Disclaimer: I own neither the WITCH cartoon-show nor Jackie Chan Adventures; they are the property of their respective creators, writers, and producers.

A/N: Hello again, dear readers. Apologies for not being able to update any sooner, so here you go with one of the biggest chapters of this tale in order to compensate. As always, many thanks for those who took their time to read the previous chapter and leave and review on it. Many thanks to the people who contribute to the TvTropes page for this story too. Now… it's time to tie some plot-threads. Welcome to Chapter 29, I hope y'all are ready for some more action continuing the one of Chapter 28. Ready? Because here we go.

Guardians, Wizards and Kung-Fu Fighters

Episode Twenty-nine

Victory

Meridian's Wild

An undead finishes his sleep...

The Tracker opened his eyes; the sickly and yellowish skies of Prince Phobos' Meridian being the first thing to greet him. He incorporated, inspecting his surroundings as he did so. Sniffer was at his side, chewing a bone from some small animal he must had hunted in the night. A bunch of small insects crawled their way through the dirt, probably seeking something to feed upon. There was nothing else of relevance in this little forest of dried, leafless and dead trees; aside from the fact that it wasn't near any village or great city and that no road crossed it.

This was the main reason why Tracker liked it in the first place. Although he didn't need to rest to the same extent as a normal human being, (Tracker needed to sleep no more than two times in a month) it was always a good idea to have a place where you could spend some time in peace and recover your strength, especially after a long battle. And the possibility of someone bothering him here was basically non-existent. The guards had been nothing but fools by letting him get out of the Capital. There was no one that knew Meridian's hills, mountains and forests better than him and his bloodhound.

The undead knelt at his hound's side, patting the monstrous dog in the head. Sniffer growled pleasantly, acknowledging his master's touch; but continued concentrated into munching the bone in his mouth. Had Tracker still been a human being, he would have chuckled at that. The undead left Sniffer to do as he wished, wandering around the dead trees for a bit.

What could have happened to Daolon Wong? Had the old Dark Chi wizard died? Unlikely. Tracker knew for a fact that the sorcerer had some escape routes and contingency plans ready in case things turned sour for him. But if that was the case, then where could he be? Tracker and Sniffer had searched for him everywhere and there was no trace of the old wizard.

The fact was undeniable. Daolon Wong was out of the picture. And going back to Phobos was a guaranteed suicide. Well, it wasn't as if the undead had any real interest for the Prince's ambitions. He had decided to serve the brat not out of genuine fear, respect or loyalty, but in order to have a greater chance to hunt more preys. As for the ancient Dark Chi wizard... Tracker had to admit that there was a part of him that would miss him, if such an emotion was even possible for his (both literally and figuratively) rotten heart to feel. After all, it wasn't everyday that he had the opportunity to talk with another being that had lived for far more time than what nature allowed human beings to live.

But in the end, that didn't matter. The ambitions of Princes, Wizards and Rebels, the destiny of a world... For the Tracker, those were irrelevant. Only the Hunt mattered. Only the Hunt.

"Grrrrrrr..." Sniffer growled, taking the undead back to reality.

Tracker found himself surprised that his monstrous bloodhound had stopped munching the bone and was growling at his surroundings. And Sniffer only growled like that when...

Enemy? Tracker thought, picking his flail from the ground. Here? Where?

Sniffer was standing now, growling even more and ready to pounce; head moving from left to right. Where was the enemy? Where was the fool that would soon be Tracker's newest prey? Left? Right? Behind a tree? Sniffer turned around and loudly barked at him. No, not at him. He barked at his...

Shadow, Tracker thought, jumping back and swinging his flail just in time to avoid and deflect a piercing strike of a katana emerging at his feet. Tracker landed, pulling his weapon towards him. And then the undead got a good look at his attacker as he finally emerged completely out of a puddle of darkness... and time seemed to stop.

Standing before the undead, clad in black Japanese armor and with a black katana in hand, stood a Shadowkhan. But this was no Ninja. This was no Mantis, or Leech, or Squid. This Shadowkhan wasn't wide and tall, neither did it have wings, or a powerful shell, or razor-sharp claws. Yet Tracker knew it all too well. It was a Samurai. A Samurai.

And in that moment that felt like an eternity, something stirred within the Tracker. A memory of long, long ago. A memory of a field, of a battle and broken swords, lances and bows... and of loss. A memory of a blue demon, clad in black steel. A memory of something cold in his neck. Cold... so cold it burned.

Tracker roared. His chest opened wide, revealing a gaping hole. A swarm of screaming bats came out of it, baring their little fangs at the Samurai Khan and enveloping it. While the Samurai tried to either slay the bats or scare them away, Tracker didn't lose time and rushed at the creature made of shadow. He swung his flail, and the spiky ball collided directly with the torso of the Shadowkhan, making a loud 'Crinkank!' as the Samurai tumbled backwards. Tracker didn't gave the shadow warrior any time to breathe. The undead slammed his spiky ball into the Samurai Khan's head. One, two, three, four times he slammed it. And then the Shadowkhan decomposed, melted into a shapeless mass of darkness that then faded into nothingness. The Tracker had won. His bats hadn't done much. And Sniffer hadn't even moved. Too easy.

"Look at you. You are more skin and bones than flesh now. And the flesh that is actually there is old and putrid. The years haven't been kind to you."

Tracker let out a growl not very different from the ones his hound made. He recognized the voice, even after a thousand years. He could recognize it even if another millennium passed.

"Ikazuki..." Tracker whispered hatefully, a fact that his raspy, inhuman voice accentuated.

"Yes, it is I, Ikazuki!" the Oni's voice came, emerging from every shadow. "But you should have expected this to happen! After your encounters with Uta and Ikki, you knew our paths would cross again sooner or later!" a laughter followed, but it faded quickly. "I, Ikazuki, was feeling quite ecstatic about the idea of besting and killing you a second time, but I must confess I don't feel so thrilled now that I can see you firsthand." Ikazuki paused. "You fight more like an animal than a warrior. You really have forsaken knighthood in order to embrace the way of hunters. You have lost most of your appeal... What honor is there in killing a disgraced foe?"

"Where. Are. You?" Tracker asked, hissing every word, eyeing every shadow the trees produced and ignoring most of the Oni's words regarding his current state.

"Not very far away;" Ikazuki's voice said as something emerged from a nearby shadow. It was a dirty, lilac piece of cloth. "Your pet should've no problems tracking me down using that. Isn't that right, Tracker?" Ikazuki pronounced the last word with clear mockery and smugness. A thousand years had done little to diminish the Oni's arrogance.

"No tricks?" Tracker whispered, taking the piece of cloth.

"Trickery is not in the arsenal of Kage no Ken Ikazuki!" the Oni General's voice bellowed. "I shan't move if you wish to confront me! I have…"

A clearing in a much more alive meridianite forest

"… ways of entertaining myself until you find me."

With those words, Ikazuki ended his talk with the Tracker. Seeing, hearing, speaking and traveling through shadows really were incredibly useful abilities. Not only could they be used in order to quickly travel long distance and easily communicate with your allies no matter how far they were, but they also were phenomenal ways in order to spy on your enemies or even to silently assassinate them. If Ikazuki had wanted to, he could have made his Samurai ambush and kill his old -and now undead- foe from his own shadow while he slept. But that wasn't how Kage no Ken Ikazuki did things. A blade in the dark of the night was something more proper of shinobi like Uta, but never of a warrior like Ikazuki was! He would met every challenge he faced head on, like a proud, honorable warrior should! Like he was about to do with the group that had been following his trail since a few hours ago. Ah, he knew that they were near!

I can hear them, the proud Oni thought. He grinned, his eyes darting towards the edge of the clearing, where the forest began. He hoped these ones were an actual challenge. Or good enough to serve as a warm-up for his match against Didier, at least.

In the forest

"Uncle, this is insane!" Jackie Chan shouted as he walked in line with Viper and Tohru, Gareth and his small band of rebels walking way ahead of them, keeping their distance. And between the group composed by Chi Wizard apprentice, ex-thief and archeologist and the one composed by the rebels, was Uncle Chan, walking with his hands behind his back, as if he was taking a casual walk through a park in the middle of a city.

"Uncle heard nephew the first dozen times!" the Chinese elder yelled back, and kept walking.

Viper let out a small sigh but decided to keep anything she could have said to herself. Jackie and Tohru had spent hours trying to convince the old man that what he planned to do was madness to no avail, and that didn't seem to be going to change anytime soon. The former thief had known the Chinese elder for far less time than his nephew and apprentice had done, but she knew the man was too stubborn to change his mind when he had decided upon doing something. Guess that Jade had to get it from somewhere.

"Sensei, for goodness' sake, listen to us;" Tohru spoke, but in a much calmer way than Jackie had done. Hundreds of lessons had taught the mountain of a man that yelling wasn't a very effective way of communicating with his mentor. "I don't doubt your skill in the use of Chi Magic, but dueling an Oni General one-on-one, after everything we have learned about them and the things we have seen them do even with bodies that aren't their own, is a guaranteed suicide."

Uncle stopped walking, forcing the trio to stop too. He turned around, adjusted his little round glasses and took a gray hair from his forehead; every motion done in complete and utter calmness. "Does any of you have any other idea?" the old man asked. "Has apprentice miraculously discovered the key ingredient for Mask-removal potion? Does nephew know of a way to get Mask from host without killing him?"

Silence. That was the only answer old and stubborn Uncle Chan received. No, of course they didn't have any other idea. However, that didn't mean that Uncle's idea wasn't reckless and suicidal!

"At least let's ambush him all at once… ow!" Jackie suggested, only to get dope-slapped as a result.

"Aiyah… Nephew doesn't understand. That would be a guarantied suicide," Uncle explained. "If all of us attack Oni general by surprise, then he will answer with whole Shadowkhan army!"

"Then why don't we challenge him to fight all of us at once?" Tohru said, trying to mix Uncle and Jackie's ideas. "If he is as arrogant as Jade told us he is, then there would be no problem convincing him to do that."

Uncle shook his head. "Apprentice is forgetting how dangerous that would be for everyone else! We only have one Horse Talisman! That means only one person healing at a time! And Uncle is pretty sure that Horse Talisman can't heal death!"

A pity we don't have the Dog, Viper thought. Perhaps a call to San Francisco and Captain Black was in order after they returned to Earth, but she doubted Section 13 would lend them more Talismans after the loss of the Dragon, Pig and Rooster ones. At least, not until those three were found.

"But, Sensei... Ikazuki is much stronger than you. You can't possibly..." Tohru tried to protest again.

"Aiyah!" Uncle yelled, finally losing his composure. "Since when are nephew and apprentice so pigheaded?! Uncle said he will handle this himself, and Uncle will do so! And that means it's turn for nephew and apprentice to listen to Uncle and do as they are told!" he sentenced, turning around and walking ahead once again.

"Uncle, if you fight that thing alone you will die;" Jackie said, the words turning into ash in his mouth.

"Uhm? Die?" the elder asked, looking at the pair of adult men and the one adult woman over his shoulder. He dedicated a kind, calm and full of confidence smile at them. "You worry too much. Uncle won't die. In fact, Oni General won't be able to scratch Uncle." The old Chi Wizard said and then resumed his walk, forcing the trio to keep walking themselves.

"How?!" an incredulous and still worried to the extreme Jackie asked.

"Because Oni General is way stronger than Uncle, precisely;" the elder answered.

"What?" this time Jackie, Tohru and Viper asked softly at the same time. That… That didn't make any sense at all! However, they didn't have time to protest anymore, as they had reached Gareth and his group. The rebels had stopped and had adopted combat positions, using the trees and the rest of the forest's flora as hiding spots. The rebel made a sign to approach him to the four earthlings in the moment they arrived, putting a finger over his lips so they would try to be quiet. He then pointed onward.

"There's a clearing ahead," Gareth explained in a whisper. "Aldarn... The thing possessing his body, I mean, is there."

"Any signs of his Shadowkhan being around?" Tohru asked, also whispering.

Gareth shook his head. "No," he said. "He's just sitting in the ground, doing nothing. I think he knows that we're here."

"A trap?" Viper inquired.

"Ikazuki doesn't strike me as a man that uses traps," Tohru told the ex-thief. "When he took control of Aldarn's body, he literally yelled that nothing would make him happier than fight everyone in that chamber of the Infinite City before leaving."

"Which means that he's waiting for us," Jackie deduced.

"Then better if we don't make him wait," Uncle declared, already in the move towards the clearing. "Come on! Follow Uncle!"

Sighing but accepting that continuing to argue with his uncle would be pointless, Jackie Chan followed into the old man's steps. Tohru and Viper did the same seconds later. As for Gareth, he instructed his men to stand behind them and to look for anything strange that drew their attention.

I hope that Jade and the others are having it easier than us, Jackie thought.

Cavigor Prison

"No prison holds the Son of Shendu forever!" the draconic man known a Drago roared in triumph once he had landed in one of the wide staircases of Cavigor.

"Mega-bad day…" the Wolf Shapeshifter and Ben-Shui reincarnation known as Jade Chan let out quite tiredly. Alright, it was time to register some facts. First, Shendu had a son. Which by the way… ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! Second, said son was (or had been until this moment) a prisoner in this place. Third, he had escaped. Fourth, and judging by her past experiences with his old man, that wasn't a good thing.

As for the Tiger Shapeshifter known as Calisto, Warden of Cavigor Prison, could do little more than stare in horror at the being that had just erupted from the depths of his prison. No, no, no… This can't be happening. Not now, the Warden thought, the wound in his neck product of this young She-Wolf's fangs stinging. And it wasn't just the wound, no. Although it was clear to Calisto that he had been dominating their fight since the moment they had begun clashing, it was foolish to think that he hadn't grown tired during it. Now, he was sure that he could finish the She-Wolf even while tired and wounded; she wasn't in any better shape than him, after all. But this monster was a very different story. This monster had taken so much from both him and Sidriss sixteen years ago that even when they had been able to defeat and retain him the victory had felt hollow. And now Calisto was standing in front of him alone… and the She-Wolf was still breathing, which meant that this time he was at a numerical disadvantage.

"What?" Drago said then, smiling and showing his yellowish fangs. His voice dripped with pride and amusement. "No reaction? That entrance deserved, at least, a round of applause! C'mon, like 'Drago, you're so cool!' 'That was amazing!' or something like that!" Drago looked at his two (for now) silent interlocutors, noticing their wounds. Wounds that they seemed to have inflicted upon each other. Uhm… interesting. He turned slightly to his left in order to look directly at the Tiger. "What's wrong, Calisto? Cat got your tongue?" he asked, and then laughed at his own joke. While loud and terrible, his laughter was a happy one. "I'm sorry…" he added between fits of giggle; "that one was pretty lame, but you can't blame a man for loving a good classic!"

"How have you escaped from your cell?" Calisto, still not raising his voice, asked. The Tiger turned to Jade next. "You have set this monster free? Have you any idea of what he is capable of doing?"

"What?! Are you nuts?!" the She-Wolf yelled, quite offended at the Tiger's accusations. "We aren't here to free this gecko! We didn't know he was here! We didn't even know he existed!"

"The 'gecko', good one by the way;" Drago said, finding Jade's way of referring to him quite funny, apparently; "has freed himself on his own, you feline moron. In fact, I could've escaped from the cell since the day you, the Snake and the Elephant dropped me in there. But momma didn't raise an idiot!" he proclaimed proudly. "I knew I couldn't get out of this hellhole if I had to get through everyone in it first. But I also knew that, eventually, there'd be an idiot or idiots that'd try bursting in or out of here, distracting your forces for long enough that I'd be able to escape! Here's an idiot," he said, waving his claws at Jade, who growled in response to the insult; "and here are you!" he finished the sentence, waving his hands towards Calisto. "Alone," he said, and his voice lost the funny tone he had been employing for most of his talk. He then exhaled flames from his nostrils. "And you remember last time, don't you Calisto? How many of your friends did I kill back then? Five, six, seven? And now it's just the two of us… and this wolf, but she doesn't seem to be your friend. So if you think that you can fight me and get out of it with just a little burn in your face again, you're wrong. In other words… get out of my way."

"I can't do that," the Tiger whispered, or at least came very close to whispering by growling the words softly. "You know I can't. As a Warden of this prison, I shall fight you till my bones are broken and my last breath has been…"

"Blah, blah, blah, honor, blah, blah, blah, duty, blah, blah, blah, I'll fight you until you burn me to death;" Drago mocked, going as far as to mimic the motions of an opening and closing mouth with his hand. The seriousness with which he had spoken just moments ago was now gone. In fact, Jade noted, he sounded kind of annoyed. "Seems that dumb boy-scouts always are dumb boy-scouts, no matter the world they're in. Alright," he declared, swinging his arms a couple of times and cracking his neck. "I think I've still got time to spare, and a lil' bit of exercise never hurt anybody. Now let's rumble, kitty!"

Jade watched in astonishment at how Drago lunged at the Tiger and how the giant feline choose to stand his ground against the draconic man. Calisto tried to strike his much smaller-than-him foe with his left claw in the moment he was at the right distance, as if expecting that Drago would jump into the air and go for his (albeit already slowly healing) still injured neck. But Drago didn't do that. Instead he dodged the strike with ease and ran between the Tiger's legs, positioning himself under the Shapeshifter's belly. There, he jumped and delivered a punch to the Tiger's gut. The blow had enough strength that all four of Calisto's paws left the ground for a moment, at the same time that a muffled scream, product of the pain, escaped his mouth. The scream became a roar as soon as Calisto was able to react, moving in order to get Drago on his sights and try to strike him again. But as soon as the giant Tiger moved, he found out that the draconic man wasn't under him anymore. Drago was now several stone-steps over him, grinning and with his scaly arms opened in defiance. Calisto took the bait, rushing at the draconic man. Drago, in response, crouched and put his green claws against the stony staircase. The temperature of the whole area rose, and in seconds the steps melted, creating a pool of lava between the Shapeshifter and the Son of Shendu. Calisto must have been expecting this trick, as he jumped over the pool and had Drago not jumped back, the Tiger would have landed over him. They continued fighting, but it was clear that Drago was the one directing the fight, as he was forcing Calisto to ascend the stairs with him.

