The Paths We Walk

Drago waited below deck during the night, and surfaced at dawn. The ship was due to arrive at port the next day, and he didn't want to be stuck below for any amount of time then he needed to. Whilst the lousy security guards and fat humans on their cruise would be easy pickings for him to fight through, it would arouse too much attention. The last thing he wanted was to tip off Section 13 or the Chans. Especially with him still being solo.

Before daybreak, when the security was on a shift change, Drago snuck onto the deck and grabbed a load of towels and linens. He wrapped them around himself to be sure no one could see how un-human he looked, and perched himself on one of the sunbeds. To any unsuspecting eye, he would look like a guest that was over-eager to reserve his spot by the pool. Let the idiots think what they want.

Despite his impatience, he had to grin with mischievous delight as the morning wore on and people walked right past him without any clue as to who or what he was. There was something hilariously entertaining about being the fox in the henhouse.

As the ship moved closer to its next destination, Drago felt the hum along his chi-senses. The Water-Demon Chi was close, he could sense it. He could sense all of them, faintly, but they seemed to have an order that burned for his attention one at a time. He didn't know exactly what had caused the Chis to suddenly manifest, or why. In the back of his mind, that was a question he had to figure out. The explosion of Chi he'd felt that fateful night was unlike anything he'd ever experienced or even heard of. But it had revealed to him a destiny, a way for him to rise above even his father's kin and take his rightful place in history.

The only thing standing in his way was the Chan's. He could only hope he was one step ahead of them in this case. Drago was not as foolish as his father to not recognise the threat all the Chan's possessed. Whilst his father had generally dismissed Jade as a mere child, Drago had been on the receiving end of her antics more than once. Each of them was dangerous to his plans, and what's more, they also had his mother on their side.

That was a problem that Drago was trying (unsuccessfully) to mentally deal with. He'd come back to a time where his mother was young, naïve and fighting for the wrong side. In this time-line, she was only a few years older than him – which was kind of creepy to think about. Every time he'd come across her so far, he'd tried to emotionally separate his mother from Valerie Payne. He had to stop thinking of her as the woman who's given birth to him and raised him, and instead see her as just a woman who was currently standing in his way of getting what he wanted. Yeah, that wasn't working so well. No matter what he did, he couldn't stop memories or feelings holding him back. His mother was fighting AGAINST him. For some reason that stirred something inside of him that felt a little torn. It felt like she was betraying him, or that she didn't understand and needed him. It was all so confusing!

He had to get rid of that thought. The logical part of him said that his mother didn't know him here, no matter how much he might wish that she was back from his world and knew everything about him and would understand. That same logical part of him also argued the laws of the time-space-continuum. If Drago was never conceived and born, he would pop out of existence, the same would happen if either his mother or father died before that happened. Yet as it stood, his father was encased in stone and his mother appeared to be giving her husband the silent treatment and the metaphorical 'sleep on the couch'. The question then presented itself: How to win his mother over, and get her to be with his father so that Drago could be conceived?

Drago shuddered. Well, that was a mental image he really didn't want to have.

"The ship will be arriving in port in 10 minutes. We hope you enjoy your Polanyisian adventure on Boru this afternoon. But hurry back, because Mumbo madness begins at 4 sharp!"

The droning voice over the speakers broke Drago from his thoughts and he looked out over the railing. The island was practically within reach, and the hum along Drago's veins was practically a noticeable tingle all across his scales. It was time. Uncaring if anyone on the emptying ship was watching, Drago threw aside his cover and jumped up onto the railing.

He grinned out at the tropical island. "This time, the Chi's all mine."

Safe to say that Valerie had NOT volunteered to go to some island in the middle of the ocean, where she would be of no help to anyone. The gourd the water demon had popped up on one of Jade's favourite TV shows of all things. Valerie had opted to sit this one out. Besides, the competition that Jade had entered everyone into only allowed four members, not five.

And she had something important she really needed to discuss with a certain someone.

