Jenny O'Malley Ryan *hated* going anywhere near Times Square. The crowds of tourists were a constant invasion on anyone's concept of personal space, and the horrendously over-complicated traffic patterns combined with the noise of the various street performers competing for every dollar of tip money left her jumpy and stressed even after a few minutes of walking around the area.
But sometimes, going through Times Square was simply unavoidable. And when the only P.I. who was willing to tail a cheating cop had his offices on 46th and 7th, well, sometimes it was easiest to just take a deep breath, hold on to your purse and push your way through the madhouse.
When Jenny climbed the stairs at the 49th Street train station, though, she found Times Square to be absurdly quiet. The crowds of people were still there, but their attention seemed to be focused on something that she couldn't see on the opposite side of the square. Her appointment forgotten, Jenny fought through the crowd, wondering what could possibly be so captivating that it was holding the complete attention of everyone in the 'crossroads of the world'.
When she got to 47th street Jenny noticed that whatever people were trying to see was at the intersection of 42nd and Broadway. As she pushed two more blocks downtown, Jenny realized that there was some sort of giant fight scene going on. Maybe they're shooting a movie or something...she thought.
44th Street seemed to be the closest that any of the spectators dared to want to go. As Jenny approached the intersection, she saw why. The combatants didn't have the look of practiced stunt fighters. These people looked like they were fighting for their *lives*. And their opponents...Jenny shivered as she realized that the snarling, drooling, hell-maddened faces would probably be populating her nightmares for many nights to come.
It was then that she recognized one of the people in the middle of the fight. Jenny's eyes widened as she watched her quiet, shy, gentle, and above all mild-mannered husband fighting like he was in the middle of some Jet Li movie. Kevin was like a tiger; he was fighting with a level of speed and ferocious strength that she *knew* they didn't teach at the police academy. Up until now, it was a level of fighting that Jenny thought she would only see in the movies, because no one could ever fight like that in real life.
But Kevin was doing it. And unless she missed her guess, so was his partner. And dozens of other people stretching out in a fight that was going on for as far as her eyes could see down Broadway. Only one person was not fighting among everyone in the scene before her: one man who was simply standing there with a clear look of angry confusion on his face. Jenny recognized the man as much from the books in her library as from the few times she had seen him at the precinct. Is that...Richard Castle?
A second later, all hell broke loose.
Screams were erupting from the part of Times Square where Jenny had been just moments earlier. She turned to see people scattering behind her like roaches under a lamp. And the screams were starting to come *toward her* like an audible tidal wave. A nervous thought formed in Jenny's mind and sank to knot deep in the pit of her stomach. What the hell is coming toward me if people are just getting scared *now*?
Jenny turned back toward the fight she had been watching and locked eyes with her husband, whose eyes widened visibly when he saw her. His lips were moving, and he seemed to be calling her, but the screams of the scattering mob around her kept Jenny from hearing almost anything else. Kevin took off at a full sprint toward her, and she finally heard his call as he almost ran into her. JENNY!
Idly, Jenny started to wonder if she was having some sort of martial arts movie nightmare. After all, she had just heard her husband scream her name even though his lips stopped moving before he ran to her...
Her husband's voice echoed in her mind once again. Jenny! This is real, and I need you to get out of here and *go* *home*!
Jenny looked to her husband in a daze of confusion. Was he talking to her? She was sure she had heard him, but since his lips weren't moving she figured it was just in her head...
The painfully loud sound of splitting metal shook Jenny out of her daze. She looked up to see a billboard heading straight for her. Her husband lifted her off her feet and ran carrying her toward the building, hoping to avoid any piece of the falling...
Confetti?
Jenny looked to her husband, her confusion only increasing. She followed his line of sight to find Castle looking at them. The author gave them a small nod before turning his attention elsewhere. Kevin pulled Jenny's attention back to him as he could finally yell loud enough to be heard. "Jen, I can't do anyone any good here if I don't know you're safe. Please, *please* promise me you'll go home?"
