A/N

Alright, I haven't updated this in a while, I've been a little busy - you can probably guess why. Anyway, the outbreak in 384.2 isn't entirely solved, there are still a few isolated little pockets of demons that pop up here or there. Speaking of that, I'm still in here, and yeah, I have no idea how the hell I can get this here from... here. Dimensional divides are tricky little things.

Anyway, I've got a proposition for you guys: I'm thinking shenanigans. The work I've got here is nearly finished, and I want to have a little fun with this thing, so: If any of you have any ideas of how I can mess with the Masters or something, or maybe if you want to ask them any questions, I may well turn it into something, maybe a one-shot or something like that. Of course, it has to be something I'm actually capable of doing, and hopefully something that wouldn't provoke my murder (I'm talking mainly about Tigress here), but yeah. Leave a review or a PM or whatever and let me know.

Now, I've blathered on enough. Here's chapter 5.

Dimension - 384.2

Local time: Unknown - 12:17

"I'm not sure what to be more insulted by, the instant assumption that I'm a threat, or that you seem to believe you could do something about it if I was."

All of my team had turned to Fear the second they'd heard his voice, drawing their weapons in the process. Po and the Five had adopted battle stances shortly afterwards, even Tigress, who appeared to be back up and running pretty quickly.

"Who are you?" Tigress demanded.

Fear began walking calmly towards us, "I, Tigress," He paused, for dramatic effect or something, "am Polzar, the embodiment of fear. Just call me "Fear", though, no-one uses my name. Keep in mind, I also settle for "Sir"."

"What were you doing to Tigress, Fear?" I asked him.

"Travelling from Origin to here. I find the conventional methods far less comfortable than going through a living vessel." He had reached us now, and was coming within dangerous proximity of Tigress.

"You're a troubled person, Tigress. All the better for me."

Tigress let out a low growl, then thrust her paws forward with incredible force. The force wasn't needed, however, they went straight through Fear as if there was nothing there, clouds of shadow seeping out from where Tigress' paws were stuck, in the hole in Fear's stomach. Fear lowered his head, still staring at Tigress. His smile broadened, putting on a voice almost as if he were reprimanding a child.

"An interesting attempt, Tigress. But, if you keep doing that, I might just get annoyed, and then I'd have to kill you."

For the next few words, his voice became horrific, a screaming cacophony that shrieked out words.

"LET GO," He let go of the cane in his right hand, and grabbed one of Tigress' wrists.

"OF ME," He let go of his pocket watch and grabbed Tigress' other wrist.

"LITTLE GIRL." Fear wrenched Tigress' hands from his body, then disappeared in a cloud of black shadow.

"What was that?" Viper asked, horrified, "What the-"

"Anyway," Fear's voice interrupted Viper. He was behind us now, further away this time, leaning against one of the pillars next to the gate-doors. He continued, "I'm not here to fight you, I'm here to offer my help."

I could sense something was up, at first I thought it was Fear himself, but now I wasn't so sure if that was all there was to it. I decided to question him about this.

"Help with what, exactly?"

Po grabbed my attention, "What are you doing? Have you seen this guy?"

"Yes, far more times than you have, actually."

"We should take him!"

"If you are going to take me," Fear said, "I'd suggest doing it with at least the element of surprise."

I decided to ignore Po, and follow up on my question to Fear.

"Anyway, what do you think we need help with, and how the hell are you benefiting from it?"

"Well, first, I'll assume you don't know that Death has been trying to get in here, and so I'll start by telling you that Death is back, and he's trying to get in here."

"What, Death?" Blue said, surprised, "The Commander killed him, 2000 years or so ago. How can he come back?"

"Because, Blue," Fear explained, "He didn't kill him. Killing a god is difficult, if you didn't know, and he just didn't finish the process. Nearly, but not quite. Now, Death wants to make entire worlds dead again, and he's planning on this one as a test. Now, people can't be afraid if they're dead, so, naturally, I'm not too fond of the idea."

"Why are you so interested in here, though?" Blaze asked, "It's another dimension, when else are you going to be here?"

"You think he'll stop with this one? He'll move on to Origin soon enough. Plus, I couldn't have you dying, you're my favourites, after all."

"Damn straight." said White.

"We'll accept your help." I told Fear, "But anywho, who's your favourite amongst us?"

Fear took the question in his stride, "You're all my favourites equally! Except White, don't like him."

"Hey!"

"Bye now!"

And with that, the god of fear disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"I don't usually like Fear," Blaze thought aloud, "but I've got to give him credit for not liking White."

"How could he not like me?" White wondered in despair.

I answered, "You haven't got class."

"Guys!?" Mantis cried, "We've just accepted help from some guy with glowing eyes and a top hat, who calls himself Fear and just threatened to kill Tigress! What the hell kind of strategy is that!?"

"Master Mantis," I said, "welcome to the IDTF. Or, operations with it, anyway."

"Can we trust Fear?" Red asked.

"We can't afford to take the risk, I think. Death's pretty annoying." By annoying, I of course meant generally lethal, which you can kind of assume from the fact that he's called Death.

"I don't know how well you know Fear," said Tigress, "but he has evil written all over him. I'm shocked you're even considering trusting him."

