down the turret to stand in front of the two, picking up his shield he'd left at the foot of the monument, squaring his shoulders and posing, ready to go.

"Alveys bring Braum.", he said with a wink and his mere presence felt as reassuring as always.
"Yeah, yeah.", Jinx waived him off with a giggle. Sometimes, Ekko didn't know who of those two was more silly. But it was always good to have Braum by your side, he really wasn't lying or exaggerating there.

"Did you see anything useful?", Ekko asked, not in the mood for small-talk. "Any idea where the other two are? Or the enemy team?"
Braum raised one hand to point towards the top side of the map. "Bird vas circling the er around there. Kvinn must be close-bai then. Is all I kno. No dragon roar, no anything."
Ekko tried to see the flying hawk the taller man was pointing at but couldn't make out a thing besides the clouds trekking lazily across the sky. Sometimes it was amazing how good Braum's eyesight was, it was making Ekko a little jealous. But there was nothing he could do about it, growing up on the narrow streets of Zaun with its polluted air did not make for a good way to train your eyes on long distances. He shrugged it off and started off towards the jungle of Summoner's Rift.
"Let's go then.", Ekko said over his shoulder. "If we have no idea where Vi is, we're going to have to let her do her thing for now." Although she might not always seem it, Vi was a very good team player, so Ekko was sure she had set out to do something useful. With a little smile to himself, he added: "And she seems to have quite the knack for finding Jinx no matter where she is, so I'm sure she'll catch up with us soon."
He was just hoping she didn't get caught by the enemy team on one of her solo missions.

They walked on silence. Even though the small group was still way on their own side of the map, Ekko would rather be safe than sorry. So he and Braum made sure to keep Jinx behind them, the broad man walking on the very front line, casually holding his shield to his side so that people wouldn't be able to see the skinny girl straight away.

Ekko repeatedly checked the forest surrounding them for signs of anything dangerous approaching, but for now everything seemed quiet as usual. The trees were rustling in the light breeze and the sounds of a normal forest's life were all around them. The singing and chirping of birds, small rodents hastily making their way through the grass, insects buzzing everywhere. The peacefulness could easily make you drop your guard, but Ekko knew better. His left hand gripped the handle on the device on his back, held in place by a leather strap over his shoulder. At the smallest sign he would pull on it, starting the z-drive, ready to go back to that very moment time and time again. He would not be caught off guard this match. He would not make mistakes this time. His jaw set in determination, walking upright, Ekko knew that he could not lose this time. Not when he finally got a chance to show Viktor that he'd been wrong about so many things all along.

Meanwhile, Jinx was trying really hard to gather her thoughts. What to other people must seem like a very everyday, common activity was to Jinx like trying to carry water home from the well in a sieve. Frankly, it didn't work very well.

It wasn't that she couldn't concentrate at all or ever. Thinking about explosions or guns was easy. Days would fly by without her noticing when she was planning another challenge for Piltover's Dumbest. She'd even forget to eat. She could easily get so stuck up over a detail in Pow-Pow's mechanics that next time she'd look up it would be morning already and Ekko miraculously annoyed at her forgetting all about their meeting that was totally not supposed to have been yesterday.

Thinking about Ekko however was giving her a headache. Right now, she was drilling holes into the back of his head with her eyes, trying to make him feel the same amount of pain she was going through.
Jinx's life had been complicated lately, and in a way she had never experienced before. Heck, she had even contemplated seeing a doctor and she never went to the doctor's. Except for that one time she actually went to get that crazy-girl-note, just to piss off Fathands.
These days, Jinx had trouble sleeping, not at night, because that was not usually the time she went to sleep at, but overall. The girl had recently found herself tossing and turning, trying to drift of into the world of sparkly canon-unicorns and gattling-fairies that she loved so much. When she awoke the next... a few hours later, he chest hurt and her stomach would feel queasy and she couldn't eat at all. During awake-hours, Jinx was unable to do the simplest tasks, too distracted by her odd predicament. The other day, she had tried to give Fishbones a little upgrade and had actually managed to break the piece while installing it, making her so angry she'd kicked at the rocket launcher hard enough to make her big toe hurt for a good week.
And then Ekko.
That was the worst part of it all, and funnily so, the best as well. She couldn't decide.
Jinx could feel the hammering behind her temple intensify. She groaned in pain, which got her a "Shush" from a stern looking young man, so she settled for an offended grunt and biting her lip.
"Stupid Time-boy, knows everything better.", she muttered, but nobody was really listening to her, and she just earned another, more pronounced "SHUSH!".

Naturally, she spent a lot of time with the fellow Zaunite, reunited as friends years after their breakup and their time together in one of the many street gangs of the city.
Now, as Fishbones had kindly informed here, they were even closer than ever before.
'It's nice to see you two getting along again.', the gun had said one afternoon, as Jinx was walking home with it. She had tried to mask her surprised little jerk as a shrug.
"Durr. Of course I spend time with my friends.", Jinx had remarked and went on to smoothly change the subject. Smoothly for her standards that is. "Why have you been so quiet, Fishbones? You never shut your trap before... Now, no witty comments, no second-guessing my beautiful plans? Are you sure you're alright?"
'I have never been better.' If rocket launchers could laugh, Jinx was sure he'd have done it.
And though the remarks might have gotten fewer, they didn't sting any less. Jinx wished her aim at actual shooting was as good as Fishbones well aimed comments. Like on how she skipped without a fail when walking over to Ekko's place. Or on her oddly rooster-shaped ketchup doodles at dinner.
As if her own problems weren't already enough for her to deal with, she now also had to try to handle a cocky rocket launcher.