Stunned into submission, Jenny nodded. Kevin pointed to three of the men he had just been fighting alongside. He spoke to them like a commander giving orders to his men. "I need you three to escort my wife home. When she's there safely, you are freed from service."
Jenny gasped as the eyes of her escorts flashed with an orange glow. Kevin, though, seemed satisfied as he turned her around and kissed the top of her head. She heard her husband's voice in her mind, I *promise* I'll explain everything when this is over.
And as her three escorts nudged her silently down 44th Street and away from Times Square, Jenny heard Kevin's voice in her head one last time.
I love you, Jenny. I'll see you soon.
Ryan returned to his position, flanking and protecting his wizard. He projected, Thanks, Castle.
Don't thank me yet, Castle replied in his mind. We still have to get out of this in one piece.
"Sìfāng!"
The other wizard's voice boomed out over Times Square, roaring over the snarls of the zombies and the screams of the few remaining spectators who hadn't found their way out of the war zone yet. "There are plenty of signs here, Sìfāng. I can keep going if you'd like."
Castle melodramatically waggled his finger in his ear, pulling his finger out to feign soothing his eardrums. "You know," he called out to the wizard, "I'm right *here*, you don't have to yell like that."
The wizard's laugh was as powerful as it was arrogant. Glass shattered around him, as windows in the area seemed to explode in fearful response. "Do you still think you are dealing with my apprentice, Sìfāng? As you can see, I have taken care of that weakness myself."
Beckett focused on the now clear line of sight to the TKTS booth. "He's dead," she told the group. "That's who I saw him kill earlier."
Castle mentally called on the four elements to replenish his waning strength for the upcoming battle. As a powerful rush of energy nearly overwhelmed him, Castle fought to keep his face a precise mask of control as he boomed, "What do you want, Lóng zhǔ?"
Lóng zhǔ laughed again, bringing more windows crashing to the ground before he turned serious. "I want this world, Sìfāng. I want its resources, I want its power, I want its position in the universe and I want its people as my slaves. *All* of you."
His voice brimming with raw power, Castle's response was as booming as Lóng zhǔ's had ever been. "And what if we say no?"
"No?" Lóng zhǔ raised his voice in surprise. "No? You think you can say *no*? You don't get a choice!"
Lóng zhǔ threw a fireball at Castle, which he caught effortlessly. "Let me make something clear to you, Lóng zhǔ. This world is *protected*. If you want it that badly, then you're going to have to go through *me* to get it."
The fireball grew in Castle's hand as he fed it more power. When it was a white-hot force of energy bigger than a basketball, Castle flung the ball back at his enemy.
Lóng zhǔ deflected the fireball with his shield, and Castle called for a microburst of wind to drive the flaming energy into the ground. It left a crater three cars wide at the feet of Lóng zhǔ...so close that the wizard lost his balance and fell into it.
Enraged, Lóng zhǔ flew up out of the crater, landing in front of it before lashing out at Castle with a display of raw power. The wizard's hands glowed with a blazing, crackling blue light before attacking Castle with twin columns of energy.
Castle tweaked his shield on the fly, absorbing the attack and using the power to increase his own strength. "Is that the best you've got?" he growled.
"I am just getting started," replied Lóng zhǔ with a growl of equal ferocity.
A wall of fire slammed into Castle's shield. The bolts deflected into almost every corner of Times Square, setting cars, food carts and stores alight with terrible random fury. When Castle saw people running out of the burning stores, he tried to put out the fires by creating rain over any spot where he saw fire. While it held back the fire, it also sank the entire area into a murky black mixture of fog and smoke that not even Beckett could see through.
Esposito delivered new orders to the tiger's army. "Evacuate the buildings," he declared, "get as many to safety as you can."
The response echoed in the minds of everyone on the team. As you wish, my lord. Beckett, Ryan and Esposito each took a contingent of soldiers, spreading out around Times Square to focus on getting anyone who could be in danger out of the area.