"I don't like him either." Po agreed, and the rest of the Five voiced their agreements too.

Since accepting Fear's help was my idea, technically, the rest of my team were nudging me, urging me to say something.

"Look, he's not that bad. Just... Complicated."

The Five looked sceptical, with a few arising "Oh, really?"s and "Mmmhmm?"s.

"Look, he's helped us loads of times before - I'm not saying he's a saint, but he doesn't like the other evil gods. He's told me before that he's happy with the world in the state it's in now, and so are we, so... Yeah. Just try not to anger him, okay?"

Tigress mulled it over, "This is something else we will have to tell Shifu."

White almost scoffed, "Because he's sure going to be happy collaborating with Sir Pumpkin Tuxedo."

"Don't insult my tuxedo."

"AAH!" Everyone jumped back at Fear, who had once more appeared behind us.

"Sorry, didn't mean to frighten you." He smirked, "I can't have you making fun of my suit, I do like to hold the reputation of "Classiest God". Besides that god of class, of course, that classy cretin."

And so, he disappeared again.

"Is that going to become a regular thing?" moaned Crane.

"I hope not," I said, "but it probably will. I wouldn't really worry about it, Fear's content enough not to really bother people, so if he does appear he'll only be wanting to talk about something."

"Because we clearly enjoy talking to him so much..." Monkey muttered.

"Come on." Tigress called, opening the doors, "Master Shifu needs to be told what's just happened."

We followed the tiger master inside, and into the training hall, where assumedly she'd, uh, assumed we'd be meeting Shifu.

"He should be here by now, it's half-twelve." Blue noted.

At that moment, Shifu burst through another set of doors, looking as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Are you all right, Shifu? You're late." I asked him.

"I'm not late, you're late!" He snapped, "And it's Master Shifu!"

Well, that was annoying.

"You don't hold any authority over me, nor any of my team. Are you sure there isn't something wrong?"

"There is something wrong." Tigress said, "Master, we've just been approached by someone outside the gates. They call themselves Fear."

"They don't just call themselves Fear, they are Fear." Blaze stepped in, "Look, Shifu, we've dealt with him before, we can handle this without anyone else's involvement-"

"-But Master, he was horrible, like a demon-" Viper began.

"Oh, he's waaay worse than a demon." White interrupted.

"No, it's not really a-"

Shifu raised a hand. "Enough! Now, if this person was just outside, I'm sure I could speak with him."

"Splendid!" Fear clapped his hands together. Despite all of our separate view points, he had still managed to appear out of nowhere. "Ah, Shifu, still haunted by your past? Good, you know, I would have used you to get here, but you know, that whole peace thing got in the way a bit. Still don't really see how you did it considering the madness and death of your son and the emotional crippling of your daughter. You caused it all, by the way, just letting you know."

It was clear enough to see on Shifu's face that Fear was opening up old wounds, some may well have been new or underlying, too. "I'm past all that." Shifu nearly stuttered, stricken but defiant. Unsurprisingly, Shifu's students were all looking increasingly hostile towards Fear.

"But are you, though?"

"Hey," I called, "can someone give Shifu a break and get this sadistic ass to shut up?"

Fear turned questioningly in my direction, and was caught off-guard when 01 grabbed his cane and swung it into his chin. Fear recoiled and reached for 01, but 01 grabbed his hand, threw him over his shoulder and kicked him in the back, drawing his handgun afterwards. Fear was thrown forward, but came to a halt and stood up straight. It seems I was testing his patience.

He spoke through gritted teeth. "You're lucky I'm concerned about keeping this suit clean."

"Get him out of here now." Shifu ordered. Fear wasn't having it, though.

Fear recovered from his moment of anger pretty quickly. "It's nothing personal, it's how I feed."

"I think you'll find that was everything personal."

"No, look, see it this way:" He brushed himself down, "Do you ever think of how the crops feel? The poor soya beans who's families must be traumatised? No? I didn't think you would, technically speaking, I'm actually more considerate than you in that sense."

"Are you comparing me to a soya bean?"

"And yes, I suppose I should probably be making a better effort to get on your side, but give me a little credit: I am caring more for you than you care for soya beans."

It took a while before Shifu simply sighed and rested his brow in a hand. "...He just compared me... To a soya bean..."

"You see? Even now."

"Get him out of here."

White saw his opportunity, "Don't be racist to the soya beans, Shifu, stop being racist!"

"Get him out!"

"Racist..."

"Very well, I can see I'm no longer wanted here." Fear tilted his top hat, "Good day."

And so, he left again in an almost clichéd puff of smoke.

There was silence for a long time. No-one spoke, a few people shifted nervously and either looked at the floor or exchanged a nervous glance with someone else. Through it all, Shifu stared at the ground.

After a while his head tilted upwards, and he spoke.

"Right. Let us return to training." He turned and began walking, but I stopped him shortly.

"Look, Shifu, I'm sorry about Fear,"

He made a "Hmmm"ing sound, the meaning of which I couldn't tell.

"He isn't on his best behaviour right now, and we will need his help-"

"We'll find a way around it, operate without his help."