Jade Chan, meanwhile, had remained where she was, having shapeshifted back into her human form and tending to the wound in her shoulder. It seemed that not only was Drago inhumanly strong and fast, but that he also had similar powers to his old man. And he seemed to be far more creative with them than Shendu had ever been, judging by that little 'the floor is lava' move he had just done.

"Jade!" someone called for her, and Jade had never been happier to hear her name being shouted. Will and Cornelia flew out from the darkness of Cavigor's depths and as soon as they spotted Jade, they landed at her side.

"Oh my God, your arm!" Will said with concern, inspecting the Chinese girl's bleeding shoulder.

"I'm okay, I've been through worse and I heal fast;" Jade tranquilized her. "I've been fighting a Shapeshifter that transforms into a giant tiger. The Browns?" she asked Will.

"Already on Earth through a Portal we've already closed," the redhead informed her, her eyes not leaving her wound until she made sure the wound wasn't going to be a problem. Jade was right, she did heal fast. Not as fast as Cedric or other Reptilian Shapeshifters did, which was basically instantaneously, but yes faster than a human being, a Galhot or a Lurden would do.

"Mission accomplished, then?" Jade followed with another question.

"Yeah, but when we were down there, this weird dragon-man-thing called Drago;" the redhead explained; "broke out of a cell and just… climbed up. Did you…?"

"See him? Oh yeah, he's up there, fighting the tiger I told you about;" Jade said. "He said he's Shendu's son."

"Who's son?" Cornelia asked, putting a few strands of her blond hair that had fallen out of place due to her flight back where they belonged.

"Uh… Shendu?" Jade asked rhetorically. "The Demon Sorcerer my family fought?"

"Wait, the demon you told us about?" the blonde wondered. "What are the chances that his son is in… wait, how can he be Shendu's son?"

"Well, I guess that when a Demon Sorcerer and a woman love each other very much..." Jade said with a devilish grin.

"But that guy isn't taller than your uncle Jackie! You told us that Shendu was like… twenty-feet tall!" Cornelia said, then figured that judging by Drago's appearance his mother must had been a normal-sized human woman; and realized the implications of what that meant. "Eeeeeeeeew!"

"Yup, that was my exact reaction," Jade said.

"That's enough, you two;" Will commanded the Shapeshifter and her fellow Guardian.

"Okay, okay; it's just… so disgusting;" the blonde spat the words, calming down. "What do we do now?"

"Our priority is getting out of here and make a signal to Taranee, Irma and Hay Lin;" Will stated, albeit she wasn't sounding so sure.

"But…?" Jade helped her.

"But I doubt letting this Drago guy get out of this place is a good idea," Will finished. "I know we need to be pragmatic, but I've got the feeling, especially now that I know who's son he is, that if we don't deal with him here he'll be a problem later on."

"That doesn't answer my question," Cornelia addressed Will. "What do we do?"

Others would have frowned or yelled at the blonde's behavior, but not Will and Jade. While Cornelia could be a pain in the ass sometimes, her 'get to the point' mentality was of great help when the other two girls needed to make a decision under a lot of stress.

"We still need to prioritize going back to the others," Will declared. "We try to stop Drago and defeat him as fast as we can. But if we see we're losing too much time, we leave the forces of Cavigor to deal with him. And if he escapes, then we'll deal with him another day."

"Cool," Jade said nonchalantly. She checked her wound, which had stopped bleeding. Then she raised her arms and let Will to pick her up and carry her flying. "Let's go save the guy that's been trying to kill me for the last twenty minutes;" she deadpanned.

Cavigor's upper levels

Meanwhile, within the fortress that was Cavigor's upper half, the deafening trumpeting of an elephant reverberated through every hall, room and bridge of the prison. Warden Sidriss, having shapeshifted into a gigantic, humanoid elephant; charged towards the trio of Guardians composed by Taranee, Irma and Hay Lin. And behind the Elephant, guards armed with bows and crossbows gathered and re-organized themselves around Cedric and Miranda, both in their respective animal forms.

"Hay-Hay, watch out!" Irma called for her friend, who evaded a punch from Sidriss by the skin of her teeth. Good thing that Hay Lin was the best of the five of them at flying. "Eat this!" the brunette shouted as she conjured a powerful blast of water and shot it at the Elephant-Woman. Her attack did little more than bother Sidriss, who stopped it by simply rising her left hand and letting the blast to break against her palm. Hay Lin followed by creating a twisting, powerful gust of wind, but it did the same harm to Sidriss as a gentle breeze would have done. "Damn it..."

This is getting us nowhere, Taranee thought as she took a brief moment to fly away from Sidriss' range and catch her breath. In fact, we're losing ground; she added in her mind after getting a better view of the zone. Slowly but without pause, Sidriss had forced them to retreat into one of the many long and wide stone-bridges that connected the sections of Cavigor's upper half; clearly wanting to give herself and her allies the field advantage. Here she, Cedric and Miranda had much more room to maneuver, and her underlings could better line up in order to shoot.

"Loossssssse!" the Fire Guardian heard Cedric's loud hissing, and saw a rain of arrows coming at them. The bespectacled girl unleashed a torrent of flames from her hands, burning the arrows and turning them to ashes. But then she saw Cedric' scaly lips curl into a cruel smile, and she understood that this last volley of arrows had been nothing but a distraction.

Sidriss swung one of her big fists at Taranee, the Fire Guardian barely avoiding the hit. Then the Elephant-woman chuckled and proceeded to do a surprisingly fast and violent move with her body and neck. The next thing that Taranee knew was that something hard as rock slammed into her with the force of a cannonball. It hurt. It hurt like hell. Especially the right half of her rib-cage. Her mouth became full of the metallic taste of blood, and she found herself blown across the bridge until she reached its end, where she collided with a wall with enough strength to create a small crater.

Trunk, Taranee was able to think despite how clouded the pain was making her mind. She hit me with her trunk. Christ, her ribs hurt.

She tried to fly away from the crater she had made upon crashing into the wall, but the only thing she achieved was to slow down her descend until she landed in the ground. Why did her ribs have to hurt so much? Broken, they hurt because they were broken. She guessed that it wasn't the only thing that blow had broken, judging by the blood she spat over the cold stone beneath her.

"Taranee!" Irma and Hay Lin yelled in unison.

"CARELESS!" Sidriss bellowed in turn, charging towards the two winged teenage girls that were still in the air. Air and Water Guardians mixed their elements then, Irma casting a huge wall of water in front of them and Hay Lin freezing it with a current of ice-cold wind. The Elephant-woman broke through it as if it the thick wall of ice was made of paper, only needing a couple of punches to do so. It did give Irma and Hay Lin enough time to fly to Taranee, pick her up and retreat into one of the halls, though. "Crush them!" Sidriss commanded from the bridge.

"Yes, ma'am!" the soldiers obeyed, exchanging bows and crossbows for swords and axes and marching forward. Their footsteps made the ground tremble.

"We need to get out of here," Taranee mastered to say, hearing the approaching marabunta of guards. "Go back to the roof. There, we…"

"Yeah, yeah, we can fight better there;" Irma finished for her while inspecting her whole body. "Can you fly?"

"I think she broke my ribs," the bespectacled girl told the brunette. And she thought that, had she not been a Guardian, the Elephant-woman would have killed her with just that one hit. "You will have to help me a little."

"How can she be so strong?" Hay Lin asked as she put one of Taranee's arms around her shoulders. She began to fly afterwards, hovering over the ground alongside Taranee, who's wings were flapping at a slower pace than usual.

"She's a freaking elephant, Hay-Hay; for crying out loud. Of course she's strong;" Irma deadpanned. She looked behind them. Fortunately, this hall wasn't too long. "C'mon, help Tara, get out of this hall and go up, I'll slow the guards down and I'll follow you."

As Air and Fire Guardians flew through the hall, Irma stood facing the entrance of it that connected to the bridge, from where the soldiers ought to come. She clasped her hands together and concentrated, not only magically creating water as she always did, but calling upon every single drop of moisture and humidity that she could summon to her side. The air and stone walls, floor and ceiling around her began to dry up, and soon she found herself with the biggest amount of water she had ever controlled at her disposal. She unleashed it all at once, creating a massive wave that filled the entire bridge and was strong enough to decimate most of the guards that Sidriss had sent after them, leaving the meridianite soldiers soaked and disoriented. Sidriss simply took the wave head on, as did Cedric; albeit the Snake had to grab onto the bridge in order to not be pushed by its tremendous force. Miranda, rightly judging that she was too small to withstand the blast, climbed over Cedric's back in order to avoid it.

I hope that's enough to at least buy us some time, Irma thought, and quickly flew into the same direction Hay Lin and Taranee had done.

Over the bridge

"Do not falter now!" Sidriss yelled to her guards. "Whoever remains standing, go after those three and alert every guard you find in your way! They're clearly traveling back to the rooftop! I refuse to let them leave this prison alive!"

"Yes, Warden Sidriss!" the guards still on their feet declared with respect, doing as they had been told.

"What in Titania's name is taking Calisto so long?!" Sidriss asked after her underlings departed.

"Traveling all the way down to The Pit can take ssssssssome time, as we all know;" Cedric said, thinking quickly. Best if Sidriss didn't get any funny ideas, such as sending some guards down to The Pit to aid her fellow warden. He needed the Guardians to triumph this time, after all. "Our noble Calisto is a fearsome warrior," the Snake added as he crept towards the Elephant, the Spider having dismounted from his back and crawling at his side. "Whatever he wanted to handle, if he dessssssired to do so by himself, cannot be much of a problem. We must concentrate our efforts into dealing with the enemy at hand. Who knows how much more harm they could do otherwise?"

"Yes, yes, you're right;" Sidriss admired, moving her head a little, her trunk swinging as she did so. "Let's move!"

Letting the Elephant lead the way, Cedric couldn't avoid smiling wickedly after letting out a sigh of relief. In terms of raw, brute physical strength; Sidriss was probably the most powerful Shapeshifter he had ever met. If not for her, he doubted they could have been able to subdue that monster they encountered sixteen years ago. But when it came to cunning… Not that the woman was stupid as a rock; but she was too impatient, too single-minded, too prompt to action, too much convinced that her duty as a warden was the most important thing in the world; and never willing to give a matter a second thought once she had settled for something. Or in other words, she was stubborn and reckless; especially when Calisto was not around. And it was this kind of people that Cedric could manipulate easiest. Phobos and Wong were proof of that.

"The other one could still be a problem," Miranda whispered at his side, her brilliant blue eyes narrowing at him. Ah, she had been able to see perfectly through his little manipulation of Sidriss. They really were meant for each other, weren't they? "We shouldn't have let him go down there."

Cedric shook his head. "Calissssssssto would have grown suspicious if I had told him to not follow on a scent he caught," he whispered in return. "But I doubt he will be able to make it in time. And bessssides, there are two Guardians down there on top of another Shapeshifter. Calisto may be ssssssstrong, but he is far from invincible. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. Now," he sentenced, creeping ahead; "let's make sure Sidriss follows the script we have written for this charade."

The forest clearing

"You dare challenge I, mighty Ikazuki, to single combat?" Ikazuki asked of Uncle, more in genuine surprise than anything else. The enemies he was planning into using as a warm-up before his battle with Didier had decided to walk into the clearing just moments ago. Around twenty meridianites with barely anything remarkable about them, and four earthlings that actually did interest Ikazuki. A large man from the motherland (even though he was still smaller than his comrade Sukhosi, but then again who wasn't) two mainlanders, and a western woman. He recognized the middle-sized sumo and the old man as the Chi Wizards Lord Tarakudo had faced in Japan, and the other two as the warriors the King had used in one of his ploys. Now, General Ikazuki wasn't exactly what you would call a patient man, (especially when it came to the matters of battle); so in the moment he had seen them entering the clearing and deducing that they had come for him, he rose to his feet and unsheathed his katana. Imagine his surprise when, instead of taking him head on, they had asked to talk with him. Of course, Ikazuki had honored their request, no need to be dishonorable with those that were about to face him in glorious combat. But imagine his even greater surprise when the old wizard had just told him that he wanted to fight Ikazuki one-on-one.

"Yes, that's what Uncle just said;" the old Chi Wizard said nonchalantly after staring into the Oni's hellish emerald eyes for a bit.

Ikazuki stared back for an equal amount of time. "BWAHAHAHAHA!" the samurai laughed afterwards. "You want to fight Kage no Ken Ikazuki, alone?!" Ikazuki asked, fighting back his arrogant laughter. "You?! I could understand if it was the sumo, or those two that follow the way of the empty-handed warrior," he said, pointing to Tohru first and Jackie and Viper second. "But Chi Magic or not, and even if I'm only in possession of this inferior body, you're still nothing but an old man, with an old man's fists, and an old man's body. You can't possibly defeat a warrior of a caliber such as mine."

Uncle continued to calmly stare at Ikazuki, his lips curling into the tiniest of smiles. He slowly took off his glasses, cleaned them by using his wool vest and put them back on with utmost tranquility; as if diminishing the importance of the Oni General's words. "Aiyah… Is Oni General refusing Uncle's challenge, then?"

"Mighty Ikazuki refuses no challenge!" the Oni declared proudly, pointing to Uncle with one of Aldarn's fingers. "But killing a frail old man like you would bring me no honor."

For a second, Uncle's smile seemed to become slightly bigger. "Ah, but Uncle is a master of Chi Magic! One more thing! Uncle has fought and sealed every single one of the Eight Demon Sorcerers that once roamed the Earth! One more thing! Uncle has also mastered the noble art of Kung-Fu!" the old man paused, then shrugged a little. "Ah… perhaps Oni General is scared of getting a piece of Uncle?" he asked mockingly. That did get a reaction from Ikazuki that wasn't colored by haughtiness; as the Oni's expression changed from one of smugness to one of anger, just as Uncle had planned.

"You question my bravery?!" the Oni snarled as his hand tightened around his katana's hilt. "You impudent, wrinkled sack of bones! Fine! If it's death that you wish, Kage no Ken Ikazuki is happy to be your executioner!"

"I kind of see from where Jade gets the trickster vibes..." an amused Viper whispered in Jackie's ear.

Good, he's already taken the bait; Uncle thought, clapping his hands. "Very well. But Uncle would like to make a wager on our duel. Surely Oni General won't mind, seeing as he is so confident of his victory."

"What… kind of wager?" a calmer Ikazuki asked with genuine curiosity.

"If Uncle defeats Oni General, demon will provide us with key ingredient for the potion that can remove his Mask from host's face," Uncle explained calmly. "He also will wait for us to prepare spell and won't try escaping or fighting back, either by himself or with Shadowkhan, when we try to remove Mask from host."

Ikazuki pondered this for a few seconds. So this is what this is, he thought. Nothing more than a desperate attempt to save the body of this worthless child that I'm controlling. "No tricks?" the demon in control of the meridianite body asked, tilting his head a bit.

"No tricks, no double-meanings, no traps;" Uncle assured him. "Uncle will fight you fairly."

Ikazuki took a hand to his chin, thinking. This could very obviously be a trick… yet I sense no lies in the words of this man. He truly believes that he can defeat me. But if he thinks that he is the only one able to exploit a wager on a duel… "And what if I win?" the Oni General asked.

"If Oni General wins?" Uncle asked. "If he wins then," Uncle answered, giving a little sigh as he did so; "then Oni General can take one of the Oni Masks that we have gathered. And one of us will put it over his face."

"What?!" a shocked Jackie shouted behind Uncle.

"Sensei, you can't!" Tohru joined in.

"Uncle thought that it would be fair;" the old Chi Wizard said. "After all, we are asking General Ikazuki to renounce his freedom if he loses. Shouldn't one of his comrades gain his if Uncle is the one to lose?"

"INDEED!" Ikazuki proclaimed loudly, with a grin from ear to ear. This was too good to be true! Not only was he going to get a good warm-up for Didier, but he was also going to get a body for one of his fellow Generals! And the best part was that, whatever happened, it wouldn't disturb Lord Tarakudo's plans in the slightest! "I accept your challenge, mainlander!"

Meridian, an unknown location

While Uncle and Ikazuki discussed the terms of their duel, they missed the presence of a lonesome black rhinoceros beetle flying over the clearing. As soon as the Oni General accepted the Chi Wizard's challenge, the black beetle flew away, deep into the forest. It flew and flew and flew, until it stopped and landed over the armored hand of Mariko Takeda.

The half-Japanese woman held the insect close to her armored forehead, and meanwhile her fiance Liam, dressed in a long, hooded robe and a yellow handkerchief covering the lower half of his face approached her.

"Any news?" Liam asked.

"Old Mr. Chan has challenged the Oni to a duel," Mariko said, her voice heavily distorted due to her black armored helmet.

Liam whistled. "What do we do, then?"

Mariko separated the black stag beetle from her forehead and let the insect fly away. She had still a long way to go if she wanted to be able to use as many beetles as butterflies Lady Nimue used, but this lone stag beetle was a start, and incredibly useful in order to spy from a safe distance.

"We watch," Mariko declared; "and wait for the best chance we may have in getting that Mask."

