Talon stared at the road in front of him with a longing desire to get to the Shurima Desert. He had no idea what he was going to do, in order to get there, but that was not going to lead him astray. He wondered whether or not Katarina would be able to beat him to the desert. It depended upon how fast the pigeon flew and what method Katarina planned to travel by. It was right about then that Talon wished he had stolen a horse before leaving the port. Perhaps he could find a farmer near the outskirts of Demacia whose horse he could take: one of the glorious things about animals was their stupidity that allowed them to trust anyone they came into contact with.

The night sky's dark consistency slowly grew to the point of becoming a black blanket that draped over the space above Talon's head. The darkness pleased him more greatly than most things about the world did, and it provided him the comfort of being able to spot others while they could not see him. He preferred night where distance alone became a solid and usable cover from foes or targets. He had carried out the vast majority of his assassination missions in night's veil; which meant he had spent most of his life in the darkness.

The assassin's hope had come true many hours later as he stumbled upon a large field of crops. With crops around, there had to be a barn nearby that housed animals he could hijack. Following the potential lead, Talon shifted around the perimeter of the plants to insure that he did not make too much noise on his approach. While he was confident that he would be capable of fending off any angry person trying to defend his property, he did not want to draw any attention to himself until he was ready to rejoin the League.

He found the barn and walked around looking for the entrance of least resistance. There were a few windows midway up the barn, but they were all intact at that moment. Breaking one out, while quite a simple task, would also be a noisy one: waking a barn full of animals would just create an extra hoop to have to jump through. He decided that the front door, while the most obvious approach, was probably the most plausible solution.

The door was held shut with a large chain and a simple padlock. Talon smiled as soon as he saw it and shuffled through the contents of his backpack until he found the small knife he had taken from Lucian to open his cans of food, and one of the many bobby pins resting at the bottom. Within seconds, Talon had popped the lock open and slipped inside of the barn.

Most of the animals were asleep, and Talon scanned his options looking for one that was healthy enough to make the journey he wanted to accomplish, as fast as he needed it to. He settled on the least miserable looking of the horses and woke it by rubbing its head. The horse snuffed into the air and Talon quickly hopped onto its back as soon as it had fully stood up. A quick swat to its rear got the stead moving and out of the barn. The horse did not seem too fast, but he could not have expected much seeing as the farmer did not have a full stable to choose from.

He rode deep into the night and kept himself nourished with the food supplies he had stolen from Port Deka. The horse was clearly growing tired but Talon did not care much. He had no intention of keeping the horse, and any food he provided the creature would just subtract from his own rations.

The horse slowed to a trot and eventually to a walk that did nothing more for Talon than save him the energy of having to use his own feet. The ground had gradually transitioned from dirt and grass to a rough and rocky terrain. Talon knew that the entire southern portion of the continent remained fairly desolate and barren; consisting of mostly sand and rock. The Rune Wars had taken their toll on the land: they had occurred before the League was built and the destruction left behind remained as one of the most prominent factors to encourage the relocation and control of the fighting among the powerful mages and soldiers of Runeterra. Where Talon stood at that moment was the Great Barrier: a naturally created landscape whose mountains reached so far, and whose valleys steeped so low, that no one dared attempt to cross them without going to the pass in the middle. The main problem for Talon was where the path laid, being right next to the Institute of War, and he had no intention of traveling that far east, or of drawing so close to the Institute. He needed a plausible way to pass the Barrier, but he just could not think of how to do so.

Talon dismounted his horse and watched it immediately crumple to the ground in exhaustion. Talon ignored the creature and knelt down on the ground to think about his next course of action, until he saw a figure hovering towards him. The sight was peculiar in and of itself, seeing as the man was not walking. Talon gathered that the man had to be a very powerful mage to allow himself to levitate in place of walking. As the figure drew nearer, Talon did not take his eyes off of him, and tried to see if he could distinguish who it was. Most mages of that caliber would have been a member of the League. Standing up, Talon took note of the man's purple garb, which included a hood pulled far over his face and a bandana covering his mouth. His arms were exposed to the sun and showed off his dark complexion; which pulled Talon to believe that the man had already spent a very long time in the southern, desert-like regions of the continent. He had seen the figure before, but not just inside of the League of Legends.

