Afternoon. One of Piltover's squares.
A beautiful garden with seasoned trees, green bushes and stone tables. I'm sitting at one, a cup of coffee next to a chess board.
I move a white piece. The dark pieces move alone, responding with a knight pinning my queen…
A queen sacrifice. I slide a pawn forward.
…But the checkmate is mine.
A chess game doesn't start with pieces already in the middle of the board.
That makes me think about Arcane. Viktor goes back in time, shows Jayce the runes that Jayce himself saw as a child, the loop makes no sense, no starting point.
A causality problem.
Someone had to introduce the runes to the timeline first, a starting point, or none of these events could ever exist. Like the number two coming before the number one.
Someone had to make the opening move.
Who? How?
Let's filter it by problem. The issue is causality. Time.
...That brings Zilean to mind. As the overseer of the timeline, why wouldn't he care about my presence here? Do I die before I achieve anything?
'Looks promising. Let's logic test.'
If Zilean was the one behind, his motive must align with what follows those events.
Jayce, no—
Hextech.
'Does he want Hextech?'
The realization hit me like a blow. My focus deviates, and my control over the black pieces slips to the stone table, shooking it. The chess pieces rattle, nearly toppling over.
I remem from lore that Zileon looks for a way to deal with the Void. So if he introduced the runes to Jayce, in order for Hextech to exist, then Hextech is part of his plan.
'I need to examine that stone.'
My coffee had gone cold. My eyes locked on the cup, the liquid started to steam. I took a sip, letting the heat sear my throat.
An elderly woman with a red lipstick approaches and speaks:
"What's the game called? I've never seen it before."
I turn my gaze to her. "...It's called Chess."
"Ohh." She said, "Can you show me how it works? I've heard of Tellstones that Demacians love. Is it similar?"
"..."
Tellstones. All I know is that it's a game of memory and bluffing.
"I don't know about Tellstones," I say, gesturing to the empty chair.
"Come, take a seat. Let's switch intel."
"Ho-ho. Thank you my dear. You'll enjoy it."
.
.
Late night.
I stand inside the center of a laboratory.
The room was spacious, with high ceilings and very fanciful architecture. Chalkboards cover the main walls, filled with hand-written mathematical formulas, geometric diagrams, and mechanical blueprints.
"If Hextech truly is part of his plan, then there's probably something going on with that Hextech stone," I mutter.
Next to me, a reinforced containment sphere sits anchored to a heavy steel rig. Inside the sphere rests an unrefined Hexcrystal. The thing's surface is jagged, glowing blue.
I step closer to examine the stone, looking at the way the energy moved, a quote came to me:
'To find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration'
Our glorious electricity came from the guy who said just that.
A frequency. That's how I saw the stone.
Modern energy is handled through power plants, wires to our houses. But there's one thing that goes beyond, something I read from that same guy: the magnifying transmitter.
A machine that uses the entire earth as a conductor. Energy accessed through air, radio frequency. The end of wires. That's similar to how these stones work--
A rock tuned to the Spiritual Realm for its energy supply.
"Nikolas Tesla is mad smart," I whisper to the dark room.
"...That means Jayce is using it as an energy source," I murmured. "Spiritual energy is a whole another realm, basically infinite energy… and it's being used like a toy."
Someone's definitely the mastermind behind this.
"A precise decision. Knowing that none would use it wrong."
I turned the stone against the moonlight.
The blueprints of my Warhammer4k-armor project flashed in my mind.
I smiled. "Was it for me?"
My smile faded as another thought hit me.
"Infinite energy? Wait, wait, wait—so that's how they manage to manipulate time!?"
I stared into nothing like a mad genius.
"Yes, yes, that's it."
"Time is relative. With an infinite fuel like the Spiritual Realm, you can push light to absurd levels. A Warp Bubble! Inside it, they use spiritual energy to accelerate light so fast it breaks into the fourth dimension: the past."
"That's exactly how Ekko uses the Z-Drive to redo things!"
My eyes widened as the final piece clicked. Words firing like a gatling gun.
"And Zilean... he decelerates things by slowing photons inside the bubble. And for the future, he pauses them and waits for the outside world to pass, in a blink he steps out into the future. Holy shit!"
I lost my balance and dropped to the ground.
I stood there with my body loose, then—
Thud-Thud-Thud
My ears twitched by the heavy sound of steps down the hallway.
Someone was coming.
Click. The door handle moved.
.
.
//1st POV, Enforcer.
I grabbed the door handle, looked at Alpha, and nodded. He nodded back, clicking his gun as he reloaded. Beta and Omega tightened their grip around their batons.
I signaled: Three. Two. One.
"We're going in."
SLAM! The door flung open.
"..."
"..."
On the floor, his back was coiled, his eyes dark. He was murmuring foreign words.
"S-State your name! You can't stay here without permission!" I shouted.
He ignored my command.
My crew waited for orders.
"Omega. Go handcuff the weirdo!"
She looked tense, but approached him. The handcuffs went for his wrists.
But in a swift motion, he snaked around her arms and tripped her. THUD! He drove a knee to her chin. An unbothered knockout.
"What the…"
His eyes shut, and suddenly, his hands gestured outward.
The moment we grabbed our weapons, everything shook. The room blurred. My hair, my clothes. A swirl, a pull.
But it wasn't wind. It felt more like light itself had decided to move.
"Fall back!"
The floor, the ceiling, and the whole room started to melt like a sand castle swept away by a tornado.
"AHHH!" I screamed as I saw my crew's skin being peeled away. I felt a burning sensation, an unbelievable need to scratch.
I looked down.
Like my body was clay, it started to dismantle too—
.
.
//1st POV, Axion.
I looked at the room, which had been reduced to a empty perfect sphere.
"Well," I said, "that was a failure."
.