After Shen, Zed and Diana left the treeline, they started heading north-northeast. The landscape in front of them consisted of large plains of waist high grass with smaller hills and forests dotting the landscape. The three of them split up, with a hundred meters in between each of them. At sunset they rendevouzed on one of the hills.
"Alright Zed, " Shen turned to him. "How far is it to the safehous. We shouldn't stay in the open longer than needed here."
Zed turned to Shen. "Its not that close to the border, or it would have been useless. We need to move through the night, or stay out here."
"So what use was this safeouse again?" Diana asked. "I thought we needed it to NOT stay in the open in Noxus."
"Actually," Zed started. "We need it to resupply, and treat wounds, should we have them. Noxus' countryside is too large to cross in one day, we would need at least a week either way."
At this, Shen, who had been scanning the countryside, turned to them and asked Zed: "Do you think we should go through and rest in the safehouse a day, or rest in one of the forests here?"
"If the lay of the land hasn't changed," Zed tried to remember the layout he'd memorized all those years ago. "We'll have to cross some roads, two of them major trade routes. They're patroled heavily. Either we try to slip past them, or we travel by day, but we'd need to disguise ourselves. That, or we stay around here." Zed looked around, across the plain. The sun had set completely, leaving only an orange afterglow in the clouds, which started to cover the entire sky, with only small breaks in the cloud cover.
"I'd say we find shelter," Diana said. "With the clouds the moon can't warn me of impeding danger. We should wait, at least till the clouds move on."
"I think we should move on. The shadows provide perfect shelter for Shen and me, and the patrols are, or should be, thinner at night. And the moon doesn't have to warn you. Out here, in the shadows, we are the real danger for anyone that tries to attack us."
"And," Shen said, "we need to move fast, time is of essence. Ionia might be overrun soon."
"We'll probably need two days and nights to get there, maybe less if we move fast and without rest."
"I don't know about you two, but i can't run through for 48 hours, so we take breaks every few hours, or you two will have to leave me behind." Diana looked between Zed and Shen while saying that.
"So we move, with rest every four hours for twenty minutes," Shen decided.
They set off directly east, Zed ahead of the other two, because his eyes were best in the dark.
At dawn of the third day after leaving the forests around the Institute, Zed led his companions into another of the small forests dotting the noxian landscape.
'This place has grown, a lot for this time...Now to finding the door'
Zed, Shen and Diana moved between the trees, Zed looking for the marks that he knew were showing the door to the safehouse. He saw the marks on an old oak that could only be seen by one who used shadows as weapons. They glowed in an orange light, subtle, but definately noticeable for someone with Zed's keen eyes.
"Here," Zed told Shen and Diana. He bent down to the roots of the ancient tree, and rummaged around in the roots till he found the ring wich opened the door when pulled. He pulled, and a trapdoor slid open right next to Shen.
"So, this is your safehouse?" Shen asked, as he looked into the darkness under the trapdoor. A musty smell rose out of the opening.
„Yes, it is. Now quiet." Zed told him. He then jumped into the shadows that lingered in the entrance, completely ignoring the ladder that led down. He landed three meters down, in front of a tunnel that was just high enough for Zed to stand in. His eyes pierced the lightless enviorment, and he could make out details. The walls were earthern, with roots growing along the sides of the tunel, looking like support frames, and giving the place the feeling of a natural tunnel, carved out by an underground river, but Zed knew that it led to a larger room just a bit down. As soon as Shen and Diana had climbed down the ladder behind him, Zed turned to them:
„I'll scout ahead. Stay here." With that he jumped into the shadows.
He'd positioned himself so that he stood at the far end ofthe safehouse, in case someone was waiting to ambush whoever entered the safehouse. He stood in a rectangular room, with walls four meters apart, with roots tracing them like the tunnel outside. In the middle of the cavern, there were also roots growing straight through the room, like pillars holding up the ceiling. The walls were damp, and the floor was trodden flat and hard. The room had some chests, a table, and a few cots standing in it. Zed quickly went to one of the chests, and checked inside. He found ninja equipment, which was stored here, first, by him and Akali, and later by his assassins, whom he had ordered to keep it stocked.
'Good, it's all stil here. It's also safe, so...
'Oh, but is it safe?'
'Nocturne!'
Zed whirled around, and could here a malicious laugh echoing in the cavern.
'Yes, Zed. Would you still deny my power? Here, in MY realm?'
