“Is. It. The. Blue? Or. The. Low. Resolution?” The doppelganger wonders aloud, looking to her feet with feigned sorrow.


    Ekko ignores the weak display, rushing forward boldly. Assuming the hologram to be immaterial, he kicks off a metal shelf and leaps upward. In the darkness, his light picks up the shine of a hanging chunk of metal—a projector of some kind, he theorizes. Swinging his pipe at the device, he hears an annoyed, “Ga-awd. F-fu*#!. Da-amn. It.” right before it got smashed to pieces by a single strike.


    From along the rafters, something falls, plopping to the floor with a gentle thud. A humanoid, Ekko observes from the dim silhouette.


    The Firelight turns back to Heimerdinger, who, believing the fighting is over, waddles closer to him. He stops though when a sickening crack of bones leads the yordle to hide behind another box. Ekko readies his pipe at the small figure who’s struggling to stand up.


    “Groan.” The person says in cold monotone, narrating herself, “How. Annoying.”


    An arm whips around the torso, pushing off the ground at an impossible angle. Steaming piles of gore fall off her body as she lifts herself to her feet, ligaments cracking as they attempt to right themselves to a somewhat natural position.


    Ekko backs up warily, lifting his light-stick up to see the girl clearly. A tattered, Piltovan black dress adorns her, covering her down to the mid-thigh. Her dress holds splotches of dried blood that seems to have dripped down. Following the red trail, her legs are bare, the skin sickly and discolored. Long slits open in the calves and arms, revealing the metallic texture of wires and hard plating underneath. The faint glow of chemtech shines underneath parts of the rotted skin, each part stitched together poorly like an apprentice tailor’s first attempt at sewing.


    She takes her first step toward Ekko on black, shiny stilettos. On some of her steps she slips, the entire foot twisting and breaking as she lands on her ankle. However, when she lifts her foot the next time, the bones seem to have already repaired themselves. Her movements are all sluggish and exaggerated, like she’s missing key parts of her skeleton.


    She reaches to her neck, dragging her chin up to fix her posture. Two sets of matching hands move synchronously on her arms. Following the mechanics in her arm, a smooth, glossy white material composes the inorganic hands. But, resting directly above them like a pair of gloves are fleshy hands. Despite seeming to be only fat and skin, the hands move on their own regardless.


    As her head tilts forward, Ekko has to stop himself from puking. Large, empty eye sockets greet him. The skin has been stretched out to widen the socket, leaving gaping black holes as most of her face. The same skin wraps to the head, discolored and patchworked. The shades on the patches are different as if every piece was collected from a different person. Her neck doesn’t even have skin, just a flexible metal pipe that connects the head to the torso.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    A large, perpetual grin with dagger-like fangs stretches ear to ear—not that the corpse-girl had any. Nor did she have nostrils, only a small bump where a nose would be.


    The only feature she owns that looks normal is her hair. Dark and full, her locks cascade down to her hips, styled well and covering most of the head besides the face. A large, childish, black bow sits on the back of her head, ill-fitting to the rest of the grim body.


    Ekko reaches his pipe out, pressing against her chest to stop her from advancing, “What the hell are you?” He chokes out, examining the monstrosity. A concerningly long, black tongue lulls out of her mouth and flings up, licking down an eye socket which he realizes is actually glass.


    “Lllllick.” She narrates, dragging the ‘L’ out as she wipes her tongue along her face.


    “Did you just…?” Ekko pushes her back farther, the empty eyes igniting in a flash of sickly golden light.


    White pupils appear, despite the initial yellow glow, shaped as large X’s. They dart around the glass curiously, seeming confused and unaware of her surrounds.


    “Hello!” She says happily, the monotone replaced by a sing-songy, sweet voice, “Do youuuu…” Her voice trails off, quieting until none of her speech is audible.


    As quick as they came, the pupils vanish, replaced by red triangles that flash a warning. Ekko lifts his pipe up and taps the head cautiosuly, the entire thing flopping backwards over ninety degrees. He gasps, but quickly switches to a combat stance when she reaches up and rights her head. This time, the pupils are yellow, the voice back to its creepy monotone, “Thank. You. For. Waiting.” She smiles wide, tapping rapidly in anticipation, “Just. Kidding!”


    “Die.”


    She launches forward with literal breakneck speed, her head snapping to the side as an enormous sickle made of tendons and steel sweeping toward Ekko. He rolls backward, dodging the slash by a hair. The room screeches as rows of shelves are severed in two, salvaged parts and crates flying across the room. The walls are lacerated, cut into like a knife into fresh meat.


    Heimerdinger shakes nervously, hiding behind the now destroyed boxes, the sudden attack having gone right over his head.


    When casual, arrogant footsteps pass by him, a sense of relief floods him. But, as the Professor becomes weightless, he knows instantly his relief was unwarranted. After all, just a bit ago he wondered how Jayce and Viktor have been handling the Solver. When he first saw the girl, he assumed her to be some sick experiment from the Undercity. Now, though, witnessing that dreadful symbol lift him into the air, he knows exactly how it went for the Hextech partners.


    “Rat. Extermination. Time~” The monster’s eyes become that hexagonal symbol, three arrows shooting off in each direction. Heimerdinger hopes, at least, that they can get out of Piltover before it’s too late…


    Bang!


    He drops to the ground, falling into a pile of obliterated planks and scrap. The Solver’s head flings into the darkness of the building, Ekkos now bloody pipe causing a loud clang as it impacts the metal skull. The girl’s petite body stands still where it was decapitated, her arms twitching wildly. Black, worm-like tentacles writhe aimlessly from the stump of her neck, trying to find a head that isn’t near.


    “Callback Ping.”


    “Callback Ping!”


    The head repeats the same phrase over and over from the darkness where it flew. The body immediately snaps in the direction of the noise and sprints ahead on all fours, rushing to find its missing piece. It moves recklessly, ramming shelves and knocking supplies over as it blindly runs to its destination.


    Heimerdinger breathes heavily as it retreats to the dark, not having any time to think before Ekko snatches him up and runs. The boy lifts the professor onto his shoulders and equips his hoverboard, flying out of the doorway with urgency.


    Blood-soaked metal hooks launch out from the warehouse, flying with a thunderous boom toward the pair. The straight-shot harpoons miss the agile flyer, slamming into the stone walls of the cave.


    A rumble shakes the cavern as the hooks retract. The attached tentacles that propelled them disconnect from the metal and sweep at the dim green glow of the hoverboard.


    Ekko ducks, evading the first slash. Then, upon the flurry of strikes that follow, rolls down and then shoots up, careening out of the pipe that brought him here.


    With a burst of speed, he launches back into the wide fissures and complex pipe system. The last thing he hears from the monster is the distant roar of steel against rock.