Bei scampered across the roof tops.

The cloudless night allowed the bright moon to shine down on her.

Though she needed it not.

All her senses seemed to be on fire.

The darkness wasn’t as dark.

The sounds were sharper.

The sensation of the wind on her body was stronger.

Of course, she didn’t quite consciously process all of this.

There was the small matter of angry cultivators on her heels.

They should’ve caught her dozens of times since the greatest moment of her young life a few minutes ago.

She had hit a real cultivator with what she had practiced thousands of times and knocked him right off the rooftop! Grandmother would be thrilled to hear the tale.

There had been two other cultivators. She had gotten a brief glimpse of their presence. A fat man carrying a powerful scent of beer and a hint of a slight woman in a fox mask.

At least that’s what she thought.

It had all moved too quickly for her to be certain.

Distraction almost proved costly as her foot caught on the edge of the rooftop.

She tumbled through the air… and landed on the other rooftop.

Curious?

She had been certain she was about to fall three stories down to the dirty alleyway.

Lightening?

Was it lightening!

Wait a minute… she was feeling lighter on her feet than ever before and she was running and jumping across the rooftops.

That was definitely new.

A tingle in the back of her mind sent her foot lashing back without conscious thought.

“Arrggh! My treasures!” a cultivator cursed.

The pursuit wasn’t over by any means.

She ran and leapt on, following the route subconsciously.

A bamboo scaffold loomed ahead.

She scaled it like a monkey, perhaps the iron monkey Grandmother liked to tell stories about.

The scaffold crumbled just behind her, forcing the cultivators to take cover as dozens of poles seemed to target the space between their legs with vengeful zeal.

“Enough of this farce!” a hand grabbed the back of her shirt. “How a dirty urchin like you could have evaded us for this long…” the cultivator’s face and fine moustache were marred by what looked like especially wet garbage. There were small brown bits all over his once pristine silk robes.

Bei wrinkled her nose and decided to breathe through her mouth.

“You have the honor of being in the presence of Glorious Gong Y—” the cultivator choked on the brown bits suddenly vacuumed into his mouth.

She didn’t have time to ponder what the hell had happened when what felt like a large hand pulled her from the cultivator’s grasp and set her back on her path.

Three rooftops later she ran into a bulwark.

Five cultivators dressed in matching, yet different colored robes, wielding spears wreathed in the elements.

Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood.

“Halt child! You cannot hope to escape from the Five—urk!”

Metal went flying back as though a hand had roughly yanked on his collar.

He disappeared over the edge and judging by the loud crash, landed painfully.

The remaining four spun and launched their techniques.

The scintillating display of elemental power punished open air.

They too were yanked down to the ground.

Bei leapt over the alley with all the grace of a young duckling, which was to say there was a lot of arms spinning and legs kicking.

But… she made it.

She didn’t quite know how she was doing it, but it had to be lightening.

There was that tingling in her legs and feet.

Grandmother had said that the sensation of manipulating one’s internal Qi depended on the individual. Some likened it to the heat of the flame, others would describe it as like the creeping cold of frost forming on a window, yet more would describe it as being weird and hard to explain.

There would be time to ask Grandmother later, she dared hope.

The large building looming in the distance was draped in the flags and banners of the Phoenix Dynasty.

Bright reds, oranges and yellows of the rising phoenix made for a sharp contrast on the rest of the black cloth.

So bright, in fact, that she had no trouble seeing it with only the moonlight.

Excitement and hope lent wings to her already lighter feet.

She climbed the building, giving no thought to how, only too happy to see Minokawa and a sleeping boy in the masked man’s arms.

“Bai?” she gasped.

“Safe and sound. Slept through the whole thing. Um, this is your brother right?”

“Yes, of course,” she hurried over and grabbed Bai, forgetting that she wasn’t particularly strong.

She’d have dropped him had Minokawa not lent her a hand.

“Just checking. Have to make sure they didn’t pull a decoy thing. Alright, time to go. Unless you need a few to catch your breath. Must’ve been quite a workout… the running and climbing,” he said mildly.

She could only nod. She couldn’t take her eyes of her little brother.

Finally, she no longer dishonored her late parents.

“Here, I’ll carry him,” he waited for her nod before taking Bai’s dead weight off her suddenly tired arms.

Indeed, every muscle screamed as they shook uncontrollably.

“Adrenaline dump,” he said.

The sensation suddenly became bearable.

“C’mon, time to get you two to Grandmother.”

The outside world suddenly vanished.

There was only her, Bai and Minokawa.

“What is happening?” she cried in alarm.

“Ah, sorry, thought it’d be less disorienting if you can’t see outside while we’re flying.”

“I like flying,” she frowned.

Was she being robbed of this thrill?

She felt nothing amiss.

Her stomach was definitely still in her belly.

Her feet stood on solid ground.

It had not been left behind like when Bakunawa had flown her around the city.

“Sure, why not,” he shrugged.

The outside world reappeared.

It took her a moment to realize because it was still dark.

“Welcome to outer space, technically,” he swept a hand out to encompass the vast void above them.

Bei gazed in wonder at the vast curve of the planet for a long moment before turning her eyes to the heavens.

“Wow!”