The Underwater Mines

There were very few times in which Caleb reminisced about his training days at the Infinite City, when he was young and small, and men that now were a head shorter than him looked like giants to his eyes. Now, however, he found himself thinking about a time when Vathek (way before he had departed to infiltrate the Royal Palace) was teaching him and many other children how to use different types of weapons. One kid, Caleb didn't remember whom, had asked Vathek after the lesson: 'What's the strongest weapon there is?'

Vathek had told him that there's not such a thing as 'strongest weapon'; that what matters is who wields it, and also where and how. 'If you are galloping over a Hoogong in an open field, dressed in light armor, wielding a great-sword and you rush at an experienced archer that is far away and has a good line of vision, you won't make it halfway through before becoming a pincushion. If you are an archer, yet you are in a small hallway and a big man carrying a mace and dressed in thick iron armor comes at you, you are dead. There aren't strong weapons, there are strong enemies'.

The other kids, Caleb included, had laughed at the kid's (now clearly) silly question. But that did very little to discourage the child. 'Then what's the strongest enemy there is? Who's the most dangerous?' the kid asked.

Vathek actually pondered how to answer this question. 'Well, as I just said, good archers are very problematic. Shapeshifters are always deadly in hand-to-hand combat. And sorcerers and witches are part of a world I don't even understand,' Caleb remembered the blue, hulking Galhot saying. 'But in my opinion?'

'If you ever face someone that truly knows how to wield a whip… Run.'

I need to tell Vathek how right he was when I see him, Caleb thought as he was slammed against one of the dusty, dirty and rudimentary walls of one of the tunnels of the Underwater Mines. Groaning, he got on his feet. His left leg hurt. Taking a quick look at his limb, he discovered that it was thanks to a wound in his thigh, just where one of his enemy's whips had struck him. The wound wasn't deeper than the one you would get from a sword, but it hurt so, so much more than any other that Caleb had suffered in his life. The whip had torn his clothes and it had ripped the skin where it hit, leaving nothing but exposed, bleeding and screaming flesh. All in no more than a second, with nothing more than one hit. And I will need to see Sephiria too…

"Is that all, boy?" Sempronio asked. The pale-skinned, enormous Galhot was approaching Caleb, dragging his whips over the dirty ground. "Good ol' Jeek told me you're one of those mighty rebels. Honestly, you're disappointing if that's the case."

Caleb tried to unsheathe the Sword of Thanatos, but in the moment his hand gripped the cursed blade's hilt, one of Sempronio's whips violently coiled around his forearm. The pale-skinned Galhot pulled from Caleb, taking him off the ground and towards him. Once he was in the air, the Galhot struck him with his second whip, this time directly in his torso, sending him flying to the side. When he landed, he created a small cloud of dust. Light of Meridian, it hurt. This was nothing like being cut by a blade, or being pierced by a spear! This left his flesh burning, as if someone had put a red-hot iron against his skin! And Sempronio wasn't a human. He was a Galhot, who were by default physically stronger than human beings, and a pretty humongous one at that.

"Get on your feet, boy;" Sempronio told Caleb, cracking his whips against the ground. "We aren't done yet. I haven't had enough. I need to make you scream. I need to make you beg. And when that's done, you can go chop some rocks for the rest of your short, sorry life…" The pale Galhot licked his lips. In his mind, he had already won. His adversary was badly wounded, while he was unharmed. It was obvious that he was vastly superior in the strength department. And his spiked whips allowed him to attack fiercely while maintaining his sword-wielding foe at a safe distance. Yes, he was confident in his victory! But when the dust cleared and Caleb stood up, Sempronio found himself puzzled due to what he was witnessing.

Caleb's skin, from head to toe, was now covered in strange black markings. His wounds, albeit still open, had stopped bleeding. The Sword of the Berserker had been taken out from its sheath, and Caleb now held the black bastard-sword up, pointing it at Sempronio. The teenager's green eyes were shining with a fury that, for a reason the master of the Underwater Mines couldn't figure out, stirred a primal fear within him.

"I'm getting so sick of enemies calling me a boy!" the rebel leader practically roared in anger.

"Weird sword you got there," Sempronio remarked mockingly after a pause. While his voice was dripping with bravado, his eyes denoted that the confidence he had moments before was now gone. He chuckled arrogantly, trying to shake the fear that black blade and his opponent's new form had awoken within him. "I'll take it from you when we're done. It'll look perfect hanging from my chambers' wall!"

Instead of answering Sempronio's provocation with words of his own, Caleb rushed at him, holding his cursed blade with both hands, down and at his right; as if he were to deliver and ascendant, diagonal strike. Sempronio saw through the obvious intentions of the green-eyed teen, and prepared to deliver another blow with his whips. Then Caleb let out a battle-cry, and shocking the pale Galhot even more, he threw his sword at him as hard as he could.

Sempronio dodged the flying blade easily, but this allowed Caleb to get near him. Was the boy somehow faster now? Too near. He was too... Argh! Sempronio couldn't use his whips properly at this distance! But that was irrelevant now! He would just crush the boy with his bare hands!

"Are you stupid?!" Sempronio asked triumphantly. "You are unarmed!"

"No, I'm not;" Caleb said as he held his arms up... allowing Sempronio to see how the black blade was back in his hands.

"What in the-?" Sempronio asked, surprised for a third time in a row.

"The sword is magical, you idiot;" Caleb said as he struck forward; "it comes back to me."

"Oh," Sempronio mastered to say, eyes opened wide. He couldn't react before the sword was piercing his right shoulder. The pale Galhot let out a bloodcurdling scream, and jumped away from Caleb, who pulled the Sword of Thanatos out of him. "Damn it! Damn it! It huuuuuuurts!" Calisto looked at his bleeding shoulder. He rose as fast as he could, willing to continue fighting. "I'm going to whip your head off! If you think this will be enough to stop me...!"

"It will," Caleb told him, words colored by cold fury. "This blade is magical, remember? As long as I wield it... one wound is all I need."

"What is the meaning of... IIIIIEEEEEAAAARGH!" Sempronio fell to his knees, screaming. He finally let go of his whips, clutching his chest. The veins in his body began to darken, until they became pitch-black. They contrasted too much with his incredibly white skin. "It burns! It buuuuuuurrrrrrnnnnnssss! What is this?! What in the Abyss is this?!" Sempronio shrieked. "Help me! Heeeeeelp me! Please!" he begged. "I don't want to die! I don't deserve this!"

"Judging by what I've seen here," Caleb told the dying Galhot; "you do."

Sempronio let out another scream, which ended up dying in his throat. He grew silent and fell face down over the ground, dead.

Caleb leaned against a nearby wall, panting. The rebel leader knew that this man was, without a doubt, scum. He reminded Caleb too much of Rhouglar to be anything else. But his strength and his skill with those spiked whips were undeniable. Had the rebel leader not been in possession of the Sword of the Berserker, he doubted he could have won. Caleb let out a tired breath. He sheathed his cursed weapon, and the pain and fatigue returned as soon as the marks vanished.

Why do that? the voice of the spiritual remnants of Abaddon came to Caleb. You know that there will be more enemies ahead. You don't even have another weapon. Your only option is using me! Use me! Kill every single one of these weaklings now!

I can grab another sword along the way, Caleb told the spirit within his blade. So shut your mouth and leave me alone.

You're only prolonging the inevitable! Your body will be mine sooner or...!

Caleb ignored the demonic spirit's ramblings. He stopped leaning against the wall and did his best to ignore the pain product of his wounds. He began to walk in the direction he considered correct (judging by the noise coming from there), doing so slowly at first, regaining his usual pace moments later. He didn't even spare one last glance at his fallen opponent, for he didn't have neither the desire nor the time to do so.

This whole operation was an error to begin with, the green-eyed rebel leader thought as he advanced. I need to find the others and get out of here.

Meanwhile…

Unknown to the rebel leader himself, he wasn't the only one that was searching for his companions in the labyrinthine Underwater Mines. Blunk the Passling, who had run after Caleb and Sempronio in the hopes of helping his friend, found himself now lost and trying to locate at least one of his comrades in the chaos that had ensued after Charles Ludmoore had freed all the prisoners locked in here. Dozens of malnourished, wounded, yet screaming and determined to win prisoners were swarming the butcher-guards of the Underwater Mines around him, ignoring the little green dwarf as he evaded them. The ability to go around unnoticed amongst a big crowd (no matter if said crowd was composed by people trying to kill each other), even with the strong smell that characterized their species, was after all one of the Passling-folk's greatest assets. There is, however, one creature that will never have any problem finding a single Passling even if he is hidden in a fortress populated by a thousand soldiers. And that creature is, of course, another Passling.

BAM!

Blunk fell to the ground, rolling in order to both allow his body to better absorb the force of the impact and dodge the many revolting prisoners and butcher-guards moving around. As he came to his feet, his nose caught an unpleasantly familiar scent and he instantly knew who had struck him.

"Jeek," Blunk spat the name.

"Yes, yes;" the slimy, cowardly, yet cruel voice was the first thing to reach Blunk. Then the other Passling appeared in front of him. Hunched, messy and dirty grey locks growing here and there in his otherwise bald head; his skin of a darker shade of green than Blunk's. He was carrying a chunk of rock in his hand. "Jeek was a little bit afraid that Blunk had forgotten his old friend," he said, mocking worry.

"Blunk isn't friends with Jeek. Jeek always bad Passling. Bad with Blunk, bad with everyone," the other Passling told the hunched one. Yes, if there was a word that Blunk would never describe Jeek with was 'friend'. Jeek had been a bully to Blunk and any other Passling unlucky enough to be weaker than him during their childhood. Then, as they had gotten older and begun trading, Jeek had become a rival of Blunk's, but not in a good way. Blunk didn't mind when he lost a trade to another Passling, that meant that he hadn't been good enough or that the other's offer was better. But Jeek didn't play fair. He intimidated other Passling-folk, or forced traders and merchants to accept bad deals… or to outright give him things for free! Scandalous! "And Jeek just attacked Blunk! Blunk helped Jeek and the other Passlings here! Jeek should be grateful!"

"Grateful?" a mildly surprised Jeek asked. Then, confusion fading, he laughed. "Oh, oh, oh! Blunk thinks that Jeek was imprisoned here with the others! Funny! Funny! No, Jeek wasn't with the others, Jeek wasn't chained, so Blunk didn't free Jeek. In fact," the hunched Passling said, lunging forward and brandishing the piece of rock as a weapon. The other Passling managed to dodge by the skin of his teeth; "Blunk and the rebels screwed a very good deal that Jeek had with the miners. Jeek got a lot of very shinny jewels for all the Passlings he tracked for Sempronio and the others."

Now it was Blunk's turn to stare in confusion to the other Passling. However, there was something else there, in the Passling's eyes, mixed with the disbelief. And that was complete and utter disgust.

"Jeek… sold our people?" a horrified Blunk asked slowly. "He sold them to be… slaves? For jewels?"

"Jeek traded our people for jewels," the hunched Passling corrected his fellow green dwarf. "Jeek only did what a Passling knows best."

"Passlings don't trade with lives!" Blunk shouted, getting angrier by the second. Jeek had always been a bully and a liar; but Blunk had never thought that he would be capable of falling so low. "Much less lives of our own people!"

"Yes, yes, Jeek's heard those words before;" the hunched Passling said, rolling his eyes in annoyance; bouncing the piece of rock up and down in his hand. "A Passling doesn't trade in lives, a Passling doesn't steal, a Passling always gives whoever he's trading with an opportunity to haggle… Rubbish! Stupid rules for stupid Passlings! Nobody will judge Jeek just because Jeek was the only one smart enough to take Passling trading to its logical conclusion!"

Blunk was so shocked by his fellow Passling's cruelty and by how he justified it that he was unable to move when Jeek's next attack came. The next thing he knew was that he was on the ground, and that Jeek had positioned himself over him, preventing Blunk from moving.

"Blunk has no right to judge Jeek, either;" the hunched Passling said as he discarded the rock in favor of strangling Blunk with his bare hands. "Jeek knows that Blunk's been working for rebels. Spying for them. Selling them information. How much did Blunk earn for those secrets? How many treasures and shinny jewels did Blunk take?"

"Blunk… took… nothing…" the other Passling said, fighting to breathe and free himself his throat from Jeek's hands. Jeek had always been physically stronger than him. Than most Passlings, actually. "Blunk… wanted… to help… his friends."

Jeek found himself confused yet again. His grip around Blunk's neck began to loosen up. He let out a cruel cackle next. "Friends? The rebels lie to Blunk. Use Blunk, and Blunk let's them use Blunk for free! Blunk has no friends," he remarked even more cruelly, putting more effort into strangling Blunk.

"Jeek is wrong… Blunk has friends…" the other Passling retorted. Speaking was beginning to become… hard. Breathing too.

"Nobody cares for Blunk," Jeek told him, enjoying every second of chocking the other Passling. "Nobody cares for us Passlings. Not even other Passlings. Us Passlings are in our own, and Passlings need to do whatever it takes to survive. Jeek was doing very well at surviving, but Blunk had to ruin it. That's why Blunk's gonna die here, all alone."

"Jeek… should..." Blunk tried to speak, but the words couldn't leave his throat. His face was beginning to go from green to blue. "Pay… more..."

"Pay?" Jeek asked, letting out another cruel laugh. "Pay for what?"

"Sruc believes that Blunk's tellin' Jeek to pay more attention to surroundings," someone with a nasal voice said behind Jeek.

Seconds later, Jeek was struck with the same piece of rock that he had used to attack Blunk. As the hunched Passling was sent rolling over the ground, Blunk finally took in the breath of air that his lungs desperately needed. Wheezing, Blunk didn't even notice the pair of hands helping him to stand up.

"Aughk…" meanwhile groaned Jeek, rubbing his head. "Who hit me?" the hunched Passling asked enraged, only to lose all bravado when he saw whom had helped Blunk avoid death.

There were no butcher-guards around anymore, the uprising prisoners having driven them off to another section of the Underwater Mines thanks to their superior numbers. But that didn't mean that Jeek and Blunk had been left alone, for now the hunched green dwarf found himself staring at a group of around fifty Passlings. It must had been one of them who had hit him.

Jeek knew these Passlings, each and every single one of them. And they knew him too. These were, after all, the Passlings that Jeek had sold to Sempronio and his underlings in exchange of a bunch of pretty, brilliant rocks. And now that they had been freed from their shackles, they were angry. And that anger, coupled with how massively they outnumbered him, terrified Jeek.

"Uh... uh... uh..." the hunched Passling stuttered. "M-Mercy?"

"Mercy?!" some Passling bellowed. "Jeek's got the nerve to ask for mercy after everything he's done?! After selling us as if we were simple things?! No mercy!"

"No mercy!" the other Passlings echoed. "Kill Jeek!"

"No!" Jeek begged. "A Passling needs to look out for himself! Please, understand Jeek! Forgive Jeek! Jeek only did what he did in order to survive!"

"Survive, then;" a weary yet firm voice said, somehow silencing all the cries of the Passlings. The crowd split in two, making way for a Passling to come to the front.

The figure advancing was the one of a Passling old woman. She was bald, like most Passling-folk were. Her skin (of a very pale green) was full of wrinkles, and her right eye was pure white, as if clouded by mist. She walked slowly, leaning on the broken handle of a shovel as if it were a cane.

An Elder? Blunk, who had finally been able to catch his breath, wondered in his thoughts. Respectful whispers of "Elder Logh" confirmed his guess. By the time she reached Jeek, the hunched Passling was basically grovelling at her feet.

"Jeek can go," Elder Logh told the cowardly, cruel Passling. She pointed her makeshift cane at the entrance of one of the many tunnels around them. "Jeek can run now, and never come back. This is the mercy that old Logh grants him. Go, run, and never look back."

"T-Thank you!" Jeek stuttered while rubbing his forehead against the ground, and many of the Passlings around protested in turn.

"But," Elder Logh stopped Jeek before he could even start leaving. "If Jeek runs now, then Jeek won't be able to step in any other Passling settlement or village… ever."

"What?" a dumbfounded Jeek asked flatly, rising his head in order to look at the old, female Passling. Elder Logh loomed over him, with the hint of smile on her lips.

"Jeek will be forbidden from trading anymore, too;" the old Passling woman said. "Logh will spread the word. The other Elders will know, every Passling will know; about what Jeek has done here in the mines. About how he sold us like cattle. And if any Passling sees Jeek trading or trying to get into any of our villages, then…" the old Passling woman frowned, both her good and bad eyes nailed on the hunched Passling. "Jeek. Will. Die." Elder Logh paused for a second, then pointed ahead with her 'cane' once again. "So, go ahead. Escape, run. Go into the wild of this world alone. Jeek will be on his own, as he said all Passlings are. Go on," the old Passling sentenced as she leaned on her 'cane'. "Survive."

Jeek doubted his next course of action for a second as he came to his feet. He looked at the mob of Passlings before him, then at one of the many tunnels at his back. In the end, he directed one last hateful glare at Blunk and then began running towards one of the tunnels, and he didn't stop until the mob of Passlings couldn't see him anymore. Cries of "Coward!" erupted from the mob as he did so. Once Jeek was nowhere to be seen, however, the cries became one of "Freedom! Freedom!". And as the cries died and the Passling mob began to calm down, Blunk (who was trying to process everything that had happened before his eyes) found himself engulfed by it.

"You were the one who saved us?" a Passling asked, Blunk wasn't very sure of which one.

"Well..." Blunk tried to answer.

"Of course he saved us," another Passling said. "He was fighting Jeek!"

"Uh..." Blunk tried to speak.

"Who is he? What's the name?" another Passling spoke. "Who is our liberator?"

"Blunk doesn't think..." Blunk tried to finish at least one sentence.

"Blunk! His name is Blunk!" Who had shouted that? Blunk didn't know.