Jade had most certainly rubbed off on her in all the wrong ways, Valerie concluded as she marched into Section 13. Thanks to the child, she somehow had taken note of when the guards changed their rotation, changed shift, and which routes would leave her the least resistance. Also, Captain Black had still not changed his 007 password to the vault. It was almost too easy to break in and close the door behind her so that no one knew she was in there.

They really needed to fix that problem. If they didn't, someone on the wrong side of their little war might be able to break in and steal something important.

A hum across her sixth sense made her aware that Shendu was watching her. The scar along her left palm tingled, but she tried to ignore it. She couldn't let him unnerve her, she had to keep her resolve and stay focused on her task. Though that being said, her heart was suddenly beating a little too fast, she felt like a rabbit that had been cornered by the fox. With all that in mind, she did her best steel her nerves and turn to face him.

Shendu watched her from behind his bars. Red eyes glowed in the stone face. She could feel his eyes follow her every step as she slowly came towards him.

"We need to talk."

The bright red eyes flashed at her. The serpentine voice hissed all around her. "Ahhh, so now you feel the inclination to speak with me."

"Only when it's something important."

"What you deem important." He countered haughtily. "I however, might think differently."

Valerie growled in exasperation. "For goodness sakes, are we five?"

"You're the one who has been avoiding me, Valerie. You are the one that has shown the childish behaviour thus far."

"Are you going to talk with me, or not?"

There was a moment of silence. Valerie thought he would actually refuse her. But then he spoke, and his eyes took on an amused glint. "Only if you come closer. I want to see you…"

She chewed her lip, and deliberated taking a step backwards just to piss him off. Yet she knew that wouldn't get her anywhere. Besides, she didn't know exactly how long she had left to talk in here before someone came looking. Begrudgingly, she stepped stiffly forward. The electrical hum that sparked between her and Shendu only grew the closer she drew. Valerie was reminded of her wedding day, of feeling the electricity spark between them, consuming her with yearning for proximity and growing desire. A quick shake of her head banished such thoughts as she steeped right in front of Shendu's stone nose.

"Ah, that's better." Damn him, she could hear the smug smirk in his voice. "Now, what did you want to discuss?"

"The demon chi." She said tightly. "What do you know about it?"

"I can feel the calls of my brothers and sisters, their energies have infected the world and seeped into these ancient artefacts that you seek."

"Why now? What's causing them to come out all at once?"

"I don't know… yet."

Valerie cocked a brow. "Yet?"

"I have a working hypothesis." The demon sorcerer seemed rather withdrawn for someone who relished lording over his superior knowledge to others. For added measure, his glowing red eyes fixed her with a pointed look. "One which I'm not ready to discuss yet."

She conceded his point. Guess-work was useless to her right now anyway. The tension in the room was doing nothing for her nerves, so she forced herself to relax and talk a little calmer. "Fine. What will happen if Drago gets his claws on all eight powers?"

"Your imagination can tell you that," he replied grimly.

"Well, how do we stop him?"

"It is not a case of stopping him, it is about finding the correct vessel." Shendu explained in that ever-assured tone that made it appear as if he knew everything and could convince you of it. "Chi flows through all things in the universe. Did it never occur to you that these chi's were not just floating in mid-air? They attached themselves to something because they need a host to cling to and settle."

Valerie tapped her chin with a finger in thought. "So, the demon powers won't just go away over time, they'll keep themselves active until they find a proper host?"

"Precisely. Though that in itself will be difficult."

"Why?"

"My siblings possess only dark chi about them, so if you were to place their dark chi inside a mortal vessel, that vessel would soon become corrupted and tainted to more match the power that now inhabited it. Drago is made of both light chi, as well as already having his own dark chi. Only someone such as he or another demon would be able to handle the power and not be changed by it."

"So how do we get rid of them?"

"Short of opening a portal to the Nether-realm and casting the powers back to their original owners? I'd say there's not much you can do."

