Grey.

Juliana stood next to the doorway in the entrance hall--odd, she realized, the double doors had somehow been repaired since Cial had blasted them down, though she couldn't imagine how or when or by whom--and signaled to Hunter and Risa that the coast was more or less clear. Flinging open the door, Juli dashed back out into the fray, her kindred on her heels. The armored giant reared up in the distance, TR members swarming around it already. The three Called warriors were about to join the attack when a massive burst of light flared up in the woods some distance away. A lone figure flew out of the woods.

“Who was that?” Risa gasped.

“I don't know--did you see where they went?” Juli queried urgently.

None of them had seen where whoever it was had gone, which struck them as odd. Juli closed her eyes and replayed the moment in her memory several times, focusing on what the person had looked like.

“Strange,” she murmured, “I think that might have been Weena...”

“Weena's supposed to be fighting the giant,” protested Risa. “I don't know how he'd have wound up in the forest.”

A straggling contingent of Cold Soldiers interrupted their conversation, and for a moment all worries about Weena and mysterious flying people dissolved into the clean danger of battle. The three of them were a well-matched team; Juliana's awareness, Risa's stealth, and Hunter's ingenuity complimented each other so well that the soldiers were dead almost before they realized the Called warriors were there. Then the conversation resumed, unchanged except for a few extra blood-spatters on their clothing and dead soldiers around them.

“There's only one way to find out,” concluded Hunter.

“See if there's anything to see in the forest where he blasted off from?” suggested Juli.

“Yup.”

---

Kaotic woke up slowly, to find himself sprawled uncomfortably in the mud. How long was I out? he wondered, as his memories came rushing back. He had fought Grey... lost... survived... I guess he didn't bother to kill me. Kao hoisted himself into a standing position and looked around for some sign that would tell him where he was and which way to go. His mistake--I hope. He didn't appear to be in Klasthe, but beyond that he couldn't have said where he was.

A huge, explosive flash flared up some distance away. He wasn't sure, but Kao could have sworn he saw a human shape propelled high up by the blast. That seems as good a way to go as any. He prepared his Telejump, and leaped.

There was no sign left to tell that Kaotic had been there except for the imprints in the sodden earth, which were washed away slowly but surely by the driving rain.

---

Juli paced forward deliberately, approaching the clearing with caution. In the small gap amongst the trees, a muddy figure that might once have been white hunched over, looking utterly defeated. Without confirmation of the figure's identity, though, she wasn't sure whether this was someone truly defeated or a possible enemy just resting. Hunter and Risa stayed with her, the three of them rarely moving apart for more than a moment. Finally, they reached the clearing.

A mud-splashed figure stood opposite them. He--it was definitely a he--had been concealed by the trees, and it was easy to see how. Below the earth-toned mud, his clothing appeared to have been green, meaning that he was exactly the same colors as the foliage around him. Even so, he would likely have been utterly unrecognizable were it not for two facts: that despite being matted and filthy, his hair was still clearly a fluffy green ponytail, and that an irregularly shaped black sword with glowing green runes hung at his waist.

Between Juli and Kao lay the distraught, prostrate form that, now that they could see him, could only be Weena.

Hunter spoke first. "Kao? Weena?"

Kao nodded. Weena groaned and raised himself slightly from the ground. Shockingly, their eyes both spoke abject defeat and horror. "It's me," they confirmed at almost the same time. Then Weena continued on his own. "Don't trust a man who looks like me, but with my powers still... he's evil..."

"What happened?" Risa asked calmly. To anyone who didn't know her, she would seem to be entirely emotionless, but Juli could see that her apprentice's eyes had gone glassy and cold to conceal the horror she felt every bit as strongly as any of the others.

Weena merely groaned again, so Kao explained his story. "I found my way into my past. I watched myself orphaned all over again, my childhood home destroyed, and this time I saw Grey do it... I barely survived, but found my way into Klasthe at another time. There was an old man who taught me to use another kind of power. Kly, he called it. Then... I came back to the present. Fought Grey. He has the Kly powers too. He could have killed me. I almost thought he had... I don't know why I woke up."

