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"Something is wrong. They've already crossed the river, but they aren't entering the alleys," Ekko whispered, peering into a shard of a mirror. He was huddled in a crumbling tenement, watching the Piltover Guard through the reflection. The blue-coated soldiers stood in perfect formation on the riverbank, their boots planted firmly on Zaunite soil, but they refused to advance into the dark, narrow streets.
Suddenly, the air screamed.
BOOM!
Dozens of heavy shells rained down simultaneously. The Hextech Thermal Scanners had done their work with terrifying precision. They didn't need to see the Zaunites; they simply targeted the heat of their bodies through the walls.
The building Ekko was in didn't just collapse; it was pulverized. Ekko felt the world tilt as tons of masonry crashed down. He lay pinned under a support beam, his lungs burning as his chest cavity caved in. With a trembling, blood-slicked hand, he fumbled for the device at his hip.
Click.
"...How did Chen's brain work? He could even think of this? I've lived so many years, and I've never seen such a genius."
Ekko gasped, clutching his chest, the phantom pain of being crushed still vibrating in his nerves. "I never want to do that again... but I have no choice!"
The Infinite Loop
Ekko went to find Chen again. And again. And again.
He tried Guerrilla Warfare, but the auto-aiming Hextech Rifles picked off his scouts through the fog. Zaun fell.
He tried a Mass Counter-Charge, a wall of bodies and steel, but the suppressive fire turned the bridge into a butcher's shop. Zaun fell.
He tried an Aerial Assault using the Wildfire hoverboards, but the Piltover soldiers tracked them like clay pigeons in the sky. Zaun fell.
Each time, Jikegar was there—a cold, calculating ghost in the machine who countered every move. Ekko even tried to assassinate the Warden hours before the march, but the searchlights caught his team before they could even draw their blades.
Ekko lost count of how many times he had died. He lost count of how many times he had watched Chen vaporized or Powder riddled with holes. The dialogue with Heimerdinger became a background noise, a ritual he endured before sprinting back into the fray.
On the 369th return, Ekko walked into the conference room. He didn't wait for Chen to speak.
"I've come back from the future," Ekko said, his voice hollow and ancient. "The number behind your back is two. I've tried every tactic, Chen. A hundred times. Maybe more. We can't win. Camille was right. Their tech is too far ahead. We are just gutter rats fighting gods."
Chen stared at the boy. The Ekko standing before him was no longer a child. There was a thousand-yard stare in his eyes, a weight to his shoulders that suggested he had lived a dozen lifetimes in the span of a single afternoon.
"You're right," Chen sighed, realizing the psychological toll the loop had taken. "But you're our only hope, Ekko. You need to go deeper."
The Grandfather Paradox
"I know why you wanted a device that can control specific time points," Ekko said, his mind finally clicking into place after centuries of subjective time. "You want me to rewind further than just a few minutes."
Chen's eyes lit up. "Exactly. How far back can you go?"
"A week is the limit of the crystal's stability," Ekko replied. "But if I go back a week, the 'me' at that time hasn't built the Z-Drive yet. If I exist there with the device, what happens?"
"A classic time paradox," Chen said, tapping his temple. "If you go back to a time before you researched the crystal, you're carrying a piece of hardware that technically hasn't been 'born' yet. You have to be careful. You only get one shot at a long jump because once you arrive, the 'cause' of the device—the war—hasn't happened yet."
Ekko looked at Chen with suspicion. "How do you know so much about time-theory? Did you travel back too?"
"I've just read a lot of sci-fi, brother," Chen joked, though his expression quickly turned somber. "Listen. The moment you jump back seven days, you have a week to change the foundation. We can build the counter-measures. We can find Ziggs. We can sabotage the rifle production before it starts."
Chen grabbed Ekko's shoulder, anchoring him. "Today is the anchor. The war starts today. This is the last point you can return to if things fail. So, go back seven days. Tell my past self everything. We won't just fight the war; we'll stop it before it's declared."
Ekko gripped the Z-Drive, the blue crystal glowing with an intense, stable light. He looked at Chen one last time—the man who had stayed with him through a hundred deaths.
"Go," Chen whispered. "And say hello to my past self for me."
"I will," Ekko said.
He twisted the dial. The room didn't just dissolve; it folded. Ekko plunged into the vortex, not toward the next minute, but toward the beginning of the week. To change the ending that everyone said was unchangeable.
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