A/N: I am back, children! Where have I gone? Well college prep's a bitch. All I have to say about that. I'm down to my last week of Summer, before my freshman college year so unfortunately I'm probably going to be having less time to write. However, I'm going to take whatever I can get till then. Thank you everyone who read and reviewed! It warms my heart to see the numbers rise and read the kind words. Btw, quick little note for the story: I don't know if I made Lux seem majorly out of character, it's just that to me Lux seems extremely playful and carefree and she knows it, and she knows everyone else does too. So she uses it to her advantage to catch people off guard or to unnerve her opponents (as was the case with Talon). However, she does have a serious side that contemplates what happens next. She was a spy/ soldier before so she needs to have that attitude somewhere. I think she would be playful in public to keep up morale and unnerve the enemy, and be serious when she's alone or in times where she shows the true raw emotions behind her dazzling smile. I know most of you probably have other views, but i'm just giving the profile I seemed to pick up from watching her league personality. One thing I admit to missing though: she is extremely smart, so unfortunately playing the ditzy-ish angle (if I have done that at all) was a huge mistake. But hey, its a fan fic and y should I change it if no one's mentioned it? Ok thats all I had to say about that. Enough of my pointless justifications, please, enjoy :)

"Are we there yet?" Talon asked over the roar of the sandstorm. He constantly picked and scratched at the bandages under his robes. The few grains of sand that managed to get under them had begun to really annoy him.

"I think I have a rash." He muttered.

"Would you shut up; you're acting like a child with all that complaining." Katarina told him.

Talon sighed with drooped shoulders and continued to pick away at whatever grains were rubbing his skin raw.

The sandstorm that greeted them on their first venture through the desert has seemed to have followed them here. The only difference this time was that the sky was much darker, much more akin to nighttime. Not even an orange glow managed to pierce the veil of raging sands. They had been travelling for most of the morning, and possibly afternoon. Because of the lack of light in the sky there was no way to be sure.

"Hey Talon." Katarina called.

"What is it?" he replied.

"Is it just me, or does anything look… different to you?"

Talon raised an eyebrow in question before he realized just how drastically the landscape seemed to change. He had been so absorbed in his misfortunes that he failed to notice the sandstorm seemed to have calmed down to the point of looking like snowfall. Also the sand was now a powdery black, like ashes. Talon turned around to look back at where they had come from, but he couldn't see anything but darkness, much like the fog of war in the Rift.

He shared a look with Katarina and as if they could read each other's thoughts, they silently continued forward.

'Here, the darkness calls home…'

'It seems things are going to get interesting from here on out.' And with that thought, Talon readied himself for the worst.

'Ugh… what…' These were the first two thoughts in Luxanna's head as she groggily awoke from her forced unconsciousness.

"It feels like brother hit me in the head with the blunt side of his sword." She moaned. She sat up and looked around her, noting the ruins of the once abandoned village. Then, all of the memories rushed into her head at once.

Fighting the throbbing pain in her skull, Lux stood up, only to fall to her knees again. She then tried crawling over to Quinn's unconscious form. As she got closer she noted Valor had draped himself with open wings protectively over her. Regardless, she shook the two awake.

"Quinn!" Lux whispered.

"Quinn, please wake up! Quinn!" Lux's eyes widened when Quinn didn't immediately respond.

"Oh gods… Quinn! Don't you be dead Quinn!" she cried. Lux buried her face in her hands, and one by one salty tears began to fall.

"No… Quinn." She sobbed.

"Dammit… can't I get five more minutes, this hangover's killing me…" Quinn muttered.

Lux shot up at her voice and rushed over to her.

"Quinn! You're alive!?" Lux started shaking her roughly and sprung up, morale and youthful energy restored in her tiny frame.

Quinn sat up with a deadpan stare while cradling Valor.

"Lux?" she asked groggily. "I didn't know you came to bars."

Lux paused in her celebrations to stare dumbly at Quinn.

"I don't." was all she said.

Quinn's eyes shot open and she quickly stood up to look for any signs of the Noxian duo. Yet none were found.

"Dammit!" she yelled. "They got away."

