All in all, it took about an hour for the what was left of the engine to grind to a halt but when it came to actually leaving as soon as humanly possible, well...that might take a while. Reason one was down to the fact that we were trying to desperately find a doctor as my hand was burned to a bloody crisp and second of all we now had about three hundred angry people trying to tear the train apart to get their precious jewels out which of course was turning into a small riot.

The three of us watched in alarm as a tiny old grandmother swung a rock the size of a cannonball at three young lad's heads, knocking them all to the ground arms and legs akimbo, just because they were trying to sneak off with a diamond necklace. I winced in pain, though that might have been due to the fact that the doc, the same guy from our original carriage, was applying layer after layer of bandages and healing salve to my burned hand.

He was muttering something under his breath that followed the lines of, "Impossible, utterly impossible."

"What's up doc?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes like he definitely hadn't heard that joke a million times before. "Your wound, its not like any burn I've ever seen."

"Is that a good thing?" Sheira asked.

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. The fact that you held onto that thing with your bare hands and didn't die is a miracle all on its own, but your burn...You should have lost your entire hand, maybe even your arm, but this is only a skin burn and the fact that it didn't reach your nerves and muscles is practically unheard of. You shouldn't be able to move your hand and yet you can. Its utterly bizarre."

"Well I'm right handed so lucky me." I wiggled my fingers, "It doesn't even hurt."

"Still, don't strain it until the redness goes down, doctors' orders."

I clicked my heels and saluted, "aye, aye captain!"

At that exact moment a fistfight broke out. It was to be expected though, big pile of shiny things plus people with the morals of sewer rats and hey presto! You've got a riot. The four of us sighed and exchanged looks. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up spending three hours playing the wild equivalent of Bargin Hunt. Finding genuine owners was a pain in the ass, until Crash popped out of thin air and suddenly when started down by a tank with a face they were a lot more truthful.

I suppose the gratitude was worth it as people were reunited with their valuables and ancient family heirlooms. The tears of joy made the effort seem not as great, even though we were wasting precious time and now only had six days (At most mind you) to get to Dunloch Castle. To be honest I'd rather get there as soon as humanly possible for obvious reasons, what if Maxie got sick? What if they hurt Lilah? What if Molly...no I did not want my mind to even go there.

Naturally the topic of the crowd was the Vulcan Star. At this point we were distributing the stuff that hadn't been claimed (While also pocketing a few stones ourselves) and someone just had to yell, "Oi! Where's that rock you nicked?" Hundreds of eyes fall on the three of us.

Once again, Shadow made sure we didn't die. "Threw it over the cliffs, you're welcome to go get it."

Unsurprisingly the guy didn't seem to fancy a quick swim.

That was a few hours ago. The sun was now high in the sky and the unbearable heat was beating down on us relentlessly. Apparently this was going to be the hottest summer on record because of course it had to be. Any other human life had fizzled out except for a few stray hikers on the hill trails and the charred remains of something that we stumbled across about an hour into the hike. All features had been burned away but judging by the remaining wisps of white blonde hair and the tattered blue strips of fabric clinging to its blackened frame it was Miles, or what was left of him. So, where the hell was Scarlett? We kept walking.

Though to be fair, I hadn't the foggiest where we actually were, let alone where we were going. Shadow (And Crash as well for that matter. All Beasts had decided to stick around for a bit) was up front and he seemed to know where we were going, and apparently it was towards that island in the distance. But I couldn't honestly tell you what country, let alone which county, we were actually in. Shadow had the only compass, the map was useless, and I couldn't actually remember the last time I had phone service so all we could do was put our trust in the leader and yes, that's as scary as it sounds.

About another hour into the journey, sweating profusely and craving the sweet release of death, Shadow suddenly yelped in shock. My head jerked upwards only to see a large black package drop out of the bottom of his backpack and fall to the ground smouldering. He cursed angrily as he surveyed the damage while Sheira and I watched the black wrappings burn away leaving a wooden box that was somehow untouched.

"I don't think it likes being in the box."

"You think?" Shadow snapped angrily, a mending sigil stitching the fabric back together.

Flame reached out and gently undid the latch with his paw. The lid sprang open, hissing, as the smell of burned wood filled our nostrils. "Why did we decide to keep that?" The Vulcan Star pulsed gently away to itself.

"Because its too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands," Sheira said.

"Exactly," Ice said. "Scarlett was too vain and stupid to see its true power but what if Molly saw this thing? It would be carnage."

"But if we're going to keep it we need to find another vessel for it. Something that won't catch fire," Crash's deep voice rumbled in my eardrums.