"Blunk! Blunk! Blunk! Blunk!"

"The Brave! The Breaker of Chains! Liberator of Passlings! Hero of the Underwater Mines!"

Without even letting him speak this time, the crowd of Passling proceeded to hoist Blunk up, carry him on their shoulders and march onward, all while chanting his name.

"Blunk! Blunk! Blunk! Blunk! Blunk! Blunk!"

Meanwhile…

Caleb sunk a one-edged, somehow rusty blade into the chest of a butcher-guard. His enemy let out a scream that died down as soon as Caleb took the blade out of him, drawing a bit of water and blood along the way. He spun around to block the strike of another butcher-guard; their rusty, dented blades colliding with one another and letting out a scratchy 'Clank!' sound.

Then a whip coiled itself around his left leg and puled from it, making him lose his balance and fall to his knees. He blocked the next strike as best as he could, only to be whipped in the back next. He ignored the pain as best as he could, albeit he couldn't avoid screaming. He sprang to his feet and proceeded to counterattack with an ascendant blow with his blade, only for the butcher-guard to avoid it by simply giving a few steps back. But that was enough to give him some room to breathe and spin around so he could get his two foes within his field of view.

Two butcher-guards, one wielding a whip, the other carrying one of those pathetic excuses for swords they used in this horrible place. Then again, Caleb himself was wielding one of those blades, as he had taken it from a corpse along the way. Of course, he still had the sheathed Sword of Thanatos with him, but he was far too injured and tired from his fight with the butcher-guards' leader, and he had taken even more damage right now. And albeit his two enemies weren't exactly unharmed, they were in a far better shape than he was. He feared that, if he used the cursed weapon now, the demonic spirit would take control of his body immediately; and he had had enough of demons possessing others.

Can I win against them? How much blood have I lost already? Which one should I prioritize? Can I fight properly with so many wounds? Who is going to move first? Where are the others? Should I run? Will they pursue me if I do that?

All these thoughts and more were going through Caleb's mind at once. However, as he shifted his weight from one foot to another, one question took prevalence over the others.

Am I going to die here?

It wouldn't be the first time for experienced and fearsome rebels to die in some pointless skirmish, at the hands of some unknown and unimportant soldiers. The great rebel leader! Caleb, son of Julian! Lover of a Guardian, Hero of the People, Conqueror of Torus Filney and Kelliwic! Killed by a pair of simpletons in a dark tunnel because he was too dumb to listen to good advice. Ha! Wouldn't that make for a great children's tale?

But he didn't want to die here. He didn't... No! He refused to die here! He wasn't going to die here! He just needed to win and find the others! Ludmoore had told them that he knew basic healing spells! He could save Caleb's life, or at least close Caleb's wounds and stop them from bleeding for long enough that Caleb could get to Sephiria or any other of the Faithful and get his wounds properly treated! And with renovated resolve Caleb took a defensive stance, waiting for any of his two opponents to make the first move.

He was expecting the one with the whip to attack first, which made it easier for him to block the attack with his sword. Caleb let the whip to coil around the blade and then pulled from it with all the strength he had left, throwing the butcher-guard off-balance and forcing him to drop his weapon. Then the rebel leader advanced until he was near enough the now unarmed butcher-guard to deliver a fatal, descendant strike to his head. The sword split the man's skull in half, and the butcher-guard seemed to die almost instantly, one eye pointing to the right while the other looked down. But when Caleb tried to extract the rudimentary sword from his adversary's corpse, he found himself unable to do so. The pathetic excuse for a blade had gotten stuck into the man's cranium.

It was enough of a distraction to allow the other butcher-guard to rush at Caleb and slam him with his shoulder. The rebel leader rolled over the ground again, this time with no weapon in hand. He stopped, and as he lied down there on the dirt, the butcher-guard planted a foot on his chest with enough force to make Caleb lose his breath for a moment.

This was it, wasn't it? Too injured to gather more strength, too tired to move, without a weapon to counterattack with... Light of Meridian be damned! This isn't fair! Caleb thought as he gritted his teeth.

Use me, you fool! Abaddon yelled within his mind. Use me or we are dead!

"End of the line," the butcher-guard said, holding the blade high. He began to lower it… just for a rock to collide with the side of his head. Caleb took the opportunity to move and throw the butcher-guard to the ground. His foe fell on his arse, blood dripping from his forehead. Before he had time to react another rock collided with his forehead. And then another. And then came the smell. A strong, unpleasant smell that made both Caleb and the butcher-guard sick.

"What in the…?" the butcher-guard began to ask, head spinning. Before he could even finish the question, the answer came in the form of dozens of Passling-folk running towards him, carrying rocks in their hairy, green hands.

"Get whip-man! Don't let whip-man run! Kill whip-man!" yelled the horde of little creatures.

"W-Wait!" the butcher-guard stuttered, but he was quickly overrun by the Passlings. A tide of little green bodies covered him, and the only reminder that he was there were his screams. Then there were several loud, wet sounds. And then the screams were no more.

Caleb felt many Passling hands gripping his shoulders and arms then, helping him to stand up. Sadly, but understandably after everything he had gone through, he only managed to sit on the ground, panting.

"Breathe, human, breathe;" one of the Passlings told him. "Human is safe now. The Hero said you human are his friend, so us Passling-folk saved you. Passlings should care for other Passlings' friends too."

"The hero?" Caleb asked weakly. "What are… what are you talking…?"

"Caleb!" a voice that the young rebel leader actually recognized called for his name.

"Make way! Make way!" some Passling shouted, and their crowd split in two.

"Blunk?" the green-eyed teenager asked, surprised to see the little green dwarf he had become so accustomed to for the past months. "Where… how…?"

"Blunk became Hero of the Underwater Mines!" the green-skinned trader said cheerfully. "Other Passlings grateful to Blunk and friends for freeing them, so they help Blunk find and save Caleb! Blunk only needs to find Mister Ludmoore and friend Drake now, and…"

"Blunk, you…" Caleb interrupted the Passling. "You saved my life," the teen said as he smiled sincerely. "Thank you."

Blunk stared at Caleb for a few seconds before he smiled too. It was strange, the smile of a Passling. Something midway between cute and silly. "Of course Blunk saved Caleb," the green dwarf said happily.

"Blunk will always help friends."

Twelve minutes later…

Finding Ludmoore had been an easy task once the battling through the Underwater Mines had calmed down thanks to Blunk's sense of smell. Once they had found the sorcerer, Caleb had sent the Passling after Drake (whom the little green dwarf could smell but was having 'trouble finding') and had ordered Ludmoore to heal him as much as he could.

"Stop struggling," Charles said coldly to Caleb while dark blue Raw Magic danced around his flesh hand and he muttered incantations in a language that, had Caleb been a scholar from Earth, he may had recognized as Latin, but that sounded like nothing but gibberish to him now. "This is not my field of proficiency;" the businessman declared. Whatever spells he was casting were doing their work, though. With every sentence the man finished, a small amount of the magic around his flesh left hand separated from the rest and entered Caleb's body through his chest, and every time this happened the rebel leader felt a little amount of pain to disappear at the same time that a little of his strength returned. It wasn't enough to bring him back to peak condition, but it would do in order to keep him away from Death's grasp.

"Better?" the warlock asked once he had finished, voice as cold and uncaring as a gravestone in winter.

"Better," Caleb answered, standing up. He took some time to look around him then looked directly at Ludmoore. "You said that you freed the prisoners. Why? Considering you're a sorcerer, you could have dealt with the guards yourself without freeing the prisoners and creating so much chaos."

"Yes, but that wouldn't have guaranteed our victory;" Charles explained emotionlessly. "Strength is in numbers, as the saying goes. Besides, the results speak for themselves," he pointed out as he made a gestured around themselves. No more butcher-guards around anymore, only groups of prisoners talking or walking, enjoying their recently recovered freedom. "Not only have they fulfilled their purpose, but once they get out of here their retelling of what has happened in these Mines and how the rebels stopped it will surely boost the Rebellion's reputation among the commoners, on top of decreasing the Prince's even more. And many of them desire to join the Rebellion now."

So that's it? Pure pragmatism? Caleb thought with suspicion, but he didn't voice any of his questions. He stared at Ludmoore for a few moments, the businessman standing in front of him with an unreadable expression and his hands folded at his back, only the sporadic unnatural sound of a cracking wooden finger disturbing the image he was projecting. "How many of those who want to join can you teleport at once back to the Infinite City?"

Ludmoore kept his mouth shut for a few moments, thinking. "Around… twenty, I suppose. I have never tried teleporting that many at once. It will take a while in order to bring everyone that wants to join the Rebellion to the Infinite City, and that doesn't include us four. My stamina is not limitless."

"Then get to it," Caleb ordered, and he watched as how Ludmoore gave him a polite bow and departed. The rebel leader shook his head in the moment the warlock couldn't see him anymore. Even though Caleb had voted against Ludmoore joining their cause, he didn't doubt Ludmoore's loyalty to the rebels, even if it was a loyalty born of selfish reasons. But how good could that kind of loyalty be? How long could it last? Until a better opportunity presents itself, Caleb thought. Which meant that Ludmoore wouldn't be a problem until the war was over. And then… what? No, no. Worries of the future were meant to be dealt with in the future. I need to find Drake, and then get out of here; Caleb reminded himself. Luckily it wouldn't take Blunk much longer in order to find their friend. He chuckled as he thought about Blunk. The Hero of the Underwater Mines, every Passling had called him. That somehow made Caleb to look at this situation with in a much brighter way. They had liberated innocents, hadn't they? And as Ludmoore had said, many of them would probably go and swell the Rebellion's forces. Perhaps this operation hadn't been a complete loss of time, even if it was clear now that what Tristan had told Blunk about his father had been a…

"Caleb?"

Never had the mention of his own name shocked Caleb so much. He was left frozen in his tracks, and every thought regarding Drake, Blunk, Ludmoore, the Rebellion and Meridian itself became irrelevant. "Caleb? Caleb is that really you?" he (He!) called again. The rebel leader turned around slowly, half of him eager to do so, the other half dreading what he would find in the moment he turned around completely. Once he did so, he found exactly who he was expecting to see. He looked different than before. He had lost a lot of weight, the hair and beard were longer, dirty and unkempt… but it was him. A man that Caleb didn't believe that he would see ever again. Julian, the Rebel.

His father.

"It is you," Julian said, looking at Caleb from head to toe. "You have grown. Your face is…" he said with a smile that showed something of a mix between pride directed at a son that has accomplished so much, happiness for seeing him again and sadness for not being able to see him for so long. "I thought I had lost you. I…"

Father, Caleb's mind went on, meanwhile. Father, my father. Yes, his father, that he had thought lost forever. His father, that he and thousands over Meridian, had idolized for years. His father, that he had missed so much. His father… that had sent innocent people to their deaths. His father, that had armed and unleashed monsters upon the innocent people of this world. His father that had given him so much but that in the long term, had costed him so much too.

"… I can't believe it's really you," Julian, who had continued speaking without Caleb realizing it, said. "But now that you are here, I can finally…" Julian began to walk towards him. If his father said anything else, Caleb didn't know. The green-eyed teenager was in the verge of hyperventilating. He had… dreamed awake about this moment so many times! And that moment was here and now! What was he supposed to do?! What was he supposed to say?!

Everything is your fault! a part of Caleb's mind wanted to yell. I missed you, another said more calmly. You lied to everyone! another part wanted to shout. I love you, another one wanted to say while hugging him. How could you? That was what Caleb really wanted to ask. How could you take so much and put it over the shoulders of children? How could you fill our hearts and minds with the idea that we were the saviors of Meridian while you let scum like Rhouglar and Tharquin to roam free and destroy as they pleased behind our backs? And me… I have done good, the son thought. But I have also done so much wrong. I have saved. I have killed. Innocent and guilty alike. Caleb looked down at his hands, and for a moment they were drenched in blood. And everything… the rebel leader thought, his head filled with memories of friendship, brotherhood and joy. Everything… he kept thinking, this time memories of burned towns and cities coming to him, of screaming and dying enemies, of hundreds of corpses left behind as he walked forward.

"Everything in your name," Caleb whispered as Julian reached him.

"I'm proud of you, my son;" Julian, who surely hadn't heard what Caleb had said, declared happily. The words hurt more than any weapon could, for there was no regret in them. No shame.

Caleb stared at him, eyes wide open. He fought back the tears. He saw Julian rising his arms. He wanted to… hug him? It didn't matter. Caleb's hands had tightened into fists already. Before Julian had any chance of touching him his right arm moved fast and…

'THWACK!'

When Drake arrived at Caleb's location alongside Blunk, the rebel and Passling found an unconscious Julian lying on the ground, a pair of thin lines of blood falling from the nostrils of his now broken nose. Caleb was standing just over him, arm and fist still extended, as if he wasn't so sure about what had happened.

Drake looked at the unconscious Julian, then at Caleb, then at Julian again. Unable to say anything, he just shook his head and smiled both in sadness and understanding.

The clearing of a meridianite forest

As the fighting within the Underwater Mines came to a halt, a duel was about to begin in a clearing; an Oni General in possession of a meridianite teen's body against an old Chi Wizard from Earth. While Ikazuki and Uncle stood in front of one another, only separated by a few meters; Jackie, Viper, Tohru and Gareth had sat near the edge of the clearing, while Gareth's men had scattered around in order to keep watch over the area. While the possibility of Ikazuki deciding to use his Shadowkhan was small, there wasn't anything that guaranteed the contrary either.

"This is insane," Gareth complained, sitting on the ground with his back slouched and legs extended. "And I know quite a bit about insanity. I've been around insane people for a long time." The rebel said and then spat over a small flower at his side.

"Why haven't they even moved?" Viper asked, looking at the two immobile opponents over the grass. Even though the 'duel' had technically already begun, neither Oni nor Chi Wizard had moved, instead just staring at one another for several minutes. Uncle was simply standing still, no sign of him going to draw a dried lizard or blowfish in order to cast a spell, or of him taking a fighting stance. As for Ikazuki, he was doing exactly the same, holding his still sheathed katana in his left hand.

"They are measuring each other," a serious and concerned Jackie Chan spoke with the knowledge of someone that had experienced a thousand fights.

Yes, they were. Or, at least, that was what General Ikazuki was doing. The Oni had walked into this situation eager to prove his superiority and quickly dispatch this weak old fool, but now he found himself intrigued by the man in front of him. While boastful and prideful to the extreme, Ikazuki was far from being a fool, especially in what referred to fighting. Though he is challenging me, I feel no aggression coming from him… he thought regarding Uncle. His center of gravity seems nearly perfect… and he doesn't look like he is going to take the first step… Is he baiting me for a counterattack? But considering he is a wizard, could he be casting a spell as I wait here like a fool? Or perhaps the spell was already cast, and I walked into a trap. Ah… I don't know what's going to happen! Ikazuki grinned, and slowly moving his right hand, he gripped the hilt of his black katana. He had never been a man of patience, after all. How exciting!

Ikazuki dashed forward at an alarming speed, making the first move. Halfway through the distance that separated him from Uncle, the Samurai began unsheathing his katana. Once he was within an appropriate striking range, he unsheathed his blade completely, wielding it with one hand and delivering an ascending diagonal cut towards the old Chi Wizard, who continued standing still. It was clear that the Oni was aiming to end the duel there and then with one single blow. The sword connected with Uncle's ribs…

"Sensei!" Tohru let out a cry.

"Uncle!" Jackie shouted as well.

… and next Uncle was in the air, landing just a couple of meters away from Ikazuki, completely unscathed.

"What?" both Jackie and Tohru asked in confusion.

"WHAT?!" General Ikazuki shouted, most confused of them all.

"Aiyah…" Uncle said, rubbing his chest a couple of times, as if a bit of soreness was everything he had gotten from being directly struck by a blade. "Everyone seems veeeeery fond of that word today," he added, putting on a calm smile.

Instead of exchanging more words, Ikazuki advanced once again, this time wielding his katana with both hands and holding it over his head. In order to make it sure that the old man fell this time, he even called upon some of his shadow magic and imbued it on his blade. Next he delivered a powerful vertical blow to Uncle's head, aiming to bisect the old Chi Wizard's body. If Ikazuki's blade had collided with any other mortal being's body, or with something like rock or iron, it would have been cut. However, that wasn't what happened there and then. Instead of getting cut when the sword hit him, Uncle's body spun in the air, as if bending itself around the katana. When his feet were in the ground again, he was in the exact same condition as he was before the katana had touched him.

"He… ducked it? Did he block the sword?" a shocked Viper asked. At her side, the equally shocked Gareth, Tohru and Jackie could do nothing but stare in astonishment at was happening before their eyes.

"No…" Jackie finally spoke, still not sure if he could believe what he was about to say. "No, he… Uncle took the blow. The sword hit him, both times."

"That's impossible," Gareth pointed out. "If that's true, he should've been…"

"He should be dead," an incredulous Tohru finished the phrase. "Sensei should have been cut. But…" happiness came into Tohru's voice; "he wasn't."

On the field, Ikazuki's astonishment matched the one of the spectators. The Oni General narrowed his eyes at his opponent, then at his katana. There wasn't any problem with his weapon. It was as sharp as one could hope a katana to be, and there wasn't a single dent over its edge. And yet... his enemy hadn't been cut. Nobody, NOBODY that Kage no Ken Ikazuki had struck with his katana had walked away from him unharmed! It was preposterous! Moreover, the shadow magic he had imbued his weapon with was gone now. Which was... strange, to say the least.

"You said no tricks," Ikazuki spoke, accusing Uncle of foul play.

"There is no trick," Uncle said sincerely, and once again, the Oni felt no deception in his words.

