Five teens are gathered in a large park; the group trying to decide on what they would do for the rest of the afternoon. "C'mon, Katie, what's wrong with tag," asks a brunette girl. "You used to love it!" The other brunette, Katie, rolls her eyes, thinking herself above the stupid game; they were seniors for crying out loud!
"No I didn't, Bree," Katie counters," I hated it with a passion." The shortest of the three girls, a redhead named Nakoma, rolls her eyes. She'd be content to just go to the bookstore down the street, but she was the only one of the five teens that liked to read.
"Why don't we just go and get some ice cream," Nakoma suggests. "I'll buy."
"No, we're gonna do something at the park," the boy next to her says. "That's why we came here."
"Hey," says another, slightly heavyweight, boy," she's offering to buy ice cream, don't turn her down." All of them begin to argue and Nakoma walks over to the benches and sits down; tired of her friends already and they'd only been together for five damn minutes. This always happens and they always end up playing basketball. A glowing object in a nearby bush catches her eye, Nakoma walking over to see what it is and finding a plain emerald stone fixed onto a silver chain—the gem glowing a faint gold color. She picks it up to examine it only to have someone slam into her.
"What the heck," she cries, sitting up and wiping some dirt off her arms. The boy that ran into her helps her up, blushing a little. Speaking of little, the boy is short with a large, bald head. I bet he gets teased about that often, she thinks to herself, smirking a little.
"I am most sorry," he apologizes, his voice sounding like a small child's, "but can I have my necklace back?" She clutches the necklace tightly when three other people join the bald kid. All of them wore matching outfits, so either she'd just run into a gang or these guys went to some sort of fancy school—she really hoped for the latter.
"How do I know it's yours?" Nakoma raises an eyebrow at the group in front of her; the necklace was clutched in her fist as a feeling of protection washes over her. She didn't want to hand the necklace over and her fingers tightened around it even more. She would be the one walking away with this necklace no matter what she has to do, of that she was certain.
"A smart question." Nakoma turns at the new voice and comes face-to-face with a man in a strange armor; on either side of him are two tigers, their teeth bared and ready to pounce at their master's command. Nakoma wastes no time in tucking tail and running, her friends right behind her, having noticed her uneasy expression and the tension in her stance before the weirdo appeared behind her.
"Did you start a fight or something," the heavyweight boy, Brandon, asks.
"Why does everyone think I start the fights," Nakoma demands to know as she continues to sprint down the street.
"'Cause you usually do," the other boy, Christian, points out with a devious smirk. That was only half true; she only fought after the other person swung first.
"Oh shut up," Bree snaps in agitation. "What the hell is going on?" Nakoma shrugs her shoulders and opens the door to her house. Once everybody was inside she shuts and locks the door; putting the necklace in the pocket of her jeans so the others wouldn't notice it and want to take a closer look at it. She wouldn't risk losing it after she just got her hands on it.
"Why were those people surrounding you," asks Brandon, rubbing the back of his neck, face a light shade of red after running for three blocks. Nakoma shrugs nervously, not entirely sure herself except for the fact she thinks she ran into the Xiaolin Losers her older brother fights all the time.
"I DON'T KNOW, DAMN IT," she explodes when Brandon opens his mouth with another question. She is tired of questions and had a headache from hell. "All of you just shut up, my mom should be home soon and I don't need her chewing me out for a fight I didn't even get into." Nakoma could already hear her mom berating her, telling her that she needed to behave more like a young lady instead of a barbarian.
"What time is it?"
"Um," she glances at her watch," 5:45." The others quickly said their goodbyes before heading to their own homes, not wanting to get grounded for the third time that summer because they didn't make it back before supper. Nakoma trudges up the stairs and into her room; going straight to the jewelry box her brother had built for her and putting the strange necklace in a hidden compartment.