Lux lowered her head in disappointment, and muttered a sorry, "Yeah."

"But hey! At least we can confirm Noxus has agents out here! I'm pretty sure there's enough evidence from the leftover knives and blood!" she said, trying to salvage their failure.

"Lux, honey, look around you. The sand buried everything but us."

Lux did a double take and saw that while the ground level wasn't elevated that much, the sand did indeed cover everything like a blanket of snow.

"No… no!" Lux cried out. She began to run over to the now bare ground and began trying to kick up the sands blanketing everything, but she only succeeded in blinding herself and scattering dust over more of the ground.

"Why…" she whispered. Quinn walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Some things are just out of our hands." Quinn's voice was as hollow as her words. They had failed, and now Noxus was that much closer to realizing their dreams of conquest.

After some time was spent in mourning, Quinn stood up and decided it was time to abort the mission. This was a failure, and there was no way to chase them with the sand covering all of their tracks. Quinn helped Valor get into a comfortable perch on her shoulder, and then the three Demacians were off. As the broken duo began walking back to The Grey Order's village Valor stiffened like a statue. The next moment he began screeching and erratically flapping his wings, despite the tear in one of them.

"What's gotten into you!" Quinn yelled, attempting to hold his wings down. Valor then leapt off her shoulder and began taking quick steps to a pile of rubble. When he reached his destination he crawled under the debris and hid himself from view. Quinn just watched in shock, as her partner abandoned her to hide like a frightened animal. Then it hit her: he is a frightened animal.

"Lux, we need to hide, now!" Quinn yelled. Lux snapped out of her own stunned daze and quickly followed Quinn into a half destroyed sandstone structure. They hid themselves amongst the debris and covered themselves in sand and rubble. The only visible part of them was a dark narrow slit for them to peek through.

For a few long moments the only things heard were their rapid heartbeats, and slow, deep breaths.

"Quinn, are you-" Quinn shushed Lux, and the long silence continued. Minutes now passed and still nothing happened. Lux began to get irritated and made to leave their shelter of dust and rubble, but Quinn quickly grabbed her and pulled her back down. That's when they heard it.

Whispers carried on the wind like the sands of the desert to their ears. They were quiet, almost unnoticeable, but they were definitely there. They seemed to make no sense, just a useless murmuring of numbers, letters, words, and even a few spell phrases. The pair tensed and waited for whatever would happen next. Long moments passed and nothing revealed itself, but the whispers remained. Now mentally shaken by the disturbing echoes and murmurs, Lux and Quinn shifted uncomfortably under the rocks and stone of the destroyed house. The whispers began to slowly grow louder, and their words more audible. Sand, life, flesh, bone, femur, artery, vein, heart, stomach, liver, intestine, kidney, human, scorpion, venom, chitin, steel, sword, armor, magic, mana, inhibitor, nexus, time. The words whispered made no sense, and they continued on and on, growing in volume until the voices sounded like Nocturne reciting the dictionary.

Quinn might have laughed at the thought were it not for the sudden appearance of a large, floating creature. It was purple, with gold armor adorning what she guessed was its face. It had three tentacles that were currently swiping away the sand from the ground, keeping itself hidden from view. She assumed its back was facing her since she still couldn't see anything resembling a face.

Eventually the dust settled once more and the Demacians were shocked to see a pile of knives, daggers, and shurikens on the ground in front of the monstrosity. The tentacles were raised over the pile, and suddenly purple lighting arced off of them and onto the weapons. Within seconds, the pile was reduced to ashes. Not a puddle of melted iron or steel, just more dust to join the desert.

The beast flicked away the blackened ashes and slowly turned in the air to face them. Quinn held one hand over her mouth and one over Lux's to muffle their gasps of surprise. It had no face save for one large, violet eye with a slit pupil. It glared in their direction and slowly began to float over to them. Quinn felt the urge to hyperventilate, but she was too paralyzed with fear to even shudder at the abhorrent creature. Lux seemed to have frozen entirely, not even able to breathe.

