A/N: Yet another sentence one. She must have really gotten sick of reading paragraphs...

"Have you fulfilled your mission, my emissary?" said a creature wrapped in shadows.

"It all went according to your plan, thanks to my superb elocution, Master," replied Cherry happily. "I have successfully perverted the young boy's mind. He will inadvertently start a war that will divide the Destined Eight and make it impossible to find, let alone use, their keys."

"Thank you for that eloquent speech," said his Master sarcastically. "I can't stand loquacious creatures, so I'm afraid you'll have to leave." At that, the creature in shadows emitted a red beam. With a last vociferous protest, the old tree disintegrated into nothing. An evil grin gradually slid across the shadowed face.

"If Marc weren't such an impediment to the rest of the group, it'd be so much easier for us."

Ty's aggressive words rang harshly through the lone blonde's mind. He knew he had a commitment to the group, but Cherry had been right; he resented their unofficial leader. Yet, thoughts of loyalty to his friends interjected themselves in between his thoughts of anger.

"But there is no comprehensible reason why he would leave!" shouted a familiar voice. The wandering pedestrian stopped and listened. "He's just an abject human being who only thinks about himself! Now he's going to subject us to possible failure on our mission, since we're not all together!"

At that, any possible doubts of what he had planned to do regressed to the back of his mind. Marc began walking again, ever expediting his pace.

The rest of the group was startled to see the angry blonde appear from the forest and apprehend Ty by his collar.

"Care to repeat that to my face?" yelled Marc, who believed that Ty had transgressed all forgivable limits.

Realizing that he had acted awful towards his missing friend, the brown-haired boy said he was sorry and asked for remittance as he tried to loosen the other boy's grip on his shirt. Not wanting to listen, Marc promptly rejected the request and pulled back his fist. Upon the hand's contact with his face, Ty fell backward. His proliferous anger finally got the better of him, and the fight was on.

"Stop fighting you two," reprehended Sara, "We've got to work together!"

"I want an end to this controversy right now!" shouted Missy, but it didn't work this time.

Along with the physical fighting, intermittent verbal blows were also exchanged.

"Any reason you give for leaving for that long in intangible!"

"Like I care what you think Mr. 'I'm-on-a-pedestal-above-everyone-else'!"

"At least I'm not reprehensible for jumping at people and beating on them!"

Just as Marc was on top of Ty, pulling his arm back for another punch, he glanced up and saw JC's apprehensive face. Somehow, the little boy knew that Ty's well-being was contingent upon him as he said through watery eyes, "Please stop, Marc."

The older brother averted his gaze from the teary stare as his raised arm began to shake. With a sudden feeling of dejection, Marc scrambled to his feet and back into the forest, unable to face his brother.

As JC called after him, Sara inspected Ty and found him reasonably intact.

"I hope things will revert to normal soon, or we'll never find our keys, and we'll all die!" cried Job, not realizing how right he could be.

"Your tactful plan has worked perfectly, my liege; the Destined Eight are now seven," reported a raspy female voice.

Sharp fangs glistened through her Master's smile as he said, "Nice work, but I wish you to further impede them to be abolutely sure they will fail, Lady Devi."

With a nod, the black clad creature replied, "For the good of the progression of your reign, I will do as you command, Apocaly."

to be continued...

A/N: I had this chapter lined up for a while, actually. I knew that it would be the perfect chapter to write about Matt, er, Marc leaving the group for a while. He's my fav character so of course I'd put my favorite parts in there! And this was another long one. I think my teacher started thinking I was psycho writing vocab sentences that took up one page front and back AND almost a full 'nother side. Yeah... I was weird. Well, still am, but that's not the point. ^_^;;