They glided over the city streets faster than a car could move, winding, twisting, and turning behind blue echoes of men who moved as though someone had pressed the fast-forward button multiple times on a movie.

And, as they did so, Jie had the growing feeling that Ming was an exceptionally weird dragon.

He'd taken her to her old home, released a cloud of energy, and now moments later they were chasing down the men who'd taken everything from her. Could he really track them down just like that?

That wasn't what made her think he was weird though. Using magical energy and doing impossible things seemed like something a dragon should do. Rather, it was the fact he'd started whistling that annoyingly cheerful tune!

They were on their way to enact cold and brutal vengeance! This was serious business!

And that damn tune was catchy too. It wormed its way into her brain until she found herself humming along to it, desperately trying and failing to fight a smile that tugged at her lips.

Revenge was wrong. That was what so many had told her all her life. What books, movies, and stories of all kinds always said. What they were doing was evil... what she had asked for was evil. She should feel anguish and turmoil in her soul... not this damnably infectious cheerfulness like they were out skipping in a field!

Finally, she couldn't take it anymore. "Why on earth are you so happy?" she asked.

Ming craned his serpentine neck and looked down at her. "Why shouldn't I be?" he asked.

"Because this isn't something to be happy about. Revenge is wrong. I still want it... I'm prepared to pay whatever price I must, but it isn't something to be happy about," she said.

The dragon laughed heartily. "What foolish thought is that? Revenge is delightful!" Ming said, "They haven't even wronged me, and I shall enjoy destroying these slimes on your behalf.

"Thieves and murderers. Ha! I would spit upon their graves, but they are unworthy of such dignity. It's just too bad we can't spend the appropriate time on it. We have too much to do, I'm afraid. We can't afford to torture these fools for a hundred years."

Jie's mouth hung open. "But... they say that to kill a murderer makes you just like them... am I not evil for wishing them dead?" she asked.

Ming looked at her as though she were insane. "Killing a murderer is viewed the same way as killing two innocent people and crippling their child? What a strange world you live in," he said, "hmm... they frequent that building. Let's take a closer look. Maybe we can save a bit of time."

He flew down to an old warehouse with paint peeling from its walls in a rundown part of town as she chewed over his words.

Was Ming right? It hardly seemed fair that she should be deemed evil for asking for the death of evil men... and what had others done? They still walked free, didn't they?

The police had never even caught them!

She remembered another quote she'd read somewhere... that all that was necessary for the triumph of evil was for good men to stand by and do nothing.

Well, they'd done nothing!

She couldn't wait to see those men suffer. If that made her evil then so be it.

Ming flew straight toward one of the warehouse's many boarded-up windows and smashed through the thick wooden planks as though they weren't even there. A cloud of splinters followed in his wake as he slithered through the air into the darkness within the building.

Graffiti covered the walls and rubbish littered the floor, stirred by Ming's passing. The whole place stank of urine and despair. The only light came from somewhere further inside, and Ming flew straight for it.

The three men Jie hated more than anything in the universe stood around a camping light. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Ming drew closer to them.

"Did you hear that?" one of them asked.

"Yeah, bits of board falling apart. Probably because of the storm. Stop being so damn jumpy," said another, "as I was saying, these guys are loaded. One trip in there, and we'll be set for months."

"That's what you said about the last place, and they only had a few bucks," said the third man.

The second man smiled. "Yeah, but the girl was a bit of fun at least, eh?" he said.

The three laughed.

Jie's stomach tightened. She hated them. She wanted them dead. All thoughts of revenge being wrong vanished. She wanted blood.

"It seems my hunch paid off. Are you ready for your vengeance, Jie?" Ming asked.

Jie gritted her teeth. "Yes," she said, "do it."

The dragon smiled, exposing rows of razor-sharp fangs and he laughed.

His laughter was like the crackle of thunder, and it echoed across the empty warehouse.

The three men whipped out their guns as they looked around the warehouse frantically, their eyes passing over Ming and Jie as though they weren't there.

"Who's there? Show yourself!" one of them yelled.

"What's the matter? Can't you see me?" Ming asked. His voice dripped with malice and killing intent so intense that even the hairs on the back of Jie's neck stood on end.

One of the men pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. A beam of light pierced the darkness and he swept it all around him, even shining it over Ming and Jie and still, he did not see them.

"Whoever you are, you'd better run, or we'll blow you away!" one of them yelled.

Ming laughed. "Go ahead then. Try," he said.