The beast reached their hiding place, then moved directly over them. Quinn closed her eyes and prayed for salvation. Lux continued to stare on in her fear induced trance. What she saw was the being of darkness reach a tentacle over to pick up a lock of blonde hair. Then, like with the blades on the pile, purple lighting arced off of it and the hair was incinerated. Lux's eyes widened and she stifled a gasp when the whispers stopped, then slowly began to chant five words.

Crownguard, Luxanna, light, Demacia, knowledge. Eventually all the whispers began to chant "knowledge" over and over again, and the monstrosity turned to face the west. It then began to float away in the direction of the Institute of War, the direction of Mogron Pass, the direction of Demacia.

The duo lay in the destruction of their earlier battle long after it passed beyond the horizon. The sun began to set, casting an orange glow on everything in its final moments before the long night.

Eventually Valor crawled forth from his hole and began searching for the two. Spotting the slit in the rubble, Valor made his way over and looked into the makeshift shelter. He crawled in and stood on the lap of his partner. He raised his wings and screeched loudly. When he received no response he began to tighten his talons on her thigh. Just when they started to draw blood did Quinn finally flinch and begin hissing at the stinging sensation of his claws. She looked up through the opening and saw it was almost night, and the monster was long gone. She turned towards Lux, and pushed her gently, trying to nudge her back into reality.

"Lux." She whispered. Quinn quickly checked the opening to make sure nothing reacted to her voice. When nothing happened, she sighed shakily and built up enough confidence to speak louder. "Lux!" she shouted. Still no response. Quinn sighed in annoyance. "Fine…" she muttered. "You made me do this."

Quinn grabbed one of her bolts, and began to poke Lux with it, slowly applying more and more pressure. Just like with her, the moment blood was drawn Lux responded. She gasped loudly and began hyperventilating.

"Quinn… It's going… for… Demacia… it… found a piece… of my hair… it's going for Demacia… to find me." She huffed out in between panicked breaths.

"Whoa, whoa whoa! Calm down, first off. Breathe easy. There you go." When Lux's breathing was restored to normal, she explained how she heard the whispers change to being about her and the chanting of "Knowledge". Quinn looked thoughtful for a moment before she smiled in what seemed to be relief.

"If that thing's going for Demacia, then it will need to pass through the League first, won't it?" Quinn asked.

Lux pondered it and realized it would have to. The only way there was to take Mogron Pass, and head through the Institute. If that thing came in contact with the summoners, then lives would be lost, but it would be restrained like Nocturne and even the Void-Born. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be leaving the Institute unshackled.

Lux smiled in relief and then stood up with a look of determination.

"We should still report what we found to Demacia. Talon and Katarina were out here for reasons unknown but an unidentified creature with mana capability is too. Maybe that thing was the readings we were getting, maybe it was Noxus, and maybe it's both. Regardless, Demacia needs to know."

Quinn smiled, happy to be out of that mess. "Well, you're right about that. Even if it doesn't make it to Demacia, the world needs to know something's out here. Let's head back to Amoline's village and see about getting returned home."

Valor squawked in agreement and with that, the duo decided to head home, beaten but not entirely broken.

"Kat, promise me you will stay close to me until we find your father." There was no humor, no emotion at all in his demand. Talon felt an increasingly large pit in his stomach every step they took into the darkness, and now it was a gaping hole that slowly ate away at his courage. This place wasn't natural, and it certainly didn't belong in this world. Yet it was here, and so was Marcus if the note told it true. So Talon would march into what he was certain would lead to Oblivion if it meant saving him. However, Talon felt doubt arise at the prospect of bringing Katarina with him. She had already come this far, and he knew she would never back away now. However he couldn't escape the feeling that if she followed him into the jaws of death, only one of them would leave. This was the root of his fear of this place, but he had to conquer it. If he ran here, who knows what would happen as a consequence. And so with heavy reluctance, Talon resigned himself to push on further into the heart of darkness, but not before he was certain he did all he could to protect them.

"Promise me, Kat." Talon commanded once more, back turned to her so as to hide his fear and his shame.

Initially, Katarina was off put by his order, but sensing the evil of this place she readily accepted.

