Jackie's found himself alone, naturally, and he clutches the shard of the Vilii Stone like a lifeline, muttering to try and psych himself up. He'd been mortified that he'd attacked his friends, but there hadn't been much time for apologies before they'd all been split up.

So he skulks down the caverns, jumping at shadows and trying to talk himself up, when one of those shadows gives him a reason to jump back.

It's Tong. Shit, it's Tong, it's Liu Shen Tong, Big Smile Lee's enforcer, and Jackie remembers with sudden cold clarity the effortlessness with which he'd plunged the machete into his stomach.

It's not every day you confront the man who killed you, or someone wearing his face.

"Get away," Jackie snarls. "Get away!"

"He didn't come to save you," Tong says, mocking him. "He never really cared."

"Shut up! You're lying!"

Tong steps back, and changes forms, and quite suddenly there's someone standing in front of him he thought he'd never see again.

"...Wei?"

It's Malicant, he knows it's just Malicant wearing the form of his best friend, but it's so unexpected that he falters.

"It's true," is all Wei says, and Jackie spies the glimmer of a badge on his chest. "Tong was right, Jackie. I'm a cop. I've always been a cop."

"Stop--"

"I was using you this whole time, and I got you killed--"

"Stop, cut it out!" Jackie howls. "Shut up, you asshole, shut up! You're lying, you're lying, all you do is lie, you get in people's heads and you lie to them!"

There's a long moment's pause. Then, Malicant in Wei's shape says, "I lied to you. I was always lying to you."

It's not true. It's not. It can't be, Wei would never, Wei was a son of Old Prosperity just like him, and there's nothing that people coming up in Old Prosperity hate more than diulan cops! Tong had put the idea in his head, true, but Jackie hadn't broken under torture then, and he's sure not about to now.

Jackie hefts the stone in his hand, and he grins recklessly. "You're lying now," he says, "Wei's my friend, Wei wouldn't turn traitor on us, Wei wouldn't ever turn traitor. He's Sun On Yee through and through. You know what? You talk too much," he says, and before Malicant can do anything else to try and break his spirit, he shoves his shard of the Vilii Stone into the impostor Wei's mouth.

The shard has taken the form of a pork bun.

Malicant-Wei takes the bun out of his mouth, looking puzzled. "That's not how this is supposed to w--"

And the shade disappears in a burst of thick smoke. The shard has done its job...as unorthodox a method as it had been.

And Jackie collapses to his knees, weeping with his head in his hands, terrified despite himself that Malicant had been right.