The swirling energy around Ming and Jie receded, although the protective bubble around Jie remained, and the men looked at them all at once.

"What the f--" started one.

"It's a monster! Shoot it!" interrupted the other. Their guns flashed. Gunshots tore through the air and Jie squeezed her eyes shut.

Jie's heart leaped into her throat, waiting for the bullets to land. But, she felt nothing.

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She opened one eye and then the other.

The three men stood with expressions of shock and horror, and Ming laughed.

The shattered remnants of bullets lay scattered upon the floor, warped and twisted into metal mushrooms.

Ming drifted closer to them as they held their guns with shaking hands, smoke still drifting from the barrels. The one with the flashlight dropped it as he backed away. It clattered to the floor and rolled, the beam of light seeming so small and fragile in the overwhelming darkness and serving only to lengthen the shadows as Ming slithered through the air.

"Is that the best you can do?" Ming asked, his laughter echoing like thunder within the warehouse.

The men backed further away and fired again.

Their bullets bounced off Ming's scales without so much as a scratch. A few pinged off the sphere of energy that surrounded Jie as well only to ricochet away into the darkness.

Jie's mouth hung open.

What power was this?

The men fired over and over. Bullets clattered to the floor like rain until their guns clicked uselessly and nothing but smoke came from their barrels.

Ming laughed through it all, the force of his amusement shaking the building as rusted metal supports groaned.

"I must say, your weapons are fascinating. Useless, but fascinating," Ming said.

"What... what are you?" stuttered one of the men as they all stumbled backward away from Ming's slow yet inexorable approach.

"I am Xie Ming. Last Descendant of the Great Lightning Dragon, but you can think of me simply as your doom," Ming said.

One of the men caught Jie's eye. "Hey... you. I know you. You're that little girl from a few years back. I thought you were dead," he said.

Suddenly his fear drained away, his trembling retreat giving way to an arrogant swagger as he gestured to Ming with his empty gun. "What's this? A hologram or something? That why our bullets do nothing? Some little revenge scheme? What's the matter? Do you miss mommy and daddy?" he asked with a twisted smile.

He picked up a crowbar and walked up to her with slow, deliberate steps, his eyes burning with cruelty. "Your trick might've given us a good scare, but it's over now. I'm going to enjoy breaking you a second time," he said.

Jie met his eyes with a cold, steely gaze.

The man swung his crowbar and Ming made no effort to evade, not even flinching as the cold metal clanged dully against his scales with no visible effect.

The man's eyes went wide. He reached out a trembling hand and touched Ming's snout. The man swallowed hard.

Ming snorted. His breath steamed in the cool air. The force of his exhale pushed the man away several inches, making his feet slide back over the smooth concrete. Ming growled. A low rumbling sound from the back of his throat.

"Please make him suffer at least a little," Jie said.

"Gladly," Ming replied.

Ming snatched the man up with one massive clawed hand and lifted him high above the ground.

Jie blinked. She hadn't even seen Ming move!

"Be glad that I am pressed for time," Ming said, "I've done a lot worse for a lot less."

His hand glowed with blue light which formed into a transparent worm bigger than Jie's arm.

It slithered around Ming's fingers toward the man's head, its eyeless face opening to expose jaws filled to the brim with glistening, slime-covered teeth.

"No! No! What is that thing?! Get it away from me!" screamed the man, his feet kicking uselessly at the air as he struggled in vain.

The worm wound its way closer and closer... right up to the man's face.

It pressed the tip of its bulbous form against the man's nostril and gradually crawled inside, its flesh undulating as it squeezed itself into the small hole.

"Aaaah! No! No! Help me!" the man screamed. The flesh of his nose deformed, bulging to accommodate the worm as it burrowed ever deeper...

The man's screams turned to panicked shrieks.

Ming laughed, his entire serpentine body shaking from the force of his amusement.

"You may wish to save your screams. It hasn't even started yet," Ming said. He released his grip and the man fell to the ground with a thud. There, the man writhed, screamed, and clawed uselessly at his face, his fingernails biting into his skin as his flesh bulged and pulsed.

"It's a rather useless spiritual art I picked up," Ming said in a cold, detached voice as though he were lecturing Jie, "it only works on cultivators far below my rank. That makes it worthless as an attack, but here... everyone is weaker than I could've imagined.

"Do you see how it's burrowing deeper? It's making for his brain. From there, it will spread all the way through his nervous system. Once it has done so, it will activate all of his pain receptors, essentially locking him in a cycle of the worst pain it's possible for him to experience... until he dies.

