Key let out a melodramatic, wistful sigh as he sat out on the ledge just above JoJo’s cave entrance.

            “Jonghyun, Jonghyun,” he called, sounding extremely bored.  “Wherefore art thou, Jonghyun?”

            “Down here,” came the muffled reply that he obviously wasn’t expecting, because he jumped a little in surprise, before beaming a joyous smile and clambering down so that he was exactly at the entrance of the lair, but still inside.

            “You’re back!” he said excitedly, then tilted his head in confusion as the short boy stumbled over with a teetering tower of boxes in his arms.  “What’s all that?  Is it cream soda?”

            “No,” Jonghyun said, jerking his head to motion behind him, “Onew and the others are bringing that.  These;” he plopped all the boxes down before the other boy, looking very pleased with himself, “Are cakes.”

            Key covered his mouth with one hand.  “All of them?”

            Jonghyun nodded.  Just then, Onew, Minho, Taemin, and even little Yoogeun came into view, toiling to push a giant bucket of cream soda to the entrance of the cave.

            “So, can you leave now?” he asked Key eagerly, looking less like a dragon and more like a puppy – unfortunately, Key shook his head.

            “JoJo left to go hunting for mountain goats,” he explained.  “She said she’d be back soon, but she left this barrier on the entrance of the cave.  I can’t leave until she takes it off.”

            Jonghyun let out an aggravated yell and smashed his fist towards the cave entrance, only to jump back with another angry yelp when it shocked him, sending a wave of blue electrical currents through his body.  Key leaned forward, concerned.

            “Are you okay?” he asked.  Jonghyun nodded and shook his hand, hissing, forked tongue rolling in and out of his mouth.

            Onew sighed and slumped against the giant bucket – it was cool, and smelled insanely good.  “So I guess we just wait, then?” he asked.  Minho began to nod in agreement, when the bird-call of JoJo sounded from above, and she swooped down from the sky, her golden eyes shining at she perched on the edge of the giant bucket.

            “You have completed my mission,” she told them, sounding regally happy.  “I cannot thank you enough.  You may have Key.  All he did was eat my cake, anyway.”  The invisible barrier blocking the lair entrance flickered once, then vanished, and Key rushed out with an excited cry of, “Freedom!”

            “I am so happy with your accomplishment,” JoJo’s voice continued, causing everyone to perk up, “that I will grant your leader with another gift.  Onew, please take this.”

            Onew stepped forward, and a small, tear-shaped crystal literally fell from the sky and into his palm, the petite object hanging on a silken string.

            “This is a teleportation crystal,” JoJo told them.  “There are various checkpoints scattered across all of Mount SHINee, that I myself have placed.  Whenever you rub the crystal, it will automatically teleport you to the nearest checkpoint, but be warned: the checkpoints do not lead in a specific order, and it will be very easy to get lost.  Also, the crystal will only teleport those who are touching the person who rubs the crystal, so make sure you are all together if you wish to teleport as a group.”

            Onew nodded, smiling.  “I’ll be careful,” he promised her, handing it to Minho for safekeeping, since he didn’t trust himself with it – the mountain guide tucked it into his coat pocket.  “Thank you.”

            “No, human, thank you,” the dragoness purred.

            Then Onew turned away, only to remember his whole purpose, and turned back.

            “Oh, JoJo,” he added, causing the dragoness to raise her head from gulping the cream soda.  “You wouldn’t happen to… have any chicken, would you?”

            The dragoness tilted his head.  “Chicken?  This word is strange to me.  No – if you are looking for a lost possession, then you must go to the dragoness on the highest mountain, Mount Ring Ding Dong.”

            Key snickered at the name.  “Who comes up with these?” he giggled.

            JoJo ignored him.  “There you will find Lucifer, the Dragon of Shadows.  Of all the dragons, she will most certainly have your precious chicken.  But be warned, travelers – many perils await you on that final mountain, perils unlike any you have ever faced.  The Shadow Dragon thrives in the night, slinking through the darkness… she becomes one with the shadows…”

            Onew gulped.   “Um, y-yeah, thanks… uh, we’ll be going now.  So, um, bye.”  And then he and his friends dashed off.

            “So… is it Mount Ring Ding Dong, now?” Taemin asked, looking nervous – they all did, and Jonghyun was oddly quiet, though Key snickered at the mountain’s title.

            Onew nodded at Taemin’s words.  “We don’t have a choice.”

            Mount Ring Ding Dong was gray, stony, and cold.  On the outside, it seemed like any other normal mountain – but then it started getting dark.

            The group traveled onward bravely, now having no other mission than to find Lucifer and get back Onew’s chicken.  But the shadows kept getting longer, and some of them were pitch black, and Key swore he saw one jump from one rock to the next.

            “We’ll be okay if we just keep moving,” Onew assured them, but he wondered if they could sense his uncertainty, and he tightened his grip around Yoogeun, who was clinging to him, wide-eyed.  Onew wondered if the child could see things the older boys couldn’t.

            In his peripheral vision, the shadow of a dead tree stretched out, reaching, faded branches curling into a flur-de-lee, and one took a swipe at his shadow–

            He gasped, whipping his head around, but the shadows jumped back as quickly as they had come.

            “This is creepy,” Key whined, wrapping his arms around himself.  “And cold.”

            “I feel like someone’s watching me,” Minho muttered, glancing around.

            “Or something,” Jonghyun added darkly.

            Onew spun around, sighing.  “Could you guys please cut it out?  You’re going to scare yourselves-” he cut off, staring at the ground.  The others tried to follow his gaze, but they couldn’t in the darkness that was surrounding them.

