Author's note(19.06.15): This is the second part of the original chapter 3. I figured it made more sense to split them, so I did. I edited most of the conversations, tried to make them feel more natural, but I kept the majority of what was already written. Some of Nidalee's reactions to stuff feel a bit… off, but I can justify that since she's not socialized.

I kept the flashback bit. I know it's a bit cheap trick to include backstory, but people liked it, and I don't want to delete all that text simply because it feels a bit cheap.

Author's note(19.12.15): I'm deeply sorry I never got around to doing more with this. Some personal issues made, well about everything a bit hard, and seeing how this is a mostly lonely venture with little feedback, I simply didn't find the inspiration, strength and motivation to keep working on it. I still got some stuff lying around which I might upload, but as of now, I can't promise I'll keep on working on this. Hell it's been stalled half a year now since I last said I "rebooted" it. I really did though. Edited lots of stuff and had some fresh ideas coming in, but I just couldn't manage to write. Sorry

Chapter 4: The huntress

"The void..." Nidalee let her thoughts take words. It wasn't something she was naturally familiar to. The only knowledge she had of it was from the league, but what she had seen there scared her. It was alien, different, and also very powerful. Some spoke about it as a salvation, others about its role in the destruction of the world. What she knew was only that it was a place between the worlds, or rather the void between the worlds. A place where creatures beyond comprehension resided, and that every time the natural barriers between the world and the void had been severed, a horrific monster with an insatiable hunger had spawned.

This was a fact, the league housed numerous of these creatures, the monster with red claws and a hunger never sated by feasting, the smaller one with acidic spit and the hunter that had fought to a draw with Rengar.

"It's beyond our world," she finally uttered and looked down at the man beneath her knee again. He was calm and held his hands out to the side, but kept a gaze of steel aimed at her.

"Who are you?" she asked the man, aiming her spear at him again.

"I'm Jayce, named The Defender Of Tomorrow. League champion;" the words always tasted bitterly in his mouth. As a reminder of his responsibility.

"I haven't heard about you," she eyed him with suspicious eyes.

"I've been there for three years now, I'm from Piltover. You must have heard about me," Jayce felt a drop of sweat drip off his face. It was hot in the jungle, and he wore too much clothing, but he couldn't deny he was a bit nervous.

"Piltover..." she thought about it. Big city, weird people talking with complicated words, a lot of technology. Very different than Demacia and especially Noxus. She vaguely remembered a conversation with one of them a long time ago, about something called ecology, which supposedly would allow humans to live in harmony with the wild.

"Big city, weird people, complicated words, ecology"

"Well, I'd preferably put it a bit nicer, but I guess you're right from your point of view." Jayce shrugged. "We're trying to invent a way to live in harmony with the nature, using without destroying."

Nidalee was silent for a moment. She didn't know if she could trust him.

"Look,," Jayce tried to reason, "You might not trust me completely, but I promise I'm not here to either hurt either you or the jungle. I'm actually here to do the opposite. To take away the source of the voidlings."

"And what will you do with it?" Nidalee asked.

"Protect it from those that seek to use it to transform the world into a place of metal and fire."

Nidalee growled. She had heard some about that. About an evolution, "I'll accompany you. You will show me it, and I'll decide then whether or not to trust you." She let her knee go off him, and waited for him to get to his feet.

"Thank you." Jayce nodded.

Nidalee sneered in response, "Show the way," the words were left hanging in the air as a gust of wind forced Jayce to close his eyes. When he opened them again, he was met with a cougar with the same eyes looking at him. It kept a watchful gaze to him.

There wasn't much choice. Nidalee would have to come along. He picked up his hammer and fastened it on his back and brought up a map before he started walking. He only hoped Viktor wouldn't show up.

Together the two characters walked through the jungle. The jungle was damp, and green. Thick branches crawling out of enormous trees blocked the sun making it hard to gauge the time, luckily he had his watch. It showed about midday.

As they walked he noticed that the jungle always seemed to appear darker than it should, as if something absorbed the light that should otherwise have lit it up. An another observation he also noticed that the area they were walking in, or more specifically, Nidalee was walking in, always seemed to be both brighter and less intimidating than the surrounding area. Whether or not this was just an illusion, or a real thing, he couldn't be sure of. There was some magic on run here.

Continuing behind the cougar girl, Jayce felt the sweat running down inside his attire, which was meant for a whole different climate. Behind him he could feel the huntress presence. Silently gauging his actions.

He tried to concentrate his thoughts on walking the uneven terrain, but his mind got bored. It lusted for stimuli, something that intrigued him. Normally it would have been some new technology or some new designs, but as of now, the most intriguing thing close to him was the huntress, that he just so happened had witnessed in her bare skin. It proved a hard thought to rid himself of. Normally he wouldn't end up being so hooked on such thoughts, but it had been a long time since he last had shared companionship. Ever since the incident with Viktor had ruined the relationship between him and Caitlyn.