"I promise Talon. Now let's find my father so we can leave." With a nod, Talon continued forward, not even turning around to face her.

The land was now completely enveloped in darkness, the only light being an ominous purple glow from what appeared to be a single star in the sky. With nothing to use as a reference of their position, they followed the star/light in hopes that they would find the old city. After another hour of trudging through the sand, the two came across what appeared to be a mountain. The wall of rock rose indefinitely into the sky, beyond the point of visibility, with only a small narrow opening leading inside it. The opening was blocked by a gate that appeared to be made of various bones from all kinds of creatures, predominantly human (if the number of human skulls matched the number of human bodies used in its construction). There was a small inhibitor crystal placed on a staff by the entrance that projected a field of mana to protect the gate.

This was it, the point of no return. Beyond these gates had to be the cursed city; beyond these gates lay Icathia. Talon looked to Katarina one last time as if to ask if she was ready. With a nod in response Talon turned back towards the gate, and raised his arm blade to destroy the crystal. With a thrust of Noxian Diplomacy the crystal broke, and the mana turned from the field to rush into the nearest mana conduit. In this case, Talon.

As the energy rushed into his body he could see flashes of his nightmares rushing to get to him: one moment he saw the other him, another he saw millions of tortured souls crawling towards him from the gates. These visions flashed by in his mind with the invasion of the foreign mana for all of two seconds, but for Talon it may as well have been hours. Finally, for him, the rush of horrors ended, and he fell to his knees gasping for air.

"Talon!" yelled Katarina as she rushed to his aid. She took a knee by him, and held him by his shoulders to look into his eyes. It was there again; that look she so dreaded seeing in his eyes. The fear was plain as day despite his attempts to hide it under a mask of indifference.

"I'm… fine." He practically gasped, as if just forcing out two words were enough to exhaust him. Katarina narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth in an open sneer. "Really…" he spoke again. "I'm fi-"

*Smack*

The sound of her slap seemed to echo off the rocks as the two kneeled there, frozen by the shock of her action. Katarina's eyes were hidden behind her hair while Talon was struggling to figure out what just happened. Slowly he turned his head back to face her, and by then he wished he hadn't.

"I thought you promised me you'd tell me everything from now on." She murmured. Talon could only blink. They stayed there stuck in the awkward silence he had created. Talon quickly recovered from the fear by her words, but now he couldn't bring himself to look at her for the shame he felt. Katarina didn't even feel the sting on her palm anymore; she was too numb from the fact that Talon's fear was enough to betray her trust. Eventually Katarina stood up and walked over to the now opened gate. She waited for him to rise as well, before making her way into the bowels of the earth. Talon followed behind like a lifeless husk, wondering why he would keep trying to hide his fear from her when she was the only one who could save him from it.

Their journey through the tunnels occurred without a word exchanged between the two. Talon stared at the back of her head, willing himself to speak, to apologize, but never getting any further than a pathetic opening and closing of the mouth. Katarina pushed onwards, focused only on the path in front of her. This man wasn't the Talon she knew. This man was a coward, this man was consumed by fear, this man was weak. He didn't deserve any words from her until he was ready to conquer his fear like a true assassin.

The path into the mountain took them deep beneath the surface of the desert, trailing down diagonally for what felt like hours, although time was impossible to determine in the pitch black cave. Often times their feet snagged on the rocks, leading to bloodied knees and scraped knuckles on more than one occasion. When they finally reached the bottom, the ground leveled out and there was a tunnel mouth with a soft lavender glow at the other end. They exited the tunnels into an enormous cavern that seemed to be hollowed out from within the mountain. Buildings could be seen everywhere in the cavern. They seemed to be carved out of the stone from the cave before it was hollowed, and even were located along the walls and roof of the cavern. In the center of the chamber was a single purple nexus glowing with all the light of the absent sun. The rock that made up the city was pitch black and had some kind of fleshy, coiling pattern running throughout the entire mountain.

The two wary assassins finally exchanged looks before pressing forward into the horrid city. The walls seemed to house skulls in the spiral portions of the fleshy patterns, of what the two couldn't tell. Whatever it was, they could agree that it certainly was not human. Occasionally they found patches of what appeared to be mud on the ground. Upon closer inspection, Talon determined it was actually ancient dried blood.