"Malzahar..." Talon said softly to himself, trying to see if hearing the name would provoke his memory. However, the name was not helping him out at all. The scenery itself seemed more nostalgic than the words. Talon combed his brain, searching for memories of a different time that he had been in southern Valoran and seen such a mage. A flashback of his pursuit on Jarvan IV hit him, and he remembered the strange man with bleeding feet who had marched across the Shurima Desert. There were not many resemblances between the man Talon had watch fall into a magic conjured hole, and the mage floating towards him just then, but there were similarities present that his assassin-driven mind could pick up on. For instance, he was no longer walking, and that could be because of the fact that he had marched until the skin peeled from his soles. The dark complexion and musty appearance remained the same, as well as a few distinct facial features that were visible. Malzahar was a champion in the League of Legends, and Talon had no idea why he had not picked up on the fact that he had seen the man before; perhaps it was just simple ignorance or the lack of similarities. Regardless, the assassin had no intention of talking to the mage, but he was powerful enough that Talon had no hopes of running away at that point, so he stood still and waited for Malzahar's approach.

"Talon... I've been looking for you..."

"Have you? I find that hard to believe. No one has had a clue as to where I have been in forever."

"Forever... Do you even know what forever is?" the mage questioned with an uncanny ring of seriousness to it. The man's voice seemed hollow and unnatural. It was not the voice of a normal man, and yet, it still retained expected pauses and rhythms to its speech that only a human would use. Talon did not intend to answer the remark, but he wanted to know how the man knew where to find him.

"What are you doing here?" Talon asked.

"I could ask you the same..." he stated. Talon was beginning to get annoyed at the question dodging, and pondered how he could have been found. It was possible that someone in Port Deka had seen him, or that Lucian had told someone of Talon's presence, but it seemed not only very unlikely, but decently illogical: word would have had to travel incredibly quickly to get from Lucian's mouth to someone-in-power's ears in order for them to send Malzahar his way so soon.

"Answer me before I leave you lying in the dirt, suffocating from entanglement in your own intestines," Talon spat.

"Before? So you plan to do so regardless?" Malzahar questioned. Talon grinned and executed a shunpo to place himself slightly behind the mage. He hopped up and threw a quick jab into the back of the man's skull and forced a stagger at the impact. Realizing he had no blade to finish the man off with, Talon punched his target a few more times before the druid managed to recuperate. Standing on the ground instead of levitating, Malzahar lowered his hood and stared at Talon. The shaggy, greasy hair was exactly as he had remembered it to be, and the dead set gaze could belong to none other; Talon was sure that he was looking at the man he had seen get engulfed in the magical hole in the middle of the Voodoo Lands. If Malzahar had survived that, he had to possess magical skill beyond comprehension.

Fully accepting the fact that he was outmatched, the assassin tried to search his surroundings for a way out the fight, but something stopped him: he could not turn away from the mage's eyes. It was as if the man was staring straight into his soul, and there was not a single thing Talon could do to divert his gaze. The grasp on his conscious was unbearably overwhelming, and left him in a strange paralysis state. The mage was clearly performing some sort of magical act, but Talon had no idea what it was, or how to break it. Behind the bandana, Malzahar smirked broadly and continued to hold Talon's mind in a limbo state with his stare, while beginning to open a portal to the Void beneath him. It did not take long until the petrified assassin fell into the abyss of an alternate world. Target out of sight, the mage's grasp on Talon's conscious was released, and the same smirk remained painted to his face as he floated back away from the Great Barrier; his task there was done.


Talon kept attempting to open his eyes but he could not see a thing. He lifted a finger to his pupil to insure that his eye was, in fact, open, but he saw nothing. Perhaps that was what it felt like to be blind. The only notification that he could see at all was the fact that an occasional streak of purple interrupted the continual blur of black in front of him. Talon attempted to walk, but found the concept to be quite challenging due to the lack of being able to see what he was walking upon. The role that vision plays on ones balance was becoming less of a concept and more of a fact as the assassin progressed. Being capable of seeing little was not an oddity to the man, but being unable to see anything at all was an entirely foreign concept. And while progress was light, it was eminent. Talon continually placed one foot in front of the other until he learned to remaster the concept of walking as if he had just woken from a coma. He groaned at the thought of still being unarmed. Even a steak knife would have been enough to stop the insane druid from sending him off into the abyss.

