When XJ-V stepped outside the portal to Aun’El’s Grove with Feng-Lung, he knew his friend had been keeping something from him.

The Dragonhearth Hall was far too quiet. Devoid of the apprentices that would usually be practicing at this early morning hour – even if they were hungover from their revelries the night before.

“Feng,” the Cog said. “If you have something to tell me…”

The boy looked at his friend as they reached the ancient doors of the hall. “Not me, Brother. I’ve said my piece. Now, you must contend with Ramor-Tai itself.”

With a smile and a swift movement, Feng threw the doors open and revealed the procession that awaited XJ-V. The great courtyard of the monastery that ran between both Sects was lined with Cultivators on both sides, their faces silhouetted by the rising sun of a new day.

Before him stood his Brothers, still and silent as a crypt, before they broke out into applause for him as he stood, dumbstruck, staring down at them.

“You didn’t think you’d be leaving without a proper send off, did you?” Feng-Lung chuckled, still holding the proud Gang Zhuazi in his arms.

XJ-V sighed at the pomp of this spectacle. “You humans and your celebrations…” he sighed. “I do not think I shall ever understand them.”

“You don’t have to, Brother,” Feng smiled. “But you do have to indulge us.”

Both men walked together down to meet the Cultivators who XJ-V had grown attached to throughout his time in the monastery – including some novices who, spurred on by their tutor, Fai-Deng, insisted on seeing the metal man of legend before he left them for good.

“Mark him, young ones!” Fai-Deng shouted from the crowd. “He might look like a scrawny skeleton of a man, but within him rests a tiger’s spirit, ready to strike!”

XJ-V walked up to his Brother Tiger and offered him a graceful bow in the Dragon style, with Fai-Deng returning a Tiger’s salute.

“It has been educational, Brother Tiger,” the Cog said. “Let us meet on the battlefield again someday.”

“It’s a promise,” Fai-Deng said, coming forward to clasp the steel-man’s hand with his own – a meeting of flesh and metal that shocked the initiates with its intensity. “Show those whelps of the Order what we of Ramor-Tai stand for, and then come back for the rematch of the century.”

“On that day, it shall be you who teaches me, Brother Fai. After all, I will need someone to finish my training in the ways of the Tiger. You began my first steps on the path of lightning. It is only fair that you finish it.”

Fai-Deng clenched his hand tighter and nodded once, sure and certain of his duty to his Brother, now.

“May the Dao go with you, Brother Cog.”

Beside him stood Kai-Thai, who had by this time recovered from his wounds. A few scars were left here and there round the curvature of his jaw, but it did nothing to dissuade from the Tiger’s good looks.

“You wear the scars of battle well, Brother Kai,” XJ-V said.

“Hah!” the jovial Tiger replied. “A boon, surely. The women of the villagers were often so preoccupied with my own looks that they forgot about dear Brother Fai-Deng here. Now, finally, he has a chance with the fairer sex!”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Fai shot his Brother a dirty look, but collapsed into laughter with his comrades when they took up a chant in his name. Almost losing his Brother had sobered him, it seemed. It might have even taught him some good humor.

“Between you and me,” Kai-Thai said. “I never truly thought a Cog could become one of us. A feeling I’m sure many of our Brothers shared. I have never been happier to have been proven wrong.”

The jester gripped the Cog’s hand tight, mimicking the fierce determination of his Brother.

“Give that pompous bird-man hell, XJ-V,” he said. “You were born for greatness. I know it, as a man who was born for simpler things…”

There seemed to be a hint of sorrow that had crept into Brother Thai’s eyes, then, and as XJ-V opened his mouth to speak, the distinct sound of flatulence emitted from their clasped hands.

For a moment, no one said anything. Then, finally, an uproar of laughter spilled from the collective throat of the crowd.

“Brother Thai…” Feng-Lung sighed. “For shame…”

“It cannot be helped!” the Tiger joker said, pulling away to reveal the pulses of Qi energy on his hand that had summoned the sound. “An old – old trick – often forgotten by those who prefer the more martial techniques of the Tiger! Come back one day and I shall teach you it, XJ-V. Perhaps you might tickle your enemies to death!”

The Cog looked at Feng and saw nothing but his friend shrug in defeat. He bowed to Kai-Thai, and thanked him for his wisdom all the same. He was a joker, sure, but there was genius in his words. Sometimes laughter hid the greatest power.