Back outside her head, on her shoulder, Fishbones chuckled quietly to himself, though it was barely louder than the chirping of the birds in the branches above the three champions.
Jinx could just about feel the pain in her head going off the charts. With all her might, she pressed her hands to her temples, trying to contain the thoughts and compress the agony into something smaller and bearable.
Damn them all to hell and back, she thought. Damn Fishbones for his being such a smart-ass know-it-all son-of-a-bazooka. Damn her brain for trying to burst out of her cute little head. And damn Ekko for everything else, especially his stupidly cute grin.

Lost in her wondering, Jinx had simply trudged along after Ekko and Braum, trusting them to know where to go. Her usual strategy on the rift consisted of following her team mates around and shooting whatever enemy crossed their way, anyways. Sometimes her Coach would try to tell her about "team play" and "objectives", but had given up when she noticed that the champion's only reply consisted of saying the word "objective" in her cutest robot voice repeatedly.

Thinking back to that made the marksman laugh out loud. But before she could even attempt her best Eevee impression to see if she could still do it, a dirty old glove grabbed her shoulder. Eyes wide in surprise, the usually obnoxiously loud girl nearly choked on her own words. Jinx suddenly found herself way too close to the face she had just been complaining about a few minutes ago, minus the grin.
"Jinx!", Ekko hissed at her. "Get it together and be quiet!"
Out of sheer reflex she bit back instantly. "You know I can't. I'm not exactly your average quiet little duckling." Her eyebrow wandered up towards her hairline, daring Ekko to think of a worthy comeback. To her annoyance, the boy didn't even blink.
"Just shut up.", he growled. "We found Caitlyn and Lulu. They haven't noticed us yet. And if you don't wanna blow our chance at beating up Top-hat & Co., You. Will. Be. Quiet."

Jinx was silent instantly.

Generally speaking, beating up Pilties was very high on her list of things to enjoy and Caitlyn was by far one of her favourite Pilties to partake in this activity with. But at that very moment her feeble mind had chosen to rather focus on the mix of excitement and anger in Ekko's greyish eyes and the way his lips had formed those last few words in exaggeration, leaving it blank of any other thoughts, let alone the ability to form words of her own.

Satisfied by the reaction to his order, Ekko nodded at Jinx once, grabbed her hand and slowly, carefully crept with her through the brushes of the jungle until they were crouched down next to Braum. Hidden from view by the tall vegetation around them and all pressed as closely to the side of a steep incline in the ground, they watched their opponents.

In front of them lay a large clearing, encircled by towering, old trees. The grass was as vibrant as everywhere on the Rift, the green only disrupted around some large boulders around a rocky outcrop of at least five meters of hight.

'This is where the Red Brambelback resides.", Fishbones supplied. 'You know, the one where you can get the Crest of Cinders?'
"Of course I know that.", Jinx snapped back. Even she could spot the huge scratches on the boulders, the scorch marks on the ground and the smell of burn and ashes. Oh, and the Monster the size of an elephant was sort of hard to miss.

The elder Brambleback was currently stalking towards a in comparison tiny person, it's two cubs trailing behind, every step making the earth shake with it's sheer weight. The human before it was holding a gun and firing a few times before taking steps back to stay out of the monsters reach, the beast roaring in pain and speeding up it's movements. Said human was wearing a suspiciously large top hat, which stayed seemingly glued to her head as she dodged the monster's claws.

But Jinx could only make out Caitlyn, there was no Yordle to be seen.

"I thought you said Lulu was here, too.", she whispered.
In response, Braum motioned for her to look at something above Caitlyn's left shoulder. There was a small purple something fluttering in and out of the sheriff's hair, sparking and glittering in the sunlight.
Jinx didn't get it. "So what, there's a butterfly...", she deadpanned, but Ekko just shook his head.
"It's Pix, the fairy.", he mouthed. "Lulu must be keeping watch somewhere."
Braum nodded in agreement, his eyes intently searching the foliage close to the enemy champion. "Vat shoold ve do?", he asked, scratching his chin. "Leaving Crest to them vould be bad. But ve don't kno vere Lulu is."

"Start shooting?", Jinx supplied gleefully, Pow-Pow ready in her hands. "I can get at least five bullets in before hat lady even knows what's happening!"

"We don' know if there are others...", Ekko stated, holding out his arm to stop the girl from doing something stupid. And then a smirk spread over his face. "But it's not that hard to find out." With that his hand reached towards the device on his back.
Jinx had never managed to wrap her head around the concept of time travel, she had simply accepted the fact that sometimes Ekko did and knew weird things. So she didn't even bother to be amazed as from one second to the next the time-traveller was a little out of breath. With a sharp pull the z-drive had sprung to life, the blue light making the boy's eyes sparkle in anticipation of the fight.
"It's only Lulu.", he proclaimed. "She is on look-out behind those rocks on the other side of the beast's lair." And then that grin spread over his face, the one that made the dimple in his right cheek form and Jinx's head spin a little so she had to look away.

"And I have a nice little plan for us."

A/N: so... good to be back? (/^o^)/ I don't have anything prepared besides this, so the next chapter will probably take just as long, I'm sorry :(
also, I just wanted to make one thing clear: If Tragedy & Time is my one true love, this story is my little romance to have fun with at the side.. ;) So, writing here will be more relaxed, probably less well checked and planned but hopefully a little wittier. If T&T made you cry, this is supposed to make you chuckle (most of the time), so come on and share some love and laughs by leaving a review. Yours truly, birb :3