Agreeing with himself that this wasn't a good time to get sappy, he tried to ignite a conversation as distraction, "So, what do you know about the void?" He wasn't sure if she would, or even could answer in her primal form.

A gust of wind later and a soft voice came from behind him. "It's dark..." the voice made him think of a scared kitten.

"How would you know?" Jayce was surprised by his own question, of course everybody thought that the void was a dark and inhuman place, but he only knew of two people that had actually been in contact with it, and they had never bothered to describe what it looked like, only what it would bring.

"I just do, I feel. The creature with the red claws; it tells us to fear the darkness." The answer was disjointed, and felt more like thoughts than speech, Jayce wouldn't be surprised if the words actually were..

"Do you know anything more?" Nidalee asked him in return. He avoided turning his head completely, just looking over his shoulder towards her.

"No I don't. Only that it won't be good if my fears are confirmed." A new nightmare appeared in his head, one about monsters and abominations, it was even worse than his other nightmare of metal and flames.

"And those are?" She asked as she was climbing over a fallen tree that was in their way.

"Of death and destruction." The words weighed heavily, it basically summed up his nightmare.

With a firm hold, Nidalee landed on the other side of the broken tree, she let soft words escape from her mind, "Darkness..."

Jayce walking ahead, barely heard the whisper, but noticed the softness of the words, they were light, like a leaves in the wind. He didn't pry, realizing they were most likely not meant for him.

"It's a future without... light..." Jayce couldn't fully find the words to describe it, and ended on the antonym of darkness. He hoped she would understand.

"Why?" She asked as she drew up beside him. The expression on her face was so different from the one she had when they first met. In this Nidalee he saw a scared and confused young girl. It pained him for some reason.

"Why, what?" He kept his voice mild.

"Why does it exist?" She held a firm hold on her voice, but beneath Jayce could feel it crack. It was very surprising to him to see her like this. It quickly became obvious she feared the void greatly, but why?

"It just... does. No-one really knows." The answer was unsure, because Jayce barely knew himself. After the words had disappeared, both of them stared ahead into the dark jungle. Previously the jungle had seen as an unforgiving and hostile place, but together with the huntress, the fear seemed to disappear. It only reinforced his belief of how intertwined the girl was with the jungle.

Together they walked in silence for some time. Jayce wasn't sure exactly where they were heading , there was no path, but he kept following the energy reading of the crystal, Nidalee held a firm stride beside him now.

On their right side, a big moss-covered hill stood, covered in vegetation in colors that Jayce had never even heard off, much less seen. One of the plants was made up of a single stilk with a flower with petals of a deep purple color on top. Out from each of the petals, leaves; the same size as his foot grew out, and in a manner that seemed impossible, actually pointed slightly upwards. Nidalee walked past it without offering it a thought.

The hill quickly became a lost sight and new memory, then Nidalee who'd seemed strangely thoughtful, turned to him and with a suspicious look asked him.

"Why are you here?" The version of her that reminded him of a scared kitten was gone, replaced by a feral animal.

"In the jungle?" Jayce felt he had to thread vary, if he wanted to avoid a confrontation. He reminded himself that she was far different than other personalities, which might explain her sudden change in attitude.

"Yes." It came with a hard tone.

"Because there's a threat here, I've already told you this," Jayce tried to be diplomatic.

"You live far away, this is not your hunt." Nidalee seemed to almost sneer at him.

"This concerns the future, and the future is my business:" It came out a little harder than he would have liked, and he feared for the short-term friendly relationship they had for a while.

"You're withholding something." Nidalee stopped and bared her teeth at him. Jayce kept his mouth closed for a second. He wondered what had caused the escalation.

After a silence of loaded air between them, Jayce, having made up his mind, spoke: "I'll be honest with you. You don't deserve these mind games of the 'civilized'." The way the last word had sounded seemed to harmonize on of her strings, and she calmed down a little.

"Speak then." Nidalee let her teeth disappear away from view.

Jayce rolled his shoulders a little before he started: "Before my time in the League... I studied a crystal of immense power, that was stolen from me by a man gone mad by injustice and science." The recollection of his memory gave him a bitter after taste.

"Viktor." Nidalee stated her knowledge.

"Yea, I'm surprised you know." Jayce tried to lighten the mood a little with some positivity, and gave her an awkward smile.

"He's threatening the wilds." Nidalee responded bluntly, keeping her hostility towards him.

Disappointed, but not surprised, Jayce continued: "After my fight with Viktor, I went back to my notes. Something about the crystal had irked at my mind when I had been studying it, but I never had time to investigate."

