Truth in Darkness (Canon)

And so there lay the bodies of the poor fools. All save one. It was a necessity. The assassin's icy stare bore down on the summoner, who now was huddled against a wall, hands outstretched as if the magic incantation would ever be completed. This summoner was a woman, brown hair, green eyes, between thirty and thirty five with a lightly freckled face and fair skin, wearing a typical robe, its color obscured by the darkness of the room

He would remember her, for soon a memory would be all that remained of her.

Her hands trembled with a mixture of fear and loathing. She knew exactly what he was here for and exactly why she had been spared, or so she thought. She was correct in part, that the sealed chamber behind her would only be opened by the hands so feebly outstretched between them. But the assassin's purpose in this display was twofold.

His descent through the depths of the Institute had been utterly bloodless until this chamber, in which each of the summoners who stood guard had been slain, one after the next, with a speed known only to those who danced the dance of ghosts, specters and phantoms, each of them none the wiser then the last. Each of the summoners fell except this one, the one who stared into Talon's eyes, cold and expressionless though they were. Her bravado slipped, looking him over once. Smeared on him was the blood of her friends, the men and women she worked with. His arm blade was not even raised to attack, yet slick with viscera.

Her stomach heaved as she recognized her surroundings. Trained though she was for this job, the weakness that had been implanted into her had begun to fester. She had watched it happen, watched each one fall quickly and brutally, her comrades in arms drop like blind flies to the assassin who seemed to materialize from thin air to do his work. She had seen the show as intended. What she had not seen however, was exactly how bloodless and immediate their deaths were. How single strikes from Talon's weapon ended their pain before anything else took place.

It was before they could fall to the ground after their deaths that the razor-lash of his cape flayed muscle and organ into a pulpy mess. She was horrified by the blood-soaked state of everything in her immediate vicinity. A whimper wrenched its way out of her, making her terror known to the world

It was exactly what Talon wanted. He finally took a step to close the gap between them, met with a single intake of breath. Before it could end, the murderer was upon her, taking her by the throat to slam her against the chamber entrance, the very chamber he sought to enter. His command was void of compassion, that she would open the door.

With as much courage as she could muster, she refused. That was when Talon's gamble was to be tested, pushing her up along the wall by her throat, watching as she struggled to pry his iron fingers away to taste the stale air of the dungeon. His lips parted.

"Nocturne... Force her hand."

Without so much as a word, a feeling of dread greater than the one she currently felt would crawl up the woman's spine. The thought he inserted into her mind was simple. While she was going to die regardless, if she continued to disobey the assassin's command her death would most certainly not be a swift one.

The vice around her throat softened, as did Talon's expression. It was a sheer affectation and he seethed at the fact that it was a necessity, though it did not hinder him. The lie hung in the air for a few moments but its sweet embrace was all that existed to soothe her terror even in the slightest. The fear clouded rational judgement as she thought about the implications of the assassin's actions. ‘Does he mean to spare me? Perhaps he has come to end Nocturne instead of free him.’ These thoughts among others served their purpose wonderfully.

One of her hands fell and touched the door, a flash of extremely practiced magic loosed from her fingertips to open the chamber. He lowered her to her feet and stood, looking past her at the crystal. This time when he spoke, though still a command, there was a hint of humanity present in his voice. She was to free the Eternal Nightmare.

Hesitantly, she turned, almost unable to affix her gaze to the crystal. Still, after a silent incantation, magic began to rupture the gem, slowly as a result of her trembling, of her lack of focus.

The smoke inside the fragment began billowing very quickly, seeming to coil around itself. After a few moments it stopped, then began to shrink on itself. The crystal would then have cracks crawl along its surface, followed by the pieces falling to the ground one after another. As the final piece fell, light would return to the room.

The woman on the ground would begin writhing, as if her very existence were being irritated. Her chest would heave upward, a dark smoke floating up and out of her mouth. The smoke would form itself into the shape of Nocturne. With a single slash, his blades took on their crimson red and metallic silver colors as they bisected the women down her center.

Talon's job was done the moment she had started through the gem itself with her magic. The only thing left was to leave. With a flick of his elbow, he removed the gore from his weapon, already most of the way down the hall to the exit, carried on silent steps. He had come for several purposes, Nocturne was but one of them.



The stairs swept under Talon's feet in a blur, as did every following corridor. He didn't know where or what exactly the shade would do and he didn't care. What he wanted he'd got. Already he could hear people milling about in confusion, apparently they were alerted to something, though he'd expected a quick response. He rounded a corner and ducked into a doorway, concealing himself in the shadow it cast near perfectly.