"Nicky," her brother calls from the bottom of the stairs," dinner's done." Her brother always called her Nicky since he couldn't come up with a better nickname for Nakoma. She rushes downstairs and hugs her brother before heading towards the dining room. "Hold on." She stops and turns to face her brother.
"What?"
"Put on something nice, I have someone coming over tonight." Nakoma rolls her eyes and goes back upstairs to get dressed; she pulls off her black T-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. She replaces them with a sky blue spaghetti strap dress and matching flats before she brushes out her dark red hair and puts it in a clip—once that was finished, she walks downstairs. Her brother smiles down at her when she makes it to his side and offers her his arm like gentlemen did back in the seventeen hundreds.
"Why so formal tonight," she asks suspiciously, narrowing her eyes in a look that usually makes Jack spill any secret Nakoma wanted to know and even some she didn't.
"No reason." They walk into the dining room and Nakoma sees the man from the park. Ah shit, can this day get any worse? Why would Jack invite him into our house anyway? She tries to back up, but a tiger stands in front of the door, growling lowly. She turns back towards the man, taking in his olive toned skin, and long black and dark green hair, golden eyes. Now she felt sure that she could give the cops a decent description of her attempted murderer if he pulls anything.
"What the hell, I'm being held hostage in my own dining room?" Jack gently takes her arm and forces her to sit next to the man, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips when he notices the glare Nakoma sends his way. He's gonna get it later and he's gonna be sorry he ever crossed her.
"Nicky, I'd like you to meet the most evil person in the world—Chase Young!" So this is the guy my brother fanboys over; I don't see anything squeal-worthy. The man, Chase, smirks at the teenager and kisses the back of her hand. Nakoma jerks her arm away and accidentally elbows her brother in the process. He winces and drops to the floor with a pained squeak.
Nakoma just snorts and crosses her arms. "Serves you right for inviting him into the house in the first place, you so-called evil genius." Chase simply raises an eyebrow, golden eyes boring into her. The way he looked at her made her shiver, the intensity of his gaze familiar somehow yet scary all the same. She didn't like the way he studied her features like he already knew what he would find, especially since he'd barely gotten a glimpse of her at the park.
"You never mentioned you have little sister, Spicer," Chase says, his voice holding a smooth and seductive quality that makes Nakoma shiver no matter how much she hated it. Jack shrugs as he picks himself up and sits next to his sister, holding her hand tightly.
"Didn't think you needed to know," he responds, sitting up a little straighter the way all men do when they feel a threat to the person they care about.
"Do you remember the Shen-Gong-Wu that activated today?"
"Yeah, of course, it was the Melody Stone; Wuya never told what it does though..." Jack trails off, gazing over at his idol with an eyebrow raised, looking much like his younger sister just moments before.
"It's supposed to give the user eternal life and Heylin or Xiaolin powers, depending on which side they're on. Their master can partially control them, but usually that's just depends on if the master is stronger."
"How would they have a master," Nakoma asks, curiosity getting the better of her. Chase smiles down at her—not a happy smile, but one that says he knows something that she doesn't, but needs to. She hates that smile.
"Their master would be whoever touches them first when they put the necklace on." Nakoma scrunches her eyebrows together and shakes her head. That sounded like total BS to her and she was willing to bet that there was no such thing as a master of the stone; just something Chase came up with to get Jack's attention and hold it.
"That's stupid." Chase smirks at her again, and then turns his cold gaze to her brother, who was sitting on the edge of his seat. Nakoma looks around them impatiently, wondering where the hell their mother was and why they weren't eating yet. Honestly, she's just lucky that Jack knows how to cook and is actually good at it or else she would have starved as a toddler.
"Only a certain person can pick up the stone, though. Guess who that is." Nakoma's bad feeling came back again, niggling at her like she should know the answer already even though it continued to elude her.
"Uh...Wuya," Jack guesses," Katnappe…Me…Mom…Xiaolin Losers?"
"No, your little sister is the keeper."
…Do what now?