A massive shape emerged from the darkness, hunched body, thick limbs, hateful face. Kai'Sa knew that silhouette all too well.
A hunter.
This one was larger than any hunter she had ever seen before. It had to have been transformed from an animal bigger than a goat.
A camel? Or a Skallashi?
Or something even bigger than a Skallashi? That clearly made no sense. Hunters were not even as tall as one leg of those giant beasts. Whatever it had been, it had definitely come down here with this human.
The hunter charged straight at Kai'Sa without slowing in the slightest. Even with the human right behind her, she did not dodge.
And still, even now, when she was using her own body to keep the monster from reaching him, the man did not understand her situation. He still had that dagger pointed at her.
Kai'Sa had thought the strength she showed would make him feel safe.
Now she understood she had been wrong.
Maybe this one man's attitude did not represent all humans, but it still said a great deal about how most of them probably saw people like her.
After being treated like this again and again, Kai'Sa finally snapped.
"Your choice. Either we hunt together, or you die alone."
She threw those words at him coldly, then lowered her helmet and faced the hunter head-on.
The huge beast pounced.
Kai'Sa did not have Zihark's brute strength and could not stop it head-on, but she also could not let it break past her. So she chose a more clever method.
She summoned her arm-blades and fired several plasma bolts.
The shots exploded against the hunter's skull. They failed to crack the bone, but the flash was enough to blind it for a few seconds.
Kai'Sa seized the opening she had created. Bending her knees, she launched herself upward and flew straight at its face.
She came down from above on the heels of the blast's glare. The hunter failed to track her attack in time, and her downward punch, carrying the full weight of her body, smashed into its skull and drove the whole goat-like head into the ground, abruptly halting its charge through sheer force and friction.
One strike landed.
Kai'Sa flipped backward and touched down lightly.
But she did not stop there. The plates on her legs snapped open, and she turned into a streak of purple light. In the blink of an eye she was back in front of the beast again, hammering another crushing punch into the skull before it could even lift its head.
This time, the skull finally cracked.
Some of the splattering brain matter landed on her voidskin and was greedily absorbed. The rest sprayed past her and splashed down at the bird seller's feet.
Sss—
The strange fluid melted the hard rock like wax.
Terrified out of his mind, the bird seller finally made his choice amid all this chaos.
He got to his feet, forced his trembling legs to move, and ran for it without a second thought, fleeing in the direction farthest from the dreadful battlefield. He was so focused on escape that he forgot to watch the uneven ground beneath him.
He stumbled, fell, scrambled back up, and kept running.
His retreating figure was utterly pathetic.
He never looked back even once at the girl who had just saved his life, and in the end he vanished into the darkness he thought would keep him safe.
Roar—
The monster bellowed and snapped at Kai'Sa.
In that split second, she raised both arms and caught the jaws as they came down.
In the end, she still could not overpower a hunter with brute force alone. The instant the beast threw its head up and bit down, she was forced onto the defensive by the sheer weight behind it.
Her hands braced against the tips of its upper and lower jaws as she struggled to hold back the maw trying to devour her. Her feet dug into the rocky ground, her knees bending lower and lower under the pressure until they were nearly forced down to the floor.
But even that crushing physical force hurt her less than the sight of that retreating back.
The truth was, Kai'Sa could have destroyed the beast far more cleanly.
She had dragged the fight out on purpose because she wanted to see what choice the bird seller would make. She wanted to know whether he was still worth saving.
Would he trust the person who had already saved him once?
Or would he still turn around and run, seeing only a monster?
She had shown him more than enough goodwill. She had given him more than enough chances.
Not once had he made the right choice.
Fear had swallowed up every scrap of reason he had left.
How foolish.
How utterly disappointing.
...
Zihark heard the roar echo through the tunnel, and the pace he had already pushed to its limit somehow quickened even more.
But Kai'Sa was simply too fast. Once she truly started running, she vanished like lightning. No one could stop her.
He was still cursing that fact when a human figure suddenly came running out of the darkness ahead.
A man.
He was in such a panic that it was as if he did not see Zihark at all. He ran straight toward him.
Zihark stopped in place.
The man still did not notice him and crashed right into him head-on.
Not yet thirteen, Zihark only came up to the man's chest, yet when the impact came, Zihark did not budge at all. The man, on the other hand, was knocked flat by the recoil of his own momentum, and even his dagger flew out of his hand.
Zihark said nothing. He merely stood there and watched the man.
Only then did the man realize what he had just run into.
A strange humanoid monster, like a knight of terror risen from death itself, was staring down at him with three cold violet eyes.
The smell of fear poured off him.
He was terrified.
"Please don't kill me! Please, don't kill me!"
His dagger had vanished somewhere into the darkness. While begging Zihark for mercy, he scrambled around him on the ground and crawled behind him.
When he saw that Zihark merely turned to look at him and made no move to attack, he finally forced himself back to his feet and fled, stumbling and scrambling toward some unknown distance.
Zihark ignored the man.
Finding Kai'Sa came first.
He did notice the dagger lying motionless in a dark corner, though, and after a moment's thought, he walked over, picked it up, and ran toward the source of the roaring.
...
Kai'Sa launched her counterattack.
Her shoulder pods swung into position and aimed at the hunter's skull, spitting out over a dozen plasma bolts in a rapid burst that blasted its head backward.
A huge claw swept at her. Kai'Sa sprang aside and avoided it.
Less than ten meters apart, the two faced each other.
They studied one another, neither making the first move, each waiting for the other to reveal an opening.
But a Void creature could never suppress its hunger for long.
The hunter attacked first.
Energy gathered in its mouth, and in preparing its killing blow, it exposed its own weakness to Kai'Sa.
The moment she saw the faintly pulsing heart deep in its throat, Kai'Sa became a blur. She flashed to one side, dodging the searing beam of light and electricity, then, before the jaws could close, dashed straight in front of it without a moment's hesitation, both arm-blades aimed at its throat.
With a hysterical scream, she blasted purple flames down into it.
This time, the fire burned the hunter clean through from head to tail.
Its heart burst.
Its entire skeleton, together with Kai'Sa's longing to be accepted by humans, was reduced to ash in the furnace-like heat.
[End of chapter]