The moment Abe's fist connected with The Ninja's face and sent him tumbling, something changed. Bob felt it not in his muscles or breath, but in the core of the medallion that pressed against his chest. The white Tiger Medallion pulsed, glowing brighter, and as Abe helped him to his feet, the black Tiger Medallion on his brother's neck began to respond. The two talismans—so long separated, so differently worn—hummed in resonance, a low, harmonic tone that trembled through the street's broken stone. For a moment, it felt like the very air recognized them.
Bob steadied himself against Abe's shoulder. The black-suited figure stood tall, arms broad, eyes narrowed beneath his mask.
"You always had a better entrance," Bob muttered with a raspy smile.
"Yeah," Abe replied, "but you always got the girl."
They chuckled for a breath—just one—before the air shifted again. The white glow around Bob shimmered with renewed force, stronger now that it sang in harmony with Abe's. But Bob's face told another truth—his knees wobbled slightly, his breathing was shallow, and sweat ran down his brow in steady streams. His arms, no longer full of strength, twitched between strikes. Even with the medallion's light, his body had limits. And they were closing in.
The pause in the fight ended with a sudden shriek of force.
The Ninja returned—not slinking, not stalking—but charging like a rabid animal. His suit now clung to him like oiled skin, shifting in form with his movement. Shadows coiled and writhed around his limbs. His left arm dragged a trail of darkness behind it as if dipped in oil. And as he came, his blade rose high and curved downward with devastating speed.
Bob raised his arm, the aura flaring in time to catch the edge. The impact rang out like a bell being struck with a hammer. Abe flanked from the side, slamming a hook into The Ninja's ribs, but it was like punching fog. The shadows dulled the impact, and The Ninja grunted before spinning on his heel and landing a crescent kick to Abe's chest that sent him stumbling back.
Danny, standing several yards away, was dispatching the last of the ninjas with efficient, chi-infused strikes. But even as he punched another attacker into unconsciousness, he paused—eyes narrowing. Something was wrong.
The fallen enemies… weren't just bleeding or groaning anymore.
They were melting.
Slowly, subtly, as if something were drawing them away, their bodies began to dissolve into black smoke—inky, tar-like, curling upward and drifting across the alley in tendrils. It wasn't mist. It wasn't steam. It was something else.
And it was heading straight for The Ninja.
Danny's eyes flared, and without hesitation, he slammed his Iron Fist into the ground. A golden shockwave burst outwards, disrupting some of the gas, scattering the tendrils, causing the corrupted vapor to hiss and recoil. But not all. Several threads still found their way back to their master, curling into his armor like veins of corruption.
Abe and Bob didn't have time to register it.
They were fighting for inches now, pushing back against The Ninja, whose movements had become more erratic—no longer a refined martial artist, but a berserker. He swung wide, recklessly, but fast—inhumanly fast. His blade carved into the stone, chipped walls, and sent sparks flying from every failed strike. Each block Bob attempted grew weaker, every deflection slower. Abe was limping now—his left leg dragging slightly, his side bruised.
Still, they coordinated.
They danced the rhythm of old sparring matches from decades past, not perfect but familiar. A jab here, a feint there, cover for one another, fill the gaps. But time, relentless and cruel, could not be outmatched.
Bob's arms began to drop between exchanges. Abe's strikes lost speed. The synergy of the medallions helped—they protected, they connected—but they did not reverse age or exhaustion. They were not miracles. They were just tools. The rest was up to them.
A strike broke through. Bob took a shoulder hit and fell to one knee.
A second came. Abe tried to intercept, but The Ninja roared and sent him flying with a palm strike full of shadowy force.
They both hit the pavement hard.
And The Ninja stood over them, breath ragged, chest heaving. His face was half-shadow now. One eye crimson, the other swallowed by black. The veins on his arms pulsed with something wrong—twisting under the skin like worms made of smoke.
"This is what power looks like," he said, voice deeper now, layered with something not his. "You... relics. You burn for memories and weakness. You wear history like armor and wonder why you bleed."
Bob groaned, trying to rise, and The Ninja raised a hand, fingers spread.
The shadows around him quivered, then drew upward—toward the sky. A sound cracked the air, like glass splitting under heat. A seam opened, small at first, just above The Ninja's hand. A crack in space.
From within it, the same black gas began to pour—not a trickle now, but a stream, pouring into the world like a flood of nightmares.
Danny, seeing the rift, froze. "No..."
He recognized the smell. The sensation. The wrongness.
This wasn't just The Ninja anymore.
This was Khan.
Somehow, someway, Master Khan was reaching through.
The Ninja's body shuddered as the gas entered him. His arms jerked. His fingers twisted at impossible angles. And then he laughed—low and bitter. His power surged again, the shadow thickening into armor, his blade vibrating with corruption.
But he didn't see Lorna move.
Barely recovered, still breathless, she stood behind John, her fingers outstretched once more, medallions in her grasp—the orange, the stolen key, still glowing faintly.
And the white one, barely pulsing, as Bob crawled toward her. While Abe hobbled to regroup with the group.
Together, they began to shine.
Faintly.
But steadily.