When Kyle came to his senses, he automatically jumped to his feet. The only thing clear in his mind was that there had been a dragon; the dragon had picked him up and carried him off. He had to assume that the dragon had been hostile. Only two dragons were friendly with the Huntsclan: Lao Shi and Jake. But neither of those two had black scales like the one that had snatched him had; Kyle knew that it couldn't be either of them.

But when he looked around, there was no dragon. Instead there was a man sitting in the corner of the room.

Kyle took a shuffling step forward that was immediately halted by the weight around his ankles and hands. Shocked, he looked at his limbs to discover that he had been chained to the wall. He pulled at the restraints but there was no give to the metal. He was chained like a common animal.

"It won't help, Huntsboy," rumbled the nearly forgotten man in the corner.

Kyle's head shot up. He knew that voice, although the owner was supposed to be dead. That voice belonged to the old Huntsmaster; the evil man that Rose had usurped … The evil man that was supposed to be deceased. A shiver ran down Kyle's spine at the voice as he remembered just how much he had feared the man. He actively tried to stop his fear but he didn't know if he could do that; he had spent the greater part of his life being scared of this man. Nearly two years of being free from him was not enough to shed Kyle of his fear completely.

He couldn't allow himself to be afraid. He had to stay strong, no matter what. He had to get out of here and he had to get to Lao Shi. Lao Shi would know what to do about Rose; about what he thought Rose was up to. Lao Shi would also know what to do about Nicholas. At the mere thought of his friend, Kyle's throat closed up.

"Well, nothing to say?" The man prodded.

Kyle set his jaw. Anything he said would likely only get him in trouble. He'd much rather stay silent, no matter how curious he was about how the Master was alive; no matter how much he wanted to yell; no matter how much he wanted to beg the Huntsmaster to tell him if Nicholas was safe, though Kyle highly doubted that his friend was all right after having the Huntsmistress press a knife to his throat.

"Fine," The Huntsmaster growled. "I don't need you to tell me anything. I only need to keep you here until the Huntsgirl decides what to do with you."

A gasp escaped Kyle. If this new, angry, destructive Rose was deciding his fate he already knew what it would be. He was going to die.

(-.-)

"Fu," Lao Shi summoned with a shout. "Living room; now!"

Fu padded from the kitchen into the living room where the old man was seated on the couch, rubbing his temples.

"What's going on?"

"The Dark Dragon has been spotted on the streets," Lao Shi revealed. "He was seen snatching up an unidentified citizen. We must track him down."

"How are we supposed to track him?" Fu asked. "The Dark Dragon puts all of his efforts into not being found, and with his odd activity lately he could be anywhere."

"Not anywhere," Lao Shi countered, "We know that he's in New York."

"Oh, well that's easy," Fu scoffed. "I mean, the city will only take a decade or two to search."

"And we know that he's working with someone; I'm assuming human. Either way, the Dark Dragon will have to make concessions for that partner's comfort. That should make him easier to find. And he has been spotted semi-regularly. He's been on supply runs often. We'll have to keep a sharper eye out on him, see if we can set up a patrol. If we can keep a magical presence throughout the city, then someone will be able to see where he comes from or where he goes. It'll be a risk but he hasn't been on the war path. If the magical being stays out of sight, they should be safe." Lao Shi lifted his head and looked at Fu. "We're going to magic town; we have to see if we can recruit people for this."

"And what are we going to do if we find him?" Fu questioned.

"Track him to his lair, identify the partner. After that we will have to kill the Dark Dragon and likely the partner as well."

"And you're going to do this on your own?" Fu clarified. "I think you're a little too old for this, Gramps. No offense but I don't know what any of us would do if you got hurt or worse."

"Jake will have to do much of the fighting," Lao Shi conceded. "I will be there for back up. But, Fu, we are wasting valuable time. Let's go."

"All right," Fu sighed, not feeling confident that he knew exactly what was going on. "Let's get on to magic town."

(-.-)

Rose slipped into the depths of the Huntsclan through the secret entrance that only Huntsclan leaders had knowledge of. She branched off into a secret room that couldn't be accessed from the inside of the Clan. It clearly hadn't been used in years. The walls, which were made out of brick, had a thick layer of dust on them. Rose almost coughed as she pushed the door open.

The boy she was dragging carelessly behind her did cough, though it only served to aggravate the bleeding wound on his neck.

Nicholas had fully expected to die in the backseat of that car, but he hadn't. Rose had hurt him; she'd pressed that knife down onto his voice box until he could feel the blood running over his collarbone and down under his shirt. It hadn't killed him, though it was hurting him horribly, especially now. After the car had sped away and left Kyle standing on the sidewalk, Rose had slammed him down onto the floor of the car and bound his hands and feet with rope. She'd rested her feet on him as he lay hogtied on the floor and gave him the order to 'not get blood on her shoes'. He'd lain there for what felt like hours but probably wasn't very long at all. The car had finally stopped. She'd pulled him out the back and now she was dragging him down this dusty old hallway.

