Disclaimer: I do not own Jackie Chan Adventures.
Betaed: by Zim'sMostLoyalServant
Age of War(Part 1)
The Avenger
Corias strode through the massacre, the sounds of despair different, as they usually were. But he had been killing this world for some time now. It had already gotten old; again.
This was no camp or refuge they were tearing apart, he and his fellow slaves. They had been fleeing, these Neukhan. Trying to escape to the edges of the Desolation, to the meager defenses holding the master's forces back so far. Once he would have called it a mercy to spare them the false hope of reaching that fleeting safety, that making their deaths quick here spared them the agony of living through the death of a world the master had fixed his eyes upon. For even worlds that had driven the master off, he would return to later, stronger than ever. He never forgave any slight.
After all, that was why they were here. A grudge that was older than many worlds had brought them to this barren universe and this sole inhabited world. To make it scream and beg for death before it finally died.
No, it was not a mercy to kill them now and be done with it. He served the master, and the master had no mercy. Mercy implied compassion, however twisted. And to call it mercy excused his actions. And Corias had long accepted his actions were inexcusable, he thought as he impaled a fleeing father and child in one blow of his fist.
No excuses. He could have disobeyed and suffered and died, but he had served instead. Horrible choices were still choices.
He noted a single child, a boy, fleeing. He had gotten far, but not far enough. With a gesture, he waved his warriors off. On a whim, he decided to end this himself.
With steps that most eyes could not track, and speed that had once heralded an approach of justice and rescue, he closed the distance. The raised hand would shatter the skull. He wondered how many steps the body would take before falling?
The child vanished from his sight as a blue fist filled his vision.
The blow was more surprise than pain. Corias actually felt embarrassed at being struck.
He let himself fall onto his back, and looked up at the sky as his fellow slaves rushed into battle.
"Child, stay behind me," the newcomer ordered.
Corias sighed and scratched at his mustache. He knew that tone.
A hero.
He wondered what his story was. He knew who it was, one of the local godlings who had been causing trouble. Still futilely resisting. Saving lives as if they mattered.
Sitting up and crossing his legs, Corias watched his weaker peers get blasted away by a finger pistol of all things, as the muscular shirtless figure let loose a barrage with both his hands. Gun style with a physique like that was surprising. He was not just playing to his strengths. Memories tugged at Corias' mind of long gone friends in a world long dead by his failures.
"You are outmatched. Let me take the child and go," the doomed hero said to him.
Corias watched him through lidded eyes. He could say he had heard it before. That he had seen this before. That he had once been a monster who was redeemed to be a hero. A man who even at his worse would have sooner died than been a part of anything a tenth as bad as the master's deeds.
But his past didn't matter. Any more than this hero's defiance did.
"You are resisting the inevitable," Corias said, getting to his feet.
This time he went fast. Fast for him. He was not numb just now, he noted as he buzzed around the man, easily evading the twin trails of magic blasts. Strong stuff — one hit would end him, but it would not hit him. But that wasn't why he was feeing something after all this time.
His fellows had grown complacent to let this brute slow the death of this world so much. There would be no reward for ending this. But there was no point not doing it.
Once he would have felt relief at sparing this man his own fate by killing him now. But all he could feel was irritated at being reminded of what he once was potentially. So he would make this godling suffer just a bit for almost making him feel regret that had no point.
"My mother is the only thing inevitable in this universe," the champion declared, closing his hands into fists.
Corias rolled his eyes and went in for the kill, drawing his dagger.
"Spirit SHOTGUN!"
The balls of death shot out in a sphere of destruction. Too fast to outpace, too tightly packed to dodge.
Corias did not feel relief as the attack shredded him and disintegrated each piece of him. Not even relief that his life was ending. Only surprise at such a weird name for what finally killed him.
X X X
The Veil, the frontline of superb shadow magic that bordered the Desolation. It never failed to depress Shen.
It should not, he knew. It was the work of his sisters, holding the line against the Outsiders and the blight on the land from the Tower. For these long years it had been the very image of hope for those Neukhan struggling to reach it and pass beyond the enemy's reach.