"And I'm not touching it again."

"Nick, I think that goes without saying," Sheira said. She viewed the stone carefully, quietly talking through the options we had without one of us turning into the human torch. "It burns away anything that it touches and drains the life force of humans that come into contact with it..."

"We need something fireproof that can channel the energy, safely that is."

Fireproof? I glanced down at Incaendium who was still lying by my hip, humming the tune of "Is this the way to Amarillo". Hmm... I drew my sword which erupted into a blaze of fire.

"Watch where you're swinging that thing!" Ice yelled as a long piece of grass disintegrated down to embers.

As I was stomping the possible wildfire out I began to talk to my Wildfire. "Hey buddy, I've got something to ask ya."

What can I do for you?

"Fancy an upgrade?"

The sword buzzed excitedly as I angled him towards the pulsing Vulcan Star that was now burning through the box itself. Shadow glanced up at the three-foot-long rod of burning iron and his eyes widened in surprise. "Huh? Yeah, that could work."

"No organic body to burn away and he's pretty damn fireproof, unlike this poor shmuck," I gestured to myself .

I was wondering what had happened to you.

"I'll tell you later. Hey Shadow, give us a hand."

It took a tense few minutes to pick the Vulcan Star up with Shadow's black tendrils. Why tense? Because the stupid rock was now burning its way through pretty much everything it came into contact with which included elementally powers and the baked hard earth which now had several blacked craters peppering its surface like a teenagers face. After stomping out the last embers we managed to shove the rock into the hole that Incaendium had so dutifully provided. For a moment I did think that it had melted Incaendium but with a sigh of relief the hole closed up and Incaendium's flames went from a gentle flicker to a roaring inferno.

Ooh Baby! That's what I'm talking about!

"Enjoying yourself there?"

Oh yes. I haven't had an upgrade in years, no thanks to a certain someone keeping me in a box to rust.

I couldn't help but sense a hint of bitterness in his voice but then again if id been stuck in a box surrounded with nothing but mould and creepy cursed things, I'd be a cranky too.

I bet I could do so much more with this, once I give it the once over first, don't worry I'm not going to let you burst into flames. In the meantime, where the hell are we?

"Good point, hey Shadow! Where are we?"

"Wales."

I almost dropped Incaendium. Flame and Ice stopped chasing field mice through the grass and turned to look at Shadow. Sheira remained cool as usual but her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out if he was messing with us. He didn't seem to be bothered.

"And you know that because..." I asked.

He sighed, a long-irritated sigh, and turned back to us morons. "Don't either of you know how to track?"

I rolled my eyes and activated maximum overdrive on the sarcasm. "Oh, I'm sorry I was never a boy scout."

"And he was only with us for two days," Sheira pointed out.

His eye roll was pretty clear. "The rose behind the mountain which means that's east and since the east to our right the sea is north, however there is nowhere in England where you would have that set up, which means that we're either in Wales or Scotland and we can rule Scotland out because we didn't travel far enough."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I was counting the clicks of the wheels in the tracks. We didn't go far enough to reach Scotland, but we did go far enough to reach North Wales. Which means that we are on the coast of North Wales, that the Irish Sea, and that's Anglesey. Any questions?"

"Did you sleep at all last night?" I asked.

He scoffed. "Of course not. I once stayed awake for six days, last night was nothing."

"You're a madman."

"I just know how to powernap. They teach you that in the army."

Army? Did he mean Molly Army, or did he mean British Military because the colour suddenly drained from his face ever so slightly as he realised what he'd said. If he was the age he looked, which was around twenty-three, and he had served with Molly for five years then he would have been eighteen beforehand. And let me get one thing straight my extent of military knowledge comes from war movies and Channel 4 so my word might not be completely accurate, but I was pretty sure you don't see all that much active service for a few years. So why did Shadow talk like he'd seen battle and war and bloodshed? And why the hell did he talk like he had a life of killing giant robots and roaming the world before all that? Something told me that I wasn't about to find out all that soon.

In typical Shadow style he turned on his heel and marched off, leaving the two of us to follow in his footsteps racking that question over in our brains. The Welsh terrain did make it quite hard to keep up though. Personally, I'd never been to Wales and I can say this as a first timer, it aint fun to hike around. Lots of hills/mountains and not much shade, especially considering that the sun was beating down relentlessly on us with a vengeance, but the tip top of the peaks were dusted with snow like a giant cake. Mmm...cake. Could you tell I was hungry?