The cavern seemed like it had been deserted for millennia, yet they couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching them move into the city. Normally they'd ignore the feeling since they were often the targets of such glares; these glares however seemed to emanate from everywhere at once, as though the city was alive and merely watching two insects crawl inside it.

"Mind if we get a move on towards that nexus?" Talon asked.

Katarina wanted to glare at him for almost sounding scared, but if she did, she'd be a hypocrite. This place unnerved her and made her want to run despite her warriors instincts to call out into the dark and challenge the ghosts of this place. Instead, she muttered a quick, "Please, let's."

Eventually they came upon the center of the dystopian metropolis. The center plaza was a huge circular garden, but the plants had withered and died long ago. Dry fountains occupied the corners and what appeared to be a dried up moat surrounded a large, black pillar-like structure in the center. The pillar-like structure reached up into the sky and seemed to be holding up the nexus. Its moat was surrounded by jagged, black spires of rock which blocked all ways to it besides a small walkway across the moat to it. On the side of the pillar facing the walkway was another of those strange skulls. Its mouth was open to reveal needle-like teeth a few inches long framing another inhibitor crystal. This crystal was different, however. It seemed to absorb the light from the nexus like a black hole, and it was feeding black mana into the structure.

Talon couldn't shake the feeling that he had seen this before. He walked around the spires to the walkway, and that's when he felt it. A chill shivered down his spine as the intense cold brushed against him. It was colder than a Freljordian winter. Then the runes began to glow from bottom to top.

"The Obelisk…" he whispered. Katarina cast a worried glance at him, but returned her focus to the towering structure. It was just as he had seen in his dreams, blacker than night, colder than ice, and carved of obsidian with glowing violet runes inscribed on its surface. He didn't hear the whispers as he did in his nightmares, but he didn't need to. That same compelling feeling to touch it began to plague his mind.

He felt his will being overpowered as he started to walk towards it despite Katarina's protests to not go near it. He ignored her, falling into a trance where his only purpose was to touch the stone. It was calling him with a gentle soothing voice, like a mother calling her child. Talon smiled as he was further compelled to feel the icy cold. It was pleasurable to have something so cold so close to him after spending days out in the heat. He wanted to feel colder, he didn't want to feel warm ever again.

Katarina ground her teeth in frustration as she ran up to the Obelisk to catch him. 'What is he thinking!? First he tells me how that thing is the source of his nightmares and now he wants to go near it!' Talon was close, and needed only to reach out with his hand to finally feel the welcoming cold. Katarina caught up and reached out to grab him, but something grabbed her arm and threw her back down the walkway. She quickly recovered and prepared to fight when her eyes widened and she fell into shock as it then went after Talon. Just before he could finally feel the chilling stone, he felt his arm be yanked back, his body turned, and his jaw hit with the blunt force of a mace. The last thing he saw was Katarina snapping out her reverie behind two large combat boots standing over him.

A/N: So! I know this one's a bit on the short side, and you've all been waiting for awhile, and I apologize. While I don't want to get your hopes up, I will admit I've been... experimenting with a few one-shot/ new story ideas, although I think I'd rather keep them to myself for now (I'm nowhere near ready, or prepared to handle updating two stories if this one's anything to go off of) so that's why I don't have more than I normally have after all this time. Back onto this story, as always leave a review/ msg and let me know how I'm doing! Am I meeting expectations, falling short, improving, or falling into an abysmal performance? Your criticism is my food. Please don't make me starve ;-; And thank you to any and all who take the time to write a few words of constructive criticism or encouragement. You have no idea how much I appreciate you all for doing that :) Oh, if theres any confusion about the setting of Icathia, the black fleshy substance in the city is an idea inspired by the Xenomorph hives from the Alien series. Imagine desert architecture, except instead of wood and sand, its more rock and large bones/mass piles of bones bound together and placed where the wood would normally be. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed, and get ready for shit to hit the fan next chapter :)

Until next time, Live and Die By the Blade.