/Three chapters in one day… That's got to be a record, surely! The whole Jinjo linking thing and People of Logic, People of Shadow etc. business is mine. MINE! MY intellectual property, so get off it, you dirty no-good plagiarist!;) The Jinjos, Banjo, Kazooie, Jingaling, Banjo's house, Spiral mountain and all charted areas and peoples of the Isle 'o Hags are Rare's (formerly Rareware's) property. The whole rotting mountain thing is my twisted mind at work…/

Spiral Mountain Unhexed

The journey down to Banjo's house was hellish. The ground was rotting beneath their feet, making it difficult to find a firm footing. One side of Spiral Mountain collapsed in a torrent of rancid earth. The flight pad on top of the mountain landed in the mess and shattered.

"There goes our flyby", muttered Kazooie, shielding her beak against the stench with a wing.

"Perhaps we could sneak past those Gruntlings down there?"

A mass of Gruntlings seethed like maggots between them and the house. "RRAAGGHH!", roared a Gruntling. They'd been spotted!

"Perhaps not", she finished lamely.

"RRAAGGHH!" "RRAAGGHH!" "RRAAGGHH!"

In seconds the party had been surrounded by a tide of Gruntlings.

"I – don't – remember – there – being – so – many – Gruntlings – here!", squawked Kazooie between spitting out Grenade Eggs.

"There weren't!", replied Banjo, rolling into the foes to spare the Jinjos he carried from his Pack Whack.

"These are no ordinary Gruntlings!", he added.

Indeed they were not. They were twice as big as they should have been, and each took four times the normal effort to kill. The battle was furious, with King Jingaling shooting threads of darkness from his shield, and the Jinjos with him throwing energy balls of their respective colours in all directions. The party slowly made its way towards Banjo's old home, cutting a swathe through the Gruntlings. Jingaling upped the stakes with large balls of darkness that sucked the Gruntlings out of existence on contact. One of them managed to get close enough to Banjo to try and pull his backpack off; he frantically tried to claw swipe behind himself as he was dragged into the mass.

"I'VE GOT YOU, BANJO!", screeched Kazooie, pecking furiously.

The Gruntling ended up with a sharp beak driven through its skull. Without sparing breath to complain about the foul taste, Kazooie took to the air. (Jingaling had spawned a Flight Pad for the purpose a moment before). From the air, the battle seemed more manageable. Furiously spitting Grenade Eggs into the Gruntling mass, Kazooie cut swathe after swathe through the Gruntlings with her Beak Bomb attack.

The party could have wiped out the Gruntlings, except for one small thing: they reappeared in those gathering white lights that Grunty used so extensively before her defeat. Every enemy had a spell attached to it, to allow it to respawn. The time and expense behind that spell really did not bear thinking about; Grunty had wanted Banjo and Kazooie dead, all right. The party had defeated five times the Gruntlings' number by the time they reached Banjo's old home. It had a feeling of wrongness about it, even more than the rest of the decaying place.

King Jingaling extended the barrier around them to form a wide area, leaving the topmost part of the Shadow dome unguarded. The Gruntlings howled in animal fury, battering at the barrier. They had made it to the house, the source of this corruption. Banjo quickly let the Jinjos out of his backpack.

Kazooie dived for the opening to fortify their defences with her Proximity Eggs, and nearly fell out of the air with shock. The horizon was black with Gruntydactyls, and they were racing for the opening. If they caught her they would tear her to shreds. Well, she'd won races with longer odds for smaller stakes before. She tried not to remember how many times it had taken her to beat Canary Mary in Cloud Cuckooland.

King Jingaling had spotted them too. Like everyone beneath the barrier, he silently urged Kazooie to make it before the Gruntydactyls did. He'd cut her off if he had to, to save his people.

Kazooie Beak Bombed straight for the opening, smashing through the only Gruntydactyl that could match her speed. Jingaling closed the opening at once. Kazooie immediately got to work with her Proximity Eggs, enclosing them in a circular minefield.

"No-one is to approach the edge of the barrier", cried Kazooie, "those eggs are armed!"

"My shield can withstand this assault indefinitely. We must cleanse this place; a return journey through this madness could well be lethal. Assume positions for the Full Circle", instructed Jingaling.

The Jinjo families took their places, forming circles which in turn formed one larger circle around their king.

"Greys! People of Logic, give me your power!"

The Grey Jinjos shone grey. A thread of grey energy connected them to Jingaling.

"Blacks! People of Shadow, give me your power!"

The Black Jinjos shone with a dark light. A thread of blackness connected them to their king.

And so he cycled on through all the Jinjo families, finishing with the White Jinjo.

"White Jinjo… Great Sage of Order. Give me your power!"

The last Jinjo shone a brilliant white, connecting a beam of light to rival the Pool (as people had taken to calling it) to his King.

"You honour me with your power!", cried the King, drawing on it and adding his own to the link. A multi-hued aura shone from him.

"Let evil be gone!"

A beam of multi-hued magic hit Banjo's old home, one made of many, eleven shades of Shadow – the King's own energy shone gold. Outside the protective dome, the army thinned out. The Gruntlings and Gruntydactyls lost their unnatural size, and their numbers reduced. A flood of green rushed over the barren ground; the grass was growing again! When it hit the ruined form of Spiral Mountain, the landslide slid up, and the Flight Pad was restored. Within moments the mountain was better than new, and the foes gone, yet still the beam shone forth; a canker of darkness still made its home where Banjo and Kazooie once lived. It fought the Jinjos' power, a losing battle. Within moments it was scoured away. Jingaling let the beam wink out.

Kazooie let out one shrill note. The entire minefield exploded at once, leaving a circle of scorched earth. The remnants of the Jinjos' power still did its work; almost instantly it was as though that earth had been covered with grass for years.

Banjo's house stood before them, shining a brilliant blue. A tear leaked out of Kazooie's eye; this moment, after the ravening hordes, was almost unreal.

Bearing this in mind, perhaps in is understandable that her and Banjo's first thought was to give Jingaling a crushing hug.

/Ah… Cuddles! Well folks, what did you think? Bet you didn't know Jinjos could do THAT now, did ya? Next chapter will see an old character in need of rescue from the last place anyone would ever look… a place of my own creation! I'll leave you guessing who! So, what are your thoughts? Epic Battle too Epic or too tame? Read and review!

P.S, Roysten's little eye problem was sorted out when the wave of power caught him. He's also a fitter, younger looking goldfish now! No more scale rot for that little fella, not with Jingaling ruling the Isle 'o Hags… Read and review! Go on, I dare ya./