Eventually the hills levelled out, our beasts vanished, and we traipsed through a town called Bangor which was being overlooked by what appeared to be Hogwarts (Apparently it was a university according to Sheira). It was a little grey and boring for a uni town, but it had one hell of a view. Snowdonia to one side, the Menai Straight and the bright blue open sea to the other with the lush green forests of Anglesey on the other. Apparently the reason why we were crossing the bridge to the island was because Anglesey was basically one massive elemental colony, it was something along the lines of one quarter of all Welsh elementals lived there, or was it one third? That part's not important, what is important is the fact that, according to Shadow, we might be able to convince someone to sail us over to Scotland under the radar.

By the time we actually crossed the bridge and got into the safety of the thick woods the midday sun was already beginning to slide down the blue sky, another day dying away. Five full days left and that was it before the Harpy dragged our asses back down south but hopefully not before they sieged Dunloch Castle and rescued Mum and the kids. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to get there one hell of a lot earlier but having back up might just be the deciding factor between a heroic battle and a slaughter.

Sunlight filtered weakly through the trees, the ground painted with tiny flecks of brightness as we squinted against the darkness. It was eerily quiet, literally too quiet, there were no birds singing, barely any breeze to rustle the parched leaves and every snap of a twig under our feet made me jump to the point that Sheira actually turned around and whacked me on the arm with the stern warning of "Quit it or so help me." I can't help it if we were literally walking through a daytime horror movie, probably Cabin in the Woods if I had to name an example. But then again there was something else that was a little weird.

"Where is everyone?" I asked after about an hour of walking. We had just come upon an abandoned campground, the tents ripped to shreds, rucksacks abandoned and, more worryingly, the firepit was still smoking. I made a conscious decision to put that out. For a place crawling with elementals there was a surprising lack of said elementals.

"I...I don't know." Shadow was barely concealing his confusion as well as he poked around the ripped tent.

Sheira was looting the rucksacks and had summoned Ice so that she could start sniffing through the air, hopefully to give us a bit more information. "Three people," she said a little later, "and three beasts; a frog, a badger and a skunk. They've only been gone for a few hours. But there's something else, something...rotten? Are any of you getting that?"

"What, the skunk?"

"The rotting, idiot," Sheira snapped.

I had to admit that something did smell a little funky, like bad breath and rotting meat. I know, how delightful. I sifted through the sandy dirt with my shoe and something glittered from the dust, I picked it up and peered at it. It was a necklace, a dull silver woven together like a Celtic knot with a tiny inscription written on it. 'Tulip & Jasmine'. I slipped it into my pocket for safe keeping.

Shadow stood and surveyed the wrecked campsite. "Well, here's as good a place as any to take a rest. You never know, the owners might come back, and we can figure out what the hell is going on."

"Or the thing that destroyed this place might return. You never know, might get lucky."

With aground shaking thud Crash dropped out of thin air to stand by his friend. "And for that little comment you can go supply gathering with Crash."

"Why me!"

"Because you're annoying me, now shove it." And with that the conversation was over and Crash and I were slowly marching into the deep dark woods.

I'll say this about Crash though, the dude's a solid bloke, not miserable or moody like Shadow and he was actually pretty good company as we foraged for firewood and mushrooms that wouldn't kill us or make us high (or both), recounting a tale from when he called the wide-open savannah home sweet home. There was a strange sadness to his voice as he told me about how he and his brother used to chase hyena and lion cubs through the grasslands, how they felt like nothing could hurt them.

"Did you see him again?" I asked, "you know, after you got all dark powered."

He shook his massive head. "No, but we would have gone our separate ways without it. Its just natural." He sighed, "he's long since gone though, all of them are, there's only two of them left. Three if you count me."

It took me a second to remember the news article. "You're a northern white rhino, aren't you?"

He nodded sadly, "the last male, or at least I will be and maybe one day I really will be the last of my kind, and that's a scary thought."

"Tell me about it," I muttered as I pushed through a rather thick bramble and the sudden smell of rot filled my nostrils.

I fell back gagging while Crash, that brave bastard, pushed forwards through the thicket and gasped as well. I pulled my shirt up over my nose and followed him, willing myself not to breathe as I stepped into what could best be described as a grotto of death. Everything was dead, from the bleached grey grass that cracked underneath my feet to the blackened trees that sat in a leafless ring. Nothing was growing in this monotone patch in the green and the smell...it was like compost mixed in with death (Which I have to admit I'd become a little too familiar with) to form a cocktail of decay.

Crash was undeterred as he lumbered forwards towards one of the black trees which, upon closer inspection, was bleeding a thick black tar. All of them were doing it, including the grass which was leaving inky footsteps behind us. I'm no biologist (Mrs McCawley could tell you that), but I was pretty sure that plants were not meant to be doing that.

