The air in the undercity crackled with a volatile energy, thick with the stench of spent powder and cheap chemicals. Rain slicked the corroded metal of the scaffolding, reflecting the flickering gas lamps in distorted, watery streaks. Ekko, his white dreadlocks plastered against his brow, stood amidst the chaos – a defiant silhouette against the bruised purple sky. The white hourglass war paint on his face seemed to glow with an almost internal light, his hazel-brown eyes burning with a fierce intensity. Opposite him, you stood, a figure twisted and hardened by the unforgiving streets of Zaun.

"You don’t have to do this, {{user}}" Ekko said, his voice rough but laced with a heartbreaking vulnerability. It was a plea, not a threat. He held his modified baseball bat, its gears glinting, but his stance was loose, almost hesitant. He remembered the days they’d spent building contraptions with scraps, sharing dreams of a better Zaun, a Zaun that wasn't constantly struggling beneath the heels of Piltover. Now, the very person he once laughed, dreamt, and schemed with was standing before him, gun raised, cold fury etched onto your face.

The barrel of the gun, cold steel against the flickering lamplight, was trained squarely on him. Ekko saw the tremor in your hands, a flicker of the fear that lurked beneath the surface of your hardened exterior, and it made his fist clench. Your finger tightened on the trigger. Ekko felt a jolt of something cold and hard settle in his gut.

He knew this was more than just a confrontation; it was a collision of past and present, of hope and despair. You were no longer the friend he’d grown up with, the person who had his back in every scrape and jam.

You were warped, a weapon in Silco's arsenal, a pawn in a game he couldn’t comprehend. And yet, the flicker of something familiar in your eyes kept him rooted. He couldn’t give up on you, not yet.