Three figures stood visible inside of a dark room. Two of them were distinguishable as members of the high council: three summoners ran all of the actions of the League, calling themselves the Council of Equity; however, the only one to show her face to the public was Vessaria Kolminye. She was not one of the two members standing in the chamber lying deep inside of the Institute of War whose exact location was unknown third individual in the room. That person was a woman who stood about five and a half feet tall with a small figure covered in leather armor. She wore a cape of blue feathers and walked with a slight hunch as if she was always on the verge of being assaulted. Her voice was that of an average woman in her early twenties being soft, but it was also lightly scratchy; reminiscent of someone in recovery of a sore throat.
The woman was on her way out of the room as another figure entered. There was a doorway to exit and enter from, but upon exiting the room, the woman found herself to be standing inside of her designated room at the Institute. She did not remember how she got into the dark chamber with the high councilors, and swore she had just been teleported inside. She did, however, remember the conversation that went on inside of it. Although she did not know it, the information she had confided in the council members was currently be handed over to the man who had just entered the chamber.
"We need you to carry out the task we had discussed previously, Zed," said one of the high council members to their new guest. The man grinned, although it was unnoticeable from behind his mask. He wore armor on vital, squishier areas of his body, but the rest of his skin was covered by red and black clothing. No part of his body was exposed, not even the back of his head. His tunic had a hood mended to it which covered whatever portion of his head that the mask did not. He was armed, as always, with a blade extending from his gauntlets that allowed him to use his hands in combat in addition to his blades.
"Yes, I am ready," he stated while crossing the dark chamber towards the two high councilors in the room with him. "But as I said before, I need to know of his whereabouts. As much as I'd like to, I cannot just arrive wherever he is." There was a strange sound to his voice, almost as if he could not be bothered to put emotion into it, or that it had been stricken from him. But it was not quite monotone either; his voice seemed to resound at all times, possibly due to his metallic mask covering his face. He did have a slight feeling of happiness to his voice as he spoke of accepting his task. However, at most other times this slight joy was replaced by a slight anger. Perhaps these were the only two emotions that he had left.
"Yes, yes of course," the taller of the two councilors replied. "Our information has led us to the island of Ionia. It took us some time. Any initial lead pointed to Noxus. Luckily our intel was wise enough to keep searching based on her clues. He was in a forest last we knew, most likely with company, a woman wielding nothing more than a broken sword, but apparently he himself was completely unarmed. Can you handle him alone?"
"I could handle three unarmed fools alone," the man replied cockily.
"We have others at our disposal, Zed. You do not need to put yourself in harm's way in order to carry out such a simple task." The councilor spoke with unease in his voice. He clearly did not have as much confidence in Zed as he had in himself.
"I don't plan to," he said as he walked out of the room through the doorway. He reappeared inside of his private room inside of the Institute. He had been accepted as a champion just a short while ago; a little after Thresh. Some of the fellow champions and summoners of the League may have been concerned about the acceptance of a man armed and equipped to assassinate with ease while refusing to show his face and preferring to take comfort in shadowy corners and dark alleys, but not much was questioned after Thresh had been accepted; so long as his ghastly figure patrolled the borders of the Institute in the time he spent outside of League matches, people did not bother to question much of what the League did, refusing to look for answers to something less drastic than his persistent presence. That was probably a good move on the League's part, not to mention the fact that no one dared go interview Thresh himself in order to get answers.
Zed kneeled down in the room and focused; Ionia was quite a distance away. His dull room was not in his vision anymore as he closed his eyes and began to bring a new view into focus.
The island of Ionia was quite peaceful, at the time. A small shadow protruded a few feet from a stone sitting amidst a rocky, desolate field. The shadow began to ripple, as if it were made out of water, and a small pebble had fallen into the center of it. A head popped out of the shadow, slowly emerging further and further until an entire man stood atop the stone's shadow. He looked almost like an exact replica of Zed, but it lacked any sort of color or detail; just as an actual shadow would. Zed was in control of the shadow; capable of seeing, hearing, feeling, and speaking through the shadow. He looked around the area in front of him and spotted a forest off in the distance. He assumed it to be the forest mentioned to him and progressed toward it. He walked straight through rocks and boulders, being made of nothing more than the lack of light, until Zed sought it to be otherwise.
He continued walking in a straight line until he came across the edge of a forest when he saw two people exiting it just then. He pondered the idea of taking both of them out with one quick swoop and finding out whether it was his target or not, later. He realized that the sound of battle would frighten anybody within the perimeter, including his target if the pair walking out of the woods was not the one he was sent to kill, and decided it would be best to pursue them awhile to figure out who they were.