Unsure as to where he was going, Talon marched as if he had a purpose. Never before had he been beaten by imprisonment, and he had no plan to be stopped then. After some time of walking in a direction, indistinguishable from any other direction, leaving him without the knowledge of whether or not he had just been walking in circles, he saw a soft glow on his chest. The light emitting from his clothing seemed to be the only source of visibility within miles. Clutching the clothing in front of his chest, he used the tips of his fingers to comb and find the source. He felt a small cross-shaped object and pulled it out of his shirt. He turned the small token back and forth in his hands as he remembered being given the Banshee's Veil by Queen Ashe, shortly before he ventured further into the Freljord and attempted to assassinate King Tryndamere. He had no idea why it was glowing, but recalled the strange magic held within that had created a wall to protect him from the onslaught of snow and ice as he had marched along. He had worn the pendant ever since, but it had never once served a different purpose in his life; until then. The glowing aura made a bubble around him amidst the dark chaos. He was able to look up into what appeared to be a sky, and down at where he was walking.

A few strange creatures would occasionally make a pass through the air above him, but none seemed to be bothered by his presence. Talon tried to figure out if he was in some sort of dream or illusion, or what sort of dark magical realm he had been sent to. Reviewing his knowledge of Malzahar, he thought back to the tremendous beast that emerged from the hole in the ground just after the man had fallen into it. Shyvana had slain the monstrosity, but few of Jarvan IV's soldiers could have said the same, and Jarvan IV was eaten alive, just to be saved by the half dragon's rage. The brute had something in common with a few champions from the League, being an eerie presence in general, coupled with the obvious demonic appearance and primarily dark color scheme. All of the creatures that possessed such features hailed from the Void; or claimed to have anyways. No records indicate of any mage, no matter how powerful, being able to travel to the Void and come back alive. It was a depressing and bleak place where the only life forms that lived appeared to be of horridly disgusting existence, and the surroundings alone made living nearly impossible. The little information Talon had to base his situation off of seemed to line up fairly well though. Not to mention Malzahar's shady subsistence coupled with bizarre magical strength, could have allowed him to fall into the Void, and return to Runeterra with some sort of strange embracing of its strength instead of being ripped into pieces by the scenery. Talon held the banshee's veil tightly as he walked and tried to find any indication in his surroundings that he may not actually be in the Void, but none proved.

The assassin marched on for hours with no signs of natural life, or even existence of another object on his plane of view. Finally, what appeared to be a man kneeling became distinguishable. Picking up his pace to a jog, Talon approached the man, calling out to him. At first, the figure did not react. Talon got to the point where he was standing right beside the kneeling man and placed a hand on his should, shaking it gently. While the motion was generally very uncharacteristic of Talon, any other person sitting inside of the Void was a potential ally or route out of the place.

"Oh, it is you. Hard to tell in here. The voices seem to come and go as they please," rang out a tone that was all too familiar to Talon.

"Marcus?!" Talon shouted in astonishment.

"No need to yell now, I am but a foot away from you," the general said as he began to stand to his full height. He was a very tall man, standing over six and a half feet, and wore a shaggy beard and scruffy hair whose grey streaks could be seen from light-years away. His thin figure wore a black cloak with a blood red lacing to it, and the hood rested down around his shoulders. His pants were dark and his boots matched the rest of his outfit. A sheath could be seen by his hip with the handle of his short sword poking out from the end. It was the same outfit he wore when he traveled away from the manor, being capable of allowing him to go on a quick assassination mission if needed, clearly show his stature and high ranking nature, and, at the same time, not be too inconspicuous if he were seen among a crowd.

"What…" Talon stammered, unsure as to where his thoughts were at that moment.

"I know, you have questions. But I have been waiting an awful long time for this moment. Talon, I need you to take off your clothes," he told the man. Talon wrinkled his brow, but unclipped his severed bladed cape and let it slowly fall to the ground with a quiet thud. Before he could get any further, Marcus roared with laughter and pat him on the shoulder.

"I jest, I jest. You clearly are Talon. Loyal to his word of dedication. Now stop stripping and get me the hell out of here." Marcus was the only man in the world capable of genuinely embarrassing Talon, and it showed in the red coloring flooding into his cheeks.

"Is that emotion I sense dear Talon? My my, cut that crap out. No need for that. Now, how did you get here?"

"I… I don't know," Talon said after a brief moment of attempting to recollect himself. "I was kind of sent here by a mage… I believe his name is Malzahar. Perhaps you know him?"

