Chapter 28

The door to Swain's quarters opened, and in came Darius, clutching a scroll with the Grand General's seal. He had to let his vision adjust to see in the darker room before he could find Swain staring into a curious mirror. Darius ignored the object, walking straight up to his general and kneeling in front of him.

Swain saw this, and turned his attention to him. Upon seeing the scroll his loyal soldier had in his hand, Swain asked, "I hope that's what I sent you to get."

Darius didn't stay in his position for long after. He stood up and held out the scroll, his facial expression holding its stone appearance. "As requested, Darkwill's plans for Kalamanda," He confirmed. Swain took it from Darius' hand, and Darius let his curiosity take hold. "I know it is not my place," he said, "but what do you plan to do with whatever it says inside?"

Swain broke the seal and unwrapped the parchment. He read through the contents and smiled under his mask. Beatrice seemed to flap it's wings with joy as well. "Let's just say," Swain started, stashing the paper away in his desk, "that all of Noxus is in for a surprise."

Darius was not sure what to make of Swain's words. "But what's in it?"

"Now you are out of place. You'll know soon enough. I will need you for what I have planned." Swain eyed the mirror before turning back to Darius. "You're dismissed."

Darius swallowed his disappointment. Feeling left out, he bowed without showing it, and left General Swain to his business.

"Well? Is it what you hoped?" the mirror asked Swain as Darius left.

"Exactly that," Replied Swain, stroking the feathers of his bird.

A body stepped out of the mirror. It was LeBlanc, and she stroked her staff without care. She then smiled at Swain's news. "Good. Everything is starting to fall into place."

"After Darkwill is eliminated, I will be eligible to take his place."

"But before that," LeBlanc reminded in her devious tone, "we have to take care of Ducouteau, and soon. I hope it will be done shortly. I'm growing tired of waiting."

"Yes, of course," Swain assured. "It is almost all together. Just give me a few more days of planning."

"You should hurry, then. His pet could be back any day now."

"Is that worry I hear in your voice, dear?"

That threw LeBlanc off her uncaring state for a moment, but she soon returned to it. "Just anxious after waiting for so long."

Swain went behind his desk and wrote down on a piece of paper. He paused his writing for a instant to think about something, but continued nonetheless. He showed it to his partner. "I have found the perfect time and place to do it. Just make sure you do exactly as I say or else it will not go as I have intended."

LeBlanc saw what he wrote, and smiled wickedly. It was the same place and time her guild was wiped out. It was a fitting place to do it.

Ivory Ward

5:15

Vengeance is almost here.

"So YOU'RE the one killing these people?!" Riven yelled ferociously at Talon, her face almost regaining it's red colour.

Talon heard a barely audible patter of feet swiftly coming towards him from around the corner of the temple. Probably the woman he left alive coming back with help. Unless Talon wanted to fight another group of people, he needed to leave, but then there was Riven. She wouldn't let him escape easily without an answer. He decided to keep it brief. "I am," He answered. Talon showed the slightest bit of concern for Riven, and thought he could spare a moment for the sake of a question. "Why are you here?"

"That's none of your business," Riven said before switching the subject. "You're killing innocent people, Talon! All they were doing was trying to gain independence from Noxus through non-violent means. What you're doing is wrong!"

Talon could hear the tapping of steps becoming louder. He needed to move on – now, but Riven still did not let him pass. He knew that a short reply wouldn't cut it now, so he unwillingly gave her something a little longer. "Yeah, So what?" he said. "Innocent lives are taken by others everyday. This man knew he was playing a dangerous game when he hired henchmen, and continuing his speeches despite the obvious consequences." Talon looked down at Riven's runeblade clenched tightly in her right fist. It seemed as if she might attack him at a moment's notice. "He didn't stop, so I went to kill him and all his henchmen," he continued. "He paid the price." The sounds of the crowd were getting uncomfortably loud now, and Talon knew it was time to leave. "Now step aside," he ordered. When he tried to get by her again, she still blocked him. Talon was getting impatient, and thought about threatening her with his armblade, but knowing her, that wouldn't work too well.

Riven knew he was beginning to become irritated with her, but she couldn't let him simply go. She had questions about several things that she needed answered, and this may be her only chance to ask. But, she could hear people on their way to her and Talon. Riven looked at Endier's corpse leaning against a tree. His head was slumped over his left shoulder and his right palm was gripping a piece of metal sticking out of his chest. He must have killed himself out of self-mercy.