"Great." She muttered sarcastically. "But what if Drago gets them? What then?"

"Drago is a demon unlike anything I have encountered. He is made of both light and dark, he does not lack one or the other like most demons and other supernatural beings. He is the offspring of two completed Others. My guess is that once all eight powers have combined within him, nothing will be able to remove them."

Valerie looked away at the floor, one hand combing through her hair in an attempt to work out her anxiety. None of this was anything she hadn't already speculated. If anything, all it did was confirm how hopeless their current situation was. Something in her must have given away her worry, for she felt an alien sense of comfort envelop her in a soothing warmth. For some reason, she knew it was Shendu, he reached out to her and offered her wordless support to banish her fears. She didn't know how he had such control over this connection between them, and frankly a lot of it was a mystery to her. But those were questions for another time. Right now, something far more pressing had been weighing on her mind that she couldn't get rid of.

"Do you believe Drago?" she asked quietly. "Do you think he is really our son from the future?"

"Do you not?"

"I don't know what to believe. Biology tells me a person can only be created under very specific circumstances. I mean, I wouldn't be here, the same person that I am, if my parents conceived me a day earlier or later than they did."

"I was inside Drago's mind. I recognised within him the same chi that is within me." Shendu paused, before he spoke quietly and softly: "And I know he's yours. Your eyes are the exact same shape."

Valerie's eyes darted away, and damn it, why did a blush have to suddenly rise in her cheeks? She fought it, along with all the emotions and questions that came with it. For any distraction, she asked the first thing that came to mind. "I thought people couldn't travel back in time to where they already existed? All the movies and fiction tell us that to meet yourself would be a tear in the time-space-continuum."

"Nonsense." Shendu snorted. "There is no rule stating that one mustn't meet one's self in the past for fear of destroying the universe. In the past, your ancestors, and yourself for that matter, are simple sacks of meat in the eyes of the cosmos. In any case, when one travels through time, they do not travel to their own literal past."

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it logically. If you, at this moment, went back twenty minutes into the past, and met yourself, you would change your own current memories as your past self was making them. Thus, you'd constantly be changing yourself with all the things the past changed during your visit."

Valerie nodded, her mind whirling with Shendu's encouraging prods. "That would make sense. If you went back in time to prevent a certain event and succeeded, you'd create a glitch, because in fixing the mistake, you therefore fixed the reason you ever went back in time in the first place."

"Exactly. So, when Drago travelled from the future, he didn't travel into his exact past life. Instead, he went through the walls of time into an ever so slight parallel dimension."

"Able to interact but have no impact!"

"Indeed. Usual consequences would be the same, such as if either one of us were to die before conceiving him, he would cease to exist. But other decisions are now free to be made by him without effecting his current state."

"So, him being here, telling us what happened to him – that's not a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

"The future is an uncertain mess. There are many roads that we can walk, with many branching paths that criss-cross over each other depending on which choices we make in the present. Some paths are wider and stronger than others, but not one of them is set in stone. It is all subject to change."

The human woman mulled those words over in her mind for a long while in silence. Could it be true? Was her future still open to her? It felt a little more comforting to be assured that. Yet at the same time, she couldn't help but feel confused as to their current state if the future was still so open. Where did that leave her now?

"Valerie," Shendu's voice called to her. She must have drifted off in thought, and so was brought back to the present sharply. His voice was soft, almost whispered to her. "Has it not occurred to you that whilst some paths are subject to change, the one bound you and me, is not?"

Instantly she drew up every wall she had to prevent anything escaping her. "I don't know what you mean…"

"If Drago's existence is any indication, then it must mean that somehow you and I are together. It is inevitable."

"You just finished saying the future is not set in stone!"

"But something must be there. If there was no hope, then Drago would pop out of existence right now."

The bitterness was easily detected in her tone when she spat her response. "I will not be the puppet of fate, Shendu. If there will be any decisions, they will be made by me, because I want them to happen."