Castle called on a blast of wind to clear the smoke and fog from the area, then ripped at Lóng zhǔ's shield with bolts of white-hot energy. They seemed to damage his enemy's shield but did not destroy it. Weakening slightly under the assault of the vicious magic duel, Lóng zhǔ decided to try a different tactic. He created a leopard-looking like animal made out of pure flame and sent it to attack Castle. Castle countered by surrounding the animal with an air-tight shield, slowly shrinking the sphere around the animal until it suffocated under the lack of oxygen.
"Warriors!" Lóng zhǔ called out down the canyon of Broadway, "Come to fight for your master!" The call of Lóng zhǔ was answered by...silence. There was not a single zombie left to come to his aid.
Castle couldn't help it; he laughed at his enemy. A *lot*. "Wow," he wisecracked as he wiped the tears from his eyes, "*that* was awkward."
Lóng zhǔ responded with another blistering show of force; this time trying bolts of ice instead of fire. Castle hardened his shield, letting the bolts deflect into the area to become Castle's weapon against the hungry flames surrounding him. He called on more rain to fight the small fires popping up throughout the area.
As the fires died, both wizards were soon soaked to the bone...which made Lóng zhǔ even more angry. He called up a wall of flame to dry himself off and warm up...which the wizard then sent flying back toward Castle. Castle countered with a powerful blast of wind to halt the flames, stopping them in front of their creator.
Lóng zhǔ tried to push the wall of flames forward, but was surprised when it not only refused to budge, but seemed to be advancing *toward* him. The angry wizard pushed harder, expending huge quantities of energy in a fight that, to his surprise, ultimately proved futile. As his own wall of fire surrounded him, Lóng zhǔ summoned the last drops of his energy to teleport himself out of the area before the flames would have fatally consumed him.
Castle wrapped the wind around the pillar of fire, tightening the noose quickly to extinguish the flames. He then jogged over to join his team at the spot where he *thought* they would be examining the burnt corpse of his enemy.
Ryan looked at the spot where they all thought the body of Lóng zhǔ should have been."Anyone see where he went?" he asked the group.
When three heads shook with a negative response, the team returned to a state of highest alert, standing back to back and scanning the area slowly for any sign of their enemy.
Beckett was the one who spotted him first. "One Times Square," she announced to the group, "just below where they drop the ball."
The three men could just barely make out the figure of the man they all knew that Beckett could see clearly. Lóng zhǔ staggered to his feet, every movement taking a Herculean effort. He used the last of his magical energy to bellow out to his opponent, "Sìfāng! You truly are a worthy opponent. But I wonder, how will you fare against my children?"
Confused, Castle called back to his enemy, "Your children have already been defeated, Lóng zhǔ."
"*Those* were not my children, Sìfāng," Lóng zhǔ replied, his voice laboring even as the sound traveled across Times Square. The sound of powerful roaring battle cries made the wizard smile, even though he knew his enemy would never see it. "*These*," Lóng zhǔ quietly stated, to no one but himself, "these are my children."
The trio of roars that echoed through Times Square shook everyone who heard them to their very core. Beckett, Ryan, and Esposito reached for their weapons, the feel of the steel in their hands a comfort against the terrifying unknown. That comfort faded quickly, though, when the next sound they heard made them wonder if their guns would make any difference in this fight at all.
That sound was the flapping of giant wings.
To no one but himself, Lóng zhǔ smiled even as he fought to catch his breath and regain his energy. "I had forgotten...that my children are nothing...but the stuff of legends...in your world. I wonder...if your legends...have taught you...how to fight them."
Below the wizard's perch, the group were continuing to watch the skies, every nerve in their bodies on the highest of alert. Beckett noticed one of the great beasts first, coming in from the northwest. "My God," she gasped. Turning to the northeast, then to the south, she prayed that her vision was playing tricks on her.
Castle watched the color drain from his partner's face. It was a sight he dreaded seeing; if *Beckett* was scared, they were in deep trouble. "Beckett?" Castle asked her quietly, a hand on her shoulder for support, "What is it?"
Strong, rational, detective Kate Beckett couldn't believe what she was seeing. But she knew she needed to warn her friends of the mortal danger coming their way. Even still, she could barely choke out what Lóng zhǔ's children were. "Dragons," she told her friends in a barely audible gasp.
"Three of them."