"RARGH!" Ikazuki roared, wielding his katana with both hands once again, but delivering a terr blow to his side this time. The power of the swing was enough to create a current of razor-sharp wind, which traveled quick across the clearing until reaching its end and chopping several trees as if they were nothing. Ten old trees, with thick and mighty trunks, fell to the ground.

A shiver ran through Tohru's body. All that while using a body that wasn't his own? The sumo felt somehow grateful that they had to deal with these Oni when they were sealed in their Masks instead of when they were flesh and bones.

"I AM STILL ME!" Ikazuki yelled proudly. "Worthless body or not, Ikazuki will always be Ikazuki! A katana in my hands can cut rock, and iron, and steel, and diamond! A katana in my hands can even cut gods! Then why," he wondered, directing himself to Uncle once again; "cannot I cut you?"

Uncle shrugged. "Maybe Oni General didn't eat well this morning?"

Letting out a deafening roar, Ikazuki called upon his shadow magic once again and charged for a third time. His next strike wasn't a slash, but a piercing attack; aiming to impale Uncle with his katana. The sword's end collided with the old man's chest, but it didn't go through him. As it had happened before, Uncle was simply pushed a few meters back, not a single wound on him.

That was the third blow in a row, Uncle thought. Yes, this should be enough to start with. "General Ikazuki," Uncle addressed his adversary, this time without any intention of mocking him. "You are strong. In fact, in terms of physical strength, and even when using a body that isn't yours; you are the strongest man Uncle has ever faced. But that's precisely why you can't beat Uncle. Your sword won't cut Uncle as long as you are stronger."

"That doesn't make any sense, mainlander;" Ikazuki pointed out, quite annoyed. What did that have to do with the Oni's inability to cut this old man?

"Who is the natural enemy of the weak?" Uncle asked.

"What?"

"Who is the natural enemy of the weak?" Uncle asked again.

Ikazuki lowered his katana and held it in one hand, taking the other to his chin while he thought. "The strong," he answered after a few moments.

"And who is the natural enemy of the strong, then?" Uncle inquired.

"Those who are stronger," Ikazuki answered.

"Wrong," Uncle said. "The natural enemy of the strong... is the weak."

"Ridiculous," Ikazuki said. "The strong are the strong. The weak are the weak. And the strong prey upon the weak. The weak can't challenge the strong. The strong can only be bested by those who are stronger."

Uncle gave a couple of steps at his side. "Yes, I guess that worldview suits General Ikazuki. Oni are demons that take pride in defeating strong opponents, after all. For General Ikazuki, the idea of the weak overcoming the strong is unacceptable." Uncle let out a little chuckle. "Uncle was like that too, long ago." Uncle let out a full laughter this time, and he swung his right fist in the air. "He was veeeery young, veeeery strong, veeeery prideful! And very reckless, too. He knew Kung-Fu! He knew magic! But nothing too complex. Only basic spells. But Uncle..." the old man paused for the briefest of moments, "I did believe myself to be invincible;" he said with an air of nostalgia.

"Do you know what's he talking about?" Viper asked Jackie.

"I haven't the slightest idea," the archeologist answered. "Uncle doesn't talk a lot about his younger years." But there was a detail that hadn't gone ignored by Jackie. And that was the way Uncle had spoken that last line.

"Sensei is using the first person now," Tohru spoke, as if reading Jackie's thoughts. "He only does that when he is being serious."

Over the grass, Ikazuki had lowered and sheathed his weapon and was eagerly listening to Uncle's words. He wanted to know why the old man wasn't being cut, even if he needed to listen to the retelling of his entire life to do so.

"But then," Uncle continued; "I fought a woman who was the real deal in magic. With a wave of her hand, she could conjure storms! She defeated me instantaneously, and..." a small shadow of remorse crossed over his face; "and I couldn't stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life. To this day, I hadn't told anyone about this." Uncle paused, looking at the sky for a moment.

"Humbled, I traveled back to my homeland and I searched and searched until I found someone that could teach me magic;" Uncle progressed; "a hermit named Fong, a Chi Master. But he didn't want to train me. I begged and begged, telling him I needed to be stronger. He asked me the same questions I asked you. My answers were also wrong, and he told me that my logic was a flawed one if I wanted to learn true Chi Magic."

Uncle began to walk again, this time slowly approaching Ikazuki, every step bringing him closer to the Samurai. "Fong took me to a small temple, hidden in the woods. No more than twenty monks lived there, praying to Buddha. Fong told me to challenge the leader of the monks to a Kung-Fu fight. When he came forth, I almost fell to the ground laughing!" Uncle chuckled again, the memory as fresh as it had happened yesterday. "He was over one-hundred-and-forty years old! Little more than skin and bones, and he had so many wrinkles that he looked like a dried lizard! But, then he kicked me, and punched me;" Uncle stopped walking. He was now standing right in front of Ikazuki, both opponents looking each other in the eye; "and I was completely defeated, although that man's strength was nothing compared to mine. That night, I cried myself to sleep. Dragon, Tiger, Leopard... the Kung-Fu styles that I was so proud about having mastered; in the end they had been useless in front of that old monk. Next day, the monks took me in, and I began training under them at Fong's request so I could both learn their techniques and understand the true logic behind Chi Magic."

"And that is?" a genuinely curious Ikazuki wondered.

"That we are weak beings, Oni General. Us, humans;" Uncle stated. "But that there is strength in weakness, that there is a way for the weak to overcome the strong through skill and perseverance. Chi Magic never searched to be a tool to be used in acts of mass-destruction, or to gain power; no matter how many have sadly thought otherwise. It's a tool for us weak humans to overcome strong threats like demons such as you. And the fighting style that I learned at that temple was born out of that same logic, just applied to the world of Martial Arts. The monks told me that it was called… Xiāo Lì." Uncle held his opened hand in front of Ikazuki. "When I had learned enough, Fong took me in and I learned Chi Magic, studying under him for fifteen long years. I had to stop my training before it was completed, though. I needed to take care of a boy."

Tohru and Viper glanced at Jackie, who had a warm, nostalgic smile on his face.

"When I went back and finished my training, I asked myself 'If they work on the same logic, couldn't both Chi Magic and Xiāo Lì work together?'. Mixing them both became one of my few obsessions, and I tried and tried until I succeeded." Uncle made a fist with the hand he was holding in front of Ikazuki. "I'm very old now. So old that climbing stairs feels like climbing mountains, and lifting a bowl full of rice feels like lifting a boulder. You could say that I'm at my weakest now. But I have finally done it. This is a perfect blend of Martial Arts and Chi Magic. This is the weak overcoming the strong."

Uncle threw a punch towards the Oni General. Ikazuki evaded the attack by jumping out of the way. However, this surprised the General more than anyone else. I dodged? Ikazuki thought. Instinctively?

"Oh? What's wrong?" Uncle asked as he approached Ikazuki once again. "Is General Ikazuki really scared about getting a piece of Uncle now? Why would Oni General be scared? This is nothing but an old man's punch! Delivered with an old man's fist, powered by this old man's body!"

"Kage no Ken Ikazuki is no coward!" the Oni arrogantly boasted. When Uncle reached him again, he forced himself to stay still.

Uncle threw a second punch. Before it it connected, he quickly opened it, delivering an open-palm strike.

And this time, the blow landed right into the middle of the Oni's chest.

BANG!

Ikazuki was the one sent flying this time. For fifteen… no, for twenty meters. He landed in the ground without any grace, and rolled for a few meters more. Panting and gasping for air, the Oni possessing a meridianite body tried to incorporate, only to fall to the ground. His head was spinning. He let out a yell out of the pain that the impact had produced on him. Then he coughed, and the grass under his face became crimson. Though the strike had left no open wound over his body, it must had wounded his insides. Broken bones, perhaps? It was extremely painful. That made Ikazuki to put on a small smirk. He, screaming! He, bleeding! He, wounded in such a way! No one in a thousand years had been able to strike him in such a way. Not even Didier. Not even his friend and King.

"How...?" Ikazuki managed to ask as he tried to incorporate.

"Xiāo Lì is based around the ideas of 'absolute relaxation' and 'going with the flow of the blow' in the moment of impact," Uncle explained. "General Ikazuki should understand what that means."

Ah... so that's what this mainlander is doing, isn't it? Ikazuki thought, finally realizing what was happening. This Xiao Lee, Xiāo Lì, Shao Ri or whatever... "You are imitating a feather."

"More or less," Uncle admitted, smiling quite mischievously.

Yes, Ikazuki had finally understood the principle behind this old man's trickery. It was actually really simple, once you knew how it worked, of course. Let's imagine that you are a remarkably strong person, and that you punch a block of stone with all your strength. The block then cracks and breaks. Now, let's imagine that you do the same with a block of condensed, very rubbery slime. You punch in the exact same way and with the exact same level of strength. But this block does not break, instead bending and then returning to shape. This is because the stone is 'rigid' and the slime is 'soft'. It's the same for a swordsman that tries to cut a coconut and a piece of silk thrown into the air. The 'rigid' coconut will be cut with ease, but the 'soft' piece of silk will wrap itself around the blade, uncut. Something similar would happen if the swordsman were to try to cut a leaf... or a feather. Their 'softness' means that they don't offer resistance to the blow, instead flowing with it; and are therefore left unscathed by its force. But even with that...

"That doesn't explain," Ikazuki said, finally incorporating. There were lines of blood coming out of his mouth, tainting his blue lips; "where that strike of yours came from."

"Uhm? Did Uncle say that Xiāo Lì is a purely defensive style?" the elderly wizard asked, returning to speaking in third-person. "No? Then maybe there is more to it!" Uncle laughed calmly, then proceeded to do a couple of motions with his arms. "Xiāo Lì doesn't only allow Uncle to take any blow, but it also makes Uncle's body to absorb and contain the weight of the blow. Three times General Ikazuki hit Uncle," the Chinese elder said, holding three fingers up. "There were veeeery strong strikes! But Uncle took that strength and turned it back against you," he added, making a fist and then quickly opening his palm. "All of it, all the force of those three, mighty strikes; in one precise blow."

A form of counterattack, Ikazuki thought. The ultimate form of counterattack, even. A fighting style that allowed you not only to take the full force of your opponents' attacks but then turn that force against them. To try striking a foe such as this would be like striking yourself! And yet, didn't that made the task of wounding and killing him so much more exciting? Ikazuki thought so, and for a second his body seemed to forget about the pain, and he felt tingles.

"I was wrong bout one thing, mainlander;" Ikazuki addressed Uncle.

"About what?" Uncle asked as calm as before.

With a quick movement, Ikazuki unsheathed his katana, which let out a loud 'snikt!'. "Defeating you WILL bring me honor!" he shouted, and with a grin, he dashed forward once again.

Cavigor Prison

Tiger and Dragon

Meanwhile, battle continued to unfold at Cavigor Prison as Drago and Calisto kept ascending through The Pit while trying to smite one another.

Although the Tiger was doing his best in order to stop the Dragon from travelling upwards and force him to fight him head on, the Son of Shendu was far more interested in going up while trying to kill the Tiger than actually killing the Shapeshifter. Every time that there was an opening, Drago took the oportunity to climb the stairs further and further, and Calisto had to double his efforts just to catch up to him and continue the fight.

Starting to feel frustrated, Calisto ran and jumped over Drago next. Once he landed, the Shapeshifter turned around and tried to bite Drago's upper half off with one swift movement of his powerful jaws. Instead of getting a mouthfull of half-demonic meat, however, he got kicked in his chin as a result of Drago predicting his move and throwing a powerful jumping kick as a countermeasure.

"Wow! Close one!" Drago said jokingly, halting for a second. "Hey cat-man, quick question now that I've seen your teeth up close. How's been eating for you since I burned your jaw?"

Calisto didn't answer. He tasted the blood in his mouth product of the Dragon's kick, thin lines of the red liquid spilling out of his mouth due to his severely charred and scarred lower jaw and exposed teeth. That had been a strong kick. But not as strong as Calisto had expected, or that he remembered to be.

"You are weaker and slower than years ago," Calisto noted.

"Yeah, sixteen years in this overrated trashcan you call a prison aren't exactly the best way to retain your strength," Drago said sarcastically. "But don't worry, I'm planning to get back into shape as soon as I get out of this hole! So, if you don't mind..." the Son of Shendu declared, aiming to start running up again.

"Why are you so adamant on getting out?" Calisto asked, positioning himself so that he blocked Drago's path.

"Are you serious?!" an incredulous Drago asked. "And I thought the elephant-chick was the dumb one!"

"You misunderstand my words," Calisto said in his usual stoic, whisper-like voice. "It's clear you want to escape, but if you wanted to do just that, putting all your efforts into killing me and then escaping would give you a better chance at doing so. You could have joined forces with the She-Wolf in order to secure an easier victory, too. But you didn't. And I know you," the Shapeshifter said. "I know you aren't stupid enough to commit such a mistake. There must be a reason." Then Calisto's eyes narrowed and he licked the blood out of his exposed teeth. "Almost as if you... need to escape... before something happens."

Drago remained silent for the following moments. Afterwards he sighed, then began letting out a chuckle that developed into laughter. "You know Calisto, I came to think two things about you while I was chained in that stupid, rotten cell. One," the Son of Shendu explained; "you're smart. You aren't a genius, but you've got enough brains to back up your strength. Same could be said for the elephant-chick anyway. The other thing I came to think about you?" Drago flashed a fanged, yellow, and nightmarish grin. "Knee first. Ribs second. Head third."

Drago took a huge amount of air into his lungs, so much that his chest became swollen and his cheeks puffed. He then opened his mouth and thrust his body onward violently. Calisto prepared himself to evade the flames he was expecting to come out of Drago's mouth, but what the draconic man breathed at the giant Tiger weren't flames. It was pitch-black smoke.

And then, in the blink of an eye, everything around the stone-stairs became black, and breathing properly, tasting, smelling, seeing and most important of all reacting to the enemy's movements became an almost impossible task for Calisto.

Drago came out of the cloud of smoke next, fast as a lightning bolt. Without losing a single moment, he targeted the Tiger's right front leg and, putting both of his scaled fists one over the other, he delivered a thunderous double-punch to the Shapeshifter's knee. There was a loud 'CRACK' sound, followed by the first loud scream that Calisto had let out in many years. And next the Tiger lost balance and fell on his side, leg broken.

"Knee first."

Drago targeted the Shapeshifter's ribs next, delivering an ax-kick to them. There was another loud 'CRACK', and Calisto screamed again; the pain from his shattered ribs joining the one of his shattered front knee.

"Ribs second."

Slower than before, Drago approached the gigantic Tiger's head. With arrogance, the draconic man put a clawed foot over it and pressed as strong as he could in order to restrain his movements. Not that Calisto was going to jump or anything.

"And head third," Drago sentenced, looking Calisto in the eye. "Goodbye Calisto," the Son of Shendu bid farewell. He began inhaling air once again, and the Tiger knew that, this time, it wasn't smoke that was going to come out.

"Eyes up, Shendu Junior!" a yell cut the air, stopping the draconic man from exhaling flames.

As Drago turned in the voice's direction, a pair of feet covered in reddish Chi Magic collided directly with his face. The impact wasn't able to knock Drago out, but it was enough to get him away from the injured Calisto. The Tiger made a small movement with his head and was able to see Jade Chan standing just a few inches away from him.

"You..." Calisto muttered, the pain making it hard to have a proper train of thought. The wounds he had inflicted in the She-Wolf had begun to heal to the point they weren't bleeding anymore and they would probably soon close, but they would leave a nasty scar over her shoulder; "saved... me?"

"I didn't save you," Jade told the injured Tiger. "I kicked the gecko in the face. He just so happened to be about to kill you."

"Thank... you..." Calisto mastered to say as he slowly shapeshifted back to his human form, his broken front leg shifting into a broken arm.

"Ain't that touching!" an angered Drago shouted, rubbing his face. "Especially 'cause you were basically tearing each other apart a few moments ago! C'mon wolfie, isn't the enemy of my enemy my friend?"

"We're pretty sure you can't even be an ally, much less a friend;" Will Vandom, who flew down until she stood at Jade's side, said.

"Oh great, it's one of you;" Drago said, worryingly eyeing the Heart of Kandrakar that hanged from Will's neck. "Where's the blondie?" he wondered, but he didn't obtain any answer. "Fine!" he said loudly, knowing what the Guardian and Shapeshifter were here to do. "Wanna mess with a dragon?! Then you get burned!"

Drago breathed a wave of fire towards the pair of girls. The flames engulfed them... just to begin to disappear, revealing an unscathed Will and Jade under a dome of red Chi Magic, while the Chinese girl muttered words in Cantonese.

"How?!" an incredulous Drago yelled.

"Chi Degradation, Shendu Junior;" Jade stated proudly after dispelling the barrier. "You aren't very different from your old man, are you? Pretty good at Step 1 of the plan, not so much at Step 2."

"Okay, time out. Time right the hell out;" Drago interrupted her. "How do you know the old timer?"

"My family fought him a couple of times," Jade said casually. "I even blew him up once. With his own Talisman, no less;" the Ben-Shui Chosen One stated, trying to bait Drago into making an angered, reckless move.

"You blew pops up?!" a shocked Drago shouted, and for a second he looked in the verge of breaking into an angry roar... but then he began laughing. "Hahahaha! Good one!" he said, clapping. "That's ten points, wolfie."

Jade fought back the urge to roll her eyes. "Yeah, that's a family of demons for you..." she sighed, then shared a look with Will. The redhead gave her a nod, and both girls assumed combat stances.

