The vampire growls, she stares into the emotionless ethereal eyes of the spectral spear wielder and scowls in annoyance, their bodies the only visible thing in a sea of endless darkness and Vayne has finally accumulated enough experience with the supernatural to understand when someone has forcefully dragged her inside the sanctuary of her own mind.

"You didn't have to knock me out in order to talk to me, Spear of Vengeance."

The ghost pauses, the shadows starts swirling, an echo.

"We know."

The specter talks, but her lips aren't moving, her voice reverberating with the echo of a thousand lost souls, small wisps of smoke and undead essence lazily spinning around the specter's flickering body mixing with the darkness surrounding them.

"But conversing is so much easier when talking to your soul directly, Night Hunter. The lips can lie, the words can deceive, the eyes can hide the nature of a traitorous monster, but the soul… the soul is always whispering to us, revealing the truth."

The huntress nods and the warrior falls silent like the hearts of her prey before her merciless spears, patiently waiting for the fallen noble's reply. Time is meaningless for the deceased after all and Vayne waits for what feels like an eternity before she finally decides to break the ominous silence.

"You brought me here to talk, so either talk to me or be gone, spirit. I have more important business to attend to than satisfying the whims of a wraith."

Kalista remains still for what feels like decades, incorporeal form phasing in and out of existence, cold unblinking eyes staring emotionlessly towards the agitated predator until the voice suddenly returns, uttering sharp, venomous words and shifting syllables, echoing from every twisting shadow and flickering ghost-smog, drowning the vampire in a sea of reverberating screamed whispers.

"We see… We can see a lot of things, vampire-huntress, things hidden from the sight of mortal eyes. Yes… We can see the hunter becoming the Prey and the prey becoming the pet until it turns into a ravenous beast and devours its master…"

"…The start of a war, the end of a country, the betrayed becoming the betrayer, countless souls embracing the afterlife, sent to hell by your own two bloodstained hands wrapped around their throats. We see the end of the beast that loved the lamb and the lamb that protected its kin-killer"

Vayne sighs, the first signs of a headache already making their appearance, another practical disadvantage of having a conversation inside your very own mind. The dull throb behind her eyes quickly evolving into painful jabs under her forehead and a hammer between her ears. Tsk.

"The Hunter has already been the prey and the beast and the pet and a fucking scapegoat for more filthy humans than she can even care to remember, so excuse me if I don't really care about the consequences of my actions. And if my quest for revenge is destined to start a war or utterly destroy a corrupted country that torments its own subjects, so be it. The beast as you call it certainly doesn't give a fuck about the lives of the scumbags that tormented her for so many years."

The specter hums in thought as if the reanimated ether can still remember the habits of the flesh and the mannerisms of its tragically lost life and then the reverberating voice returns, harsh and venomous echoing from every shifting shadow, carrying with it the dry whisper of undeath.

"Yes, that is true, but the huntress still cares for the woman and the bird and the fox she spent so much time with, and the children of man that have yet to lose their heart and innocence. The huntress protected them in the not too distant past from the beasts that govern the night and she still refuses to leave them in the clutches of monsters."

Vayne just scoffs at her, scowling at the swirling mass of darkness covering her mindscape until the deafening silence of the ghost starts irritating her, forcing her to answer even if it's just to get this meeting over with so she can finally start plotting the end of the bastard prince's wretched bloodline.

"That was a long time ago, specter, long before Nocturne's visions reminded me of the cruelty of mankind and the tortures I had to suffer in the hands of the royal guard. I am done serving humans now and Jarvan is going to get what's coming to him, and I am warning you, spirit, don't even try stopping me. I have no qualms about putting you to rest once and for all."

The specter pauses, the vampire stops and time seems to freeze as cyan lifeless orbs suddenly meet cold, muddy brown, but the visage of the ghost remains emotionless like always. Kalista's face is a mask carved in stone, hard, distant, inhuman, shaped by the touch of death and the test of the ages. Irisless, flickering gaze staring into the eyes of eternity.

