He arcane shifted quite some distance to get to where Lux was hiding.

He didn't even have a time to take a good breath when he realized he was already sinking. Everything was quiet for a short moment. He had opened his eyes, still submerged in liquid. He quickly realized that he was up so high that he could no longer feel the floor underneath his feet.

"Lux!", Ezreal yelled as he resurfaced and gasped for air.

"Ezreal!", the redhead flailed her arms a few meters away from him.

His vision was blurry yet he noticed that she was holding onto what looked like a chandalier. His eyes were stinging him as he dove again and arcane shifted next to her to get a grip on the chandalier himself.

"Are you okay?", he asked seriously worried.

Lux's face was red stained with blood. Her hair glued to her cheeks. The girl simply nodded as Ezreal gave her a quick hug while they were desperately trying to stay affloat. Another wave of blood made them sink once again. Lux's hand had slipped through his, as they were being drifted apart by the pressure of the wave. He didn't even know how but he had somehow managed to get a grip of the girl once again and teleported both of them to the room where Katarina and Jayce were.

Hopefully..

"Guys?", he scanned the place for his allies' faces but all he could see was a sea of blood from one edge to the other.

"Over here!", Katarina said from the other side in between coughs. Her and Jayce were holding onto eachother's hands. The boy was desperately trying to keep them both afloat with all of his strength despite the fact that his body was not in its best state.

"I have to use my power", Lux said.

"No! You can't control it without your staff Lux!", Ezreal practically begged her to rethink her decision.

"It's our only chance", she squeezed the boy's hand to get a nod of affirmation in exchange.

Luxanna Crownguard closed her eyes momentarily. Small particles of light filled the atmosphere and started to collide with eachother. They looked like fireflies. Ezreal was looking at her half mesmerized and half afraid. He could feel his heart begging to leave his chest. The light kept getting brighter by the minute. At the moment he could no longer keep his eyes open so he covered them with the back of his hand.

When he opened them again there was no blood. The only thing that remained was a terrible smell, along with stains on the walls and marble floors. Evaporated.

His clothes were stuck to his body but a light barrier was covering him and Lux. Same as Jayce and Katarina who looked just as amazed as he was.

"That was.. something", Ezreal smiled at his girlfriend whose cheeks had turned into a light pink.

"It was nothing", she managed to stutter shyly.

The door on the other side of the room opened.

An old man came limping their way. He was wearing what looked like a school uniform but his face was filled with wrinkles and spots. His hair was long and white. His fingernails seemed abnormaly long and his entire body looked remarkably frail and weak.

"Where is Rhaast?", he managed to say in between violent coughs.

The four Durrandal Academy students exchanged confused looks but they didn't reply.

"Where is he?!", the man shouted infuriated. For a second there, Ezreal thought that he was in the brink of tears.

The boy gulped in terror. There was just something in the whole presence of this man that made the hair in the back of his neck stand straight up.

"Last time I saw him he was fighting the Aspect of Twilight", he said trying to look confident.

Katarina furrowed her eyebrows. Right. They don't know about Zoe being an Aspect.. Or that she saved my ass.

"The Asp-", the man said. "Rhaast was left to fight an Aspect?! On his own?!", he looked lost in his own thoughts.

Without realizing Ezreal had taken a few steps backwards as the man started to approach him. This time his glare seemed cold. It was a glare that he knew all too well. It was pure anger.

Katarina leaped through the air in an attempt to catch him off guard. But his awareness was too keen as the man made her freeze mid air. Katarina's eyes were wide as she looked paler and paler. When he was done with her, he tossed her body aside like a piece of garbage.

Lux let out a terrified gasp as Jayce managed to rush to her as fast as his body allowed him to.

And then their eyes met again. Those eyes. Black irises. He could have sworn he'd seen them before..

Because the man now looked younger. He looked as if they were the same age now. Black irises. It was him. Vladimir. A Doran's Academy student.

"Frankly, I won't be surprised if he turns out to be a school shooter.. It's always the quiet ones".

He remembered Ekko's words. And suddenly they made way too much sense.

"What did you do to her?!", Jayce asked terrified as he was slapping Katarina in the face trying to make her come to her senses.

Vladimir simply took a deep breath.

"Anyone else has any other brilliant ideas?", he taunted them.

