Mercy Comes at the Edge of a Sword!

Tiger Jack Hwang, Shining Blade of the Wudan
In
Ask not for whom the Wedding Bell tolls!
Part Three: Mercy Comes at the Edge of a Sword! by Bubblegum Tate

“Tiger Jack” Hwang moved into the cavernous inner chamber of the monastery where he had spent so many years of his childhood and youth. The clean scent of scrubbed wood underneath the powerful aroma of incense, the recently risen sun peeking through the latticework surrounding the great iron doors, the eerie quiet of a monastery first thing in the morning, before the monks begin their day. Each of these things alone would have recalled better days, but together they were almost enough to overwhelm him with nostalgia; days long past when he felt protected and was constantly taught about the great destiny set before him by his teacher, or sifu, the learned Yu Zhi Shou. How Tiger Jack had loved Sifu Zhi. How he hated him now. The truth about Yu Zhi Shou hovering just under these pleasant memories was like the stench of rot barely masked by the scent of your mother’s bread.

High atop the Wudan Mountains in central China, far above the reach of the ChiCom government, sat the monastery. It was the center of a vast criminal web that stretched all over the world. The fat spider that sat at the center of that web was Yu Zhi Shou. Many years ago, he had been a mentor and more to Tiger Jack, but Tiger Jack realized the “great destiny” for which Sifu Zhi Shou had raised him was simply that of a thug, a killer, a weapon to protect the Wudan…a weapon to be wielded by Sifu Zhi Shou himself. The day that this became clear was the day that Tiger Jack became the Shining Blade of the Wudan, the pinnacle of martial mastery for the monastery. Though it dumbfounded him to imagine life outside the monastery, it was also the day that Tiger Jack left, a wake of lesser men broken and suffering behind him. That day, he vowed that when he returned, the Master would be brought low.

Knowing nothing of the world below the mountain, Tiger Jack had wandered the earth looking for a purpose and honing his skills, preparing for the day he would return to battle his master directly. As he traveled, he waged war against the Wudan’s many arms, destroying cartels, gunrunners, opium dealers and whatever other corruption he could find that bore the stamp of Wudan. It was inevitable that he would cross paths with Ajax Stewart. It was destiny that they would become such fast friends. It was legend that was created from their adventures. Today, Tiger Jack would fulfill a vow to an old master as well as a pledge to his best friend. Tiger Jack smiled at the thought, and made his way deeper into the monastery, the only sound the swish swish of his saffron robes.

The silence of the monastery’s morning was suddenly broken by a disembodied voice echoing through the main hall, commanding in tone but paper thin with age, saying “Welcome back to the Wudan, Hwang Ki Chak. Or should I debase myself to name you as the gweilo, Tiger Jack?”

The name was said scathingly and with an unmistakable sneer.

Allowing his body to fall into a comfortable, but ready, stance, Tiger Jack taunted his old master, speaking loudly into the seemingly empty hall, “You can call me whatever you like, old deceiver.
Even my true name is a lie dripped like poison from your viper’s lips.”

An old man’s cackle cut through the hall, twisted and evil, as a reply. “I never told you a lie, little Ki Chak. I always told you how powerful you would be, how special, how important a Shining Blade is to the Wudan. If you turned your back on this, how can one old man be to blame?”

Despite himself, Tiger Jack felt himself leaping to the argument. “The Wudan were once a powerful force for justice in this land, Sifu, and the Shining Blade was their vanguard! You took those who would fight for justice and made them wage war for greed! You took a beautiful poem and turned it into a dirty limerick. Well, the Wudan may no longer be what they once were, but this Shining Blade will continue to be an example of what they ought to be.”

Suddenly dour, the voice replied, “And how do you plan to do this, oh mighty Shining Blade of the Wudan?”

His mouth becoming a grim line and his brows knitting, Tiger Jack Hwang answered with steely resolve, “You taught me the journey of a thousand steps must begin with only one, old Master. My first step is to kill you.”

“So be it,” the voice hissed

Instantly, Tiger Jack was surrounded by similarly dressed young men, blades flashing around him, tassels from the handles of the swords whizzing through the air with blinding speed. Tiger Jack spun, whirled, stepped, leaped, pivoted and moved with the flowing grace of a dancer, managing to avoid all but the shallowest cuts. Summoning his chi, the internal energy that powered his amazing kung fu, Tiger Jack spun on one toe with arms outstretched and a mighty wind seemed to emanate from his open palms, pushing the throng of attackers away and leaving a slowly revolving Tiger Jack alone in the center of the massive room. Many of them stumbled and fell, but the more accomplished students rolled and somersaulted to their feet.

As he came to a stop in a much more aggressive fighting stance, Tiger Jack tore the robe, now tattered from thousands of barely dodged cuts, off his upper body. The early morning sun glinted on the gold-orange ink of the tattoo that surrounded much of his torso and was the source of his fighting name. The great tiger seemed to stalk across Tiger Jack’s back and over his left shoulder with a massive head and swiping paw across his chest and abdomen. Despite themselves, and in the face of the massive punishment Zhi Shou would visit upon them for the faux pas, the men surrounding Tiger Jack gasped at the tattoo that seemed so real you could see individual hairs of the tiger’s fur. Tiger Jack couldn’t help but smile.