A small group of summoners passed his hiding spot, headed directly toward the basement. They had two floors to descend before they'd be there and they were moving single file, quickly. None of them stopped to look at the most obvious place for someone to hide and when they got there, they would find the last of their numbers missing. As the final summoner passed, Talon's arm shot out, catching the summoner by the mouth and yanking them into the shadows, free arm wrapping tightly about the neck of his startled victim.

Initially there was a struggle but the fight quickly ran its course, a sickening crack sounding as Talon wrenched the head to the side and ended yet another life. Still, his expression did not so much as flicker, slipping the robe off his newest victim, a man, to wear for himself. The body remained in the shaded nook of the doorway, in the fetal position with the head still looking off in a direction no head had any right to.

With the hood of his disguise tipped up and over his downcast eyes, he stalked the hallways of the institute. He was glad summoner's kept such voluminous robes on at all times, keeping his cloak from being too apparent underneath and allowing him to stow his arm blade. The size however made them fairly warm, though Talon had smelled worse than another man's sweat in the Noxian sewer system.

He afforded himself time to be alone with his thoughts while he moved toward his goal, weaving through small crowds and staying inconspicuous. How best he would approach the situation he had created. He needed to speak to the only person he knew was alive that he respected, though last he had heard, they were less than available. Another floor of the Institute passed.

The timing was less than perfect. Nevertheless, he was a man who worked well under pressure. The more he thought, the more the implications of what he'd done began to dawn on him. He knew they could never prove it to the unwashed masses but with the treachery he knew the League was capable of, he wouldn't be surprised if they did their level best to detain him regardless. Their motives were unclear to him, though that didn't matter. He already had enemies, men and women jealous of his ability, who wanted to see him bend the knee or float on his stomach in the moat. Now they were simply bigger, angrier enemies with more resources.

Hurdles to cut through on his way to his goal.

Talon was not a particularly vindictive man, nor a sadistic one, yet in the time he'd spent with the Du Couteau, the respect and, though it would never be something he'd admit, admiration he owed the General that was, made him hate the General that is. It was as much from the humanity in him- kicked, beaten and silenced though it may have been- as from his ideals. He almost couldn't understand the anger it caused in him, seeing the General lost, with no one but Katarina and Talon seemingly with a finger lifted to find him.

Another floor passed without recognized notice, though Talon was as sharply focused on his surroundings as ever. He supposed Cassiopeia was searching just as well, even if he found her methods petulant and disgusting. That she waited until great tragedy befell her to hear her call to arms disagreed with him. He did not hold her with any disdain, seeing her simply as a cog in the dysfunctional Noxian machine that had been in the making for too long.

A memory struck him, unbidden, while he walked. Something from his late adolescence. He had never had much time to relax, converse, fraternize, anything of the like. Though in the little time he had to do so, he had heard tell of Noxian soldiers who lived and died on their orders with nothing but their blade and comrades. Something he could believe in was something he could make his own path with. A finger laid against the icy steel hidden on his person, reassuring him.

"Those days were gone." The thought emptied his mind of anything else as he reached his destination, replaced with another shortly after. "Thirty two." A count of the summoners he'd passed getting here. The door yielded without much effort, unlocked by his numerous skills, to an office. Some high-ranking summoner whose name he had memorized only insofar as was necessary to find this room, simply another name on a dwindling list.

Drawers opened and closed quickly and silently, their contents placed exactly where they had been moved from. From there, the assassin-turned-sleuth closed on a bookcase, knowing he hadn't the time to look through each one. Dusty row after dusty row. Each of the books looked untouched for some time. All save one, its spine free of the same layer of dust. "Kalamandan Flora and Fauna" Talon removed it from the rest carefully, almost snorting at the choice.

A small book, but hardcover. This summoner was sloppy. He opened it and leafed the pages quickly until an envelope slipped from between a pair of pages, headed for the floor. Talon snatched it in air and grinned, closing the book and placing it back where it had been found, the letter disappearing onto his person. As quickly as he'd come, he'd vanished, relocking the door behind him as he went.

As he left, he was smiling. Leaving the Institute, his mind began to wander until he could contain himself no longer. "Thirty one." The same count, aloud this time. It was directed at the man behind him, who had called out to him a name that was not his own. Too inquisitive.

He was shown true Noxian diplomacy.



It was an uneventful evening, much like any other. Crickets chirped, the breeze continued its unending quest to chill all those who tried to walk outside, men, women and children relaxed and played with their remaining time, living their lives. Everything about this particular moment was normal, so saw the populace or Runeterra.

