"Guess the wind girl wasn't crazy," Maxi would have to apologize to that priestess if he ever saw her again. She was the only one who would have believed what was happening before his very eyes. His hair was more feral, his cap was gone and his green tunic had not held up well through the ravages of time.

But the hero of time was back and he was fighting the possessed Pyrrha.

Maxi didn't fully understand, but somehow Sophitia was involved in this mess too and was forcing Pyrrha to match blow for blow with the long-ear warrior. The Warrior even managed to form a working flow with Xiba and Zwei. Link engaged the girl at close quarters and Zwei would throw in a surprise attack from himself and Ein to disrupt her focused offensive/defensive stance while Xiba contributed with ranged attacks that Pyrrha could not respond to unless she wanted to be exposed to the blond warrior that seemed more than capable of matching her.

Despite his own heavy wounds.

"You alright big guy?"

"I will survive." Bangoo assured the pirate while standing on his feet, "Where is the Dvapara-Yuga?"

"Just kill her..." Maxi heard Natsu mutter and saw the pendant in the girl's hand, "Why? Why do we want to save her after what she did?"

"Because without her we won't have a chance against her brother." Despite her visible disagreement, Natsu did nothing to stop Maxi as he bent down towards the pendant and gripped it in his hand. Immediately, the dull shard of Soul Edge within him protested contact with the pendant and the pirate used all of his will to keep what remained of it's power from being destroyed. He may need it after all, "Bangoo...it's not safe for me. Take it."

"Understood." The giant took the shard from the instantly relieved Maxi and began to focus upon it in a meditative stance, "I will try to calm the spirit that possesses her."

"Make it fast! Fairy Boy's tiring out." Despite his continued vigor, Link's heavy exhaustion and earlier injury was beginning to take it's toll which Pyrrha would be more than happy to take up if not for the man's continued ferocity. The warrior finally unleashed a rapid spinning attack which Pyrrha was only able to partially block before the remaining and much more powerful strikes struck the girl and threw her onto the cavern floor.

"EIN!" ZWEI's partner restrained Pyrrha's arms behind her back as ZWEI ran over to hold up the breathless Link, "Thanks...you might've saved my ass again!"

"Soul of Truth...Virtuous Mother...release your child from the unrest that plagues you." Bangoo chanted as the energies of the Dvapara-Yuga began to flow towards the struggling Pyrrha, "Xiba!"

"Kali-Yuga, show me the way!" A stern Xiba firmly gripped his staff as he charged for the restrained Pyrrha. The girl screamed as she unleashed a burst of power that threw back EIN and she summoned a red crystal sword that thrust for Xiba. Xiba blocked the attack and brought his staff into the girl's armpit to knock her into the air. Xiba leapt up and delivered three rapid kicks in midair before he slammed the Kali-Yuga upon the girl to complete Kong's Dance of Qi Tian Da Sheng and struck her into the floor, "Gotcha!"

"Pyrrha..." Cassandra managed as her niece grew more and more quiet as the Kali-Yuga absorbed more of the power that had possessed her, "Sophitia...I'm sorry..."

"Stop crying...no one's dead." ZWEI told her as she helped the woman to her feet and Xiba himself started to shake, "You alright monkey-boy?"

"This...power..." Xiba's eyes now began to glow with alternating patterns of red and blue as the boy struggled to control himself, "I need...Leixia's...pendant..."

"Bangoo!" As if in answer to Natsu's cries, the aura of Dvapara-Yuga thickened around a now calm Pyrrha and now flowed out into Xiba, "Thank Kami..."

"Well...glad that's over..." Maxi collapsed onto the floor, exhausted, injured and relieved that everything worked out. Next to him was Link, who took out a bottle and drank a strange blue liquid that caused the man to shimmer somewhat, "Impressed with the newcomers?"

Link grinned and nodded happily.

"Good for you...Xiba! You alright?"

"I feel funny."

"Tough it out, kid," Maxi said to the dazed boy, "Natsu, how's Leixia?"

"She's stable for now, she'll make it now that the worst is over."

"Thanks," Maxi complemented the shinobi, "Cassandra, how are you holding up?"

"As soon as we tie up this hole in my wrist, we can talk..." Cassandra bravely stated though her wound was way worst than she was making it out to be...