"And, that was?" Nidalee responded, more interested than hostile now, much to Jayce's relief.

"That it couldn't have originated in this world, its composition was... off." Jayce was searching for the right words to describe it, words that would allow her to understand.

"What does this have to do with your intrusion here?" Nidalee put extra weight on the next to last word, as to highlight the fact how she disliked intruders in her jungle. It made Jayce vary, and he knew he had to get to the point soon.

"I fear... that a new crystal has spawned, here." Jayce opened his hands and motioned towards the direction they were heading in, as well as the jungle as a whole

"What will this cause?" Nidalee seemed angered, but luckily Jayce didn't feel as if she was angry towards him, at least no more than she already was.

Jayce turned to face her, he had a serious look upon his face: "If... and this is just if, my fears are confirmed, this can cause a rift between our world and the void..." He let the lump that had formed in his throat slide down as he finished, he didn't like to confess it, but he was scared.

Nidalee turned away from him, and looked bewildered into the jungle, much like the first time he had mentioned the void to her. Jayce wasn't sure what to do about it, he knew so little about her, so little about why she seemed to flinch at the mention of the void.

Still keeping her gaze away from him, she spoke with the same soft voice of leaves in the wind: "The creature... that was one?" The realization tugged at her.

"Not sure, but I think it was..."Jayce lowered his voice to match the temperament of hers.

"The League? Won't they help?" Nidalee turned her hazel colored eyes at him, and let her head a little on the side and looked up to him with glossy eyes. It was for some reason very off-putting for him to see her like that.

"I don't trust them. It is them who have summoned creatures from the void into this world. They claim to be good, but they're after something bad." Jayce held a firm tone, he wasn't sure how the huntress perceived the league, he only knew his own.

"I agree." Nidalee answered.

A distance away from them, the loud rustling of a river could be heard , and Jayce noticed, to his discomfort, that the dampness seemed to increase. Together, they walked towards it, still on track with the energy reader. The conversation between them had fallen silent, and Jayce didn't like it, he was still unsure about the situation between them. She shifted so quickly between hostility and vulnerability that it was impossible to gauge her. She simply didn't conform to any known social norm. That raised a curiosity in him. A question that he would once again play in attempt to defuse the situation.

"How exactly did you... learn to speak?" Jayce asked, and regretted when she didn't respond at the first.

Finally Nidalee turned towards him, her eyes seemed lost, "I..." She turned away from him to the river that could barely be seen on their left flank through a mass of trees. Her mind was flashing again, the question, tied up with the recent events proved to be a challenge for her mental state. Her feet stopped moving without her even realizing it, and the memories of her past came rushing through her as they had done only hours ago.

PAST

She was a young girl again, her exact age of course unknown. She stood in the outskirts of the known jungle again, a distance away from the spot she had met the young couple some days prior. Their impression had lingered on her mind, reminding her so much of a life she knew only as past and foggy memories. She wanted relief from the pain it had caused her, she wanted to turn back into the predator she had been all these years, but now was denied.

Nidalee quickly found the spot the scene had gone down in, their scent was almost gone by now, only present on some of the plants there. Their prints, however, were still there in the soil. She studied them closer, they were no where like anything she had ever seen before, long and oval in shape, with no marks of claws or paws, just smooth surface. To her, they were so unfamiliar, but also so familiar; her eyes going behind her, where her own prints were sunk into the ground. They were smaller, held roughly the same shape, but unlike the prints she was following, they didn't leave flat ground behind. Hers were more bumpy,, with each of her new paws marking the ground.

The trail led her further away, they went on and on, leading her away from the known parts and into the unknown, where she had never dared to go before. With her newfound form, she managed to fight her fear, and press on.

Finally, after following the steps for what seemed like the same amount of time it would take to track down a prey, slay it and eat it, she'd finally reached an end. The trail had led her to an area where the jungle simply seemed to end, like: at once. She had been too focused on following the dwindling prints that she almost didn't realize or understand why the ground suddenly seemed so much brighter. She looked up only to have her orbs of crystalline gemstones blinded by a much bigger ball of white flare sending beams of radiance through the now unobstructed air above her.

Clinching away from the rays of light that was chipping away at her emeralds, Nidalee turned her eyes forward. No more trees, no more underwood. She was looking at a great open plain of green grass, it confused her, it didn't fit in with the rest of the jungle. Vary over the sudden shift of environment, she looked back from where she had come from. To her relief the dense jungle that always gave her comfort was still there behind her, waiting like a mother for her child.

Beyond, over a hill in the distance of the plain, she could see a trail of grey clouds rise upwards to join their cleaner cousins that were stealing the light away from the ground below. The sight gave her memory a nudge, releasing emotions of warmth and security she had trouble placing. Intent on finding the source she forced herself to continue, with her mind starting to fuzz up, and her heart beating with the same intervals as droplets of water during the rain.