"It was created by a demented expert with the water affinity who delighted in torturing others. I'm not sure why I ever even learned it, but I think this is a fitting use for it. Don't you?"

The man's screams cut off abruptly, a look of horror frozen on his twisted, bulging face. His skin shriveled up like a prune, drawing tight against his bones as his terrified eyes shrank into nothingness.

"Oh, I forgot to mention. It also absorbs all the liquid in the body. That's how it kills," Ming said.

The man withered away, and even his skin, flesh, and bones crumbled into a pile of dust. For a moment all was still, and nobody breathed.

The dust moved, and the worm slithered out, larger now and as red as blood. Its sightless face reared up and looked from one man to the other as though it couldn't quite decide between them.

"Who's next?" Ming asked.

The other two dropped their guns and ran as fast as they could.

"I'm surprised it took them so long to do that," Ming said with a smirk. He extended one scaly hand and released two blasts of deep blue energy.

The energy slammed into the men and wrapped around them like a pair of nets. They tumbled across the floor, writhing and straining against the blue energy, but to no avail.

"It's amusing that they think they can escape their fate," Ming said.

The worm slithered across the ground toward them, dragging a trail of dust across the cold concrete in its wake.

"Please! It wasn't my idea! I didn't mean to! It was all them! I tried to stop them! I'm sorry! I'll never do anything bad again! Please no! I've changed!" one of the men begged, the other too frozen in shock and horror to do more than stare at the approaching worm.

Some part of Jie actually pitied them, but they'd earned this.

They weren't sorry. She'd heard what they'd said before they noticed her. They were monsters. They would never change. They just didn't want to die.

She forced herself to watch as the disgusting worm crawled into each man, and tortured them as it drained them to death. She didn't want to see, but she'd asked for this, and this was the result.

She refused to let herself hide from that.

Finally, the last man crumbled and flaked away into a pile of dust, and the worm wriggled on the floor.

"They won't be hurting anyone again," Ming said.

He waved his hand, and the worm burst apart like a water balloon, splattering blood and water across the floor.

"Are you ready to go now?" Ming asked.

Jie looked at the remains of the men she hated most in the world.

She felt sick, yet also relieved. They deserved worse than this.

She considered if she was ready to leave... there was nothing for her in this world anymore. Her parents were gone. She had no family and no friends.

She swallowed. "I'm ready," she said.

"I won't lie. This will hurt more than anything you've ever experienced, and there's a good chance we will both die," Ming said.

"Just the travel from here to there? What do you mean? Won't you just open a portal or something?" Jie asked.

Ming shook his head. "I have a way of returning home, though it isn't as simple as a portal as you say. The main trouble is that you are too weak. You must understand, my world is nothing like this one.

"It's larger and everything is stronger. Even the ground beneath your feet. If I brought you there as you are now, you would die instantly. I have to remake your body entirely. Into one that can handle living in my world.

"You will be stronger, and faster. Though you may not feel it so much because you will weigh much more on my world than on this puny one and even the atmosphere is thicker there," Ming said.

"So... what do you mean when you say we might die?" Jie said.

"I've never remade a body before," Ming said, "and doing so while traveling at the same time... it will be difficult. There's a chance we won't make it."

"Oh... can't we remake my body here and then go later?" Jie asked.

"No. Putting aside the complications of the lack of Essence here, the energy fluctuations from me making your body would cause unforeseeable destruction on a world as weak as this. Trying it here would only be more troublesome," Ming said.

"Couldn't we move somewhere like a desert where we can't hurt anyone?" Jie asked.

"Allow me to clarify. Your planet may not survive if we attempt it here," Ming said.

"Oh," Jie said.

"Don't worry. Preparations were made for my journey home. The travel there will be the easy part. Remaking your body will be difficult for us both, but with great risks come great rewards," Ming said.

"Let's do it then," Jie said.

"That's the spirit! You will walk the path of a cultivator and learn what real power is!" Ming said

She looked again at the crushed bullets that lay on the floor.

"Will I be bulletproof like you?" she asked.

Ming laughed. "You mean these little metal shards? Please. You will quickly be too strong for such weapons to harm you. You should focus your sights on greater heights," Ming said.

The way Ming looked down on guns and the weapons of her world excited and terrified her. Just how powerful was he? Yet, he needed her help? How powerful were his enemies?

Once again, she wondered what the hell she'd gotten herself into...