The rhino pushed his horn into the goop and peered at it carefully. "Necromancy," he said just as casually as he would saying sunshine or rainbows.

"Are you kidding me?"

He turned around, the goop still dripping down his horn. "What do you know about death magic?"

I shrugged, "It messes around with the dead and it's very, very bad?"

"And you'd be right, but there's a misconception that only Darks can do it, anyone that goes bad enough could manage it and its not just raising the dead either. Its about the movement of death energy, taking life from one place or thing and giving it to another, these blight circles are a sure-fire sign that someone's breaking the law."

"What law? We have laws?"

"Of course, we do and the banning of necromancy about four hundred years ago was a big part in the creation of the rules that protect us and the humans. Before then necromancy and other things like, oh I don't know, practising on human targets were just taboos, grey areas where it was severely frowned upon, but you could still do it without any repercussions."

"What changed?"

He didn't answer at first, like he was thinking over what he was about to say so he didn't mess up, like when you get called into the head teachers office and you go through every possible scenario to make sure you don't screw it up. "The Black Death resulted in one third of Europe's population being wiped out, right?"

"Yeah, about twenty-five million people died...oh sweet mother of god."

"It was death like no one had ever seen before and then a few bright sparks decided that they were going to raise the dead and try to wipe out London and overthrow the monarchy. Bare in mind that nearly seventy thousand people died in sixteen sixty-five on its own so you can do that maths."

"That's a big army," I said. "How'd you fix it?"

"We burned them, all of them."

My history GCSE clicked in at that exact moment as two dates glued together in my mind. "We started the Great Fire of London!"

Crash shook his head, "not all of it, just the Pudding Lane fire, they were based in the bakery you see. I think the big one was started by two gods having a pop at each other."

Slow blink. "What?"

"I'll tell you later. But for now, we need to get back to the others and rethink our strategy. If there's someone experimenting around here then we might need to lea–" Crash froze like a statue, his eyes widening so I could clearly see the white around the brown. For a moment I thought he was having a seizure, but I'd seen him do this before albeit a while ago. His communication line with Shadow broke and he said with urgency, "there's someone at the campsite, come on," and he gestured for me to climb on.

For a moment I was about to ask, 'Are you sure', but that was quickly overturned by the fact that I was about to ride a rhino. I scrabbled up his thick scarred hide until I was sat up top as casually as riding a horse (Aren't they related? Whatever, I'll ask Sheira). We lumbered back slowly, quietly, as he filled me in on what Shadow had told him.

"Came out of nowhere apparently, tried to attack the two of them, didn't last very long. He's tied up at the campsite, but he's strongly suggested that there might be someone else wandering around, which is why you're up there."

"Good to know," I whispered and kept my eyes peeled for even the slightest rustle of movement from the bushes.

We reached the edge of the clearing a little later and peered through the treeline. From my position, ten feet up that is, I had very clear view of what was going on. There was a third guy standing with Shadow and Sheira, but he wasn't attacking them. In fact, Shadow was actually retracting the threads of darkness that seemed to have been binding him before. The dude in question was a kid, a little older than I was if I had to make a guess, with dark skin and brown spiky hair that I could see the hair gel glistening off of. A massive red deer was standing behind him, a long red gash mark carved into his side that severely resembled one of Ice's claw marks, but other than that they were all talking nice and civil like. Which was a change I could get behind.

"I can only see one guy," I whispered downstairs, "and he's not under attack so that's always a plus."

"But where's the other one?" Crash seemed anxious but seriously what on earth could prove a threat to him?

"He didn't actually say that there were two of them, you said he just implied it." I sat back and looked around, "we haven't seen anyone, so I think we really are alone." At that exact moment, like the gods of irony were looking down at me, a thorny vine whipped past my head, missing my nose by an inch. "Never mind."

For something so massive Crash sure could move fast. Quick as a whip he was facing down our attacker, a woman with pink dipped blonde hair with petals gently bobbing around her fingers. There was a standoff, the two of them staring each other down, willing the other to make the first move while I was desperately looking for the nearest branch I could jump to for a sharp exit. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to leap for freedom as a ball of exploding pollen barrelled into Crash, filling my lungs with the sickly-sweet scent of cheap perfume. As I was trying to remember if I had hay fever or not Crash bellowed in anger and charged forwards leaving me to hang on for dear life as the ground shuddered beneath his massive feet and branches snapped into my face.

