They say that just before dying you can see your own life passing before your eyes. My head has just been cut off and is spinning in the air, so I can say with some knowledge of the facts that's not exactly like they say. I'm not seeing my whole life, just these last crazy days; and I can see all the story not just through my eyes but also through the eyes and hearts of my brothers in arms. What I'm experimenting now ... such a communion, it's an enlightenment ... and just in the end.

My end.

Kate and Joseph were sitting on her couch. He was still wearing the Union Jack costume but had removed the mask.

"So that's how it works now, Joe? You call your MI5 mates and a body is removed without fuss or an investigation? Well ... I don't think I feel comfortable with that!" She said, feeling the uncomfortable urge to emphasize the sentence lighting a cigarette.

He received her accusation with a face and squinting his eyes, swollen for lack of sleep. Good old Joe, always seems on the verge of falling apart, and then surviving to everything ... out of sheer stubbornness.

"Well ... I was one of them ... they know I'm trustworthy. With my kind of activity this agreement with MI5 comes in handy, you have no idea how many times I've found myself with the corpse of a vampire or the corpse of one of its victims underfoot! Anyway, later I'll have to draw up a report on what happened and, trust me, it will be examined with the utmost accuracy."

Kate was tempted to replicate but she realized that it wasn't the moment.

"But ... for how long she's having a shower?" Joe resumed. "Do you think she's okay? Don't you think is better if you go to check?"

"Joe, you know what she's experienced. Give her room, give her time to cope with it. I'm sure she's okay and ..." Kate was responding when the doorbell interrupted her.

She got up, opened the door, and found herself facing something else she'd never wanted to see again in her life.

"Hi, Kate!" Grace said.

At the same moment, a leaden sky loomed over me, I was on a hill overlooking the sea and the sword was moving lightly in my hand. My movements were slow, punctuated by sudden accelerations that immediately quieted back to flow seamlessly into that slow and unrelenting motion; as if I was a wing that inflates and deflates meekly following the whims of the wind. To a trained eye my movements would remember the Chen-style Tai Chi Chuan, and especially the 49 posture Straight Sword form. The same trained eye, however, would have found something odd in what I was doing, because it wasn't pure Chen-style, but a variation enhanced with some additions of my own.

After completing the form, I stood a time, looking thoughtfully at the sword. I was thinking that lately I'd felt comfortable like never before in handling the jian. In my previous life I'd always preferred the dao, the broadsword, instead of the straight sword. The dao was more akin to my fiercely passionate nature, than the more elegant and aristocratic jian.

"Everything changes ..." I muttered to myself.

I put the sword in its sheath and walked at a good pace towards home. Along the way, my mind continued to linger on the changes occurred. I wondered what the Britisher would have said if he'd known that I was living in Scotland. Despite the irony of the situation, I believed that that had been a good choice: I never felt so peaceful as since when I'd left it all behind. Or at least, I truly believe I was peaceful until the dreams had started. I couldn't focus their subjects, I couldn't remember them but I'd the impression that they were becoming clearer each night. The impatience belonged to my former life.

Once home I left aside the thoughts of the past to focus on my daily chores, starting from the care of my vegetable garden.

"... and where is this girl now?" Grace asked, after Joe had finished summarizing what had happened the night before.

"She's in the bathroom, taking a shower," he said.

Kate was sitting in silence. She'd not said a word since Grace made her entrance. She just sit on an armchair looking askance at her.

Grace was standing in the middle of the room, wearing a black business suit, far-branded and with a neckline too low. She was sporting perfect hair and nails, as if they had just been done, even if it was early in the morning. She was smoking. Probably this was the thing that most irritated Kate: not that career superwoman attitude, not that wealth show off, not even all that had happened between them in the past; all this she could handle, but seeing Grace smoking with taste right in front of her ... that was literally making her insane.

"So ... the Green Knight is back." Grace continued, thoughtfully.

"Yes, nothing happened to you? Your powers ...?" asked Union Jack.

"Gone. Disappeared shortly after we separated." She said. "But I have not stopped fighting. I went back to doing what I do best ..."

"Being a bitch?" Interrupted Kate.

Grace looked at her with a grin.

"The business woman." She continued. "I'm CEO at the Omni Corporation, I converted the company and its subsidiaries to the Green Economy. I use my influence on lobbying activities supporting environmental policies."

She leaned on Kate, resting her hands on the armrests of the chair, her face closer to hers, until they were almost touching.

"Yes, I was on the other side, I was the leader of the Bane, but now I am and always will be a Pendragon, powers or no powers. I don't care what the Green Knight has in mind; and to answer you, yes I'm still a bitch."

Meanwhile, Luna had left the shower. She cleaned the fogged mirror with a hand. She looked herself and saw that her look was better than she had imagined. She removed the towel from her head and the long wet hair came down to cover the face, as the curtains of a stage. They reminded her the darkness that had almost swallowed her up the night before. They almost frightened her.