But he could only see it for what it was. A wall barely withstanding the constant assault, a concession of everything on this side of the divide to the nightmares upon them. It conceded part of Hong Sisco, the world they had crafted with such dedication, to these vile invaders.
He stood by as the refugees rushed and vanished, rippling into the embrace of the Veil. He looked at it and, placing a hand on its smokey oily surface, felt the fatigue of his sisters, their growing desperation.
He withdrew his hand as the shape of Lin's face emerged and Hebi's veiled visage formed beside it.
"Those were the last, Shen."
"No…" he cursed, eyes closing and fist clenching. The enemy had been hunting mortals more, as if driven more than ever to end their sadistic games and simply kill every last innocent in the Desolation. The lives he had saved these years and the villains slain, they were a balance far too light to what had been lost.
And there was no question what would come now, now that they were denied sport.
"Brother, enough. Aid us, come to us," Hebi begged. Lin was silent for once, watching him, already looking disappointed. She knew him well.
"No, I can only give you more power, sisters. It may buy us time, but they will come. The enemy has not truly stirred from his tower. Can't you feel it? As if the air itself were stirring with breaths gone from sleep to waking? Drago will not be stopped by a wall. He ruined so much of our world in mere minutes before you raised the Veil. Give him an hour and…"
"What can you hope to do? There has been no word from Jack. He may be a captive now, for all we know," Hebi pleaded.
"I will take the fight to him. I killed Corias the Crimson and took his Key. The six Generals of Decimation are dead, and with their keys I can force open the Dragon's Gate. If Mother awakens, we win. But for the victory to have meaning, she must awaken to a world where hope has not been snuffed out. Only by pushing back can we achieve that."
"You'll die," the sisters spoke in unison for once.
"I am the Warrior of Shadows. To die for the promise of this universe… I'd rather live, truth be told," he admitted, "But, this is it. I'll do what I must."
X X X
The Tower. It needed no other title.
The land was not sick around it; it felt more like it was dead. Pale land veined with the thin corpses of horrors that lived and died unseen in the soil and the stone. And at the center, a towering mass of red, gold, and green.
It was not a proper structure, to his eyes. It should not stand, be it by laws of nature or the laws of magic. An interconnecting mesh of cutting edges, empty eyes, passageways, staircases, galleries peeking through gashes that seemed to move or even breath. The Tower... it was said just looking on it too long would drive someone to madness or death. And there was only one way to enter. All other paths led back to where you started, entry only existed through the gate fashioned in the image of the enemy's father, complete with six keyholes.
With a single throw, he inserted the keys and bid them turn. The eyes of the gate glowed red, and death erupted from its mouth.
He caught that death in a backhanded strike and turned with it, adding his own power to the energy.
"Backlash WAVE!" he roared, unleashing the power upon the gate.
BOOM
"Don't mind me, I'll just let myself in," Shen said to the shambling ruins of beings rushing to met him as he crossed the threshold.
"So you're the one who defeated the Generals of Decimation? Ha! A mere muscle head!" A harlequin on stilt-like legs cackled, kneeling down to reveal a face split by a mouth full of rapidly-shifting needle teeth.
A seemingly female creature flexed ten arms and opened a mouth in her stomach while cackling.
A robed figure bearing a black staff with a glowing green pearl atop it, that came up only to Shen's waist, snapped his fingers, making ten duplicates spring into being beside him.
Finally, a being constructed of a bizarre assortment of bones erupted from the floor to loom over Shen as the others flanked it.
"We are grateful for your defiance, fool!" the bone thing said as Shen looked it up and down, "We are the four Guardians of the Tower! We stand above the Generals, held in reserve because any one of us would end this world so quickly the master would not be able to savor the sport of it dying."
"But having come this far, we not only have permission to kill you but pass through the gate ourselves and sup upon the agony of this world," the robed figure intoned.
"It might be polite to kill you quick in thanks. But we do not let any prey escape us! As good sport though, you may choose which of us will kill you!" the harlequin cackled.
"Shall we not tell him our names?" the female creature hissed.