"You can't defeat Grey alone, Kao," Weena moaned from the ground. "I tried, too. He would have killed me if I hadn't created a mirror copy of myself... and if it hadn't been for Gurpus. He came over to our side, saved my life..."

"Nobody can defeat Grey alone, at least not and live," murmured Juli. "Remember KageArashi?"

Weena nodded. "The psycho ninjat who attacked us for fun right after we had already fought Shadow and Gurpus?"

"That's the one," Juli confirmed. "He died fighting Grey. I saw him in the Mists... based on what I could put together, it sounds like he actually defeated a mirror copy of Grey much like the one you made of yourself, Weena. I can't imagine how many convenient things a manabender must be able to do... to actually create temporary copies of oneself... even the Called have to work with actual physical substance or else actual spirit..."

"Don't get ideas!" Weena seemed to have forgotten even his exhaustion and defeat in the urgency of what he had to say. "Risa--you remember how I went off to fight the giant Cold Soldier?" He continued with barely a pause for Risa to nod. "I never got there. Something happened--I was taken to an ancient manabender temple. There was a prophecy waiting for me... it was written by a very stupid seer, but it still told me something. I took this gauntlet--" he held up his right hand-- "but it was a trap. My powers are evil. And they separated off from me, in the form of a clone. He's evil. He told me all about how our civilization is gone because the forces of good destroyed it--I lived only because I was a test case to see if a child with the manabending powers and blood could be good." He slumped back down again. "So now I'm powerless. He's probably off wreaking havoc somewhere. And I don't even know how he knew all that, if he was in me all these years and I didn't know any of it..." After a pause, he added, "I saw Bram go by, locked in battle with what looked like my clone..."

"Bram?" Juli and Risa chorused.

"Isn't he the insane mage?" asked Risa.

"The ridiculously powerful one?" added Juli.

"That would be the one," Weena informed the ground. "He's one of the few people who might be able to subdue my clone, and one of even fewer who would actually try."

Juliana bent down and helped her friend to his feet. "It's not your fault," she assured him. "You had no way of knowing... and you yourself are good, I'm sure of it. Remember how we've fought side by side? If you had been evil--in yourself, your identity, your personality--you would never have been the ally you are. Maybe your powers are evil by nature, but your soul isn't."

To this pep talk, Hunter added, "C'mon, you're a friend. One of us. I know I trust you."

"Manabending is evil?" Kao spoke for the first time in some time, his voice dulled slightly with shock.

Weena nodded. "But you're different from me... I don't know about your powers..."

"I hypothesize that Kao is from a very different bloodline than Weena," murmured Juli. "Kao--you say you watched Grey destroy your home?" At Kao's nod, Juli smiled triumphantly. "My guess is that Kao's family broke off from the manabending civilization at some point, possibly because they weren't evil. Which would explain why Kao grew up with his family until Grey--Grey, who we have long since established is an evil manabender--destroyed their home, while Weena was... orphaned by the forces of good at a very young age?" Weena nodded tremulously. "That could also explain the rather large differences between Kao's manabending and Weena's."

Everyone stared at Juliana. "Are you sure you're just guessing?" Hunter wanted to know. "'Cause that's a lot of detail..."

Juli laughed and explained, "It's a hypothesis. An educated guess. Because I've been paying attention, and putting facts together this whole time. So when Kao asked about manabending being evil--clearly thinking in terms of himself--everything crystallized. It works that way sometimes."

Risa's attention was diverted by a sound that apparently only she could hear. "There's still a battle going on," she called. "We need to get back to it."

"I won't be much help," Weena warned. "I'm powerless..."

"You can still use your sword, right?" put in Juli.

"Yes. It's just an ordinary sword now--I'm not bonded to it anymore--but I can fight with it."

"Then that shouldn't be a problem."

Kao said nothing, but looked thoughtfully at Weena with his fingers drumming lightly on the Edge of Mortality's hilt. The five friends conferred a little longer, then returned to the battle raging around the Regulars' fortress.