"Ah, yes, our Malzy. Quite the pain, really. We don't need to worry ourselves with him at the moment, he is just a pawn. We need to take out the King, or rather, the Queen."

"What are you talking about?" Talon asked, completely lost by Marcus' words.

"Ah, nothing. Nothing that is important quite yet. But for now we need to grab another friend. However, I fear that he IS on the verge of insanity. So let us snatch him up at once. We need to get out of here."

"Well, yes. But how did you get here? How have you survived all of this time?"

"Oh, that. Well, nasty old Swain sent me here. More or less. He did not do so himself, but he used this man like a puppet to create the portal to send me here. Malzy, you see. Poor thing's will is more useless than a mentally ill goldfish. Regardless, I had intended to sit down with him and discuss things and eat things and maybe have some tea. I wonder if it's still there, that spearmint is my favorite…" Marcus trailed off. Talon did not think that he was going to get a whole lot of useful information out of the man, but he could still see hints of his old self shining through. While he never was a super talkative one, he did maintain a very unique sense of humor, and some of his ramblings were most likely intended to be jokes, not just insane banter, but it was difficult to distinguish the difference. He figured it would be best just to let him speak to himself for the time being. If Marcus truly had been stuck in the Void for years, it was bound to have had an impact on his mental stability.

"Ah HAH!" Marcus proclaimed so suddenly that Talon instantly sought for his weapon. It was probably best that he was unarmed, or else Marcus could have acquired an instinctive knife to the stomach.

"Do NOT shout like that," Talon snarled.

"Put a rag in it, I found him Talon."

"Found who?" Talon did not receive a verbal answer, but a visual one. Marcus pointed to a man curled up on the floor in a gold and black armor that was adorned in horns and scales of monstrous beasts and foes from throughout Runeterra. "Is that…" Talon stammered.

"A man? Yes, sorry bud, you will have to stick with ogling my daughter. I mean, it's a bit awkward for me, but whatever." Talon's head slouched into his neck and his eyes shot towards the sky as he heard Marcus' response. He was clearly a bit out there at that moment.

"OBVIOUSLY a man. I meant, is that Prince Jarvan IV?"

"OH! Why yes, yes he is. Would you wake him? He gets a bit cranky." The sight of the Demacian prince crumpled on the floor was more than strange to Talon, not to mention when he was positive that the man existed in Valoran simultaneously.

"How is he here?" Talon asked.

"So many damn questions. Just wake him up and ask him yourself." Talon rolled his eyes and did as Marcus asked. Not even a second after the assassin had shaken the man awake, he was on his feet and swinging a broken lance wildly into the air. Talon dodged all of the attacks and stood to the side, staring at the strange duo he had found.

"DEMACIA!" the Prince shouted in rage.

"Now now Jarvan, we are not in Demacia."

"Marcus? What are you doing in MY kingdom! I told you that you are not welcome!" Jarvan barked.

"Come, Jarvan. I feel that we may have an escape route from this purple hazy hell," Marcus soothed.

"Eh? Well be on with it! I grow tired of seeing nothing more than black and purple and the green light from this widget," the Prince stated as he swung his broken lance about a little more. A strange artifact was fastened to its end that glowed a soft greenish color. Its effect seemed to resemble the Banshee's Veil, but Talon had no idea how he would have one. Turning to Marcus, he noticed that there was a red glow about his chest that was separate from the lacing around his garb.

"Do you two have Banshee's Veils?" Talon questioned.

"So THAT'S what this widget is! I knew I liked it! Ah ha!" The prince proclaimed. Talon began to wonder if he would become insane more quickly by standing in the void all by himself, or with the two men before him as company.

"Ah, yes. Yes they are. Talon, I have planned for this, for a very long time. Now, hand me yours, if you will. Prince Jarvan? May I see you lance?" Marcus said.

"My what?" the prince shot back.

"Your widget."

"AH! Yes, you can see my widget for a moment."

"Perfect. Thank you kindly," he replied as he took all three banshee's veils in hand. As he drew them together, their blue, red, and green glows swirled about before erupting into a blinding light that took Talon to his knees in pain. A few moments later, he looked up to see that he was back with his feet on Valoran, somewhere in a large desert region, sometime in the early evening, staring at Jarvan, Marcus, and a very confused red haired woman standing behind them, shocked from the sudden apparition of three men.

"What the hell is going on?!" Katarina demanded.

"I. Have. No. Idea." Talon told her.