Chapter 3: Unveiling Evil

Jann Lee stood still on the gray ground as the pale moonlight beamed upon his hard posterior. He took one foot off the cracked pavement and used the other to follow as he walked toward the rocky pile of refuse, through the extensive yellow colored caution strips, where a few of the buildings, destroyed by the fire, once stood. Beneath his static feet, he noticed a pair of rags swaying about under the front tip of his red tennis shoe. It was a torn garment, filthily stained, and covered with dry blood and rubble.

"Someone died here."

Marveled by this, the passionate martial artist continued to scan through the debris, reaching and grasping to see if he could find more. He tugged out shirts, kitchen appliances, and half burned furniture that had once been whole. But as his search went on, a slight noise brought him out of his assumed position, the noise of something dragging along the concrete. Speedily, Jann Lee's eyes scouted around the area in search of where the sound had came from and saw nothing but the cool, calm darkness surrounding him.

He pursued it once it had occurred again a second time, leading him to walk into the mute city street. The dragging soon got louder and louder and Jann Lee found himself searching his surroundings again, but still coming up short without any fortunate results. He then turned his back in the opposite direction, stepped backward cautiously, and, at last, had found the source. Before him, he witnessed a pudgy shadow like figure approaching from the mouth of an alleyway.

The dragging was now even louder as it closed it on the youth fighter. With the figure stepping into the glaring streetlight to where Jann Lee could see, he thought that he would perhaps come face to face with another person, but it was not exactly what he had perceived. It was a creature of some sort, a creature of some nature Jann Lee had never seen, a creature looking of vast cruelty and despair.

The large plumpness of his chubby stomach wobbled with every moving footstep he had taken with the loud thump of his tall, Japanese oriented sandals smashing into the pavement. Large feathery bird like wings sprouted out from behind his back as he stroked the whiteness of his shaggy beard. But the most noticeable thing to gawk at was a lengthy nose poking out from his face. Burning brightly like a sunbeam, the fiery color within his barbarous eyes had lit up the very moment he took notice of Jann Lee, as he clinched a weakened Beijing citizen between his fingers by the end of the man's collar. The man whimpered frailly, slowly moving to get free, urging Jann Lee to help him as he uttered his plea in Chinese.

"You there! Please…help me. This… monster… won't let me go!"

Jann Lee grunted and shot the creature a warning glare.

"You had better turn him loose," he thought.

The creature just gazed and smiled maliciously at Jann Lee as he kept his grip, choosing to do otherwise. Then, a few seconds later, he loosened his hold over the pleading man and allowed him to fall to the ground, unharmed. The scared man crawled toward Jann Lee like a baby, thanking him with high praise.

"Thank you. I am forever in your dept. Please, tell more your name, great stranger. My family and I shall honor you for the rest of our lives."

Suddenly, Jann Lee's face broke into high alarm as he saw the bird winged creature snicker gleefully with an elevated foot up, only to send it crashing straight into the crawling man's spine. A painful cry exhaled from his lungs as he fell to a laid position. With a sudden loud stomp, it was over, the man's head crushed under the foot of the bubble-bellied monster. Jann Lee now experienced the sadness of seeing a life taken away right in front of him. However, unlike Lei Fang or Hitomi, he did not whimper, shed tears, or show any type of emotion, except the searing flames of a burning anger, the anger of immediate retaliation against the heartless beast for this act. Jann Lee had then snapped. Oscillating his hands, legs, and feet, the spiky haired male jumped his body into the air and whipped a soaring kick into the creature's unguarded belly. He flew backward into a wall, but not before knocking over a towering telephone pole with the bulk of his weight and smashing a mailbox. Electrical sparks shot out from the lined cables as Jann Lee moved in to check the damage. Abruptly, a voice called to him.

"Not bad, human. Not bad at all. It is very rare that a human knocks me off my feet. But that will be the last time you ever get a good clean hit. Prepare to suffer the wrath of Tengu!"