"Do you find me so repulsive, then?" he retorted harshly.

"After everything you did to me? After you betrayed me?! How you–"

She cut herself off. She couldn't get into this rant right now. She had to keep reminding herself that it would do no good. To tell Shendu of all the ways he'd emotionally hurt her before? Why she was so conflicted over him? All it would do was make him ask questions that she really wasn't prepared to face at the moment. But apparently, she didn't need to say anything. From the way Shendu's glowing eyes were watching her, he seemed to partly know of what she was eluding to.

When he spoke, his words were carefully hushed. "Valerie, it was all done for love of you."

"It was a funny way of showing it." She muttered and fought the sting in the back of her eyes. She threw him a look, and shook her head. "If you love someone, you're supposed to care about them, about their feelings. You're supposed to trust one another, be happy with and for one another. It's not a selfish game of possession. Love is selfless. About giving up everything about yourself to see someone else happy. How could you understand that?"

Shendu's statue hung there in silence, red eyes fixed on her. For some reason, she got the impression that Shendu was a little taken aback by her words. Surely, he couldn't have been entirely clueless to what he'd done? He must have been aware but never fully understood the consequences of his actions. Yet even if that were the case, Valerie was not here to explain everything out to him. But the way he was looking at her, it almost made her want to stay, to tell him everything, to have it all off of her chest.

That couldn't happen though. The back of her hand quickly dabbed against her eyes to wipe away any stray tears. Hurriedly, so as not to get caught in this rabbit-hole she seemed to constantly be falling into with him, she turned and went to leave. "I have to go."

"Valerie," his voice called and made her stop momentarily to hear his plea. "Return to me soon."

"No promises."

That night, Valerie dreamed. In that half space between dreams and waking, where there was the eternal black tunnel that stretched on and on to lead you into deep sleep. In that unending darkness, she stayed, suddenly claustrophobic, but knew the space was infinite. She floated on nothing, but her feet touched ground. Sounds echoed all around her, yet were quiet as whispers with no origin.

Warm air brushed along her arm. As if weighted down in oil and tar, her movements were slow and sluggish, yet they felt effortless and free at the same time. She turned and realised that she was stood next to Shendu. He was as she remembered, in his new body, out of his stone-prison. His red eyes found hers, his chest moved up and down with his deep breaths. Valerie felt her left palm ache to touch him. But she repressed it.

"Even here, you don't leave me," she murmured to herself.

Being a dream, Shendu seemed to know what she said anyway. "Why would I want to?"

Valerie looked away. Fatigue in her soul made her eyes fall in resignation. It had always been about Shendu. What he wanted, he did his best to get, no matter who else was in his way. On one hand, Valerie secretly admired his determination. Yet on the other, she wished he didn't do it to disregard others and their welfare. Perhaps if he hadn't things wouldn't be so tense between them.

As if he could sense her thoughts, Shendu's demeanour shifted. His posture slumped ever so slightly, and his voice was tired and quiet. "Do youwant me to?"

She looked up at him, wondering why her dream-self wouldn't come up with her usual defensive reply. And then she realised she couldn't lie. Instead she looked around at the inky darkness that swirled about them like oil in water. "It's very lonely in here…"

"That's the way of the world."

"Can't argue there."

Shendu glanced her way, and his eyes were all she could see. They were hellish and dangerous, yet warm and soothing. His voice encompassed her, and once more she felt the need in her hands to reach out to him.

As if he mirrored her need, he reached out to her, as if to stroke her face with the backs of his fingers. Yet just before he could touch her, he stopped. His hand lowered to his side, but his voice was just as gentle. "Then find me if you need me…"

Valerie awoke, and blinked stupidly in the dim light of her apartment. Disorientated, she looked over to the clock on her night-stand, where it read 6:35am. For a moment, she debated with herself whether or not to go back to sleep. Warmth encompassed her and she wasn't needed at the antique shop until Uncle returned with the others from abroad. In the end she declined sleep and instead pulled out her current reading material: The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis (which she had-not-so-subtly asked Jade to rent from her school library after the whole Drago and the wind demon Chi incident).