“It sounds like your cronies weren’t properly prepared for the coming of the Shining Blade, Sifu. Also, you may have miscalculated the sheer volume of manpower you needed to throw at this particular problem.” Despite the fact that thirty or forty finely trained martial artists, each one a deadly weapon even before they took up a sword, surrounded Tiger Jack, he couldn’t help but feel smug. His old master must have forgotten his prowess if he expected these men to handle him. They couldn’t even stand up to Kwan Yin’s Hurricane, his most painless technique.

“I engendered that overconfidence in you, my student. Oh, make no mistake, you are formidable, but I led you to believe you were invincible so that you would never question any mission I gave you, suicidal or not. You are NOT invincible, my Shining Blade, not in the face of the entire Wudan Order!” The last words rose to a shriek and robed man after robed man stepped from the shadows or dropped from the ceiling rafters. Suddenly, the room was full of monks, grim and ready to do battle with Tiger Jack. Hell in a handbasket barely did the situation justice.

Tiger Jack made an intricate swooping motion with both arms that loosened his tendons and prepared him mentally for battle. Stepping into a powerful stance created by ancient Wudan masters to minimize the effect of great numbers, Tiger Jack motioned, palm up and with his fingers, for the monks to attack.

With a yell that shook the ancient foundations of the monastery, the small army of Wudan monks attacked in unison. Tiger Jack was instantly a blur of motion, dodging, kicking, punching and striking at sensitive vitals. Several times, he took control of a monk’s body and used him as a shield while forcing the man to use his weapon against his martial brothers. This was a typical tactic that Tiger Jack used against overwhelming odds, but he was both chagrined and impressed to see that these men, despite the singularity of most kung fu styles, had trained together as a unit. They adapted to Tiger Jack’s methods of attack and worked as a single organism with no member getting in the way of the whole. Even as he fought, another part of his brain realized that he had finally met his match. It was taking a small army with precise special training, but Tiger Jack was finally going to be beaten in hand-to-hand combat. There
was only one thing he could do.

Tiger Jack’s moves became faster, too fast for the eye to follow as more than a blur. He began to glow, first lightly and then more and more strongly until he was a man-shaped high wattage bulb smoldering with a baleful, red light. The men attacking him were constantly attacking and receding, like a never ending wave, but they began to realize that, when they were nearer to him, they were feeling nauseous and unwell. Every man that Tiger Jack hit instantly fell down, dead. A glancing blow to a minor area of the body or a direct hit to a vital, it didn’t matter; anyone touched by the glowing body of Tiger Jack dropped lifeless to the floor. The men, knowing what was expected of them, pressed in hoping to overwhelm Tiger Jack before their numbers were depleted. This was just what Tiger Jack wanted from them. As they pressed in, Tiger Jack pressed both palms together and a bright red light exploded silently off his meditative form, spreading out from himself at the epicenter. As the blinding flash moved across the men attacking him, they dropped like so much wheat. After the explosion, there was no one left because Tiger Jack knew Dim Mak, poison hand, the touch of death.

Tiger Jack was left breathing deeply, drenched in sweat. The Dim Mak is very draining, usually shared by a touch and meant to be used on individual foes so that one’s chi would not be so exclusively focused on Yang energy. But Tiger Jack new it was the only way he could have won. A dry, cracked voice broke his reverie as his old Master finally deigned to speak to him “in person.”

“Well done, my student. I didn’t think you would use the Dim Mak, even against the Wudan. I certainly didn’t expect you to survive such a flood of Yang energy,” Zhi Shou clapped lightly, as though at a golf match. “Catch your breath, Ki Chak. If this is to be our final climactic battle, I will have none of your friends claiming I took advantage of you. Would you care to see the garden?”

Nodding, Tiger Jack followed the old man through the room that was now a charnel house and outside to the meditation garden. “Beautiful, is it not,” Zhi Shou said over his shoulder as he gestured at the beautiful garden. “It is likely much as it was when you left, Ki Chak, much as it has been for centuries.”

“It is indeed both the same as when I left and more beautiful for not having seen it in so long,” Tiger Jack agreed, “but it is no longer a picture of the Wudan Order. Even such beauty as this cannot cloak your corruption.”

Zhi Shou turned on Tiger Jack slowly and with a beatific smile on his face. “The West has tainted you, Ki Chak. Where once you knew the meaning of the yin yang, now you only see the black and the white with no part of one touching the other. You will never understand what I had to do to preserve the Wudan, even if what I preserved is different than it once was.”

“Master,” Tiger Jack pleaded, “Listen to yourself! The Wudan of your youth was an Order dedicated to justice! You have preserved a freak mutation of the Wudan, a perversion!”

