The Sixth | Ekko

Chapter Sixty-Seven

The room began to fade away, blinking out of focus as the universe seemed to zero in on the mad scientist responsible for Six's insurmountable trauma. Her ears started to ring, accompanied by the slight pitter-patter of her heartbeat.

The side of her neck started to heat up, though it remained unnoticed by her.

Instead, she witnessed her vision start to tunnel, its walls melting away and rebuilding as the old lab.

Suddenly, she was no longer twenty-two, but instead ten, her feet bare and her arms full of scabbing tallies.

The way he looked at her was the same—his good eye eerily emotionless, while his blind eye remained empty.

Her whole body started to tremble, a chilling flood rushing down her spine.

"Snap out of it," Daunter's muffled voice came.

She finally managed to look away, instead staring at the wall behind the scientist, her eyes still wide and unblinking.

"She's in shock," the purple-robed man pointed out, crossing the room. "Perhaps our coming here so suddenly wasn't a good idea."

"Yeah, no shit," said Daunter. He activated his burn mark and placed his hand on her wrist, using his empathy rune to try and calm her down. However, he didn't have much practice with this particular rune, and instead of calming her, he voided out all emotions.

Her shoulders loosened, her body gone cold from the absence of emotion.

Daunter took this as a sign that he had succeeded and withdrew his hand.

Her breaths slowed, returning to normal. The old lab faded away, her feet no longer naked and her arms now scarred instead of scabbed. She remained silent, her mind almost as empty as her heart.

"I find it fascinating that you've managed to recruit her," Singed said, remaining one step behind the robed man.

Daunter didn't respond to him, instead turning to face Six once more. "You were right," he repeated. "The alternate reality is merging with ours."

"It isn't an alternate reality," the unknown man said.

Six eyed him blankly. His body was scrawny, his skin wrinkled. His head was mostly bald, with a thin layer of grey hair ghosting his scalp. His face was full of aging marks, his light eyes sunken in. He was significantly shorter than Singed. "Who are you?"

"He's a mage," Daunter answered, "—from Ionia. Singed was looking for him for a while. That's why he was gone so long."

Her gaze remained unwavering. "Why's he so important?"

The three men exchanged glances, prompting her to elaborate.

"All the mages in Runeterra and he travels across the world specifically for him. But why?" She backed up until she was close enough to her spinning chair to sit in it. She crossed her legs, waiting for one of them to answer. With her earlier terror siphoned out, her focus and reasoning had maximized.

The mage's left hand formed into a fist, then broke apart abruptly, a burst of purple and blue light exploding from his palm. A sphere of runes levitated above his spread hand, circling around it in slow motion.

The glow emitted from his magic was significant yet blended with the light cascading off the walls from the blister shrooms and dulled its brilliance.

"Because it was my magic that he used to mark you."

Six watched the display from her chair, her expression remaining empty. "He used mage metal," she said, her voice monotone.

Daunter stared at Six, surprised by her straightforwardness.