"Kilik! We have to stop!" She heard a woman shout out to her traveling companion.

"You can stop, but I won't." Kilik declared, he sounded desperate, but calm as if well-grounded in whatever madness he was undergoing, "They need me."

"They will need you, but not now." A younger and more serene voice said comforting Kilik, "We will meet them when we are meant to meet them."

"Did your wind tell you this Talim? They're within clear range of that monster's grasp! And it is all my fault!" The man seemed to collapse into the arms of one of his companions, "Mina...let me go..."

"Stop being stupid! You're no help to anyone dehydrated!"

"If I had finished this when I had the chance...none of this..." The man managed attempting to stay conscious, "I shouldn't have let Xianghua go...I shouldn't have driven her away..."

"Hey...it's alright, you know her! She's probably racing to this fight just like us!" Mina told Kilik, "Then you can meet her, let her slap you for being an idiot and you can make it up to her in more ways than one."

"She has moved on...she will not forgive me...my children...don't even know I exist..." Kilik gasped in despair, "Who would blame them? I could I face them and say that I am their father?"

"She's waking up!" Leixia's eyes opened and she found herself looked upon by Xiba, Natsu, a tearful Pyrrha, and a pointy-eared handsome man whose eyes she had seen before, "Leixia? Can you cook dinner now?"

"Xiba?" The wild haired boy nodded his head as Leixia smacked him on his forehead, "YOU INSENSITIVE BARBARIAN! I NEARLY DIED!"

"But you didn't die and I'm happy you didn't die." Xiba laughed as he picked up the girl and hugged her, "Cause Natsu and Pyrrha suck at cooking!"

"YOU UNGRATEFUL BAKA!" Natsu screamed as Pyrrha tearfully laughed and also hesitantly embraced Leixia to Natsu's quiet objection, "How do you feel?"

"I don't remember what the hell happened except that..." Then it came back to her and now she realized why Pyrrha was crying, "Oh..."

"I'm so sorry...I didn't...I lost control again..." Pyrrha wept as the elf-eared man caressed the girl to comfort her, "I almost killed you..."

"What happened?"

"Like Pyrrha said, the power within her flared out of control under stress from her mother having murdered Bangoo's father." Maxi explained while ZWEI stood next to Bangoo who was wrapping a heavy bandage around Cassandra's wrist, "All the more reason for us to get to Ibelin soon."

"Why couldn't my necklace stop her?"

"Your necklace cannot undo the interwoven colliding threads of power within Pyrrha." Bangoo said to Leixia, "It was too much power for the Dvapara-Yuga to purify and contain."

"So I hit her with my stick." Leixia smacked Xiba again, "What was that for?"

"A true man never hits a woman!"

"Pyrrha almost killed you, if not for Xiba, she would've killed us all."

"Natsu! You're being too unfair! It's not Pyrrha's fault!"

"If she had a better grip on her will and emotions then you wouldn't have almost died and Cassandra wouldn't be crippled."

"Crippled?" Leixia asked looking over to where Cassandra's face seemed to have lost all of the spirit that Leixia always saw her with, "But why?"

"Her arm was struck by Pyrrha and it won't be able to hold a shield for a long while..." Bangoo explained, "Maybe it never will."

"But you healed it! She should be fine-"

"I reconnected the threads of the flesh, but only time can restore their strength." Bangoo clarified for Leixia, "Pyrrha's blade stabbed through her forearm after piercing her shield. This jabbed small remnants of metal from Cassandra's shield into her wounds and poisoned her ability to use her forearm."

"Metal poisoning?" Cassandra chuckled, "Am I going to die?"

"Your wound was cleaned and purified very thoroughly, the worst is now over."

"I just can't use my shield..." Bangoo nodded to the greek woman who exhaled and lied back down upon the mat, staring blankly at the cavern ceiling as if asking it to drop upon her, "What good am I now?"

"Don't say that Cassandra! We can find a better healer in Jordan and-"

"It won't matter...I can't use a shield." Cassandra interjected and blankly looked upon her bandaged arm, "All my life, I trained in the Athenian arts. All of my movements are tied around having a sword in my hand and a shield on the other arm to counter balance each other. I swing with my sword and jab with shield. Bash with shield and stab with sword. My whole life I've trained in that one style and now I can't use it."