Jade was the one to move first, shapeshifting as she rushed at Drago and tried to slit his throat with a swift movement of one of her claws. Drago dodged the attack and counterattacked with a whip-kick, but the only thing he struck was air as Jade shapeshifted back to her human form and proceeded to attack the surprised Drago with her human fists and legs. This tactic had worked fine against Calisto after all. With Drago, however, it didn't do so well. No matter if she called upon her innate Chi Magic or not, no matter what kind of punch, kick, or move she pulled on him; Drago either blocked, dodged or parried it with moves of his own. In the end, Jade grew so concentrated that she completely missed Drago's tail wrapping itself around her ankle and pulling, throwing her out of balance. Drago took the chance to deliver a devastating punch to the girl's torso, which Jade had barely the time to protect with her arms. The Chan girl was sent tumbling down some of the large stairs of The Pit, clutching her stomach.

"Jade!" Will cried for her friend.

"Oh yes, attack me using Dragon Style Kung-Fu," Drago said dryly. "That'll work perfectly."

Before the Son of Shendu had the opportunity to continue attacking Jade, however, Will took to the air and hit him by using a literal flying kick. Drago took the blow as best as he could, then proceeded to take on a defensive stance once he found himself far away from Will, holding his scaled arms in front of his face, as if he was expecting a long-ranged attack.

"You aren't doing the sparkle-thing?" Drago asked as he saw Will took in a new hand-to-hand fighting stance again.

A confused Will raised an eyebrow. "Sparkle-what?"

"You don't know?" Drago tilted his head for a moment, before his monstrous grin returned once more. "You… can't! Interesting!"

The Son of Shendu leaped into the air and exhaled a gust of flame towards Will. The Guardian flew out of the way from the draconic man's attack, but as soon as Drago found himself on the ground again, he continued to breathe fire at Will, who flew as fast as she could in order to avoid the stream of flames. Drago closed his maw at least, letting Will land at Jade's side and help the Chinese girl up.

"Is that all? What a joke! I want my money back!" Drago taunted. "If you two think that you can win against me with those moves…"

Jade laughed at those words, however, not letting Drago to even finish the sentence. "Peripheral vision isn't your forte, is it gecko?"

As if to emphasize the Chinese girl's words, Drago was then hit by a massive boulder, and this time the strength of the hit was enough to sent him crashing into a nearby wall that separated a pair of cells and force him to drop on one knee.

The Son of Shendu groaned in pain, then he coughed a bit of blood on his palm. "Have I really become so weak?" he whispered, then looked up at his attacker.

Floating on the air thanks to the constant flapping of her wings was Cornelia Hale, levitating the boulder she had just hit Drago with, alongside another one. With a yell, she threw one of the boulders at Drago again, smashing him against the wall. The Earth Guardian lifted the boulder once more, then hit Drago with the other. She repeated this process over five more times, up until she tried for a sixth and the boulder she was employing was stopped by the draconic man. Using every inch of strength he had, Drago forced the boulder to halt and, nailing his claws on it, he began pressing and pressing until the boulder cracked and shattered.

"Zhòng Jī Èmó Yī Hào..." Drago heard at his side then, and directing his eyes towards the sound he saw Jade Chan with her hands clasped together and her eyes closed, deeply concentrated; a red aura building itself around her body, her bangs of black hair standing up.

The hell is that? Drago thought while Jade opened her eyes.

Don't fail me now, Ben-Shui; Jade thought. "Zhòng Jī Èmó Yī Hào!" she shouted, unleashing the spell the original Chosen One had once created. A beam of red Chi Magic shot from her hands directly at Drago. Once it collided with the draconic man, the beam enveloped him.

"Griargh!" Drago screamed in pain as the spell did its effect and faded after a while.

"Keep it going, Cornelia!" Will ordered.

The Earth Guardian flung the remaining boulder at the Son of Shendu, hitting him another three times. When she stopped, Drago was on his knees, panting.

I spent too much energy fighting Calisto, Drago thought, panting. And a Shapeshifter and a half-baked Guardian it's one thing, but a Shapeshifter that can use Chi Magic, a half-baked Guardian and an Earth Guardian is... he coughed blood again, too much. Damn it!

"Give it up, gecko;" Jade taunted Drago as she, Will and Cornelia lined in front of him.

"You stupid bunch of brats..." Drago cursed as he got up. "I don't have time to lose here, and neither do you!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" the Keeper of the Heart inquired, narrowing her reddish eyes at the Son of Shendu.

"You think I've spent... sixteen years!" Drago yelled. "On this trashcan, chained to a wall, having to eat from the hands of some losers!" the draconic man shrieked. "And when I get a single chance to escape, I'm gonna risk it all in a stupid one-on-one fight?! You think that I haven't planned anything in advance?! That the son of a Demon Sorcerer wouldn't have an ace up his sleeve?!"

"Get to the point," Will told the Son of Shendu. "Or I'll let Cornelia smash you like a bug."

"The point," Drago said almost triumphantly; "it's that I've been pumping my Fire Demon chi through this hole for almost two decades, kid. From the bottom," Drago stomped his foot against the stone-steps, "to the top;" he finished, pointing upwards. "And ever since I've gotten out of my cell I've been using it in order to," the Son of Shendu bent over and put his claw against the floor, and using his magic he heated it until a small chunk of rock under his claw melted; "heat up things."

"But that means..." Will said, horror creeping into her voice as she realized what Drago's words entitled.

"It means that around..." Drago shook his head a couple of times; "I don't know, fifteen minutes, twenty tops, this place's gonna start collapsing! Well, a good chunk of the fortress up there, at least."

Collapse? The fortress? a shocked Calisto thought. But if the fortress collapses, then... The Shapeshifter forced himself to ignore his pain and wounds in order to stand up. Slowly, he began climbing up the stairs. "Sidriss... The children..."

"It's a bluff," Jade, who paid no attention to the leaving Calisto, told Drago.

"No bluffs here, wolfie;" the draconic man uttered. "You can go or you can stay. But let me tell you, I still got plenty of fight in me."

"If what you're saying it's true," Cornelia intervened, "you'll die too, moron!"

"Taking the legendary Guardians of Kandrakar with me," Drago pointed out, taking a combat stance. "Doesn't sound like a bad way to die. But it's your call. Ball's on your court now."

The trio of girls exchanged concerned looks, then they looked at Drago, and then Jade and Cornelia looked at Will, waiting for an order.

With a deep breath, Will thought for a couple of seconds. "Cornelia, pick Jade up. We're going to meet with the others and get out of here before it comes crashing down;" the Keeper of the Heart commanded.

"This doesn't end here, gecko;" Jade told the Son of Shendu as the Earth Guardian took her by the waist and began flying away.

"Whatever you say, wolfie;" Drago mocked as he watched the trio of friends fly away.

He waited until he couldn't see them anymore. Then, with absolute tranquility; he began climbing the stairs again. After giving a few steps, he stretched his arms and tail. No more distractions, no more morons that could get in his way. Then he laughed. He laughed a lot. Who said that patience wasn't a virtue? He had done it.

After so many years, he had finally done it! He was free! The Son of Shendu was free!

Drago was free!

The upper levels of Cavigor

Seventeen minutes later

"Loooooossssssseeeeeee!" Lord Cedric hissed a command, and hundred of arrows were shot at Irma, Taranee and Hay Lin. Miranda, crawling over the walls in her animalistic form, added a shot of her own spider-web to the attack. They had been doing this for a while now, trying to hinder the three Guardians' ascension back to the fortress' rooftop; with a surprising amount of success at that. For every volley of arrows that Taranee burned to ashes, there was another ready to be shot. For every soldier that was knocked back or thrown into the air thanks to a blast of water or a gust of wind, there was another one ready to take their place. As for Cedric, he couldn't exactly reach the Guardians properly from the gangways he was forced to move through, but Miranda was trying to compensate for the Snake's apparent lack of a way to fight from a distance by throwing spider-webs at the trio of girls with the intention to yank one of them down as she had done before. While not forcing the girls to halt, they were slowing them down.

"Do these guys have no end?!" an angry and frustrated Irma asked to nobody in particular while she shot ball of water after ball of water.

"Taranee, are you okay?" Hay Lin asked of the Fire Guardian while she created a miniature tornado on her hands and unleashed it over a small group of guards.

"My ribs are feeling better," Taranee answered while incinerating another rain of arrows. "But I think I will stay in the defensive for now. We need to get to the rooftop as soon as possible so we can see Cornelia's signal. The others…"

"GUYS!" the voices of Will Vandom, Cornelia Hale and Jade Chan were heard over the whistle of bows' strings and the yells of the guards, cutting the words of the bespectacled girl short.

"Guys?!" Fire, Water and Air Guardian asked at the same time as they looked down, only to see Will and Cornelia flying at them at high speeds, with the later carrying Jade in her arms.

"I can handle the guards!" Jade told the redhead and the blonde. "It'll give us more time! Just throw me at them!"

Cornelia nodded and, using the momentum she had built up flying, threw Jade at one of the gangways filled to the brim with guards. The Chinese girl shapeshifted into her wolf form seconds before landing, and once she found herself surrounded by guards, she began attacking them. To say that it quickly became a one-sided battle would be an understatement.

Meanwhile, the five Guardians of Kandrakar were flying on a circle, having fallen into a back-to-back formation in order to cover their blind spots.

"What are you three doing here? Weren't we supposed to meet outside?" Taranee asked Will as she made a firewall circle them. "Are the Browns alright?"

"The Browns are on Earth already," Will explained. "But there's been a change of plans."

"Why don't I like how that sounds?" Hay Lin wondered.

Will sighed heavily. "Long story short. A dragon-guy called Drago took advantage of our mission to bust himself out of here. The thing is... he may have used magic in order to melt some parts of the prison."

"A dragon-guy named Drago? Talk about unoriginal," Irma stated. "Wait, what do you mean with 'melt'?"

"It means that we need to get out of here," Cornelia joined into the conversation; "unless we want to get flattened."

Irma shrugged. "And I thought you wanted to lose some weight, Corny;" the Water Guardian deadpanned, earning herself a little glare from the blonde.

"We don't have time for this," Will said before Cornelia had the opportunity to retort. "Cornelia, bring some of those bridges and runways down. It'll give us less guards to deal with."

"Won't that play against us?" Taranee asked. "If what you said it's true, then Cornelia would just weaken the structure, making it easier to collapse."

"At this point, that's irrelevant;" Will said.

"What about the guards?" Taranee insisted.

"We've our mission," Will said dryly. "Our priority now is getting out of here. Cornelia, the bridges and runways. Irma, pick Jade up once she's done with the guards. Taranee, Hay Lin; cover our escape. I don't want Cedric or Miranda getting on our way. Alright?"

"Alright," the Earth Guardian declared.

"Roger that, Captain;" Irma answered.

"Okay," the Air Guardian obeyed.

"Understood," Taranee agreed.

"Good," the redhead said. "Taranee, lower this thing," she ordered gesturing to the wall of flames surrounding them, "so we can..."

Before Will had any chance to finish that sentence, a deafening trumpeting sound forced the girls to take their hands to their ears.

"Oh yeah," Irma said, rubbing her forehead. "We forgot to tell you about the elephant."

Jade nailed her fangs into the shoulder of a terrified guard, blood pouring into her mouth. Ignoring the man's screams, she lifted him from the ground and hurled him across several meters, making him collide with some of his fellow prison guards. She then turned around and roared in the face of another group of guards that was trying to attack her from behind, making them to slow their pace out of sheer fear. She lunged at them, and with one claw she slashed three while she bit another's arm, throwing him around as if he was a rag-doll.

My shoulder's feeling way better, Jade thought as she easily evaded the next pair of guards' attack. Not healed-healed, but better. At least good enough to allow her to fight, if not at her fullest, yes at around an eighty-five percent of her full potential. And eighty-five percent was enough to deal with a bunch of guards, no matter how skilled they were or how many of them were.

And then she heard the deafening trumpeting, and her body froze. Next the ground beneath her paws began to shake and tremble every so often. Clomp-Clomp. Then silence. Clomp-Clomp. More trembling. Clomp-Clomp. It was getting louder. Clomp-Clomp! No, not louder. Nearer. Clomp-Clomp!

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY MEN?!"

Jade didn't know how to react to that phrase, or more specifically, she didn't know how to react to the… person, for lack of a better term, that had spoken those words. The Chan girl had been left speechless and motionless upon laying eyes on the massive size of Warden Sidriss, who hadn't shapeshifted back to her human form. Towering over the She-Wolf, the scarred elephant cracked her trunk against the ground, leaving a small crater. And Jade had thought that Calisto was imposing. True, the male warden was a gigantic tiger, but this… woman? Yeah, Jade was pretty sure this one was a woman. Her tusks were rather small (not that she was complaining) and she smelled like a female. This woman was an elephant that was, somehow, able to stand over her hinder legs, and who's front one had retained a nearly human, or at least ape-like, shape. A gigantic elephant that could punch you. Now that was imposing, in Jade's opinion.

So Calisto was right about that scent..." Sidriss whispered. "Leave this one to me!" the Elephant yelled to the guards under her command. "Go and support Cedric! Don't let any of those Guardians ascend any further!"

"Yes, ma'am!" the guards shouted and proceeded to leave the warden alone with Jade.

The Ben-Shui reincarnation didn't even think of beginning an attack. Her very recent memories of her fight against the Tiger, how tough this Elephant Shapeshifter looked and how her animal instincts were reacting to this foe had helped her reach a conclusion that, albeit hurtful to her pride, couldn't be denied.

I can't defeat this thing, Jade thought as Sidriss swung her trunk at her. The She-Wolf jumped back in order to dodge it. But I can keep her distracted. Okay she's slower than the tiger and me… the trunk impacted into a wall, leaving another crater where it hit. But she's much tougher. Why isn't that a surprise? I just hope I can keep dodging. Trumpeting once more, Sidriss charged at Jade this time; leaving her very little room to properly avoid the warden's strikes.

Oh crap! the Chan girl thought as she barely evaded a punch from the Elephant Shapeshifter. The mere force of the punch had been enough to cut the air. If she was hit by something like that as tired and wounded as she was now… she wouldn't make it! Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!

"End of the line, little wolf;" Sidriss taunted as she swung another fist. "Nobody escapes Cavigor."

As the Elephant threw what she thought would be the final blow, however, the ground under her began to crack. Stopping her punch before it had any opportunity to connect with Jade, a shocked Sidriss looked at her feet and fell back as quickly as she could, before the ground completely shattered and crumbled apart.

"Cornelia!" Jade said happily as she shapeshifted back to her human form and took a look down the hole that had been left after part of the runway crumbled, seeing the Earth Guardian flying below, having destroyed the runway just in time to save her.

"Aw, I don't get a happy cheer?" Irma asked as she flew down towards Jade. "I'm the one that's gonna give you a ride."

As Irma took Jade up by the waist and took to the air, the Chan girl proceeded to give her a little kiss in her cheek. "Thank you," Jade said with a smile.

"Y-You're..." Irma blushed and then cleared her throat. "You're welcome."

Mere minutes later

"Come back here and fight like a true Changeling!" Sidriss yelled at the escaping Jade, Irma and Cornelia; only for the Ben-Shui reincarnation to blow a raspberry at her as she and the Earth and Water Guardian joined the rest of their friends and flew away towards the top of the prison and out of her grasp. "ARGH!" she exclaimed in frustration as she looked around. Many of the runways had been destroyed, leaving her guards and Cedric almost no room to maneuver. The young Spider didn't have that problem due to her wall-crawling abilities, but Sidriss doubted that he would be enough to defeat the legendary Guardians of Kandrakar and a Changeling at the same time.

"Pursue them!" she yelled at her subordinates and Cedric while she turned around and began shapeshifting back to human form in order to move more freely and faster. "And send a platoon down to The Pit! I need to know where Calisto is!"

"That won't be necessary, Sidriss;" she heard the stoic voice of her fellow warden. Moments later, the badly injured form of Calisto appeared in front of him, still battered and limping. "I'm right here."

"Sweet Titania!" Sidriss yelled in fear and worry upon seeing the state of her fellow warden and friend. "What happened to you?! Who did this to you?! Did those children do this to you?!" she asked, thinking about the Guardians, then her face twisted into the angriest of scowls. "I'll kill them all!"

"Sidriss… stop… listen," the weakened Calisto told her. "Drago has escaped. He was the one who left this injured."

"What?!" the female warden shrieked. "How?! Is that the true reason why those foolish girls have attacked us?!"

"That's irrelevant now," Calisto told her.

"Irrelevant?! Are you mad?!" Sidriss retorted. "You know how dangerous that monster is! The amount of innocents he'll harm if he gets out of here…!"

"Sidriss, listen to me;" Calisto tried to calm his friend down. "Drago has done something to Cavigor, to the fortress. Something concerning magic, I ignore exactly what. But he said the fortress is going to crumble and fall over us."

Sidriss took a moment to process that information. "And you believed him?!"

As if to answer Sidriss' question, a thunderous tremor shook Cavigor before Calisto had any chance to speak. The tremor grew stronger and stronger until, preceded by a screeching sound, a massive crack opened in one of the walls of Cavigor; crimson and golden rock hotter than fire shinning within it.

"Is that proof enough for you?" Calisto asked.

Breathing faster and faster, Sidriss looked in horror at how the crack of molten rock both expanded and traveled upward at an alarmingly increasing speed. As it did so, the temperature of the zone rose higher and higher, and large chunks of stone from the ceilings and walls began to fall down after they cracked; something not helped by how damaged the Guardians and Sidriss herself had left some of them before. Many of the guards began to panic and flee the scene.

"I... I-I need..." Sidriss trailed off as she watched the chaos unveil around her. "I need to stop the Guardians and that Wolf."

"Are you the one who has grown mad now?" Calisto stopped her by grabbing his fellow warden by the arm. "Sidriss, Cavigor is done for. The fortress is going to fall over us at any moment. We need to take the children and flee."