He stuck to the shadows of the stones stretching far across the scorched earth in order to stay concealed. Zed allowed his shadow entity to stay submerged so as not to be detected. Shadows have a perk to them; they do not make a single sound as they move around. He stalked the two people as they wandered seemingly aimlessly about the barren plains. After some time of slipping from rock to rock and shadow to shadow, he came to a halt as they started to arrive at a location where pieces of metal lay about scattered, glowing a soft green color. He waited and listened as they discussed possibilities to forge a new weapon out of this newfound metal. It seemed as if their aimless hiking was actually a search for this specific spot so they could gather the metal fragments. After awhile, they packed up the sword's pieces and began to walk away. Zed determined from their conversation that they were quite likely the one he was looking for, and his partner, due to the description he had been given and the strange woman walking around with a broken sword. He was sent for Garen, the Might of Demacia who somehow managing to flee the Institute of War, prevent himself from being summoned, and has been sentenced to death by the council for his actions. While his sentencing was decently under the table, Zed was more than happy to do the dirty work for the League while they took care of covering it up.
Zed had his shadow approach Garen as he walked away from his partner who was clearly lost in thought of something different. He conjured a shuriken out of his shadowy essence and propelled the razor sharp projectile straight at Garen's face. The man rolled sideways to avoid it and Zed shifted the shadow projection along the same path so that as soon as he stood back up, the shadow was still facing straight at him. Zed decided that he could throw shurikens all day and produce the same effect, so he shifted the projection to appear right in front of Garen. The man was still unarmed, while Zed had his weapons protruding from the gauntlets on his forearm. Garen threw his fist at Zed's projection to watch it phase through, just as an object attempting to touch a shadow should.
Zed laughed at his attempt, amused by the petty mind of those unaware of the power held within the shadows. His laugh echoed out of the shadowy puppet, mirroring his voice. Zed had the shadow thrust its arm forward, aimed at Garen's ribcage, but he dodged the fatal blow, leaving a laceration in the side of his arm as Zed's shadow swung. Almost immediately, the man charged forward, bracing for impact. Realizing his opponent had an injured arm and no running start, Zed had the shadow take the blow, then attempt to grab the man and throw him to the ground; however, the assassin had the wind knocked right out of him. Feeling what the shadow did, he was unable to wrestle the brute to the ground. He decided to back off, allowing Garen to topple through as Zed reverted it to the mass-less form of a shadow; he willed the shadow to turn around and saw that the delayed execution had allowed Garen's friend to realize her ignorance of the battle and had rushed to his side.
Zed was not going to hesitate any longer; he threw the shadow at his target by swapping its place with Garen's very own shadow, leaving a dissipating black mist behind and a creating his humanoid shadow just feet from the man. Zed seized the opportunity of surprise to take a jab into Garen's stomach, but to the assassin's shock, his opponent reacted quick enough to grab his arm with both of his hands, succeeding in doing nothing more than delaying the inevitable. Just as Zed was about to overpower Garen with his shadow, the woman traveling with him made a very surprising move; she vaulted over his shoulders and landed on the arm Zed was using to try to skewer Garen. The blow did not deter him and Zed kept his focus while ignoring the pain of the impact and the added weight resting on his arm.
The woman did not stop there; she began to swing wildly at his shadow's head. He tried to use his free arm to fight her off, but began taking blows to the side of the skull. Realizing that he was about to lose his concentration, Zed allowed the shadow to revert back to its original form; slumping into the ground and becoming a shadow stretched across the ground once more. While his opponents were fumbling around attempting to regain control of their temporary victory, Zed decided to allow the shadow to reemerge from the black pool and seize the opportunity to attack. Before Zed's shadow had even finished turning into its human form again, the Demacian soldier had taken his ally's weapon and gone into a kneeling position. In the next instant a searing pain sank into Zed, as the shadow form was literally split in half, top to bottom. The immense fury of pain struck with such intensity that Zed was no longer capable of retaining focus on his control of the shadow and it disappeared into the air, just as it had come.
Zed stood up from his kneeling position, having had his concentration completely shattered. He looked around his room and watched as it slowly shifted into darkness. He was standing, once again, inside of the room where the councilors stood. Zed grinned, being quite amazed that they had already noticed his failure. He looked into their faces, or toward where he thought their faces would be: their black hoods were pulled over the top of their bowed heads, making it impossible to see their true expressions. Regardless, he knew that they were not pleased.
"You do realize that you have wasted a perfect opportunity, right? That he could have been completely eliminated, but now he is most likely fleeing the island and on alert for an assassin?" one of the councilors said to him, using a less than satisfied tone of voice.
"Do not worry. He will not be able to detect the shadows," Zed replied, still retaining his grin from behind his mask.
"Obviously that logic is somewhat flawed," the councilor growled. "We are assigning you a different one of our assets. If your target keeps his company, or picks up more, you will need assistance." Zed was not opposed to the idea; much the contrary. He liked weak willed individuals with strength, for they made the perfect soldiers.
"Very well," Zed said solemnly. He turned to leave the room through the doorway that stood in the chamber and saw someone else walking in through his exit. The beast had a foul stench about him and was armed to the tooth with primitive weapons and barbaric tools; the creature was most likely his new "partner", and bore a close resemblance to a lion. Zed knew his place and decided not to ask or question while proceeding to exit the room where he found himself standing, once again, inside of his own room in the Institute of War.