Zhi Shou waved his hand dismissively, “Despite our love of philosophy, we are men of action, Ki Chak, and this conversation does not become us. You came for battle, though you use the flimsiest of excuses for it. I will give you both of the things you seek, one after the other. I will give you battle, my former student, and, if you defeat me, you will have Kuan Yin’s Sapphire.”

Tiger Jack nodded curtly, “My best friend in the world needs that gem to save his one true love. I fight not only for vengeance, but for friendship and for love. That is why I came to you today, Master, with love in my heart as well as revenge. With vengeance alone as my ally, even in killing you, I would be no better than you.”

“Come then, Shining Blade. I’ll let you try my Wudan style!” Zhi Shou leapt at Tiger Jack in what seemed to be a cloud of silk robe. Not knowing what part of the billowing cloth to block, Tiger Jack leapt deftly out of its way, spinning in the air and landing lightly where Zhi Shou had began.

Only years of fighting the Wudan’s minions could have prepared Tiger Jack for the constant whirling attack that Zhi Shou brought his way from behind his billowing robes. Everywhere he dodged or blocked, the old Master was sending a knuckle, elbow, toe or knee at another vital area of Tiger Jack’s body. Tiger Jack knew that he was the superior fighter on offense, but if he could never get a shot in, the old man would simply outlast him. Despite his age, Tiger Jack was well aware of his old Master’s endurance. When Tiger Jack was young, entire days of his training would be devoted to making constant attacks on Zhi Shou while Zhi Shou blocked every punch and kick and kept up a constant verbal barrage of praise and correction. Tiger Jack had to up the ante of this fight the only way he could. Tiger Jack had to summon the power of the Shining Blade.

Focusing his chi into the edges of his outstretched hands, he felt the subtle change come over his arms from the tips of his fingers to his elbows. Suddenly, the swish thud swish swish thud of the battle between the two men was interrupted by the sound of silk being cut and a short intake of breath as Zhi Shou leapt away from Tiger Jack, blood oozing from one fist.

Sucking his bleeding knuckle, Zhi Shou said, “Behold the glory of the Shining Blade, able to combine the empty handed styles of kung fu with the Wudan’s 8 Divine Swords. Though I have not seen it personally in many years, I am still in awe of it.” The old man, took another step backwards from Tiger Jack and reached into a dense copse of growth in the garden’s landscaping. He pulled out a gold blade, slightly waved down its length, unlike the traditional straight blade of the Wudan style. It was sharp as a razor and seemed to hum in the air even as Zhi Shou held it still, leveled at Tiger Jack’s face.

“I forgot how to fear blades many years ago, Master,” Tiger Jack said with menace in his voice, “even one as beautiful and deadly as yours. Match your blade to the keen edges of my hands and we will finally see who is the best blade of the Wudan.”

Without a word or even a hint of breath, Zhi Shou attacked Tiger Jack. His blade struck high and low, it slashed and attempted to prick, it glinted in the sun and then was hidden in the folds of Zhi Shou’s robe. Zhi Shou’s mastery of the 8 Diving Swords was a miracle, but each time it struck for some vital organ in Tiger Jack’s body, it was met by some portion of his hand or forearm. Fantastically, the sword rang off Tiger Jack’s arms as though it were steel on steel.

And even as Zhi Shou made cut after cut, Tiger Jack began to work in his own offensive. Tiger Jack turned aside Zhi Shou’s strike at his abdomen with his left hand, feeling the ringing shock all the way to his shoulder. Lashing out with a toe quickly, he caught the old man’s kneecap and Zhi Shou stumbled backwards. Tiger Jack brought his right hand around, knife edged and glowing with his chi, the one true Shining Blade of the Wudan, and struck at his master’s face with all his might. On his back, clearly in pain from his wounded knee, Zhi Shou threw his own blade in between his face and the striking hand. Tiger Jack’s hand hit the blade and the sound was like the clear ringing of a perfectly made bell. When the note finally dwindled in the air, Zhi Shou’s blade was split in two and the old Master had finished the earthly part of his journey.

Tiger Jack reached down into the robes at the throat of the now dead old man. Pulling a large, midnight blue sapphire from around Zhi Shou’s neck, he used the Shining Blade technique to cut the chain it dangled from. Staring into the deep, blue center of the gem and standing straight in the early morning sun, Tiger Jack felt the approval of centuries of Wudan monks. Turning his back on the garden and the man who had been his master, Tiger Jack walked back into the monastery. Despite the evidence of the violence done that morning, he felt a surge of pride.

With Zhi Shou gone, Tiger Jack would rebuild the Wudan and see that the 8 Divine Swords served justice instead of vice.

That was for tomorrow. Today, Tiger Jack was prepared to help his best friend rescue the love of his life. “Dr. B’hadgai,” Tiger Jack though with grim resolve, “should be very frightened indeed, though he does not know it. He thinks he knows how to manage the Engineer of the
Impossible, but he has no idea what to do with the Shining Blade of the Wudan.”