"And abandon the men under our command to die?!" the scarred woman retorted, yanking her arm away from her fellow warden. "Allow those Guardians, those criminals to escape unpunished?! If Cavigor is done for, then I shall bury them under its debris if that's necessary to stop them! That is our duty as wardens of this prison!"

"If this prison is not fit to serve as a haven for Changelings," Calisto declared in both determination and sadness; "then it can crumble to dust for all I care."

"Calisto!" the scarred woman yelled at her equally scarred companion.

Both of them stared at each other for several moments, heat and screams be dammed. How many years had they been working together? Too many. They had lived the last years of the reign of Queen Thalia together, and they had lived through the complete reigns of Queens Arianne and Weira together. And when Drago had taken the lives of so many of their companions and friends, they had cried together and buried their burned remains together.

"Calisto," Sidriss said, employing a far calmer voice. "Don't do this to me. Not now."

"I won't let our brethren die here, Sidriss. I can't;" the Tiger said, voice trembling a little. "Even if they are Changelings only by virtue of drinking some potion."

Sidriss clenched her fists and turned her back on Calisto. "Do whatever you wish," she bitterly told him, and with teary eyes, both wardens departed in opposite directions.

"CEDRIC!" Sidriss shrieked, calling for the Snake. But as her eyes searched and searched for the Shapeshifter Lord, she didn't find him. Neither did she find the little Spider. The only thing she saw were prison guards running around, shouting at each other, letting fear dictate their actions.

"Fine!" Sidriss exclaimed. "I'll do it myself!"

Three minutes later

There was always a huge possibility of a plan going awry at any moment, always a chance for something to go off the rails, for someone to act in a different manner than it had been predicted. Of all of these, Cedric Ludmoore was well aware. But that didn't stop him from cursing every deity he knew about for the situation he and Miranda found themselves in right now; fleeing the crumbling Cavigor, the Snake creeping through the halls towards the only exit and entrance the prison had (if you couldn't fly, that's it) as fast as he could while Miranda rode on his back.

The heat at his back was growing stronger. Pieces of rubble fell down from the upper levels from time to time. Guards ran in the same and opposite directions than them, some of them terrified of the idea of dying, some others trying to convince the ones on the run to maintain their positions and fight to the end. Cedric couldn't care less about them. What mattered now was getting out of here. Fate, however, seemed to have something different in mind for the Shapeshifter Lord.

A large chunk of one of the bridges of the upper levels fell down then, threatening to crush both Snake and Spider under it. Acting on pure instinct, Cedric took Miranda and tossed her onward, putting her out of harm's way. By the time the Spider landed, her brain registered what had happened and she shapeshifted back into her human form, it was too late. Cedric, who was also in the middle of shapeshifting back to his human form, had been left trapped in the other side.

"Miranda!" the Lord called for the raven-haired girl. "Can you hear me?!"

"Yes!" the pale girl answered. "I just need a moment, I will clear this rubble!"

"No!" Cedric told her. The only thing they could see of one another was a small portion of their faces through a little overture left between two huge rocks. That and their cold, beautiful blue eyes. "There is no time! You need to escape!"

"I'm not going to leave you here, Cedric!" Miranda told her beloved.

"And I won't tolerate you dying because of me!" Cedric told her. "I will find another way to escape! And I can sustain wounds better than you!"

"Your regenerative abilities can't save you from getting crushed to death!" Miranda yelled.

"I will survive, Miranda;" Cedric said sweetly. "You know I always do."

Miranda narrowed her eyes at him. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," Cedric told the girl.

"I love you," the Spider said as a farewell.

"I know, my love;" the Snake answered as he watched Miranda run away towards the exit and he turned around, determined to find another route to escape.

At the same time

Warden Calisto had forgotten what was it to be a child long ago. He had forgotten what it was to play with wooden sticks as if it were swords, what it was like to extend your arms and roar as if you were a dragon. But first and foremost, he had forgotten what it was to be a child and be afraid. It wasn't as if Calisto was fearless, he experienced the emotion often, but now he had ways to fight it, to accept it, to make it work for him. But a child in fear is a child that loses the ability to think, to react, to move. A fearful child cries or hides behind a bigger person, or within a place that may make him feel safe. For Calisto the Shapeshifter, Calisto the warrior, the Tiger, such a course of action was unthinkable. Maybe that was the reason why, for a long time, he had thought himself unsuited to deal with children.

Yet here he was, in one of the rooms he and Sidriss had repurposed in order to act as the living quarters for the Shapeshifter children Cedric had sent to them, looking at all the children sitting in one of the room's corners, holding their heads down, the younger ones nearest to the wall, the older ones farthest from it. He had knew perfectly where they would be. Where would a scared child hide, in a place like Cavigor, but in their room?

"Mister... Warden Calisto?" one of the children -a boy of dark skin no older than fifteen that Calisto knew could shapeshift into the form of a chameleon- asked, voice trembling, eyes shifting between looking at him and the ground. Oh yes, he had lost his scarf, hadn't he? Yes, he could understand the effect that his exposed lower gums and teeth could have into people. "Is something wrong? We heard noises, the ground's shaking… The kids're scared, we..."

"Do not worry, everything will be alright;" Calisto told the children. "But we need to go."

Five minutes later

"Why doesn't anything ever go according to plan?!" Cornelia yelled in frustration as she used her powers to shatter a rock that was falling her way.

Flying as fast as they could, the Guardians and Jade were trying to reach the top of the upper half of Cavigor Prison in order to get to its rooftop and escape, but the task was proving unsuccessful. Whatever Drago had done to the fortress had apparently worked magnificently, weakening the structure so much that it was crumbling as if it was a sandcastle.

"We aren't gonna make it!" Irma shouted while she dodged more falling rubble as best as he could with holding Jade.

Will hated to admit it, but the Water Guardian was right. They still had a long distance to traverse in order to reach the top of the prison, and there was a huge possibility that the whole ceiling would fall over their heads before they could get to it. An alternative strategy was in order, then.

"Cornelia!" the redhead called for the Earth Guardian. "Pull every rock you can control together and make a shell around us!"

"Okay!" the blonde obeyed, quickly calling upon her powers in order to draw huge chunks of the stone walls and the falling debris in order to shield herself and her friends.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" a worried Taranee asked as layers upon layers of rock surrounded them.

"It worked well when we fought Wong in that mountain," Will told the Fire Guardian, recalling the confrontation they had had with the Dark Chi Wizard all those months ago. "And it's the best option we've got now."

Cornelia continued to pull more and more rocks around the shell up until they all felt how the air around them grew hotter, they heard the loudest rumble they had ever heard…

And half of Cavigor's upper fortress fell over them.

Moments later

The first thing that Sidriss felt upon regaining consciousness was pain. On her legs, her arms, he head, her chest. Especially on her chest. A burning feeling that grew more and more painful until it was unbearable. Then she felt pressure over her chest, and her eyes opened wide as the burning pain moved to her throat. She coughed. She coughed dust and ashes, and they burned when they came out of her mouth and nostrils. The next thing she did was breathe a huge amount of air, cough some more, and take more air into her lungs.

She was lying on the ground, over… something warm, but hard and coarse. She incorporated slowly, sitting over… rocks? Were they rocks? What had happened? She was… she was trying to apprehend those Guardians, those… Calisto had… ugh, her head hurt. Her whole body hurt. She coughed some more. Thirsty, she was thirsty.

"Ma'am?" she heard weakly at her side. There was a… there was a man, a Galhot with a hook for a hand. He was badly injured too, bleeding wounds all over his body. He was panting, as if fighting to breathe.

"Soldier," Sidriss managed to say. When she talked, the words coming out of her mouth made her throat hurt. "What happened?"

"The fortress..." the man said with a lot of difficulty. "It fell..."

Fell? Cavigor… has fallen? Sidriss thought as she took a look around her and found out that Cavigor had fallen quite literally. More or less half of the upper fortress had crumbled into ruble, and the other half appeared in the verge of doing so. And then she began to remember. Cedric and the little Spider. The Guardians and their attack. Drago's escape and sorcery. Calisto's… Calisto's betrayal. The only other thing she recalled was a huge piece of debris falling over her, and she shapeshifting into her animal form in order to take the hit. Then… darkness.

"What happened to… the others?" Sidriss mastered to ask.

"The others… the guards… I don't know, ma'am;" the guard with a hook for a hand said, coughing too. His eyes began to close. "Dead, probably. They were running towards the drawbridge. But I..." the man's voice was growing weaker. "But I saved you, ma'am. You were always good with us, and… I saved you, ma'am. I fought to the end. I did my… my duty…"

The guard fell on one side, breathing less and less. Sidriss extended a hand and reached him. "Soldier," she said weakly, but he didn't answer. "SOLDIER!" she yelled, not knowing exactly from where the strength had come. "Soldier, stay with me! You did your duty well! Stay with me!"

"Ma'am… the people're… wrong about you Shapeshifters," the man said, his voice a whisper now. "You're not… monsters…" And with those words, the guard took his last breath and died. Without any glory and fanfare, this man who had done nothing but what was expected of him had died.

And Sidriss was left alone, looking at the man's corpse. With a weak and trembling hand, the woman closed the man's eyes. "Merciful Titania, take care of this man's soul. Guide him through the mists of the other world to the company of his ancestors, even if he wasn't one of us…" she whispered. "Wise Oberon, find any that share his blood and give then strength…"

As she finished the prayer, Sidriss' fists clenched, and her breathing accelerated. She turned her eyes at the crumbled ruins of Cavigor once more. The crumbled ruins of… her life. Everything she had ever fought for was now gone. One of her only friends had betrayed her. Why? Why?!

Because of those idiotic girls that knew nothing about what they were doing! she concluded. Why had they come to Cavigor in the first place?! To free the guilty, to break the law! How many had died because of them?! How many more would die now that Drago was free to do as he pleased once more?! The Shapeshifter yelled in anger.

They will pay for this! she thought, enraged to the core. Even if I've to waste the rest of my life to make them pay! I'll get my revenge!

The Pit

The Pit hadn't gone untouched by Drago's machinations. While not as damaged as the prison's upper half, the tremors had been strong enough to break the cells of some the prisoners, who were now busy ascending through The Pit and freeing as many others as possible. In complete silent, as if they were more akin to undead than actual people; Meridian's worst of the worst was slowly crawling towards the surface.

Gargoyle, who's cell had been left wide open by the tremors, was one of these. But in contrast with the rest, the cyclopean colossus wasn't ascending. Yes, the bars holding him within his cell were gone, but even if he escaped from The Pit… what would he do? He was powerless, maimed, broken. The cyclops looked at the useless stump that his enormous, stone-like and mighty hand had once been. With a sad growl, he retreated back into the shadows of his cell.

Near the border of the chasm

Calisto stared with a saddened look at what remained of Cavigor. The imposing fortress, which had been thought to be impregnable, looked now more akin to some decrepit, old ruins than anything else. How many may had died under it was something that the Tiger didn't want to think about.

Have I done the right thing? Calisto thought, but he forced that question out of his mind. Yes, he had chosen right. He would choose the life of a Changeling over the ones of a dozen Galhot and human meridianites every day. But it had been a Changeling that he had abandoned to her doom, hadn't he?

"Calisto?" the boy that could become a chameleon asked, taking the Tiger back to reality. He had told him to drop the 'Warden'. He doubted he was a warden anymore. When Calisto looked at him, he was in the company of a somehow chubby, eleven-year-old girl. Ah yes, the gorilla. "I've told the ones that can fly to take the others across the hole. We're the only ones who're left."

"Very well," Calisto said stoically, moving a hand over his scarred jaw. "Let us go, then."

"Where's Mrs. Sidriss?" the girl asked, clearly worried. Sidriss had always been way better than him at being friendly, at making others laugh. The children had adored her since the first moment. And now she was gone.

Calisto took one last look at Cavigor. "I don't know," he said sadly.

The clearing

As Cavigor fell, the duel between Ikazuki and Uncle Chan was coming to an end too. Not much had changed from the way the duel had played up until now, though. The Oni General would try to cut the Chi Wizard, the old man would take the hit, then turn its force against the Japanese demon. Rinse and repeat.

However, as the duel progressed, Ikazuki had increased the speed and quantity of his blows and decreased their strength. This meant that, at the time of turning the force of the Oni's strikes back at him, Uncle had much less strength than he would have if Ikazuki had struck him with a single, full-force strike.

Taking quantity over quality, Uncle thought as he took another strike to the neck. His body bent over the blade as before, but another strike followed even before his feet had any chance to touch the ground. Ikazuki was giving him no room to counterattack properly. Is he trying to overload Xiāo Lì?

No technique is perfect, Ikazuki thought as he continued to strike Uncle. No style is absolute, no warrior unbeatable. This Xiāo Lì… there had to be a limit in how many blows its user could take! Or perhaps the weakness of the technique wasn't on the quantity of the blows it could take, but in how they could be taken? Uhm…

Ikazuki stopped his next strike before it could connect, instead moving fast enough to put himself at Uncle's back. There, he simply made the Chinese elder trip by using his feet. A surprised Uncle fell over his back, staring at how Ikazuki was now holding his katana over his head, ready to stab him as if the sword was a big a knife. Uncle rolled as fast as he could in order to evade the strike, which missed his head by centimeters, but did cut a lock of his grey hair. Getting to his feet, Uncle watched as Ikazuki pulled his blade from the ground.

"No space to 'flow with the blow' as you say, mainlander;" the Oni General said proudly, "means that you can't absorb the weight of the blow either, am I correct?"

"Oni General is correct, yes;" Uncle acknowledged, dusting off his clothes. While he appeared as calm as before on the surface, Uncle was actually rather nervous. This demon had correctly deduced one of the two main flaws of Xiāo Lì in so little amount of time… It was time to end this. "But having reached that conclusion will cost General Ikazuki his victory;" the Chinese elder declared, approaching the Oni.

"How come?!" the General, sure of having unlocked a way to cut what couldn't be cut, asked of his foe while preparing another strike.

But this time, something different happened. Instead of waiting for the blow to come, Uncle gave a long step at the same that Ikazuki came at him. The Oni found himself surprised, as the old man was now just a few centimeters away from him.

"Xiāo Lì isn't everything Uncle knows," the old man said as he quickly moved his left arm and delivered a series of strikes to Ikazuki's arms with both index and middle fingers.

"Grargh!" the Oni General groaned as he felt strength leaving his upper limbs. This is very similar to what Ikki… Ikazuki thought, Uncle's movements reminding him of the ones of his fellow General. Soon he found himself unable to move his arms, his grip around his katana's hilt becoming weak. "You tricky bastard!"

"And how many times did General Ikazuki hit Uncle now?" the old Chi Wizard asked funnily. "Maaaaaaany times! They were weaker strikes than before, but they were many more! And they had a little bit of magic too, each one!" Uncle threw another punch, and knowing perfectly that this had to be the definitive blow, he put everything he had into it. "Yu Mo Gui Gwai…" he began saying as he delivered his last attack, and as his punch approached the Oni General's chest, his hand glowed with the thinnest of greens. "Fai Di Zao!"

BANG!

Now the sound had been even louder that all the previous times.

Ikazuki flew through the air once again, and this time his black blade left his hands and flew with him. General and weapon fell to the grass at the same time. There was no scream, only the faintest of groans. And this time, Ikazuki did not roll, or incorporate, or do anything that may indicate that he was able to continue fighting. His arms were useless now, and this body that wasn't his was in no condition to continue fighting properly.

It was undeniable. He had lost.

Jackie, Viper, Tohru and Gareth ignored when had come to their feet. Had it been when Uncle had evaded that attack on the ground? Or had it been when he had delivered the final punch? Or just a second before that? It didn't matter. What mattered was that the fight had ended. And Uncle had won.

"I-I can't believe it," Gareth stuttered. "He did it. That old crazy bastard did it!"

"Sensei, you are incredible! I didn't know you could cast any spell without a..." Tohru said happily, but his words were cut short by a gasp.

Jackie looked in the same direction the sumo was looking at, and what he saw erased any feeling of euphoria he may be having. For there, kneeling in the grass, full of sweat and panting... was his old Uncle.

"Oh my God," an equally surprised Viper let out.

Between yells of 'Uncle' and 'Sensei', Chi Wizard apprentice, archeologist and ex-thief rushed to the old man's side; while Gareth was left making a signal to his men in order to begin to (slowly) approach the fallen Ikazuki.

When they reached the old Chi Wizard, Tohru and Jackie's hearts skipped a beat. Uncle was an old man, and he had always looked like an old man, never bothering to do anything to conceal his wrinkles, his slightly hunched back, or even how bad his breath could get after drinking some soup overloaded with garlic. But he had always looked healthy. This wasn't the case anymore.

Upon looking closer, it wasn't just that Uncle was sweating and panting. His skin looked to have thrice more wrinkles than before, and it was pale. A sickly pale, as if someone had drenched him in wax. Upon touching him, both Jackie and Tohru noticed that he felt thinner under their hands. His naturally spiky gray hair was down, and some parts of it were now of the same sickly white as the skin, and his eyes had lost a bit of color. When he spoke, his voice came dry and weak.

"Horse," Uncle said.

"What?" Jackie asked in a whisper.

"Horse," Uncle repeated.

"The Talisman," Tohru realized.

"Oh," Jackie said, and he felt like the greatest fool in the universe. He took the octagonal piece of rock out of his pocket and put it in Uncle's hand. The image of the horse on the Talisman lighted up moments later, the magic coursing through Uncle's body, his breathing growing a little calmer.

"It's like he's aged a decade in a second," Viper pointed out.

