For once, it seemed, Jack looked in high spirits. Well, high spirits for a dire wolf. To anyone else he might have looked no less terrifying than when he was angry. Polly, though, could see it in the way his tail didn’t stiffen at every noise and how his muscles didn’t twitch with as much murderous intent as usual. In a way it was actually somewhat more unsettling.

Jack felt happy, because Jack was about to get the satisfaction of revenge. All the fresh cuts of pork and turkey gravy in the world wouldn’t make him salivate with as much glee as he felt right then, standing at the edge of the desert dunes and looking out at the moonlit wasteland unfolding before him. In the distance stood an imposing silhouette- the ziggurat, the final destination. Their travels took them far, so far from the kingdom that Polly once called home- and here they now stood at the precipice of achieving their goals.

“I get it!” Polly landed gracefully on top of the intensely focusing Jack, her tiny talons gingerly gripping his matted fur even though there was no chance of her causing his thick skin any harm. “I know how you feel, really. But we’ve spent all this time traveling, following Sino’s directions, and...” she hesitated a bit, but then kept going.

“...and you know I’m useless at night!” Polly squawked a bit in protest as Jack shook his head to try and dislodge her, his usual form of protest. “We can’t go barging into Berlin’s safehouse at half strength! You remember what happened when you-” Jack let out a frustrated growl, but Polly tutted right back at him. “-no, that was definitely your fault! No, no, come on. We promised not to argue anymore. Let’s cool off and think up our plan.”

Jack huffed through his nostrils but relented, letting out only one last wheeze of protest before taking up watch within the crags of a rocky outcropping. As the moon sank across the sky, Polly laid out their strategy yet again. The heist had so many variables, and Jack’s tolerance for complicated ordeals was likely at an all time low, but he still patiently listened to the tiny bird tweet out each stratagem and clumsily claw out in the sand the layout out their approach. The wolf’s attentiveness could not be faulted; when she was finished, Polly thought it was amazing that this animal was the same one she met so long ago. How much he had changed!

How much she had changed, too. They rested, briefly, with Jack keeping watch as the night wore on.

When the first rays of the sun peeked out over the tallest of the desert hills, it struck the ziggurat with its bright rays as it did every morning. In doing so it cast a long shadow across the desert, stretching all the way to the edge of the rockiest part of the wasteland. As soon as the first bit of shadow reached far enough, Jack shot out in a tremendous gallop, keeping himself concealed within the heavy contrasted darkness as he ran. Gripping on for dear life was Polly, who at this point was more than well acquainted enough with the large beast’s powerful strides to not just be thrown off entirely while he blasted off at top speed.

Any sentries failed to spot their approach as the blinding morning sun hid the pair of animals far better than the moonlight would have. Jack’s sharp claws clattered against the stone of the structure as he reached it and then scrambled up the side in an instant as his powerful legs pushed him forward. Polly’s keener eyes spotted their entrance just a moment later, and she tweeted excitedly into Jack’s ear as he shifted direction.

All stealth went out the window in a very literal sense, as in the next moment Jack hurled his considerable muscle straight through a small stone slit intended to let light through and into the interior of the structure. His bulky mass obliterated the stone with ease and he crashed downwards into the expansive interior of the ziggurat , accompanied by a painful rain of debris. Berlin’s loyal guardians waiting below barely had a chance as the tumbling rocks smashed down into the floor, and the resulting conflict was remarkably short lived as Jack easily cleaned up the disoriented stragglers left behind.

Polly, of course, helped by hovering above and tweeting intel on each foe so the wolf could respond in turn. The two worked like a single unit and before the sun managed to even fully rise from the horizon, there wasn’t a single bit of resistance left in Berlin’s mighty stronghold.

“Alright, alright!” Polly, now quite accustomed to the violence, gave a satisfactory few chirps. “According to Sino, the Macguffin is at the bottom of the tomb! Let’s get going before Berlin gets wind of this!”

Jack didn’t need to be tweeted at twice. His claws clattered against the stone as he stormed down a spiraling set of stairs, while Polly kept her altitude and eyes on all the exits. Despite her small form, flying into the cramped tunnels below would almost certainly not end well- she learned those lessons too many times already. Sino said the Macguffin would be easy to snatch anyway. Even Jack would manage something like that!

Or so she thought. A gut wrenching voice broke Polly’s attention and she fluttered down to the ground floor.

“So naive, Princess Polina Salvador.” Her beak hung open as soon as the sound touched her ears. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be!

But it was. “As usual, you leave a trail of chaos in your wake...but I suppose that is to be expected of someone from your family, hm?” The thick tones of satisfaction rolling out from the voice brought immediate disgust to Polly’s face, but she maintained her concentration as her head darted in every direction. Where was the voice coming from? With all that echoing reverb, it almost seemed like...

“Down here, little one.” Polly’s face turned towards the stairs leading to the tomb. If her feathers could have turned white, then right then, they would have. “So eager to save your kingdom, you’ve put everything at risk...including your most loyal subject.”

“Come on down here, and let’s talk face to face.” Polly quivered, wishing she could at least hear a bark from Jack or something to assuage her worst fears. That voice could only belong to the source of their troubles in the flesh- Berlin, the Great Wizard!

Had this been a trap? A setup? Had Sino sold them out, or had he been in on it all along? None of these things seemed to matter as Polly, walking on her two spindly talons, waddled her way down towards the dark stairs. A few distance lamps on the walls bathed the tomb below in red light, and she could see way down at the bottom was the large altar where the Macguffin was supposed to have rested. The coffin itself was thrown open haphazardly (the signature style of Jack), and inside the box lay the unmoving body of a great dire wolf. Jack was stiller than Polly had ever seen him before.

A rage filled her hollow bones. How dare Berlin do such a thing! But- indeed, where was Berlin? The Macguffin was not within the coffin with Jack, nor could Polly see it lying nearby on the altar. The dark corners of the tomb concealed too much, hiding Berlin from view. “Keep on coming down, little pet, or your friend won’t survive much longer.” The amusement oozing from each syllable of Berlin’s words just further enraged Polly. Was this intense rage just how Jack felt all the time?

“You’ve come too far this time, I’m afraid.” The Great Wizard Berlin chuckled and each laugh bounced off the stone walls and rattled around in Polly’s skull. “Like your father used to tell you, acting on your emotions only gets you in deeper trouble...” or so Berlin thought! Polly inhaled deeply for what was to come. All their planning, preparing, and teamwork...it would all come down to this!