As the Cog finally came to the end of the procession, the great gates of Ramor-Tai loomed above him. Still, he could scarcely believe that he had ever passed through them as the larva that he had.

Beneath their venerable mass, Masters Longhua and Yoma-Dur waited, PlaneswalkerOri’un packed and ready beside them.

“A good sight, is it not, Master Longhua?” Yoma-Dur said. “A pupil with eyes focused on a singular quest, ready to change the world.”

“It is certainly sobering,” Longhua sighed. “But it also might be nothing more than a walking pile of scrap, ready to be rusted into the uncaring world outside our walls.”

Everyone’s eyes flashed to the Dragon Master.

“Oh, Longhua,” Ori’un grimaced. “You really just can’t drop the act, even now, can you?”

“And you never learned to keep yours up, Ori’un…”

“Throw that wispy little beard aside and tell your student how proud you are of him, Goddamnit!”

“My student knows I am proud!” the old Dragon roared, fingers flaring with embers that cracked up his ancient fingernails. “He – he has chosen his path. I do not stand in his way. Is that not enough?”

XJ-V laughed in the face of his fellow Brothers awkwardness, bowing low to his Master for what he knew could be the last time.

“I have learned much under your tutelegde, Master Longhua,” he said. “Wherever I go, I will carry your words with me – those of yours and Master Yoma-Dur’s, and those of all my Brothers within these hallowed walls.”

Longhua stiffened, his mouth hidden under his beard.

“When Doctor Janus told me you would be the one to train me,” XJ-V said quietly. “He was right. He saw something in you that he knew I needed, and you helped me see the spirit within me that not even I realized was there.”

The Cog stepped closer to the Master so that there was barely an inch between their eyes.

“It has been an honor to be your student,” he said. “I am only ashamed to say that I do not know how to thank you. I hope to find the way during my travels, and deliver it to you when I return.”

The Master nodded once after considering these words, stepping aside to let his student pass by towards the waiting Planeswalker, whispering words that no one could truly hear, but which the Master still felt needed to be said:

“…the honor was mine, XJ-V.”

Feng embraced his Brother only once more before as he Planeswalker heaved open the great doors of the monastery, taking in the view of the blasted world which seemed, still, to hold a kind of beauty as the sun glinted off its corrupted rivers.

“I have said all I have to say,” Feng told him. “And yet still I feel I have not said enough. So I shall simply ask you: are you prepared?”

XJ-V smiled as he answered. “No. But then, I wasn’t prepared to find what I found in this place either, now was I? Perhaps, in the end, life should be a surprise.”

“Isn’t that a thought?” Feng-Lung murmured. “In that case, may you walk with the Dao, Brother XJ-V.”

The Cog was loathe to pull away from not only Feng, but the rest of the waving Brothers who cheered as he set foot over the threshold of Ramor-Tai’s boundary. He had walked through those same doors as a piece of scrap, years ago. He did not know it then, but he was leaving as a legend.

And yet the true tales of his triumphs had yet to be written.

“Don’t forget about Arha!” a mischievous voice suddenly squeaked from the top of his head, tail curling down to tickle his nasal sensors.

“Miss Arha…” XJ-V breathed. “Have…have you been up there this whole time?”

“Arha is a master of stealth, now!” the Huli giggled. “She has trained while XJ-V has punched silly boys in the ring. Now, she will be of great use to her man!”

“You know you don’t have to come with me, little one,” he murmured as he stroked her spectral fur, feeling her purring under his touch. “You could stay with your Sisters in the Grove, and be safe from-“

“Oh, silence, metal one! Arha does not care about being safe! Arha wants to see the world, and the legendary spirits of the Wasteland! And you will be needing a cute little guide to introduce you to them, now won’t you?”

XJ-V smirked as the Huli came to stand on his shoulder. “I would have no other spirit be my guide.”

The hulking hands of Ori’un waved goodbye to Ramor-Tai for the second time, sighing secretly to himself that he was once again leaving the place he had once called home just as the Cog beside him was.

“Doesn’t get any easier…” he said. “But, meh, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Shall we set off? Or are you sure there isn’t some other spirit you’d like to drag along with us?”

XJ-V took one final look at the faces of the men he had learned to call Brother before the doors of the monastery closed them shut behind it. Then, with a nod to Ori’un, he set his eyes on the burned land beneath Ramor-Tai mountain.

Below, uncaring, the Wastelands waited.