"Uncle's take on Xiāo Lì…" the elder muttered as he stopped panting; "puts a lot of strain in the body. It's one thing for Uncle to use strength that isn't his..." he continued, tiredly. At least his hair was slowly regaining its spikiness. "But it's a veeeeery different one for Uncle to use magic that isn't his too…"

"Don't speak, Sensei;" Tohru told the elder. "You have earned some rest." He understood perfectly what his mentor meant with those words. Ikazuki's magic wasn't only a type of magic completely alien to Uncle's body, but it was also a very old type of demonic magic. The strain that channeling that magic through him must have put on his body, coupled with the strain that channeling the regular strength of the Oni's strikes must have already had… No wonder his Sensei found himself in such a poor state afterwards.

"U-Unsightly…" the trio of adults heard, and turning around they saw Ikazuki, surrounded by Gareth and the other twenty rebels, swords drawn and pointing at him, albeit they maintained some distance.

"How… unsightly…" Ikazuki, who had been able to at least rise his upper body and sit over the grass, managed to say as he felt a huge amount of warm blood pouring from his mouth. He managed to tilt his head in order to avoid choking on it. "I, mighty Ikazuki… defeated by an old man… If I had my true body… it'd be different…"

"But you don't," Jackie told the defeated Oni General. "You lost. And you swore on your honor that if you lost, you would surrender."

"Don't lecture me… about honor, mainlander;" Ikazuki chastised Jackie. He looked to his side, and moments later a puddle of darkness formed there and a Samurai Khan emerged from it. The black-armored shadow-warrior ignored the rebel blades pointing at it and approached Jackie, holding something on his hand. "Mighty Ikazuki… never goes back… on his word."

Jackie took what the Shadowkhan was offering him. A small, pinkish flower. It was a… "Japanese cherry blossom."

"The key ingredient!" Tohru said triumphantly.

"See?" Uncle said tiredly, ignoring his pupil's previous advice. "Uncle told you all that he could handle everything…"

Fifteen minutes later

As Tohru gave the final touches to the potion that needed to be used in order to remove Ikazuki's Mask from Aldarn's face; with Jackie and Viper providing as much assistance as they could; Uncle rested with his back against a tree, Gareth keeping watch over him. The rebels under his direct command were still surrounding Ikazuki, blades drawn and pointing at him, but the Oni hadn't attempted to move even once. Not that he wanted to.

"It's done," Tohru said, dripping the green contents of a vial into the cherry blossom. Next the mountain of a man concentrated, holding the power in one palm while holding the other as if he was praying. "Nukeru, He Men Ja'aku… Nukeru, He Men Ja'aku…" he chanted. The cherry blossom shone in green, and soon enough so did Tohru's hands. "Remember," he told Jackie. "As soon as I take the Mask, you must use the Horse Talisman on Aldarn. I understand that Sensei needed to defeat Ikazuki, but it's still Aldarn's body. And keeping in mind what happened to Hak Foo…"

"I know," Jackie said, holding the Talisman within his hand. "Let's finish this."

Ikazuki didn't even flinch when Viper, Tohru and Jackie reached him. The demon's green eyes were nailed on them as they approached, though. "Ah…" the Oni General sighed. "I was hoping it would be the wizard who gave the finishing blow…" Ikazuki laughed a bit as he realized that neither ex-thief, archeologist nor Chi Wizard apprentice wanted to exchange words with him. "Very well!" the Oni put every bit of energy he still had into his words. "I accept my loss!" Tohru grabbed the demon's visage, and the spell began to take effect. "But don't let it be said that… Kage no Ken Ikazuki is…" the Oni mastered to say as his Mask separated from Aldarn's cranium, returning to its motionless, lifeless form; "a warrior without honor…"

As the Mask came off his face, Aldarn's eyes snapped open and he breathed with the same intensity that a man that has spent too long underwater does. Seconds later, the young rebel fell on his back, and Jackie ran towards him. Holding the boy's head in his arms, Jackie used the Horse Talisman on him in not a very different manner than Uncle had done moments before, healing him.

"Jackie… Chan…?" the teenage half-breed asked weakly, eyes barely open.

"Yes," Jackie answered.

A little light shone in Aldarn's eyes. Jackie understood that the rebel boy had just realized that he was free of the hold that Ikazuki had taken over his body. "Tell… Caleb…" Aldarn whispered. "I am…"

But before he could finish the sentence, he lost consciousness. Jackie's lips curved into a sad smile. Taking the Horse Talisman back into his pocket, the archeologist carefully put the rebel on the ground, making sure to let him laying on one side so he couldn't choke on his own tongue.

"Will he be alright?" Jackie asked of Tohru next.

"The Horse Talisman can heal any physical injury or illness, as long as it doesn't kill you instantaneously;" Tohru told Jackie; "so he should be alright. His chi, on the other hand, will take a while to return to normal. How long… that I can't tell for sure."

Jackie gave a couple of nods, then checked the teenager's breathing and pulse. It was all normal. Maybe he just needed to rest? "We need to go back to the Infinite City," Jackie told Tohru. He then turned towards Viper. "Can you take care of Aldarn? I need to check how Uncle is doing."

"No problem, handsome;" the woman said, nodding a couple of times. "Besides, I bet that every one of these brave guys is dying to carry their buddy back to their base," she said mischievously, looking at the rebels around them as they sheathed their swords.

Tohru, meanwhile, was inspecting Ikazuki's Mask. The artifact still produced small shivers on him, but the willies weren't there anymore. "It's over..." he sighed, but then a metallic sound was heard across the clearing.

*Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap*

All eyes turned towards one of the clearing's ends. There, standing and clapping her hand (if in mockery or not wasn't clear) was a woman armored from head to toes in a strange black armor. Alongside her was a man garbed in a strange hooded robe, his face concealed by a yellow handkerchief. The disguised Mariko Takeda and Liam surveyed the area, taking notice of how the rebels were drawing their weapons out again, and how the earthlings took combat stances once again. All but the elderly Chi Wizard, still tired beyond belief. She then clapped a little more.

"Magnificent, simply magnificent;" the distorted voice of the young armored woman came. "Such determination, such skill… and to defeat an enemy such as an Oni General… You've earned your victory. But I'm afraid that… we'll need to take that Oni Mask with us."

The ruins of Cavigor Prison

At the same time

Back at the crumbled and dusty remnants of Cavigor, a huge pile of rocks began to move. Slowly, they began falling down and down, until five Guardians and one Shapeshifter emerged from it, coughing due to the abundance of dust around them.

"Please, tell me everyone's alright;" Will said as she rubbed her eyes.

"I think we're all fine," Irma said as she looked at the collapsed prison. "Holy crap."

"Yeah…" an equally impressed by the destruction Hay Lin said. "Is anyone else here besides us?"

"I don't think so. The guards must've escaped when they got the chance;" Cornelia said, looking around. "You think that Drago guy got out?" she asked in the hopes that the Son of Shendu may had been squashed under the debris.

"Trust me, if he's anything like his old man, he's still kicking. He probably got out when we were fighting and everything was falling apart," Jade told the blonde. "Hey Will, shouldn't we be going already? Will?" the Ben-Shui Chosen One asked of the Keeper of the Heart whom, alongside the Fire Guardian, had distanced from the group and were lifting some rocks. "What are you two doing?"

"I think I've heard someone groaning!" Taranee shouted as she lifted a rock.

"What?" Cornelia joined into the conversation. "Where? I think I can lift most of this," she added, gesturing to the debris.

"And I don't think messing with this place anymore is a good idea," Will said as she also lifted a piece of rock. "Besides, it's not like we're going to spend hours searching for… Jesus Christ!"

"What?!" Jade asked, rushing to her friend's side. When she did and she saw what the Keeper of the Heart had seen, she couldn't believe it. "Is that…?"

"Yes," Will answered bluntly. "Is he still alive?"

"I can hear him breathing," Jade said, her lips curling into a smirk.

"Cornelia, come here!" Will called for the Earth Guardian, smirking too. It appeared that the downfall of Cavigor had benefited them in the end. "And start making the strongest vines you can!"

Back at the clearing

Blasts of Raw and Chi Magic flew and collided across the clearing as Tohru fought the armored Mariko one on one. Liam, meanwhile, had to contend with both Jackie and Viper at the same time, with the occasional help of Gareth and his rebels. Not that they were being of much use, as each of their mysterious opponents would, from time to time, use the increased speed natural to anyone born in the Fast World in order to either injure or knockout some of them.

"This isn't necessary!" Mariko Takeda yelled at Tohru as she hit the ground with her black-iron staff, creating a rectangular barrier out of Raw Magic that blocked the blast of green Chi Magic that came out of the dried blowfish that Tohru was using as a wand. "If you could just give me that Mask…!"

"Why?!" Tohru yelled in return, holding Ikazuki's face-shaped prison tightly against his chest. "So you can use it as a weapon?!"

"I don't want to use it as a weapon!" Mariko shouted, dispelling her barrier and moving at super-speed in order to strike Tohru. Her staff practically bounced off the mountain of a man as he blocked as best as he could. What was this guy made off?! The blows were hurting him, but considering the speed she was moving at and how hard her armor was, he should be on his knees already. "I want to destroy it!"

"I find difficult to trust the words of a woman that doesn't share her name and hides her face under a helmet," the Chi Wizard apprentice retorted. "And I won't let you render Sensei's efforts meaningless!"

"Well, you're not the only one that wants to impress their mentor!" Mariko yelled as she pointed her staff at Tohru. "Fulminous venite!" she yelled, and a blast of concentrated energy was shot from the top of her staff at Tohru.

"Yu Mo Gui Gwai Fai Di Zao!" Tohru conjured in turn, creating a spherical barrier between him and the attack, but his foe's move began to pierce through it. I can't win against a Raw Magic user in a contest of pure power, Tohru thought as he began waving his dried blowfish in the air. But there's something I have wanted to try for a long time…

Mariko's attack ended destroying Tohru's barrier, although it lost most of its strength and speed in order to do so. That was enough to give Tohru a chance to dodge and cast another spell. And as Mariko tried to move at super-speed once more, she found herself unable to move at all.

"What in…?" she asked, taking a look at how some sections of her armor, especially in the joints, had been frozen. Before she could do something in order to dispel the enchantment, Tohru approached her and, having discarded the blowfish, pulled the sorceress apprentice into a bear hug.

"Chi Magic isn't the only weapon in my arsenal," Tohru said as he put more strength in the hold.

"You'll have to do… better than this..." the distorted voice struggled to come out this time.

"I'm sorry," Tohru apologized. "But that's exactly what I'm about to do."

"Wha-?" Mariko muttered as Tohru threw her a few meters in the air. As she fell, Tohru delivered the most devastating punch Mariko had ever felt directly at her face.

"Ouch," Tohru said, looking at how his knuckles had begun to bleed from hitting the iron helmet.

The armored woman flew a few meters, rolling over the ground. As she did so, her helmet came out of her head, and as she came to her feet once more, Tohru got a very good look at her face. While one of her eyes had become blackened due to the force of the impact, he recognized her.

"Mariko… Takeda?" Tohru asked in disbelief.

The young woman's eyes widened. She touched her face quite frantically, then looked around her until she found her fallen helmet. "Shit," she said between her teeth. "Liam! Retreat!"

The hooded man was distracted long enough for Jackie and Viper to deliver each a kick to his torso. Groaning, the man shot a couple of cards charged in magic at them and ran towards his fiance, taking her helmet in the process. Once they were side by side, Mariko slammed the bottom of her staff against the ground, and in a flash of white light, they were gone.

"You… knew her?" Viper asked Tohru.

"We saw her once, when we fought the Dark Hand in the subway tunnel. But, now that I have seen her face, she… She is my mother's doctor," he told her with clear worry.

"Is this madness over?!" Gareth asked then, to nobody in particular.

Jackie breathed deeply, looking around him. Uncle continued to rest against the tree. The rebels that had fallen looked injured, but they hadn't lost any lives. He glanced at Tohru, who still had Ikazuki's Mask, and both at the unconscious form of Aldarn and the resting Uncle, who had been left untouched by their attackers.

"I think so," the man said tiredly.

Hours later

When Tracker and Sniffer entered into the clearing after trailing Ikazuki, the place was empty. There was no Oni General, and without him no chance to end their thousand-year-long feud and for Tracker to properly hunt his prey.

Had Ikazuki lied to him? No, the blue Oni was many things, but not a liar. Had he made a mistake? No, his and Sniffer's senses were foolproof. Then what?

The undead looked at the area. Fallen trees, squashed grass. Signs of a battle. Had someone hunted down Ikazuki before he could? His fists clenched. Had someone stolen his prey?!

"Search," Tracker ordered Sniffer, and the hellish bloodhound did as told.

The monstrous dog trotted around the clearing, sniffing here and there. Then he halted, smelled a specific point, and barked.

Tracker approached his pet, kneeling and inspecting the spot. Traces of grey hair. More signs of battle, including the unmistakable mark left by a sword that pierces the ground. Sniffer sniffed the air, and Tracker did the same. Meridianites, of course; but also… earthlings. And there was something else, something that Tracker couldn't exactly name, but that reminded him of the scents that characterized Daolon Wong's old laboratory. Strange ingredients for… potions. Chi Magic. The Guardians. No… their allies. The undead didn't know for sure, but it didn't matter. They had taken a prey that was his! Again! Impudent! Thieves! They disrespected the Hunt! He should have let Uta butcher them all when he had had the chance.

With a hateful growl, Tracker made a sign to Sniffer and both of them disappeared into the shadows of the forest…

The Infinite City

By the time the girls made it back to the Infinite City, the sun had already set on Meridian. After walking through many of the eerie, green halls of the rebels' headquarters, they finally arrived at the Rebellion's Small Council's chamber; where they had agreed to meet with the other two parties after each had completed their mission.

In the moment Will Vandom and her friends set foot within they saw that the others had already got there. Jackie, Viper and Tohru where sitting around the table, alongside Vathek, Drake, Ludmoore and the 'Mage'.

"Are we the last ones to arrive?" the redhead asked.

"Indeed," the 'Mage' said in her usual whisper-like voice. "We have been eagerly awaiting for your comeback, considering you are the only ones left to report your success."

Will arched an eyebrow at that weird phrasing. "Then, does that mean…?"

"We did find Julian in the Underwater Mines," Drake explained as he served himself a glass of wines after offering it to Vathek, which the Galhot had declined. "Even more, we were able to free all prisoners there and many of them were willing to join our ranks."

"And Caleb?" Cornelia asked, concerned for her boyfriend's physical and emotional condition.

"With young lady Sephiria and her Faithful," Ludmoore explained in his usual cold and emotionless demeanor. "He was injured during our little trip into the Mines."

"The same with Sensei and Aldarn," Tohru broke into the conversation.

"Woah, woah, woah; wait a second there;" Jade told the mountain of a man. "Something happened to Uncle?"

"He is just tired, Jade;" Jackie told her first cousin once removed.

Jade sighed in relief. "Wait, if Aldarn's also here, then that means you totally kicked Ikazuki's Oni butt!"

With a little smile, Tohru searched within his clothes and pulled Ikazuki's Mask out from them, leaving it over the table. This one makes seven out of nine, the mountain of a man thought.

"Score!" Irma and Hay Lin cheered.

"What about you?" Jackie asked the girls.

"We… We did met with some setbacks, we'll tell you everything in detail later, but… Yes, we did it. We rescued the Browns," Will said after letting a tired sigh out. This had really been a long day. "We left them on Heatherfield through a Portal, in their home. We'll catch up with them later on."

"So we did it, didn't we?" Viper asked. "We won. All of us."

"Oh, not only that;" Jade said with a little grin.

"We've also brought a little extra-prize;" Taranee explained.

"Extra… prize?" the 'Mage' wondered.

Jade, Taranee and Cornelia exited the room, returning moments later, alongside another individual, dragging him in thick vines product of the Earth Guardian's powers. As all the gathered realized who the newcomer was, a collective gasp ran through the room. Even the otherwise stoic 'Mage' and Ludmoore looked a little bit surprised.

"C'mon, pretty man;" Jade said as she forced the prisoner to kneel. "Say hello."

"Ah… This is so…" Lord Cedric, braid undone and blond hair falling unceremoniously and messily over his shoulders, said; his eyes briefly crossing with Ludmoore and Drake's. "Embarrassing."

"Poetic would be a better word, my lord;" Vathek said mockingly with a grin from ear to ear, unable to hide how happy made him to see the Prince's right hand man in a position not very different from the one both Caleb and himself had found themselves almost a year ago.

Will couldn't avoid smiling too. Not only had they succeeded in all their missions, but the Rebellion had come out of it with more troops, and now Phobos had lost one of his greatest assets. For not speaking of all the information they could extract from Cedric and use against the Prince!

Viper had been completely right. They had won!

For a warrior, there is no greater pleasure than the feeling of victory! General Ikazuki

A/N: And it's done! Finally! You wouldn't believe how many problems this thing gave me, from erasing scenes to having to make new ones, to having to be very careful to solve all the opened threads left from the previous chapters in this one! But nevertheless, here we are. Drago is out of prison, and so are the Browns. Julian ha been rescued. Blunk is now a hero of the Passlings. Uncle pulled a shout-out to Kaku Kaioh (whom, for those who don't know, it's a character from the Baki the Grappler series, and a masterful user of the Xiao Li technique, which originates from that series too). Ikazuki is out of the picture. The Chans have learned of Mariko and Liam's involvement with Nimue. And, of course, now Cedric is a prisoner of the rebels! And also, do I hear five?! Yeah, those are five Knights of Vengeance foreshadows in this chapter!

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter. As said before, apologies for not updating any sooner. I hope y'all started the new decade with strong spirits. We'll see each other next time, which I hope is soon.

Bye, bye!