Moving through the high grass with ease, it didn't take long before she had crossed the plain to the hill, which she was now climbing. It had taken longer than expected to ascend the small mountain of grass, but after several minutes of struggling against her own decision to investigate, she was finally at the top.

Crouched down in the meadow, with just enough opening for herself to poke her head head out and get a look at the plain below, she got a view of the source of the grey clouds. The sight that met her was a very new one, a sight she was sure she would remember for the rest of her life.

A number of structures, built from logs that were surely to come from the jungle, stood grouped around a much bigger building of the same material. The trail of smoke slowly rose up from a hole in the middle of it, and even from the distance she was in, she could smell the flavor of burning wood. The buildings had enormous dried leaf on top of them, bound together with rope.

It surprised her how she seemed to know what everything was, but at the same time didn't really know. Her mind churned on about her memories, desperately trying to make sense of everything and connect the past to the present.

In between the structures of stacked logs, she could see the outlines of creatures walking on two legs, tall and sleek. She knew what they were now, her past memories reminding her, humans... like her, only still not like her.

Curiosity taking the better of her, the young girl with the ponytail of almost black hair began to descend the hill and move in towards the buildings. The sound of voices increased in volume for each step she took, some of the words she could make sense out off, but most were unknown for her.

Prowling through in the tall meadow, it didn't take long before she stood right beside one of the structures. Vary, she stealthy sneaked around the buildings, making sure not to be seen or heard.

Each of her heart beats were pressing against her temples, like they tried escape from the bulging vein present beneath her skin.

Getting further into the village, Nidalee made sure to keep hiding spots open to herself and all her senses at full alert. Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps and voice heading her way. Looking around her for hiding spots, she eyed a dark corner lodged between two of the structures of dead trees. In front of the corner a stack of dead logs and branches was placed, making an ideal place to keep herself from discovery.

Within moments, she could skim the outlines of two men in the distance. They approached in a straight line to the hut on her right side. The first one seemed old, while Nidalee didn't really know how a human would look like old, she somehow managed to get the feeling. Both of them wore nothing over the waistline, showing off toned muscles beneath their tanned skin. The older of the two had numerous scars over his body, most notably an almost healed one on his right shoulder, the other one had no such scars. As they came closer, she didn't dare to peek forth anymore, and hid completely behind her cover.

"So what do you think father?" The younger of the two asked. He kept a calm voice.

"I'm not sure, I've lived here for many years, and I've traveled far, but I've never heard of a girl living on her own in the jungle." The elder casually scratched his chin as he thought about how likely the story would be.

Nidalee heard them stop right outside her hiding place in the dark corner between two of the structures of dead trees. The younger of the two men looked up to the other, and asked: "Then, what do you think they saw?

"Hard to say, they got very little reason to lie. So... I believe them." He motioned over to the barrel Nidalee was sitting behind,"Go get some firewood for dinner son."

"Sure, father." Nidalee hadn't understood the weird noises they made, but noticed that one of the footsteps came closer to her. She felt her heart beginning to panic, beating as if she was in a fight for her life, which she might get into soon if she didn't do anything.

Keeping as low as possible she hoped the man would leave, but he didn't. Finally he stopped on the other side of the stack of logs, he reached down to them, Nidalee held her breath. He reached down to one of the large ones that laid on top, and picked it up, but the moment the log had disappeared from the stack, Nidalee was exposed to view. "What the.?!" The young man shouted out, loosing his grip on the log he had picked up, so it dropped down on the ground, forcing him to jump back as to evade the mass.

Nidalee had looked up at the man the moment he had exposed her, her eyes were wide, and with her mind in panicked disarray, she acted on instinct and jumped out of cover, kicking the man in his chest before jumping off him back to the way she had entered the village. Her eyes ran with salty water, and she ran as fast as her legs could carry her. Many other people saw her run, but no-one seemed to chase after her, they just looked confused at the young girl in the strips of leather.

Within minutes she reached the outskirt of the jungle, and disappeared into the calming trees and underwood.

PRESENT

"Nidalee?" Jayce looked quizzing at the woman who had just mentally disappeared from the present.

Snapping back from her memories, Nidalee looked over to him, not realizing the time she had just stood silent. She growled to him and walked ahead of him.

"I..." Jayce started, but was interrupted by Nidalee,

"Let's just find this crystal."

I encourage everybody to write a 'review', it's always nice to hear others opinion, and it's the only way I can realize something I can't see on my own. It doesn't have to be long, just voice your thoughts :)

PS: Thanks to Blargmaster13 and Kiravu for their help in the original writing.