She brushed them from her face and began rummaging in the drawers until she found a pair of scissors. Then she started cutting her hair, without care.

She wore the clothes that Kate had given her. They were a little loose.

Then Luna emerged from the bathroom and walked into the living room. She could hear people discussing. There she saw Grace, as well as Joe and Kate, whom she had met when she woke up. She didn't like that woman exuding self-centeredness. In addition she and Kate had an air of hating each other.

"Hey, Luna!" Said Union Jack, noticing her.

Both women turned their heads. Grace smiled. It looked more like a smirk than a smile, and a little disturbing ... even though she probably intended it to have the opposite effect.

"So you're Luna! Hello, I'm Grace." The woman said, offering her a hand.

Luna instinctively tried to look at the hand out of the corner of the eye, expecting to see it turning into a claw. The hand remained a hand, so she shook it ... but with some reluctance.

"Laura, my roommate, she ..." Luna asked, without answering Grace.

"She's fine, don't worry. I checked." Union Jack replied. "There are a couple of MI5 agents monitoring the apartment. I told her that you're okay but, for some time, you will need to stay under cover and you can't go home."

'What?! I can't ... "

"No, you can't. There's a risk that the Bane is still trying to eliminate you; you'd better stay with us until things become clear." Kate said soothingly.

"But I ..." Luna said with tears in her eyes. "I want my life back! My life without monsters, or superheroes."

"Hush! Everything will get back to what it was. We need to understand what's happening and what's your role in all this, then we'll solve everything, trust me." Kate said, hugging her.

Luna had the impression that not even Kate believed in what she was saying, but she needed to believe, so sniffled and wiped her tears with one hand and braced herself.

"Luna ... what's your real name?" Grace asked.

"I ... never mind ... Luna is fine. Just call me Luna."

Grace shrugged.

That night I had another dream.

The sign out of the car said Cavalli 8 / Uomini 40. It meant that the car could carry eight horses or forty men, but it was clear that in there were well over forty soldiers. We were pressed upon one another, but this wasn't what worried me the most: the destination of the train was what I was scared of, we were headed for the Russian front.

To make matters worse I had nightmares that wouldn't let me sleep. Dreams of medieval knights and dragons and ... no, not dragons, they were most terrible creatures. I wondered if they were premonitory dreams, or if they were just the result of the fear for what we might have encountered. In fact I wasn't the only one there to have nightmares.

What horrors were waiting for us? I thought about my father who still had nightmares for what he experienced in the Great War. I wondered what would happen to me ... to all of us.

The train entered a tunnel and the darkness swallowed us. I could hear a sound like a howl and I couldn't help but imagine what horrible beasts inhabited that darkness.

Then the tunnel ended and the train went out. I reminded myself that monsters do not exist. The darkness can scare a child, but a soldier can't be alarmed for so little.

We entered a bend, it looked very narrow and the train tilted on one side. It kept tilting with an agonizing screech of metal, I realized that something wasn't right! There was the deafening noise of brakes, the train tilting some more, then the impact. The side of the car hit the ground, bounced and began to skid. Within the car we bounced in turn bumping against each other. The wall of the car that was now at the bottom broke down and shattered. We flew out like a rain of helpless bodies.

I had time to tell myself that I was going to die, to reply myself I was not ready and to hope not to fall against a rock. All happened in an instant but the time seemed to be dilated.

I hoped to die quickly, if I had to die. I touched the ground, bounced and rolled. I hit with a shoulder, I bruised an elbow and a knee, then my hands, but at that point I had stopped. I hadn't banged my head, I hadn't banged my back and nothing had fallen upon me. I had survived.

I tried to pull myself up. The entrance of another tunnel was before me, it was dark. Terribly dark, a darkness so thick that I was terrified. Then I heard a furious howling and something came out of the tunnel! It was huge, like a giant snake or a dragon, I couldn't get a good look at it, it was too fast and too big. It emerged from the tunnel, devouring what was left of the train and destroying what was around it. The earth trembled, the hills slid down ... I was swept away by all of it and …

... I woke up screaming.

I ran a hand through my hair, drenched in sweat. I was trembling.

This time the dream was clear and I remembered it well, I didn't know the places I'd seen but I knew the language spoken: it was Italian.

It was five o'clock in the morning, I got dressed and headed for the village. When I started my new life I had given up even communication media, considering them an unwanted distraction, now I need them too to put the clues together and understand the meaning of my dreams.

Then I couldn't imagine that this research would lead me to this: my death.

I had a life far more intense than most of humanity. I lived through incredible adventures, I have faced formidable opponents in duels, I loved enchanting women. But it would have remained nothing of my life but my name. Shen Kuei, "The Cat,” is a name feared and admired among the spies and the most experienced martial artists, indeed. Nothing I've done has really made a change in the world, nothing I've done before the spirit of Pendragon chose me.

In these last days, walking the road that led to my death, I finally gave my life a meaning, and I am immensely grateful to relive them, in the few moments I have left before ...