"There's no need," Shen interrupted, rolling his broad shoulders, "You will die before it matters for me to know who you are. And you do not deserve to be remembered, even as nightmares."
They laughed as one, and the demonic harlequin sprang past his peers, his hands changing into bushels of blades.
18 (Namekian) Minutes Later:
The self-proclaimed champion of his world was growing irritated with these stairs. He was certain the last of those guardians had not lied before he made sure it was dead for certain this time. But the route was as circuitous as the Tower's design would imply. He was going up, but it was taking its sweet time!
Reflecting on his adventures since this nightmare began, he thought on the sagas of old. As a child, it often seemed odd to him how great warriors would yearn for peace. But now he understood. Wars may be the truest proving ground for the martial skills he had cultivated, but their noblest purpose was to use your might to end the times when such force was what was shaping the world.
In his mother's absence, he would cast what he possessed against this plague of senseless conflict.
And now he was at the end of the stairs? He wondered if that was what it felt like to have a flashback and epiphany like the sagas depicted? It was more visually impressive from the outside, but it was a sure sign this was the climactic battle at hand. Well, for him at least, he thought.
He could only trust that Jack would succeed. His brother was annoying in so many ways, but he had an absurd and wonderful talent, Shen had come to realize; like a true hero, he managed to succeed when he should fail by all rights and reason.
But back to the matter at hand. Shen steeled himself.
Shen disliked the top of the staircase, with it opening to the floor of the room above. It seemed tailor-made for an ambush-decapitation. So he took a few steps back and burst up through the floor instead.
Dusting the bits of rubble from his shoulders, he surveyed the room, which lacked walls, opening to the world with pillars fashioned after many races, unmistakably in agony from the load they desperately held aloft. He was a bit surprised when extending his senses found it was merely carved stone and not poor souls frozen in torment.
It was almost empty, nothing but polished green stone veined with gold, with a podium rising in the center to reach halfway to the vaulted ceiling. It managed to be sickly in appearance; this whole place felt like a disease, that if he was any less than what he was, simply breathing the air and standing upon this cursed ground would afflict him like the poison of mankind's legendary nuclear weapons.
It was stronger here. Much more.
"Show yourself! I have slain your Generals, taken your keys, conquered your gates, and laid waste to your Guardians. Invader! Corrupter! Torturer! Destroyer! Are you a coward as well to hide?!"
"No," the answer came from all around. The podium split along a fine seam of bleeding red. And tore away with a sound like stone might scream.
And there he was, seated upon a writhing throne of agony. Drago, bearing the essences of his kin, distorted and overflowing in power. Though he resembled the murals, he was significantly bigger, Shen noted as the tyrant rose from his throne.
"I am impressed, son of Jade. Few have cost me so much, the Guardians in particular; you made them look like chumps. It is amusing."
"You truly care nothing for those who serve you."
"Of course not. Caring for others is the most foolish thing there is. Nothing matters except yourself and the pursuit of your desires and pleasures. All else, is just foolish sentiment."
"Bah. I have no time to waste on a vile creature's ramblings. I am here to kill you, like those who stood in my path."
"Heh, you overestimate yourself, boy. You are strong, but my strength has ground worlds to dust and made gods weep with agony as I cast them from their worlds to destroy all they made and sought to rule or protect. Evil, good, undefinable, they fell to me. I am the Wandering Calamity. When I come to a world, its fate is sealed. All will be destroyed or serve me. That is who I am, the Worldbane, whose coming makes existence weep. You are merely another hero stepping forward to fall. But I will offer you this. Serve me and you may live; I will even spare enough of these mortals to make an army to serve under you. Not because you impress me, but simply because to see her creations turned to my service will hurt Jade even more than awakening to find them dead and gone."
"Solar Flare!" Shen cried out as he ignited the burning light of the three-eyed ancients.
"Cheap!" Drago growled, closing all his eyes.
"Shadow Sword!" Shen said, forming the blade in his hands. Leaping forward, he positioned himself to skewer Drago's head with the blade.
"Pathetic," Drago said, catching the blade with one hand, stopping Shen with absurd ease in the air.