"You damn Alexandra's..." ZWEI muttered as he knelt beside Leixia, "Can't you women go one day without whining about something."

"You almost got killed by an Alexandra what does that make you?"

"The man who beat Nightmare."

"You? Only a true heart of loyalty and love could best Soul Edge." Leixia commented, referring to her mother, "And if Nightmare was defeated by you then why are we still fighting Soul Edge?"

"Because of me..." Pyrrha finally spoke up, "I'm so sorry everyone..."

"This is getting old," ZWEI scoffed while lying back himself, "Alright you did lose it and nearly kill just about all of us. Then you stabbed your own aunt and now she's crippled-"

"What did you say!" Cassandra threw off her sheet and leapt to her feet, standing over an unaffected ZWEI while the older Alexandra looked down on him, "I may have lost an arm, but I've still got two fists to mash your face in!"

"Didn't you ask what good you were?"

"I'm good enough to kick your ass-" That was when EIN appeared and threw Cassandra across the cave towards Pyrrha. The Athenian warrior landed clumsily on her feet and to her right, "Throw me a sword and we can find out for ourselves!"

"Cassandra!"

"Thanks Pyrrha...but I'll live." She gave her niece an assuring pat on her hair as Pyrrha's tears began to pour, "I'm still here Pyrrha and I plan to keep it that way. Even if I've gotta use this useless arm as a shield. I just got caught in the moment..."

"I'm so sorry..."

"I heard you the first time." Cassandra chuckled and grasped her right hand on the blade that Pyrrha hesitantly gave her, "Don't get caught in the moment kid. Didn't you say that you wanted to make up for what you've done? How can you do that if you're crying and standing still?"

"You're still going to stay with me?" Pyrrha asked, baffled by the shrug of her aunt's shoulders, "But I'm a monster-"

"WE'RE ALL MONSTERS YOU STUPID GIRL!" Zwei shouted, "Natsu has that nine tailed demon inside of her, your aunt's been missing for 17 years, Xiba inherited the evil seed, our team wolf is actually a lethal fairy boy from another world and I can summon a spectral wolf! The only normal ones here are Bangoo and Leixia! But discount them and we're all freaks! We're all cursed."

"You can control it...you can live with it..."

"Sometimes I thought that I couldn't." Zwei admitted and stunned everyone present by pulling the girl into a firm hug, "Until Sieg gave me a chance and told me...if the Azure Knight could find atonement why not some werewolf? Why not a cry-baby?"

"I'm not a cry baby!" Pyrrha protested and lightly slapped the side of Zwei's head, "I'm just...scared..."

"Then you're not stupid," Zwei complemented, rubbing the top of the girl's hair and turning to Cassandra, "If you're not useless then prove it. Let's see what you can do when you're not hiding behind a shield."

"You and your wolf friend are going down..." Cassandra gripped her sword with both hands while hopping in place. She then started juggling her sword between her hands instead, a reflex born out of having grown used to an Athenian shield, "I'm going all out!"

"Waiting on you ma'am..." Cassandra charged ZWEI and their spar began. As both hadn't quite recovered from the earlier battle, it was unsurprising to see Cassandra and ZWEI tie against each other after ten minutes.

Since Cassandra used an aggressive and offensive variant of the Athenian style, it wasn't too difficult for her to adapt for the lack of a shield and after a few clumsy missteps, she managed to incorporate balanced acrobatics into her stance to bring some semblance of her old momentum into her swings.

Though he wasn't holding back due to lacking any room to do so without risking his own life, ZWEI stayed defensive for most of the match. Likely to counter Cassandra's speed and aggressive offensive and used EIN to trick or double-team the girl who now had no defense.

Eventually, both combatants tired and agreed to call the fight a draw.

"What was I moaning about a moment ago? I kind of like this."

"You're not useless, now rest up before you reopen your wound."

Author's Notes:

Looks like all's well that ends well, but will it last?

It's been a bit under a week since SCIIHD was released and as I have no 360-internet or money to throw away, I cannot purchase it. For those who have, how is it? I've heard the online sucks, if so then I'm better off with playing the GC version on the Wii though I am curious about how Heihachi and Spawn play out.