“I’ll tell you what I saw on that first day we met,” a rather drunk Feng-Lung told XJ-V as they sat on the roof of the Ramor-Tai library.
“Gracious,” Kai-Thai yawned. “Should we leave you two alone for this?”
“Kai,” Fai-Deng grunted. “If you make another joke, I will place my hand so far down your throat that you will wish Brother Jung finished you off.”
Feng continued as though his Brothers weren’t falling apart around him, practically at each others’ throats.
“I saw a man,” Feng said. “A man who had come here to do nothing more than learn how to become more than he was. I saw a man who thought himself a creature apart from me, and yet as I watched him suffer the torrential rains of the Wasteland skies, looking for nothing more than the approval of a Master, I began to realize just how simple life could truly be…”
Feng trailed off as XJ-V listened, watching his eyes catch the glimmering peal of the moon as the dark clouds of the Wasteland finally parted to let the light through.
“Sure,” the boy chuckled. “I could be a hero. I could reject this place and the Brothers I have made here and head out into the remains of an Empire I was not born into. But it is not to be, XJ-V.”
“Because the Dao does not show you this path?”
“Because I have chosen to remain.”
Feng jumped up suddenly, propelling himself with his refined Dragon-Tooth rocket technique that drew some gasps from the inebriated Tiger Brothers behind them. He raised his cup of Baijiu to the skies, and toasted the moon with the air of an arrogant young Master of legend.
“I won’t let things be decided for me,” he said. “Not anymore. From now on, I decide my own fate, and I’ve been fighting against my own Animus for far too long. I fought against it when I first set eyes on the Planeswalker, when my mother was in peril, and every night where I felt like I wasn’t good enough to stand among the Cultivators of this place. In truth, XJ-V, it is you who made me realize who I truly am, and what I really want. So, I drink to you, my Brother in steel.”
“HERE, HERE!” the Tiger Brothers yelped.
XJ-V could do nothing but watch the grinning face of the red-cheeked boy and shake his head like a kid-brother listening to the wisdom of his elder sibling.
“What does the Wasteland have to offer me that I don’t already have here?” Feng said quietly after he downed his drink and slumped down on the roof again. “Ever since I knew my mother was gone, a family is what I wanted. A place to belong.”
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He turned to the staring neon-eyes of his friend.
“I never really understood that about myself before I met you. I think my whole life I was simply looking for a place to belong. A place where I mattered. I just didn’t have the eyes to see that about myself. Little did I know that all I needed was the eyes of a Cog to see it for me.”
“…these eyes are unworthy of you, Brother Feng.”
“Oh, there he goes again, getting us all misty-eyed!” Kai-Thai wept behind them while his Brother held him in a vicious headlock. “I-if the blood was not…currently…rushing to my head…I would embrace you, both!”
“Your eyes are meant for far greater sights than I, Brother,” Feng quietly replied to XJ-V. “So, go. Go and kick the crap out ofMah-Jung for me. Go conquer the Wasteland and grab the High Eagle by his feathery balls. Then come back here and look upon me again. Maybe by then, I’ll finally be able to return the gift you gave to me.”
There was little the Cog could add to a sentiment to pure, and so honest. He watched Feng’s features warp as he spoke, first consumed with drunken fire which slowly melted away to barely restrained sorrow, only to be replaced with the jovial, youthful smile that XJ-V knew was his. There was no other smile like it in their entire world. Of that, the Cog was sure.
He placed a firm hand on Feng’s shoulder and smiled right back at him.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Drunk men tell no lies,” he replied. “That’s something you’ll learn as you only grow more huma-“
Feng suddenly realized that his jug of Baijiu was no longer in his hands.
“In that case,” XJ-V said. “I think I’ll do some research with you tonight.”
At the amazed faces of his Brothers, the Cog then began to down the Baijiu like it was nothing – simply a canister of oil that would serve to grease up his insides.
“B-brother!” Feng cried.
“No!” Kai-Thai choked. “The Cog must learn of our ways, Brother Feng! Let him taste of the nectar of Gods, and let the soul within him know that it was we humans of the earth who first created Biajiu! Let the heavens know that it is we who made something sweeter than the lips of the Gods themselves!”
“But won’t spirits kill a Cog’s-“
“GO ON BROTHER!” Fai-Deng roared. “Chug! Chug! Chug!”
Feng looked about him for anyone with even a pretense of sanity left in the monstery who could talk some sense into his metal Brother. Finding no one, he instead simply shrugged his shoulders and joined in the boorish cheers of his companions, and together those of the Tigers and Dragons watched a Cog down Baijiu for the first time in recorded history.
But they were not the only ones present outside the Colosseum’s great bowels.
Beneath the celestial eyes of the moon, another Cultivator sat crouched, his back pressed against the far wall of the Ramor-Tai library. He had sat beneath the cover of darkness ever since the four Disciples had come to enjoy their evening celebration, and wore the cloak of night around him like a man born of shadow itself. Only now did he finally stand, look up at where his Brothers were laughing together, and scowl up at them.
“Your will to persist is strong, XJ-V,” Mah-Jung of the Dragon whispered. “But you are not a Planeswalker yet…”
***
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