The Tengu monster floated back to his feet with the aid of his wings. Once he had risen back into a stance, he suddenly came soaring toward Jann Lee and immediately butted his thick head into the young man's stomach, sending him backward. Jann Lee's back slammed into the denseness of a brick wall, and as his body slid down, he could feel the hard baked martial scrapping against his back, inflicting painful burns and opening new wounds that almost made him scream out a tearful cry. But, without much effort, Jann Lee turned his screams into grunts, ignoring the scarred bruises made and redirecting his vision to the Tengu monster. When he began to rise and move again, a slight pain had hit the inside of his left shoulder. Apparently, as he had hit the wall, he must have knocked it against the bricks as well. Now he knew to take this fight very seriously, though he had already from the beginning. Although Tengu was large and overweight, his attacks were deadly, bringing Jann Lee's awareness level to a sudden high point.

"Ah, I can see you're stronger, stronger than those other fools. But I advise you to run, human, run in fear like those people I had the pleasure of killing myself."

Jann Lee raised a brow in suspicion.

"Yeah, it was me," admitted Tengu. "All you see before you is my handy work. You should have seen how many deaths I caused under a minute just by destroying one building. It was a moment to remember, the screams of children, the loss of lives, and the smell of humans cooking in a roasting fire. Oh was it satisfying."

Jann Lee had speculated it before, but he knew now, knew that the burned buildings and spilled bloodshed was all done by the loathsome creature he had been battling. Grinding his teeth together as he balled a fist, he dashed forward to attack the beast.

"Now you're just being stupid. You humans lack brain cells," Tengu said, as he flew up into the sky, sprouting his wings into place for another flying head butt.

Speedily, Tengu threw himself toward Jann Lee as if he were a missile fired right from the barrel of a rocket launcher. Jann Lee, anticipating this attack, shot up a fist that landed a direct hit in the creature's face, and temporally blinded his right eye. Tengu was upset as he flapped his wings, taking off and heading north from Beijing. But the fight was not yet over to Jann Lee.

"Come back, you coward, and fight!" he barked loudly, as he pursued the monster below on the ground.

Meanwhile...

A mournful Lei Fang sat on the hardwood floor of her home as she battled to fight the tears away that wished to shed the salty liquids of moisture from her grieving eyes. Up against the wall, she sat still, her knees bunched together, moving restlessly into her chest as she wrapped her easing arms around them. Installed within the vastness of her mind were the images of unbearable terror, the people, her people, screaming, dying, fighting to stay alive during the frightening events of that fire brought upon Beijing. Innocence was what those people were to her, nothing but innocence. She had prayed for those people, wishing she could have done something more. Her soul feeling unclean with a filthy onus, she felt she had saved all she could, but it was not enough. "Never have I seen such pain in my life. I will probably remember this day forever. Those people... their gone. If only something could have been done to prevent this from ever happening. I wish I could turn rewind back time to save them all. Why? Why did they die? I cannot help but feel I could have done more than I did."

Erasing the thoughts for a moment, a fistful knock came to the door, rising Lei Fang to her feet to answer it. The door was slid open and Hitomi appeared behind it in black jeans, a tank top, elbow pads, and finger gloves, carrying by its short handle a brown suitcase.

"Hey," she greeted. "You alright?"

Lei Fang gave a false nod and waved for the girl to step inside, away from the foggy darkness. Gently, Hitomi placed her suitcase on the floor, took her shoes off, and put a hand on the shoulder of her depressed rival, bringing her head to a turn.

"My father should be fine. They said they'll keep him for a while. I wanted to know if I could stay over here with you until he gets better."

Lei Fang tilted her head unsurely.

"I got classes in the morning," came a weak but shaky voice.

"She must be taking this hard. Maybe it was not wise to come here and bother her," Hitomi thought.

"But that's ok. You can stay if you would like. I'm sure I can work something out by morning."

"Are you sure? I got this feeling that I'm disturbing you. I understand your not feeling well after….well….you know."

Noticeably, Lei Fang smiled and patted Hitomi's arm.

"Disturbing me? You? Nah. Your right, I'm not too cheery at the moment, but I won't let it ruin my life. I just feel that I could have done something more, you know?"

"Don't feel bad, Lei. We did the best we could. If it weren't for you, more people would have suffered. My father said we should both be proud of ourselves for our heroic efforts. I strongly believe those people know that deep down inside, you gave it everything you had and then some."

"Your right. I should not feel this way, but I do. I guess I just expect more from myself. Anyway, you are in luck. We got a room just for you."