"And yet your soul tells us otherwise. You are as much of a killer as you are a protector and you can both become a murderer of saints or a guardian of beasts. There is enough hate inside you to end the world of man and enough love to preserve and even guard it. Enough darkness inside your soul to consume you and enough light for you to maintain your sanity. You are truly a monster among us ghosts and walking nightmares."

The scene seems to dim and the vampire just sighs, turning its back to the ancient spectral warrior, but Kalista is suddenly in front of her, pale, irisless eyes pinning her in place with silent intensity.

"Do not misunderstand our intentions, Night Hunter We are not here to stop you, on the contrary. We would like to pledge our allegiance to you and devote ourselves to your cause. So stop planning the downfall of a kingdom and let the punishment of the guilty to us, lest you really want to become the beast the foolish humans claim you to be."

The vampire pauses for only a moment and then sighs before smiling at the ghost. Shauna takes a step forward and smirks right in front of the undead warrior's face, flickering hues of red dancing inside the cloudy depths of her brownish eyes. Brown-red lakes filled with death, pain and insanity radiating murder.

"Well, maybe they were right about me in the first place, maybe I was a beast all along and I prefer drowning the whole world in blood and starting a genocide. Maybe, I don't feel like following your advice, specter."

A flicker of green, a shift in the shadows and suddenly the voice of the Lady of Vengeance returns, but something feels wrong. No, something is definitely wrong and horribly so, because the echoes of the dead aren't dark or threatening anymore, but sad and woeful, almost mournful.

" …Then the betrayed will become the betrayer, my spear will one day find its way into your black heart and your soulmate will die knowing that she was the one responsible for the deaths of everyone she ever held dear. The ranger will also follow the path of blood and carnage and the light of her souls will disappear. Forever."

The vampire nods, brown eyes sinking into cyan pools of lighting with an intensity that would make the skin of even the dead crawl and then she smiles wickedly, raising her hands in defeat, but even though the red in her eyes begins to fade and her gesture is one of peace and goodwill her voice is still carrying the chill of the grave and her smile is brimming with the promise of endless suffering.

"I see, so it seems that I've lost this time. Please, make them suffer, make them curse the moment they were born and make their screams give even Thresh nightmares worse than Nocturne's. Or else I will do it myself and then come after you, and please believe me when I am saying that I will be putting a silver tipped bolt between the eyes of every undead monstrosity in the Shadow Isles and then set the whole continent on fire."

The vampire's smirk widens and it is now threatening to spill out of her face as her eyes narrow dangerously.

"So, do you still want to assume my mission?"

The specter pauses for just a moment and then nods, ethereal spears suddenly bathing the whole world in pale green light as the darkness abruptly begins to fade.

"We have no mercy."

The vampire nods.

"Then claim your prize, oh my sweet Lady of Vengeance."

But the spirit has already began walking away, darkness and fog parting in front of it like twirling curtains drawn wide open by the invisible hands of ghosts, the eerie glow of light disappearing completely, leaving the vampire in complete and utter darkness.

The voice returns one last time, an airy whisper, softer than the breath of a newborn before finally fading and then Kalista is gone and Vayne is standing alone among the shadows.

"Your soul is already bonded with another one, huntress, so I can't make you my Oathsworn. Her bond preserves you."

Vayne nods before sighing in annoyance, her gaze darting among the fading shadows and the shifting fog of her mindscape.

"You could have at least woken me up before leaving…."


Writer's note: The reason for all the italics is that I tried to indicate the reverberating parts in Kalista's speech pattern, maybe I shouldn't have and I will be deleting them later if I realize that the text is tiring the eyes of the reader. I am going to end the story in the following one or two chapters and I am also considering of writing a kind of dark path spin off where Vayne chooses to take her revenge and starts wrecking things, buuuut I will have to fix the older chapters first and that reminds me of all the disappearing sentences from then I first joined ff. Soooo we will see. The story also needs more angst, could you guys please kill Vayne for me? Maybe make a Summoner control Quinn or something and shoot her with a crossbow? And maybe Shauna is pregnant with Valor's child... Hey stop looking at me like that! I am just throwing in ideas, I am seriously trying to help you guys.