After an hour curled up under the blankets with a good book, Valerie slowly unwound herself and began to potter around her apartment in search of breakfast. Whilst she kept herself busy, she flicked on the television and half-listened to it as background noise. However, she completely stopped what she was doing when she heard a familiar programme come on.

It was a re-run of the previous night's episode. She'd been too busy with Shendu to watch it live. Now, she was rooted in place as she watched Jackie, Jade, Tohru and Uncle battle Drago live on television for the power of the water demon chi. She watched Drago absorb the power, and to attempt to create a tidal wave with his new-found ability. Shendu's words echoed through Valerie's mind and she bit her nails anxiously. But just a few minutes later, before anyone could really get hurt, Uncle showed up and extracted the chi from Drago. When all of it was said and done, Valerie thought that maybe this would prove to the world that magic and demons exist, but instead, a presenter made a comment on how great their special effects were. Typical.

The credits began to roll, but Valerie still stood there, thinking quietly to herself. Drago's need for these Demon Chi's had yet to be explained to her, because none of it seemed to add up. He claimed she was his mother, and whilst her resolve against the claim was shrinking into normalcy (even for the Chans THAT proclamation was still initially abnormal), but then she had to wonder why. Valerie couldn't imagine herself in any universe where she betrayed everything she'd ever known in order to raise the next evil overlord. Why would she encourage such evil behaviour in her son? What happened to her in the future to cause such a drastic change? Or if not, what happened to Drago to make him turn out this way?

Yet perhaps even a question more important than any of those, was the one she hadn't gotten an answer out of Shendu yesterday. What had caused the sudden appearance of the demon chi? Uncle claimed it was the bad-chi stars. But that couldn't just be it.

It couldn't all be a coincidence, could it?

At that exact same time, half way across the world, someone else was thinking the exact same thing.

Nat Homato frowned as she tried to concentrate on her meditation. Legs crossed, back straight and stiff, the red-headed woman attempted to find a place of calm, to open her mind. It was all about relaxation, about finding peace and tranquillity…

So naturally, she hated it.

The old, short Japanese man sat next to her was the only thing that prevented her from getting to her feet and storming out to kill the nearest hell-spawn she could find. But no. She had far too much respect for her grandfather to do that to him. Not to mention the fact that he'd probably whack her knees with his cane should she misbehave in such a fashion.

Once more, she tried to concentrate on relaxing, but it was hard to do. Her body was just begging for some kind of action. Without her say-so, her leg began to bob up and down with a trapped nerve. She growled and forced it to keep still. A green eye darted open to check she hadn't disturbed her grandfather. Nothing. Good. She tried again.

An itch had formed in the back of her skull. Her brow felt her and her nose twitched. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. A sense of dread, of the shiver that comes with the dark swept across her skin. It was horrible, and so strong and sudden that Nat couldn't help it. Despite all her conditioning and training, a shiver ran up her spine and made her tremble.

"Yes," her grandfather droned out quietly. "You feel it also. A great disturbance has unbalanced the universe."

Nat fidgeted. Usually her grandfather was never wrong, but she always hoped there would be a first time. "Might just be a chill…"

"I remember there being a 'chill' not so long ago, when great evil had sought to enter our world…"

Nat's green eyes snapped open. Holy smokes, her grandfather was right. Again. There was only one other time that she'd felt this disturbed. That was when the Demon Sorcerers had tried to return to the world. If something equally disturbing was now at work, it could only mean one possible thing.

She grinned. She'd be getting her action after all. "I have to go."

Author's Note: I thought I would give this chapter to you guys for my Birthday! ^-^ 23 years old now! Yay! Happy birthday to me!

Special thanks to InsanityisReality for being an amazing Beta and getting back to me as quick as she did.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and please don't forget to leave a review.