Looking back at Talon, another question entered her head. Was he sent here to do this? Fearing the answer, she asked, "Why did you do it?"

Talon noticed that her tone softened, and after giving her an answer, her entire body looked to relax. "Orders from Swain."

Talon walked pass Riven, away from the sound of clapping feet. She stood there with her eyes lowered. The general she admired and respected most was among those who would heartlessly murder anyone for their own interests. Riven knew that General Swain wasn't kind-hearted, but she didn't think he was cold enough to actually kill anyone because of their belief.

A group of people emerged to see the battlefield with all the shurikens and dead bodies, along with the standing Riven. One of the men saw Endier's dead body, then ran to Riven and grabbed her by the collar with both hands.

"What happened?!" he asked her. The other men and women followed him. One of them tried to pull away the man, but he wouldn't budge.

"Let go of me!" Riven swatted away the man's hands and stepped back.

"Damn Noxian!" yelled the man that grabbed Riven. "You did this!" He was about to strike, but was pulled away by a younger boy. It was the same boy Riven met a while earlier.

"Stop it!" he said. "She didn't do it."

"He's right," agreed a woman standing out from the rest, "it wasn't her. It was a man. The same man that's been killing the rest of these people." The man that tried to attack Riven growled, but stopped himself. Most of the Ionians then broke away to survey the battle that happened, and all the damage it caused.

Riven lost the last remaining respect she had for Swain, seeing all the people that were killed due to him. He was the real one to blame for this, not Talon. She knew Talon would carry out any order given to him regardless of how dirty it was. To him, it is just another order. Nothing else.

Riven was able to sneak away from the group of Ionians and headed in the same direction as Talon. She still needed to ask him things about Noxus, and she was determined to get answers. He was the only person she could ask at this point because if she was found by any other Noxian, they would report her existence to their commanders and generals. Talon, on the other hand, never reports anything he doesn't have to to anyone. She could trust Talon with keeping her identity a secret.

Talon walked calmly through a not-so-thick forest towards his next destination, where he will wait to see if his next target is still going to go through with his peace talks. In the back of his head he was thinking about the short conversation he had with Riven. When he told her that he was here assassinating on Crimson Elite business, she looked as if something in her broke. Knowing that she had the utmost regard for the Crimson Elite's leader, it must have hurt her to hear it. She was a fool to put her trust in him.

"Hey!" came a voice behind him.

Talon spun around with his armblade ready to strike. He lowered his blade when he saw that it was Riven. He turned back around and continued on his path, with Riven catching up to his side.

"Why are you following me?" asked Talon.

"I've some questions I need to ask," she replied. Her tone had barely any trace of her anger she had before, and was replaced by an innocent curiosity.

"No." Talon began to walk a little faster now.

"No?" Riven asked frantically. "But you don't even know what I was going to ask!"

"I don't need to. The answer would be the same."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because answering your mountain of questions would take too much time. I've got to assassinate another worthless man seeking freedom."

"I won't let you." Riven ran ahead of Talon and stopped in front of him, causing him to stop as well. "Why are you doing this?"

"I told you already: orders."

"But why?" she asked again. "Just because they're orders? No other reason?"

"Should there be another reason?" Talon rose his voice. She was beginning to push him off the edge. "Orders are orders; nothing else. I have no personal ties to this, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter; they'd still be just orders to me."

Riven was stuck. She felt like she hit a wall she couldn't pass, the wall being Talon. "But don't you ever feel guilty killing innocent people like the ones back by the temple?"

"Guilty? My daily life includes consistent assassinations as well as defending myself and a few others from other assassins and you expect me to feel guilty killing a few clean-handed islanders?"

Riven's eyebrows narrowed. "You're heartless, Talon. I can't believe I used to be your partner!"

"We weren't partners. I just had to work with you."

"Well I thought of you as a partner," she argued, "and I hoped you thought of me as one, too."

"I gave up on partnerships long before I met you."

A silence grew between them, and Talon took this opportunity to ask a question of his own.

"Why are you still here?" He asked. "Can't you get back to Noxus?"

"I don't want to go back," she confessed with confidence, her glare still on her face. "Especially when there are people there like you."