Ezreal shot a mystic shot his way. And then another one. And another one. Till he had lost count. All of this just didn't feel real.

He finally stopped to let out a sigh of relief. He had done it. He had done it! Vladimir wasn't there anymore. There was nothing but a pool of blood.

He could already feel that he was at his limit. He felt like he'd spent almost all of his mana. He gave Lux a tired smile.

"Is she okay?", he asked Jayce who was still trying to wake Katarina up.

"It seems like she's fainted", he shouted out.

He was about to walk up to them when he realized he had stepped on something wet and sticky. Blood. The metallic smell made him scrunch his nose.

Vladimir's body was emerging through the blood slowly. Ezreal jerked away grabbing Lux by the hand alongside him.

"He's alive!", he yelled to alert Jayce.

"You took everything from me.. It's only fair if I do the same", he said as tears stung his dead eyes.

A quarter of a second later he felt Lux's hand leaving his. She had fallen on the floor seemingly passed out. Just like Katarina.

"Lux!", Ezreal screamed as he shook her by the shoulders desperately trying to wake her up. He could practically feel the pain in his heart. "You will pay for this".

"You can try", Vladimir cracked his neck. "Now where were we"?

Ezreal let out a pathetic war cry as he started mindlessly blasting the mage with mystic shot after mystic shot once again. He kept arcane shifting to keep his distance. He was still surrounded with Lux's previous barrier so that was something.

His judgement was clouded. More often than not he was missing every spell. Lux's limp body was just too much of a distraction.

He could even feel his old shoulder wound aching him at this point. His body was failing him.

His vision started to get blurrier as Vladimir was getting closer. The boy was now trying to run away. But suddenly he stopped as he could feel the life being drained from him.

No.. Lux..

Vladimir was standing above him.

"Any last words?", the blood mage asked. There was a shadow of a malicious grin plastered upon his pale face.

And then he saw it. Out the corner of his eye. It looked like pure energy. A blue light that vaguely resembled a familiar figure running behind the old mage leaving after images as it moved.

"No", he whispered then looked up at the man. He managed to arcane shift away at the last moment. "This is far from over", he spat out a few drops of his own blood as he slowly but carefully stood up.

Vladimir was suddenly locked in place under what seemed like a nearly transparent barrier.

"No!", he yelled as he desperately tried to break free from his magic shackles in vain. As the seconds passed he started to look old again. The thin white hair was the first thing he noticed.

"Sorry I'm late", Ekko let out a soft snigger with his sword against his shoulder as his form appeared out of what looked like a neon blue light.

Vladimir started to kick and punch Ekko's barrier in vain. He was alone in there. With no one to drain blood from. No means of escaping. No way of coming out on top this time.

Ezreal managed to smile at Ekko then give him a nod of reassurance.

The spark in the Faceless boy's eyes seemed to grow brighter and brighter as he was charging the gauntlet of Ne'Zuk with all of his remaining mana.

Lightning seemed to manifest from the blue crystal and less than a second later it was spreading throughout his entire body. His hair was seemingly levitating from the electric currents and a pair of triangles was starting to form. One in each of his cheeks.

He hadn't realized but his eyes had turned white. Same as his hair. The failed black dye job had faded in the blink of an eye making his hair glow with nothing but his own mana engulfing him whole.

Vladimir was staring with his mouth slightly open. There was a bit of a drool. Ezreal couldn't take his eyes off of his disgusting wrinkled hands. The old mage was unable to fight back. Unable to stop this.

"This isn't..", he said with wide eyes. "I belong with the living!", he shouted out. His voice was coloured with nothing but despair.

Ezreal let out a small chuckle.

"Nah.. You belong in a museum", he said pointing his golden gauntlet directly to Vladimir's chest.

A large wave of golden sparks in the shape of a bow was moving in the speed of light towards him. And a few moments later there was no Vladimir. Not anymore. The only remainder of his existence being a few drops of blood on the floor where he stood.

"I hope I wasn't too late", Ekko said as he looked around at the others.

"I think you were just in time", the blonde boy smiled before he suddenly fell down on his knees.

He now looked pale. Ekko quickly dropped his sword and rushed to him.

"Are you okay man?", he asked worried.

"I'm.. fine", Ezreal managed to say before everything around him went black.