Kyle was pissed. Absolutely boiling.

"Look man," Trevor said as they stomped through the forest. "I get it. You're worried about Jenny..."

"I'm not worried about Jenny."

"Kyle, buddy, you just walked through a tree. And you didn't even notice. A couple of them, actually."

Kyle turned around to look. Trevor was right, he'd just stormed right through a couple of smaller trees without even noticing. It looked like a dinosaur had stomped through. He actually hadn't noticed, because he'd apparently become that much stronger than the average tree. And yet somehow, it still wasn't strong enough. He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, and when he talked his voice was...calmer.

"Jenny is fine," Kyle said. "I think she was fighting a little while ago, but she's fine. I can feel her through our connection. That's where I'm headed. I'm worried about everyone else, but that's not what's got me angry. It's that I recognize the damn pattern."

"What pattern?" Trevor blinked.

"She's Nightmare Fox."

"From...from Forbidden Garden? The anime? You mean she's like, secretly the voice actress or something?"

"No of course not!" Kyle snapped, then got control of himself again. "Sorry. But come on, Trev. No that's not what I meant. Think about it."

Trevor took a moment to think about it.

"Okay I mean she's a second super powerful bad guy to show up after you got your powers," Trevor admitted. "But I mean... Nightmare Fox was secretly a dude, he was the king of Shade Mountain and she's some kind of terrorist, and Kai had three girlfriends by the time they fought so it's not identical..."

"Second bad guy is enough. This is going to keep happening, isn't it? And I know everybody told me it would, but...but I was cocky. I just felt so much stronger. And whatever I thought and said, deep down...deep down I felt like I was powerful enough to handle it. Handle anything. And now a deranged elf dropped out of nowhere and literally blew everyone up. And now I have to beat her."

Stolen novel; please report.

"I mean we at least have to get away," Trevor nodded. "And she's not just gonna let us go. I figure some kind of fighting retreat is our best bet."

"No. We need to BEAT her." Kyle clenched his fists. "Beat her for real. Because if we don't, it'll set a pattern. There's two kinds of heroes, Trevor. There's Kais who beat their bad guys and then there's Kogoros whonever win."

"Wait hold on. I'm having trouble catching up here. Kogoro from Blue Blood Blade?"

"Yes."

"We have to beat the insane elf sorceress because of an anime you don't like?"

"Yes. Catch up."

"I am not the one not making sense here! What the hell does all this have to do with anything?"

"Do you remember why I don't like BBB?" Kyle asked. "Kogoro never wins. Never. He constantly gets his ass kicked and runs away, or has some insanely mixed victory, or gets saved by another character at the last second. Or do you remember that one time, in the Tower of Dreams? When Dark Bell didn't just win, he completed his entire evil plan, then Kogoro got a new power up form, then Dark Bell BEAT HIM AGAIN, then he let them all go because his plan was completed and it didn't even matter anymore?"

"Yeah I remember you said that was when you stopped watching."

"Well I plan on being Kai. I'm going to win my fights. People are going to be WORRIED about fighting me. People will think twice before they do because it means messing with Kyle Anderman. I will NOT be smacked around by every magical asshole who thinks they're hot shit. I will NOT be Kogoro!"

Trevor looked at Kyle. He wasn't sure how healthy it was to compare everything in life to an anime, but he had to admit their lives had been pretty similar to an anime the past few months. And he could see Kyle's point, kind of. There was definitely a strategic value to letting it be known they couldn't be messed with.

"Just trust me on this. I can feel it."

"Yeah okay," Trevor nodded. "But that's not all I can feel. I guess you'll get your chance to fight right now."

It has been said that those practiced in the martial arts can, through their deep connection to the universe and the energy that unites all things, sense the approach of an enemies life force. Their training had indicated there was a great deal of truth to that. But Trevor's latest observation probably had a lot more to do with the way the ground was shaking, the screaming, and the billowing clouds of leaves and darkness crashing towards them through the forest.

"That's not her," Kyle said. "Some kind of copy."

"Yeah." That one was the mystical sense thing for real, promise.

"I'm not losing to a copy."

It was a hell of a copy. As it slammed through the trees they could see it was more of a distorted wraith made from withered leaves and branches, twisted and gnarled, cloaked in darkness. It had a face like a dessicated corpse, dark points of eerie green light glowing in the dark pits of it's eye sockets, as if they were down an impossibly deep well.

Kyle took one step forwards and punched it into shards of wood.

Trevor looked from the pile of sawdust and dwindling magic on the ground back up to Kyle, who'd barely moved.

"DAMN!"

"Yeah sorry I took all the glory."

"No, no way man it's fine."

"Good. Let's go kill this bitch for real."