Thankfully before any form of impact was made, with some incredible feat of acrobatics, I grabbed a hold of a low hanging branch and clung to it as Crashed sailed headlong into a tree. The girl somehow managed to avoid being steamrolled and had now diverted her attention onto me as a sharp blast of something hit me in the small of the back. I cried out in pain, stupidly let go, and fell to the floor without breaking anything. I scrabbled to my feet just as Crash went in for round two, but she was prepared this time. Thick roots erupted from the ground, wrapping themselves around his legs and pulling him into the earth. It didn't get any further than his knees but let's just say he wasn't very happy about it.

As the big problem was now taken care of, for now at least, her attention just had to turn to little old me. I cursed loudly as a gust of petals hurled my way and I felt one of them cut a gash deep into my cheek. Fire erupted from around my hands as she launched another pollen ball in my general direction. My response was to light it up, which it did leaving a peculiar smell of caramelized honey behind it. Two twin flamethrowers erupted from my palms which she barely dodged and responded with her own thorny whips. I leapt out of the way of one but the other lassoed itself round my leg and dragged my feet out from under me.

She sprinted forwards at the site of me laying prone on the ground, one hand still on the whip round my leg. Bad idea. As soon as she was within ten feet of me I sent a fireball racing up the length of the whip until it erupted like a bomb in the palm of her hand. She shrieked, I leapt up, forced my boot into her gut to give me some space and drew my sword. The environment lit up, Incaendium glowing like a beacon while the girl's eyes widened in fear.

"Rise and shine buddy we're under attack."

Can't you handle this on your own?

"Well yeah, but I also don't want to be responsible for burning down half of Wales."

Fair point, and I think I've got some new upgrades to show you.

The girl was sprinting full force at me and my weapon, petals swirling around her hands. "Please demonstrate."

Swing me in a wide arc in front of you.

I did what I was told. Like something out of a videogame an arc of flames soared out into the air, catching the girl full in the chest to send her sprawling. I grinned like a kid at Christmas. For my next few strikes I didn't even touch her, my sword just expelled blast after blast, surging heat directly at her without damaging the local environment/setting anything on fire. Well, except for her. Every flamethrower and fireball slammed into her, so her jacket was now severely singed ad wisps of smoke were curling off of her slender frame while she seethed in anger.

She ran at me, the petals coalescing into a giant pink fist. Quick as lightning I leapt to the side and using the flat end of Incaendium (While I did want to keep her away from me I didn't want to accidently chop her leg off), I swept her feet out from under her. She fell to the floor with a crunch and before she could react I had one hand and one foot pinning her arms to the floor and the tip of Incaendium pointing at the base of her throat.

"Don't hurt her!"

Now they tell me. All at once Shadow, Sheira and the new guy sprinted forwards to what must have been a peculiar scene. Crash lassoed to the floor and me sat on top of some strange girl surrounded by flower petals and a sword pointing at her neck.

"Tulip they're friendly," the boy said, "they just wanted our help."

"Tulip?" I said in disbelief.

"Shut up," she snapped as I stood to let her back up. She turned to the guy, scowling with a ferocity that I had only ever seen Sheira manage before. "What was I supposed to think Zach? I see him and that beast of his spying on you–"

"For the record mine's a lion." I jammed my thumb over my shoulder, "the rhino's his."

Shadow was busy releasing Crash and stared at the girl with a cold fury. "I swear to god if you hurt him..."

"I'm fine Shadow."

"What happened?" Sheira asked.

"You're not going to believe this," I said. "Crash and I were searching for supplies when we found this circle thingy. It was dead, the grass, the trees, everything was rotting away! It was like a...oh what's the word?"

"A blight circle." The guy who was apparently named Zach walked up to us, his giant red deer following close behind. "Where was it?"

I gestured in the general direction of the clearing, "it's about five minutes that way."

He looked very, very concerned. Tulip and Shadow had joined us at this point as he made me describe everything I had seen. It didn't take long but by the end of it half of our ensemble looked rather scared while Sheira and I remained baffled. Even Shadow looked a little odd, pale, withdrawn, leaning on Crash for support, he knew what was happening whether he wanted to admit it or not. Zach ran a hand through his spiked hair and looked at Tulip. For the first time she looked worried and after exchanging a glance with her friend, nodded curtly.

"I think you guys should come with us. You need help and we can give it, and we can also fill you in on what the hell's going on in this island. What do you say?"

The three of us exchanged a look that said, 'Are we really about to do this again?' but in the end what could we do? We'd come all this way, may as well go a little bit further. I nodded, "sure thing. But just a heads up, don't try to betray us. The last one who tried got blown up. And I really don't want to do that again."