“It’s amazing! Sorry to cut this short, but I have to help Bakunawa with a thing, so if you’re ready, we’re going down.”

Bei felt nothing as they fell like a meteor.

So fast, yet she might as well have been standing on the street.

A minor disappointment in the greater picture.

And, yet, she couldn’t stop the pout from forming on her face.

Such entitlement, such petulance.

Minokawa laughed.

She ducked her head, heat rising to her face.

And then she and Bai were home.

Their new home.

Grandmother’s bony, but strong arms, engulfed the two of them.

Tears flowed unbidden.

She remembered to thank Minokawa, but he was already gone when she turned around.

Her fellow villagers emerged from their homes to join in the happy moment.

Meanwhile, a half-naked man wearing a dragon-serpent mask cleaned his hands in the brothel’s main bathroom.

The place had been an opulent mansion once and this had been the master bedroom.

Lots of gold everywhere.

The age old example of wealth not necessarily accompanying class.

Red-tainted water swirled down the drain of the gold-plated sink.

He opened the window and tossed the body out onto the grass with the rest of them.

He truly had went into this with an open mind in regards to mercy.

Perhaps, he could’ve taken them elsewhere to be tried and imprisoned for their crimes, but then what about jurisdiction?

The Phoenix Dynasty would’ve certainly used him taking their citizens away as justification for violence.

Perhaps, he was just making excuses.

He stood at the window, staring down at the pile.

Violent rapists, the lot of them.

He removed his mask and burned them to ash with a look.

They deserved worse than a quick and anonymous death.

This had been the last brothel and it had turned out to be the most violent.

Thankfully, none of the victims had been injured.

His brother was already collecting the others, which meant he had one more thing to do before leaving.

He flew northeast, scorching the air in his wake.

Two pinpricks of bright light loomed in the distance like tiny suns.

He reached them in an instant, forcing the fledgling phoenixes to move out of the way lest they become the bugs on his windshield.

They struck with streams of white-hot plasma.

That was the secret about the Phoenix Dynasty.

Their power was to generate plasma for a variety of effects.

It wasn’t true fire, sure it created fire, but he had always thought it was a bit disingenuous.

Though, he supposed it didn’t really make a difference.

When one got hit, they burned, then died.

He let the streams hit his body and fall away like water.

“You are but baby candles to my sun. I am ‘Bakunawa’, he who devours the… moon,” he intoned.

Damn it! Cal was right. I should’ve been Minokawa, he thought.

“No you’re not!” the older phoenix child, a girl snapped. “You’re him! Relentless!,” she sneered. “The Divine Empress of the Eternally Burning Flames of the Phoenix told us all about you.”

“And you are her daughter and… son?” he raised a dragon-serpent brow. “You look like you’re twelve and he’s not a day over nine. And they let you fly out here all by yourself,” he shook his head ruefully, “such shame, such parental negligence.”

“I am the Third Phoenix Prince! You will bow to your superior, mongrel dog!” the younger child snarled.

“Sorry, you’ve got, like, delicate features. I thought you were sisters,” he shrugged.

“You can’t be the sun and devour the moon,” the Third Phoenix Prince said.

“Uh, haven’t you ever heard of an eclipse? Duh… what are they teaching you at petulant brat school?”

“Silence!” the girl snapped. “You’re under arrest.”

“What are the charges?”

“We don’t have to tell you,” the boy sneered.

“Yeah you do, otherwise I don’t have to go with you.”

“Then you will come?” the girl said.

“Well, actually, no. I was just curious. And I’m not this ‘Relentless’ guy or girl. I’m obviously ‘Bakunawa’,” he pointed to his mask.

“You’re wearing a mask!”

“Duh, but anyone can wear a mask, Phoenix Princess… is that right? Cause if he’s a prince, then-”

“Enough!” she thrust her hands out and bathed him in plasma hot enough to melt iron.

He carefully moved higher to make sure it hit his chest and not his mask.

The stream petered out after a few seconds.

The princess huffed and puffed as the fiery aura surrounding her body dimmed. She drifted lower like a sad balloon three days after the birthday party.

“Alright, I think I’ve proved my moon eating power’s superiority to your quote-unqoute phoenix flames. Tell your mom that I’ve got issues with how things are being run here and it’s time to address them. The spires are a handful of years away from pulling the rug out from under our feet again. Even she has to understand what that means. I’m talking full on no more restrictions to invasions and all sorts of nasty monsters and such. The hints are there if you were inclined to look and pay attention. We should all try to get on the same page… at the least.”

The boy phoenix raised his hands.

Bakunawa sighed.

He blurred and grasped the boy’s wrists in one vise-like hand.

“Listen, your sister’s got more juice than you. Why would you think that you could do different?” he sighed. “The clock’s ticking. Tell your mom that I’ll be dropping by for that talk soon,” he left them there, tossed and turned in the air by the wake of his sonic booms.

A rather large and powerful monster had been drawn to the light show.

Too dangerous for the fledglings.

He’d take care of it as a gesture of good will, perhaps make a gift of its skin.

They did that sort of thing, right?

Besides, though the kids were arrogant young master-types, they might grow out of it one day… maybe… hopefully?

In any case, once he killed the monster his time in China was done for the foreseeable future.