Zed could now hear Nocturne's voice in his head and in the cavern. It echoed in his ears, and suddenly, the darkness that had sourounded Zed, turned totally black. He could no longer see anything, and Nocturne's body materialised in front of him.
„My power also grows in the dark Nocturne! I did not need you counsel in the Institute, I do not need it know! Begone!"
„But I am not here to give you my counsel. I am here to prove how strong I've become!"
Zed started to feel dread settle over him, but he refused to give in to it. He knew that Nocturnes power needed his victims to fear him. Zed, however, did not.
„I do not fear you Nocturne!"
„No, my nightmares do not influence you as they should, but, imagine what I could do to those close to you, those you love?"
Once again Nocturne's laugh echoed off the cavern's walls.
„I love noone, I stand alone! Begone Nocturne! You cannot scare me!"
„Oh, but you do love, Zed. These feelings you deny, they come with a fear, a fear of loss. And so I can sense them. HAHAHA!"
Slowly, in the darkness around Nocturne, Zed could start to see images of the Institute, images of death and battle in the ruined building that once held the greatest power on all of Valoran. He could see those in the Institute that Zed had grown to respect, and, to some extent, even trust: Talon, the man that was the closest thing to a friend for Zed, lieing in a pool f blood, his eyes wide open, and his own blade embedded in his chest. He could see Quinn and Valor, whose skills he had learned to respect, fighting a loosing battle in a being shrouded in darkness. The summoner who had been in charge of Zed's League Judgment sucomb to fear. The ground ittered with the dead and dying champions and summoners. Zed's gaze locked onto one person who stood alone in a field clear of bodies, completely isolated from everything.
„No..." Zed gasped.
He could see the summoner Elena, who had started to summon Zed often, and with whom he had soon struck up a good connection, and maybe even more, stand facing a being of terrifying power. It was stronger than even Nocturne, and the vortex of power that swirled around her couldn't protect her. She screamed as the dark closed in on her.
„NOOO!" Zed cried out as the vision faded. Around Zed the darkness got even blacker, and Nocturne laughed. Now Zed could feel the fear that most felt when sourounded by the dark. That was when Nocturne lowered his blades at Zed, and charged at him.
Zed saw him coming, but was, for the first time in his life, completely paralysed by fear. Then, a glowing puprle aura enveloped him, and he heard a voice, deep, and completely devoid of emotion, resound through the room:
„He no longer stands alone!"
Nocturnes blades could not pierce Zed's aura, and he felt himself revitalised, and the fear left him. He let his wristblades come out of his armguards, and dropped into a battlestance. Beside him, Shen appeared, his blades drawn, and looking straight at Nocturne. For the first time in many years, Shen and Zed stood side by side.
„Then die together!"
Nocturne attacked them both with a swinging cut that would've incapacitated both of them, but they were faster. They both rolled aside, and struck back with lightning speed and prescision. But they couldn't harm Nocturne, for here he wasn't under the limitations ofthe Institute.
' We cannot harm him, we have to fall back.'
'Shen?! How can you talk to my like this?'
'My Ki senses are highly attuned. I can comunicate with any ally like this.'
While Shen and Zed spoke together like this, Nocturne gathered himself again, and launched himself direct at Shen. Again, Shen jumped out of the way, but this time, Nocturne could follow him, and Shen clashed with him in a flurry of blows, faster than the eye of anyone but Zed could've followed. Zed quickly flanked Nocturne, and sent two shadows straight at him, but they disintegrated.
'What? Why do my shadows not work?'
'We are in darkness: No light, no shadows.'
Zed could hear the strain in Shen's voice. He was hardpressed to defend himself from a being he could not injure back.
Zed then did the only thing possible: he charged right at Nocturne to help Shen, but before he could, Shen cried out in pain. Nocturne had hit him hard in the side, and cut straight through the tough armor they wore. Now Nocturne turned back to Zed, and struck at him, rapidly and with precision. Zed could only barely block Nocturne, and slowly backed up.
„Now die in darkness!"
As Nocturne's blades descended towards Zed, he knew he couldn't stop him, this being was beyond his power. Nocturnes blade hit Zeds mask, and the metal mask on Zed's face cracked, but the metall held. As Nocturne raised his other blade, Zed saw a white light behind the nightmare. It slammed into Nocturne's back, and he screeched in agony. Then he heard Diana speak.
„Fall to light, being of the dark!"
He saw Diana's blade, glowing brightly with the same light that filled her eyes on the Fields, protruding from his chest, and Nocturne dissolved into nothingness.
A/N: I know, it took a while...