"You're a fish struggling on the fisherman's deck, boy. However strong you think you are-" Drago was cut off as the sword extended in a second, stabbing him through the head and clear out the other side.
"Shadow Sword Extend," Shen growled.
"Not enough!" Drago said, smacking Shen away and grabbing the thin-to-him blade.
"Shadow Sword, Night's Sakura Festival."
A high hissing noise came from the construct as Drago tried to pull it out.
"Cherry blossoms? What are you even-" Drago grumbled. The blade exploded, and Drago went to one knee, a fist-sized hole in his head.
"Can't you just say 'self-destruct'?!" Drago demanded.
"It's not done," Shen said, as the shards of the sword ceased falling in the air, flattening and dividing. Drago glanced around at the air, thick with black petals of sharp gleaming shadow.
"Shred and tear!" Shen commanded, clenching an outthrust fist.
Drago cried out in fury, getting to his feet as the swarm descended on him.
"Behold my mastery of gravity!" Drago declared, clapping his hands together and making the mass of projectiles slam into the floor, imbedding themselves around his bleeding form, "Now see my wounds close, all your best efforts and it only-"
The aura in his hands vanished as Shen kicked them together again. Drago's eyes widened before gravity slammed him down on the field of razor sharp petals.
"As I thought, you command those powers, but even now they are not truly yours. Hence your hesitation to use them properly. A thief and a usurper, a pale shadow of the dark royalty you usurped."
"Don't get cocky. I killed all those losers, starting with my dad. I devoured them. I am not the greatest Demon Sorcerer, I am THE Demon Sorcerer," Drago said, getting up.
"If you heal, then I will just have to kill you quicker than you can come back."
"Oh, like you're the first to decide that-UGH!" Shen cut him off, striking in a blur, precise fingers strikes riddling Drago's hide, making the demon actually step back.
"Hokuto no Ken. ATATATATATATA!" As the battle cry ended, Drago rallied, slapping Shen aside.
"…Ha, that didn't even pierce my hide. What was that, even?" Drago asked as Shen got to his feet and wiped blood from his mouth.
"Something I had to save until I was able to see your body inside and outside with my shadows. You have three seconds."
"Three seconds to wha-"
Drago's head exploded. Followed by his arms, hands, torso, legs, feet, tail and wings, the various chunks then going off one after another like meaty firecrackers, fading into a sound or faint crackling across the gory mess.
"…I feel a sense of unease," Shen remarked, assuming a stance, facing the quietly still exploding goop.
The tower groaned around him. Not as if under strain, an actual irritated groan.
"That's not good," Shen muttered, looking around.
"WELL, SO YOU DON'T SOLELY SPEAK CLICHE. GOOOOD," a voice thundered around him, making him flinch as the stones cracked under the sound.
"NORMALLY, WHEN SOMEONE MAKES IT THIS FAR, WHEN THEY ACTUALLY DEFEAT MY MEAT PUPPET, I HAVE A LITTLE SPEECH TO HAMMER IN MY STATUS AS THE PERSONIFICATION OF DESPAIR. BUT, YOU HAVE ACTUALLY ANGERED ME WITH CUTTING OFF ALL MY GOOD LINES. SO JUST DIE!" the voice practically blasted him into the ground. Practically, not literally, which was why Shen was already moving when a segment of the ceiling slammed down on where he had just been standing. He didn't stop to take in the room cracking apart with pulsing muscles and steaming veins surging forth.
No thought for the stairs; there was a better exit, and everything in him said it was time to leave. So he leapt. The wards against magic and presumably technology buzzed over his body, one reason he had not considered approaching the tower save for the gate. But it seemed nothing stopped him from simply leaping about three leagues away from the tower.
And Jack felt he took physical training too seriously, Shen thought in a moment of odd levity as he stuck a three-point landing that managed to not even crack the ground. He turned to look back at the rumbling behind him.
The tower… twisted. No, it turned inside out? It was swirling? Shen's eyes narrowed as he failed to grasp just what he was seeing. Then he turned and ran, not fleeing but retreating as the ground started to crack and crumble into waves of dust. Finally leaping clear of the crumbling to a ridge of stone, Shen turned and looked back as waves of dust thick with malice broke against his perch.