            “What is it, Onew?” Minho asked urgently, his voice oddly hushed.  “What do you see?”

            Onew felt his breath quicken, and he wanted to sit down, rest his head which was beginning to spin, but he forced himself to stay upright.

            “Don’t look now,” he began slowly, trying to keep his breath steady.  “But, Taemin… you have a second shadow.”

            The younger boy’s breath hitched, and despite Onew’s warning, his eyes shot to the ground.  One shadow was normal, it was gray and faded, it was facing the same direction as the rest – but the other, the second, was pitch black, like a pit, it was more acutely shaped with sharper edges, and it was directly behind Taemin.

            The boy’s breath began to quicken, his chest heaving, and Onew saw a cold sweat break out on his forehead.

            “Taemin,” Minho reached forward, not quite touching his apprentice; “Taemin, stay calm, it’s okay, just-”

            “Hyung,” Taemin turned to face him, his eyes so dark, so sad, so helpless.  He was petrified, but his voice was oddly calm.  “I have two shadows.”

            “I know, Taemin, it’s okay, just listen to me-”

            “I have two shadows,” Taemin repeated, this time more intensely, but with the same eerie serenity.  Minho’s hand lowered, and he looked as distraught as his apprentice felt.

            “Taemin,” he said again, and the word was so strained, so quiet, it sounded like a plea.  Taemin shook his head.

            “Remember what JoJo said?  She said, ‘she becomes one with the shadows’,” his eyes began to water, and his bottom lip trembled, though he was smiling hopelessly.  “It’s her, isn’t it?  The shadow.  It’s Lucifer.  I can feel her whispering up and down my spine… it’s cold, Hyung.”

            Minho began to say something, but Taemin let out a choked, wracked sob, which he quickly caught and back in sharply.

            “And I thought I was scared earlier,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone.  Then, looking at the rest of the companions; “Well, dress me in drag any day, because now I’m-”

            A strand of the shadow s up and curled itself around his ankle, eliciting a gasp.

            “Taemin!” Key cried, but he seemed rooted to the spot by his own shadow.  They all were.

            Taemin’s fingers trembled as he reached out to his mentor.  The shadow vine continued to crawl up his leg.

            “Hyung, I’m- I’m scared,” he whispered.  “I am so, so scared.”

            The shadows shot up, wrapping themselves around his limbs and torso, constricting his neck and wrenching back his outstretched hand.

            “Minh–!” came the last desperate call, before a shadow swirled around Taemin’s mouth, and the entire thing pulled him, and he melted into the ground, and the shadow disappeared.

            For a moment nobody moved.  And then, just like that, Minho’s legs seemed to give way beneath him, and he fell to the ground, staring at where the last of his apprentice’s actual shadow was beginning to dissipate, as though it didn’t know where to go.

            “Is he… is he gone?” he asked at last, his voice low, cutting through the silence like a knife.  He turned to face the group, his eyes blazing.  “Somebody tell me he isn’t gone.  Tell me!”

            Jonghyun was the first to speak.  “Minho… there’s a, a chance that he isn’t gone.  Lucifer- she’s a dragon; she might have taken him back to her cave.  But, this is… I’ve never… I’m sorry, Minho, I don’t know if…”

            “There’s still a chance,” the boy snapped, rising to his feet with a sudden quickness that made the entire rest of the group flinch.  “We have to go after him.”

            “Of course,” Onew nodded, though he could practically feel his knees knocking together.  “Jonghyun, you can fly us around, right?  We need to find Lucifer’s lair as soon as possible.”

            But Jonghyun shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “Key and I aren’t coming with you.”

            “Huh?” Key looked up, obviously surprised.  “We aren’t?”

            “I’m sorry, Minho,” the dragon boy apologized, looking slightly guilty.  “It’s… this is too dangerous.  I think we’ve had enough adventuring for a while.”

            Minho’s eyes were still blazing.  “No,” he snapped.  “You can’t leave.  We need you!  We have to find Taemin!”

            “I’m sorry-”

            “No!”

            Jonghyun sighed.  “Let’s go back to the cave, Key.”

            Key pursed his lips with his eyes unfocused; he appeared to be a little disoriented.  “Um, okay…”

            Onew saw it in Minho’s eyes before it happened.  That’s why he didn’t really try to do much when Minho snatched out, grabbing Key by the arm and pulling him back, before pressing against Onew in the same instant that he pulled the teardrop crystal from his pocket, and ran his thumb over the smooth exterior.

            All Onew did was squeeze Yoogeun for comfort and screw his eyes shut against the blinding flash of light.

            An instant later they were overlooking the rest of Mount Ring Ding Dong, and Key was screaming and struggling against Minho’s grip, and Minho was clutching both of Key’s arms, dragging him away from the cliff edge, and Jonghyun’s furious roar could be heard echoing in the distance, a roar so powerful, so violent, that it could only signify the oncoming rage dragon.

            “You don’t need me!” Key screamed, his voice cracking as he pulled against his restraints.  “You don’t need me, so let me go!  Let me go to him!  He’s going to destroy everything!”

            Minho grunted and pulled the slender boy up the trail in silence, the flames in his eye beginning to die, turning to fading embers.

            And all Onew could do was follow, dazedly, and pat Yoogeun on the back, and hope the toddler didn’t cry.

            Because he honestly didn’t know what else he could do.

---------------

If anyone is confused about what just happened, don't worry because it's explained better in Book 7, I promise.

Also, they totally left all those cakes at JoJo's cave.  But plot holes will be plot holes.

Thanks for the comments - and for letting me know which story you'd prefer! :) I love you all. <3 Ta-ta 'til tomorrow!