He was dropped onto his face just inside the door.

Rose flicked on the light switch, studying her surroundings. The room was bare, which was to be expected. This was not a hidden leisure room for the leader of the Clan; rather, it was a hidden dungeon in which to keep prisoners that the Clan wasn't supposed to know existed. With the way the Clan was operating now, they weren't supposed to have prisoners at all. And, at no point in history, was it ever all right for the Clan to imprison one of their own. If anyone found out that Rose was keeping Nicholas down here, they would turn against her. Luckily for her, they would never find out.

Rose grabbed Nicholas by the ropes around his hands and brought him over to the manacles that were attached to the wall. She loosened the ropes long enough to secure the manacles around his wrists and ankles. She stepped back and surveyed him. He stared back at her, eyes angry through his painful fatigue. Rose sighed and pulled the decorative scarf she'd been wearing from around her neck and tied it around his to staunch the blood flow.

"I don't want you dead just yet," she revealed to him, checking to make sure the scarf wasn't going to strangle him. "You may come in handy later."

Nicholas watched her leave the room and hoped that, yes; he would come in handy later. Just not to her. The moment Rose locked the door behind her, Nicholas began counting to 100. When he reached the number he'd been aiming for, he became certain that she was completely gone. He then turned his attention to his restraints.

Just as he had suspected, they were old. They were well made and, at one point, would have been perfect for keeping any person, or creature, anchored to the wall. But time had done its toll and the manacles had needed to be replaced long ago. In the faint light, Nicholas could see the rust that encompassed the cuffs. With some effort, he would probably be able to weaken and eventually break the cuffs.

Now, he just needed to find his strength to break them. Overcoming the exhaustion and weakness that his injury had caused him, Nicholas began to push against his metal restraints, hoping that they would break in time. He didn't want to be too late to save the world from the tyranny that he was certain Rose had in mind.

(-.-)

"Hey, you," Jake whispered, snuggling Rose against him. "I feel like I haven't seen you a lot lately."

"I'm sorry," Rose purred, fiddling with the sleeves of Jake's t-shirt as she relaxed against his mattress. "I've been really busy lately."

"Why?"

"Well, I've noticed some flaws in some of my oldest policies so I've been working through those. Also, Nicholas and Kyle are gone so I'm without their support."

"Gone?" Jake raised his eyebrows at the word. For as long as he had known Rose, she'd had Nicholas and Kyle as close to her as possible; he couldn't imagine that they had left her, knowing how loyal they were to her, or that Rose had sent them away, knowing how much she cared for them. "Where did they go?"

"Some of the international branches were having some issues implementing the policies. I didn't want to go around the world again; not after my kidnapping and not after finding my way back to you. So, I decided that they should go. It was a hard decision but short of going myself, who else could do the job?"

"It makes sense," Jake agreed, though he felt oddly uneasy at the thought of Rose not having Nicholas and Kyle.

Though the duo didn't come off as the bravest or the smartest, Jake trusted them to take care of Rose. They were capable and he knew that if anything was wrong with Rose, or the Clan, they would come to Jake and tell him right away – even if it was something that Rose had decided not to reveal. Without them, Jake viewed Rose as vulnerable. He couldn't always be next to her, especially when she was inside the Huntsquarters conducting business but Nicholas and Kyle could be. Without them, Jake wouldn't have any idea if anything was going on. He assumed if something big were happening, Rose would tell him, but he had counted on Nicholas and Kyle to keep him updating on the little things that Rose was likely to dismiss.

Jake didn't like to think of Rose without the pair.

"I thought so," Rose agreed. "Though that means all of this 'running the Clan' business falls on me."

"You're already great at running the Clan," Jake complimented, kissing the tip of her nose. "You've already done so much more with it than any of your predecessors did."

Rose struggled to keep smiling at him. He was defiling the name of the Clan in telling her that she was doing well with the changes she had made to the Clan when, in reality, she was destroying everything that her predecessors had struggled to make a reality. She, in her carelessness, had torn down thousands of years of work and she had done it believing that it was the right thing! She was stupid, ignorant, and blind … But no longer. Her eyes had been reopened to the truth and she was slowly working to reopen everyone else's along with it.

The new policies she had put in place, the subtle changes she were making back to the old ways, were going through without a hitch. The Clan, including all of the international branches, had seemed to embrace the old ways that were slowly being reinstated. She hoped that it would keep going so smoothly.

Realizing Jake was waiting for a reply, Rose tore herself from her thoughts and kissed him deeply.

"You have no idea how well I'm doing," she responded wickedly, pulling him to her.

(-.-)

"The Chinese Dragon is in flight. Take him down."

I don't own everything recognizable.

~TLL~