He could see now, and could not stop a step back as a vile dragon seemed to fill the sky above him, twisting onto itself, a nightmare of mouths and vestigial limbs, only the head being anything close to proper order in a creature.
Then he grit his teeth in fury, feet shifting, almost clutching the ground beneath him at the thought. The thought that the beautiful world they had made had been penetrated for an instant much less all this time by this abomination.
His scowl deepened when the living obscenity decided to speak to him.
"WHAT'S THAT, LITTLE THING? RAGE RATHER THAN TERROR!? HA! YOU ARE CLEARLY TOO GREAT A FOOL TO UNDERSTAND WHEN YOU SHOULD BE BROKEN. THEN I WILL SHOW YOU DESPAIR SO BLUNT NO AMOUNT OF STUPIDITY WILL SHIELD YOU FROM IT. I WILL SKEWER YOUR WORLD WITH MY SELF! AND YOU SHALL HAVE THE HONOR OF SERVING AS MY IMPACT POINT."
The abomination cackled and twisted in the air, no, the void? Whatever the case, it withdrew upward, kicking up storms of dust around Shen, who thrust a fist skyward, dispersing the dust to see the sky where his opponent was growing smaller into the night sky. And then stopped and turned back.
Shen felt those hateful molten red eyes lock upon him, and every mouth on Drago split in malice.
He was going to ram Hong Sisco, tear through her. Sadistic torture giving way to brute murder of an entire world and near everyone on it.
Rage and calm rose in Shen, son of Yade Khan, as his fangs were concealed by his lips, a stoic expression washing over his face as he took a stance, cupping his hands.
"An ultimate evil comes before me. Sagas of old, heroes of the come from behind, and determination that surpasses reason, witness me, aid me, for I carry a fate greater than my own. Kame…"
Shadow, pure and light-drinking, began to swirl and condense in his right palm. In his hands, the air distorted and a speck of sun magic ignited into being, the world itself seeming to draw back from the ancient purity reborn.
Bringing his hands together in the full stance, bending his knees, he continued the chant.
"Hame!" The ground beneath him buckled as energy coursed through the air into Shen, and then to his palms as shadow and light whirled without mixing within his hands.
"Hame!" The enemy descended, the sky was filled by his face splitting into a maw that framed the horizons with teeth. At Shen's word, the soil and stone erupted upward, carrying him as the dust and blasted soil built upon itself, a mountain rising in moments. Trees sprouted, bloomed, and withered before a leaf could fall to the grounds. Streams spouted and dried up. The grass and brush was gone as soon as it appeared.
And atop it all, the warrior screamed defiance against descending doom.
"HA!" Shen let loose the spiral of light and shadow. It rose, a feeble line against the vast hungry malice that had swallowed the sky.
"HAAAA!" Shen cried out, unwavering, as the attack erupted from him.
It struck somewhere in the great maw. And the laughter was so persistent Shen had not noticed it stopped.
Reduced to a wordless howl, the second son of Yade Khan pushed back the destroyer, rising ever higher upon the blooming and withering mountain as the enemy was sent reeling and screaming back into the void.
Then it was over.
Shen's arms dropped, hands crumbling away to dust as blood flowed from his mouth. Wavering on his legs, he squinted upward amidst the grassy meadow topping his mountain.
Drago was still in sight, and twisted to look upon him. And the monster laughed.
"HA! ALL THAT FOR A FEW SECONDS! YES, THIS IS BETTER, YOU GET TO DIE KNOWING IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING."
The demon's cackling faded in Shen's ears as the world went dark and his scales crumbled away. Nothing? A life extended is extended. And he could hear the fear in Drago's voice. If not here then elsewhere, a hero would end him. The last would pay for all, every nightmare coming to its end.
And he smiled now, even as he felt his teeth crack, a sensation washing over him so familiar and welcome he'd weep as if he could. A few seconds, could perhaps at times change the roads of destiny.
This was one of those times, Shen thought with calm satisfaction, falling into Yade Khan's arms as he crumbled into dust.