Lei Fang took hold of Hitomi's wrist, navigating her through the Courtyard house and into her room.

"You'll sleep here, on this kang."

"Kang?" Hitomi said, with confusion.

"Yes, kang. It's a raised platform. A bed, if you will. During the cold wintered seasons, the kang would provide a heated area that is warmed by hot air vents connected to stoves nearby. You won't get that much now that its summer. So what do you think?"

Hitomi shrugged. "I don't know. I have to try it out. I'm sure it's comfortable."

"You won't know until you try it, silly."

"Your right. Hey, where's your bathroom?"

"Down there," Lei Fang said, pointing to her farthest right.

Hitomi went back to her suitcase situated on the hardwood floor and took out a toothbrush, a long spiky comb, and a wrinkled, flat tube of toothpaste before going into the bathroom. Eyeing herself in the spotless mirror, she combed out all the rough spots in her lengthy brown hair and brushed away the prominent tarter that had built up on her teeth. The bathroom she used was different compared to the one her house had back in Germany. Even the toilet had a different design to it. When she came out, she looked for Lei Fang, who had already fallen into a snoring sleep at the kitchen table.

"Wow. She must have been tired."

Refraining from disrupting the sleepy student's slumber, Hitomi grabbed her suitcase and put it in her assigned room. But as she came close to removing the clothes she had donned, a loud pounding noise hitting the roof startled her.

"What on earth was that?"

Shrugging, she reached to pull off her shirt. The noise then came again, this time much louder. Hitomi, annoyed and now curious, put her shoes back on and brought a flashlight with her, stepping outside into the night.

"I can't believe Lei Fang did not hear that," she grumbled to herself, brightening the area with her light. "She may be able to stand loud noises at night while sleeping, but I can't."

She beamed the light to the pointed rooftop, but she did not find anything. She started to think that it was a harmless cat prowling around the place, hungry and probably in search of food, just like in Germany. It did not seem right though, for that noise made sounded like something a little larger than a regular housecat. She made a turn to go back inside, but something dropped from the air and fell in front of her, obstructing her path. Hitomi peddled her feet backward as she shined the light forward, discovering an inhuman stranger.

"What the?"

"Wonderful, another human to torture," said the stranger.

"Who….what are you?"

"I am Tengu. Now, prepare yourself…for ultimate punishment!"

Tengu flapped his wings and hurled himself toward Hitomi, his skull crashing into her sternum and knocking her to the cold stony ground. Back inside the Courtyard house, Lei Fang had suddenly awoke after hearing a few loud noises, moving back a few strands of warm hair from her eyes.

"What's going on? What's Hitomi up to?" she asked herself, yawning with a stretch.

Putting her red heels back on her feet, Lei Fang slid open the door and saw Hitomi battling the Tengu creature.

"What kind of animal…what is that thing?"

"Lei Fang! I could use some assistance over here!" Hitomi yelled.

"Coming right up," she replied, moving close to the half German.

"Ah, so it shall be two humans who are to die tonight!" bellowed Tengu.

"Hitomi, who is this guy?"

"His name is Tengu and he started attacking me," she answered.

"A Tengu? You mean they exist?"

"Exist? I don't know….whoa!"

Tengu zipped toward them with quick speed and shoved Hitomi down a hill, leading to a flowing river.

"Hitomi!" Lei Fang screamed, though she knew the girl was fine.

"Your about to join her," snarled Tengu, as he booted the college student off the edge with the bottom of his foot.

Hitomi rose along with Lei Fang after a quick recovery, looking to team together to attack Tengu the moment he fluttered his wings and descended downward. Yet, their plan backfired as he glided down with great speed, butting them into the pushy current of the river. Underneath the deepness of the water, Lei Fang and Hitomi struggled to swim up for air, but Tengu jumped into the river himself and plunged their heads back down in an attempt to drown them both. He bobbed Lei Fang's face into the water and choked her immensely with one hand as he used the other to do the same for Hitomi. Up ahead, he could see the river leading into a waterfall.

"Have a nice fall, you two," he snickered, spreading his wings and taking flight into the sky.

In the air, he witnessed the two girls bodies falling, possibly crashing on the jagged rocks below.

"Excellent. That should take care of those two. Now, on to other matters. Ha, ha, ha!"