"No, Shifu, you don't understand what you're dealing with here-"

"I said, we will operate without his help."

"But we need it, Shifu, can you not just make one compromise?"

"I have made enough compromises already."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"That doesn't matter! I will not work with that- that monstrosity!"

"Oh, right, so it's a personal thing, nice job taking one for the team."

"I won't stand for this! Didn't you see what he was doing-?"

"Ignore it, Shifu, move on."

"How dare you!? If you had lost what I have, known the pain I've felt-"

"NO! Don't you DARE even try, I've lived millions of years with the regret, the grief from fallen comrades- friends- family, who fought and died beside me, and I had to let it all go in an instant for the sake of a few people. And now, you can't let go of a few little issues from years past, for the sake of an entire dimension? You're pathetic."

I turned and left immediately afterwards, thinking to myself as I walked off in no particular direction, pondering. I wasn't proud of that exchange, although I wasn't really ashamed either. I'd just had it with Shifu at that point, gods forbid if I'd have pulled a revolver on him.

Frankly I would've expected Shifu to handle Fear a lot better than he had, and Fear himself wasn't usually that bad. Something else was still up, definitely, and it was happening just behind our backs. Or right under our noses. Well, the ULFs' noses, SOKs don't have noses...

At this point, still, none of my team seemed to have discovered the identity of the "someone" that Shifu had been conversing with, and it seemed to me as though none of the Five nor Po knew about it either. Whoever they were, I was pretty much certain that they were the cause of all these goings on behind our backs, and probably the reason why Shifu was so agitated.

That begged another question, though: Why the hell was I agitated? There was no explanation as far as I could see, this was all getting quite strange. Quite strange indeed.

Back at the Jade Palace, things had gone a bit badly since I had left. After a short - and frankly a bit half-hearted - argument over the ULF - SOK divide, everyone decided that everyone had acting a bit out of hand. Once rationality was at the forefront of everyone's minds, they started to think about things that would serve some purpose. One issue was rather quickly resolved when Blaze supplied that I'd probably be back in a few hours, and she was right, of course. The Five and Po returned to their quarters and my team returned to theirs; Shifu had dismissed everyone else to give himself some time and space to think.

My team got on with setting up the armoury and various methods of demon surveillance in the surrounding area, with help from Blue's miscellaneous tech-y equipment and 01's MUTBPU.

The MUTBPU, commonly called "Mutbeepoo" or "Magic Box", stands for Multiple Use Tactical Back-Pack Unit. You can use it to get weapons, view headcams, perform scans - I even got an entire shed out of it one time. Can't for the life of me remember why I needed a shed, though.

But anyway, yeah, my team did that. I don't know what the Masters did in that time, but I was just wandering and wondering. Demons were surprisingly scarce, by which I mean there didn't seem to be any. Frankly, it would have been a demon's best shot at me, considering I was alone in reasonably unfamiliar surroundings. Still, can't say I was surprised. Don't go to a demon if you're looking for advanced strategic and tactical intelligence.

I got contacted about twice by my team. They weren't particularly worried about my safety - they had no reason to be - but both times I assured them I was fine. Sometimes, when things are hectic, you need a good hour or two to just zone out and think, kind of like meditation. Well, I say one or two hours, in my case it was more like five or six. Things had been really hectic lately. I'd been gone for a very long time.

I eventually decided to turn back. I hadn't necessarily been going in the same direction all the time, so I wasn't incredibly far from the Jade Palace, and it didn't take me long to get back there. There was a kind of winding mountain path that served as an alternative to the gods-forsaken stairs, which I gladly took advantage of.

I slowed to a leisurely walking pace. I didn't feel particularly like getting back quite so soon; I decided I'd just roam the palace grounds for a while before returning to the Masters and my comrades.

I was nearing a cliff of sorts when Fear materialised beside me, walking to match my pace, his cane gently tapping the earth in a steady rhythm.

"Good evening, 02." He greeted me.

"Good? Hardly. I don't know if you know what happened after you left, but things didn't exactly settle down. Everyone was pretty pissed off, actually, including me."

"Yes, I was... Aware of that. I was acting a little harshly and... I apologise."

"Fear apologising? This just keeps getting weirder."

"Hmm, yes, there does appear to be something odd going on, doesn't there? You've noticed it too?"

"I have. So it isn't you, then."

"No, it isn't. But whatever it is, it does seem to be affecting me, and that I don't like, for all our sakes. I'll be looking into it - I'll get back to you if I find anything interesting. Pleasant travels." Fear clicked his fingers and disappeared again.

Yep, you read it right. An apology and help from Fear. I probably wouldn't be any more surprised to find that I'd actually been a moose for the past three years.

With Fear gone, I passed a peach tree and a sapling and took a seat by the cliff. I wondered if Shifu would be mad at me when I got back, or if he would have come to his senses as I had. That and I hadn't got any of the Masters' viewpoints on this, they could well be angry at me too, Tigress, probably. I looked up at the evening sky, dark blue beginning to conquer the reds and oranges slowly ebbing away on the horizon.

I flinched slightly, but didn't turn as a voice came from behind me.

"02? What are you doing here?"