"No, nononono," Yade whispered, trying frantically to grab the dust as the shape of her son crumbled away. The dust only crumbled further at the touch, disappearing entirely. Her magic burst forth to grasp anything of what Shen was, but it evaded her, the sense of his presence not vanishing but… leaving.
"Come back," she pleaded to the air atop the new and lush mountain. A gentle breeze brushed her face. But he did not return.
And he would not. The realization struck with sharp certainty, making her curl her upper body into her tail, mind grinding to a halt.
Then laughter started shaking the world around her.
Her great eye, that she hadn't realized was clenched, opened. The voice that spoke was no longer shaking the world; it spoke as if next to her, though she could easily detect the magic of it, not fooled for a moment.
"Oh Jade, I have so rarely been so amused and disgusted. Do you know how long I have looked for you, how many Earths I have destroyed? Even I'm not sure; it's so hard to keep track with how time differs between dimensions and universes. It's not infinite, but it's quite enough to get bored in the looking. And you were the great goal and menace. I knew you'd gone dark, that the fat guy sealed you away. But you were like me, not like my dad and his loser siblings. You wouldn't sit on your claws, tentacles or whatever. No, I dreaded as time passed what you would make of yourself; after all, you got the better of me as a mere mortal, what dark goddess of shadows would be waiting behind the door when I kicked it down? Why, I wondered if I might even trigger the end of the universes or something? But I never expected to find you, Jade Chan, gone to seed," Drago said as Yade raised her face to look at him filling her sky. Dang, he was a sexy thing, she couldn't deny. But any attraction was burned to cinders by the sensation spreading from her belly to her tips.
Raising one hand, the shadows started to gather and envelope her.
All his eyes had actually glanced away as he continued to monologue.
'Idiot,' Yade thought, as she rose into the air and the construct took shape around her, rivers of shadow flowing into it.
"…a fat snake squid playing house! What a letdown! Honestly, I thought my dream trap tactic would be essential to beating you easily, but really, should I have even bothered? I was getting tired of waiting for you to wake up and just break this world and make you bear my progeny, asleep or awake… but at least we can dance a little for old times sa-"
WHAMP
A fist large enough to make him feel it struck Drago in his main jaw, shutting him up with an uppercut. The shadow fist opened and grabbed his head, while three more titanic hands seized him, and with a twisting motion threw him back into the void, away from the planet.
Drago shook his head, growling, and watched the four arms fold protectively between him and the planet, a body connecting them taking shape.
He chuckled as the body filled in. Not just growing a big version. Slender and marked by muscle, with extra tentacles splitting beneath the arms, which reached out, grasping nothing, and in addition to the massive great eye over a fang-filled mouth a protrusion of crimson eyes bloomed across the form. Finally, spikes erupted along her tail and back, while a stinger emerged from the tip of the tendril growing from her head.
"WELL WELL WELLLLL. SO YOU YOU DO HAVE SOME OF THE OLD PEP IN YOU."
Baring her teeth, Yade roared in answer to his words and surged across the void. Cackling, Drago fired off streams of demonic fire from his mouths, smiling as she passed through it and he twisted to avoid the myriad of blows.
And on the nearby planet, two demigoddesses struggled to spread the Veil against the energies clashing in the void. And Jack watched atop a barren peak as the battle unfolded.
One way or another, this age of war was about to reach its end.
Author's Note:
And its back! Took longer than it should have and is much shorter than I expected. Sorry for both.
The good news is that the next update shouldn't take nearly so long, I am daring to aim for a Halloween double feature update with this and The Price. The shorter chapter format will hopefully help with quicker updates.
Also to try and get out of my rut I have been going over old notes and stuff. The result has been taking some mostly finished fic chapters that never made it posting and getting them done and polished to see how they might do out here. This was one of them, with some scenes of this chapter having been sitting around for more than a year. So now that I updated a PDJ story I am free to start posting some of the other 'near dones' that are now 'just done'. Hope some of you will give those a chance.
So things continue on my end, as ever I hope to be back soon with more stuff for my ongoing stories and new ideas that I hope people will be interested in.
Stay safe out there! Long days and pleasant nights to you all.