Yet, in truth, the dark of this night was no normal one for the Blade's Shadow. No night had merely been normal since he had encroached on the League's most desperately kept secret. It was a wonder he could any longer closer his eyes. Every time he sought out a moment of rest, he was greeted by haunting calls in a female voice.



The chilling alto voice chanted, stopping only momentarily to switch tactics when Talon's mind had finally shut out the guilt associated with it.



He knew who it was he was hearing, the girl in the chambers leading to Nocturne's makeshift cage. It was more vivid than any memory he had ever had before, yet they were not even words he had heard the woman speak. He was not used to the crushing guilt of killing. Every other time it had merely been a job, had simply been something he had done because he was asked, out of respect to Marcus.

This time was different. While it was still something done to seek out the missing Du Couteau father, it was drastic. Desperation for answers had clouded his better judgement. He knew that it was likely the best chance to find out what he needed to know, knew that very few physical records of the disappearance would exist and threats of death would not sway those who did know. All he had before now had merely been rumors. When the opportunity presented itself, he seized it.

All of this made sense, yet still he was plagued with this undying guilt. In a way, the woman's vivid echoes had become much akin to feedback, proof that he was still alive. He had tried to convince himself that it was merely the aftershocks of being near Nocturne in the flesh, that the short time the ethreal horror had touched his mind had tainted it in some way. It had done nothing to calm him and was abandoned quickly.

Sleep had never been an easy task for the assassin, made all the more difficult be these otherworldly wails that wracked his mind every single time he so much as blinked. But the body was resiliant even if the mind was not. Days had passed since last Talon truly 'slept' due to them, and his body had finally reached a breaking point. No matter the price to his sanity, the man's eyes would close this night if it killed him. Something he feared it very well could.

His body was arranged with camouflage of leaves and mud, resting in the higher branches of a tree. He lay there for several hours in wide-eyed awakeness, kept with only his thoughts before finally, like a bone suddenly snapping under the strain of use, he succumbed to sleep.

And as if the assassin's slumber was a signal, the Nightmare would once again enter into his mind. Whatever semblance of a dream he may have been having was quickly blotted out, being replaced by a scene. Almost like a recording in quality.

The Grand General, limping down a flight of steps. Navigating his way through the twisting dungeon, to a cell. The prisoner had his head down, though he conversed with Swain. Not too long into the conversation the prisoner would lift his head, his hair obscuring most of his facial details save for his eye. A piercing, green eye.

The exact eye Katarina possessed. And that meant...

The conversation between Swain and the prisoner continued, abruptly ended by the prisoner's last statement. "You'll be slain by your successor, just as he was..."



Her voice was taunting him again, fully realized this time instead of fragments that echoed through his weakened consciousness.

"Quiet, girl." Talon snapped back, trapped though he was in his own spiraling mind. The eye was utterly unmistakeable, one he'd seen many times before. The dark of his consciousness made it feel all the more real to him, like he was standing invisibly at the scene that transpired. Some tiny fraction of him knew better, but most of it didn't bringing with it a choked noise of relief but nothing more. Rational thought pervaded the fitful sleep soon after, leaving the purple-garbed murderer to do little more than watch the proceedings.

"Slain by your successor. Hmm, Noxian rite of passage, but Swain knew this. Everyone knows this, the over-sized pigeon isn't an exception to the laws of mortality."

"I didn't ask. Don't speak."

Piercing light replaced the macabre dream of another tortured mind playing in Talon's head. It usually wasn't like this, so bright and altogether revealing. Even that was unsettling, the sensation of being exposed in his own mind and not even by anyone in particular.

The nightmare's grasp on the assassins mind would hold for only a few moments more before it would leave his presence. "Consider our deal done."

Talon jerked awake immediately at the shade's address. The answer was less than satisfactory but it would have to suffice, as Nocturne didn't seem overly interested in being thorough. He had no solid location to go on, not even a completely concrete explanation that Marcus was still alive. Still, it painted Swain as the culprit. That was more than he'd ever had before. The risk had paid off and he was a step closer.

Something nagged at him, however. He'd never thought Marcus the type to make completely idle threats of succession by death. There had to be something more. Who would know, however, was not exactly so clear cut. Perhaps it was nothing more than a fevered dream of a man clinging helplessly to his own power and he was being mislead. Regardless, Nocturne had no reason to lie.

"Had he wanted me dead, he'd have done it himself." Talon was about to fall into a more complete sleep, his tired mind soothed by the thought that his mentor was still alive, even if he was worse for wear, but the woman's voice piped up again.



"A necessary loss." Talon was in no mood to argue, especially with himself. The embrace of true sleep took him under once more, calm this time, as calm as could be with the lingering doubt hanging heavily on his mind. Action needed to wait until his body could accommodate it.