"And why is that?" Talon pressed on, curious to know exactly why she was still here.

"I've seen what the Noxian leaders did in the war. They destroyed villages and places sacred to the Ionian people without remorse. They killed innocents as well. Children, farmers, ordinary villagers, everyone that wasn't Noxian, yet I still turned a blind eye on all of it. I continued to carry out High Command's orders. That was until they ordered an attack on their own soldiers in order to take out the enemy, too. That order was on my regiment. We were surrounded by Ionians on all sides. We sent for help, but all that came was a traitorous Zaunite throwing explosive gasses at everyone in sight. I was the only one that escaped, but everyone else was dead. I knew then that Noxus would do anything for victory. Even kill a comrade." Riven looked at Talon, who showed no sympathy for her, not that she was asking for any. "I don't want to go back to a Noxus that will kill its own people, so I decided to fake my death, and stay here until I can find a way to change that place back to the way it was before the war."

Talon looked at her with an empty expression. She was lost. Any nation would do almost anything to obtain victory and power over others. Even kill their own. That's the way this world works. "You're chasing an unachievable goal," he said, making Riven cringe. "You can't change Noxus back when it was never different to begin with."

"You don't know the Noxus I knew!" She resorted back to yelling. "The Noxus I knew had honor! All its soldiers. All its leaders. They fought with high respect. Now there's none of that. Noxus has lost all its honor!"

"Honor it never had," Talon mumbled.

"What?!" Riven was evidently ready to blow. "You haven't went through what I went through! Ever since the day I left Noxus, I wanted to go back, but I didn't! I knew if I returned that I would only be sent off to carry out more of High Command's dirty work! That's why I stayed here, enduring all the pain of not having a home to return to." She paused to take a breath, then continued, "You don't know what it's been like – living like I've been. Everyday is a struggle to survive! I have to hide from the very men I once fought alongside of. I sometimes go days without anything to eat! I even had to steal some bread once from a baker!"

Talon began to grind his teeth as he was hearing her say these things. It reminded him of his childhood, and how similar it was to what Riven is going through.

"You know how bad I felt doing that?" Riven continued. She couldn't stop herself from letting all of it out. She needed to tell someone all she had to do to survive. "I could never stay in the same place for long; I had to keep moving until I could find a safe place away from civilization!" She lost track of what to say next, so she moved on, "I'm an enemy to everyone on this damned island! It hurts more than anything to know that you're a pest to everyone around you, but you don't know what that feels like, do you?"

Talon's fist clenched tightly. All Riven said to him was an almost perfect reflection of back when he lived in the slums. Whenever he went into the slum marketplace, he would always receive scowls from all those who saw him. With a shout, Talon let it out, "That was my whole Goddamned childhood! I know exactly what it's like to live everyday with my only objective to be to survive. Stealing from others, especially merchants, became a daily thing for me, as well as defending myself from bloodthirsty guilds looking to recruit me as a thief!" He calmed down, then said, "I know what it feels like to be unwanted; what it feels like to be hated by society. Don't say I don't know what it's like, because I do."

They both fell silent again. Riven forgot Talon grew up in the slums of Noxus. He had it as bad if not worse than her, having to deal with that when he was a child. Not to mention he put up with it for years, and she has only been here for a couple months. He knew what she was going through all too well. She didn't feel so bad now, knowing that there was someone else she knew that went through the same thing, though she still held a degree of spite towards Talon due to his uncaring attitude.

Talon returned to his normal cold expression, feeling the need to end their conversation. "I need to reach the next village by tomorrow, so I can't stand here and continue to argue with you."

She shot another glare at him. He must intend to continue his mission. "You're on your way to murder another innocent person, aren't you?"

Talon began walking again. He wasn't in the mood to sprint anymore. "Will you try to stop me?"

"If I have to." Riven turned and walked besides Talon. Her broken runeblade rested comfortably on her right shoulder. "But I've got a day find a way to convince you not to."

"So you're going to follow me?"

"Weather you like it, or not."

Talon rolled his eyes. "Nothing you do or say will change my mind."

"We'll see about that," she replied. "Besides, I also have some more questions that need answering."

A/N: Well I hope that boring, anticlimactic argument wasn't too bad, but I thought it was necessary to write it. As always, thanks for reading and reviewing! And next chapter will contain some better material. I promise!