Author Note: I've honestly enjoyed seeing how this story evolved from the original idea I had. It actually started out as an Inuyasha fic! XD It's changed a lot since then.
I have decided to rate this story 'T' because – despite the deceiving chapter titles – it will get rather dark, and will contain swearing. Also, regarding the chapter titles, each one will be a quote that I feel represents the chapter pretty well. Anyone care to guess what this chapter's quote is from?
Yes, I know I need to update Umare Kawa Raseru, but quite frankly I don't know where I'm going with that story (plus I'm far more inspired to write a Chase x Kimiko than a Chase x Wuya and Raimundo x Kimiko). I will be taking it down within the week. If any of you would like to take over writing it from the prologue and part of Chapter One that I have written, PM or email me.
A huge thank you to Grovyle Knight for being THE BEST BETA EVER. And just for being awesome in general. =D
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown! (Though I wish I did…) I do, however, own my OCs.
And now… enjoy!
Frozen in Time
Chapter One – I Was Frozen Today!
"Amira, what are you doing in here?"
The Dragon of Earth looked up from the orchid she was tending to see Master Long standing in the doorway to the temple greenhouse. He had lightly tanned skin, and was bald, like most of the other monks. Though he looked to be about twenty, the Dragons surmised he was a lot older than that. Nonetheless, they loved him – mostly because he understood them like the older monks never could.
"Master!" Amira exclaimed, startled. "I'm sorry, I should have asked you before coming here."
Master Long smiled. "I'm not mad at you; just curious. Do you do this often?"
The girl blushed and looked at the floor, her brown hair covering her hazel eyes. "Only when I'm trying to calm down."
"Ah," the Xiaolin master said, walking to stand beside her at the table holding the orchids. "Am I right to assume that this somehow involves Leos?"
Leos was the Dragon of Water at the Xiaolin Temple – a medium-tall boy who hailed from the southern part of the Republic of North America. Though Amira, being the Dragon of Earth, was hard to piss off, Leon seemed to be so good at it that he could even do it accidentally.
"Yeah," she said with a frustrated sigh. "He just doesn't know when to quit, does he?"
"I'm inclined to agree." Master Long turned his attention to the orchids that sat upon the table. "These are pretty beautiful for being tended only when you're upset."
Amira let out a sharp breath, glaring sullenly at the floor. "Let's just say that I'm going to be known as the Dragon with the worst temper, not Mariena." She shook her head, and then looked up at the elder monk with a bright smile. "Anyway, what brings you here, Master?"
Long caught onto the change of subject, but didn't mind. He could tell that Amira didn't particularly want to talk about Leos anymore. "Why, I was just here to tend some orchids of my own!" he replied jovially. "They really are quite soothing."
The Dragon of Earth giggled. "You know, I'd believe you… except for the fact that I know who all the orchids in here belong to, and none of them belong to you."
"I'm hurt!" Master Long said, placing a hand over his heart. "How can you even insinuate that I would lie?"
"Well, Master," Amira began, "since I'm the Dragon of Earth, I can sort of feel who the plants have come into contact with. And I can safely say that none of the orchids have come into contact with you."
The master monk winced. "Busted." He straightened and ran a hand through his non-existent hair. "I was, in fact, going to check on the vault that protects the Heylin Seed."
"The Heylin Seed?" Amira asked excitedly. "Master, would it be okay if I could see it? Its power is legendary!"
Long chuckled. "I wish I could say yes, Amira, but unfortunately no one can see the Heylin Seed. Grand Master Omi sealed the vault nearly five hundred years ago so that an incident that occurred when he was an apprentice would not repeat itself. I'm just checking to make sure the seal is still strong."
"Oh." The girl looked crestfallen.
"Hey, now!" the master monk exclaimed, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "I just said you couldn't see it. You can still come with me, if you'd like."
"Really?"
He grinned. "I'd be glad for the company."
Amira nodded, and watched as Master Long strode over to the stone statue in the middle of the greenhouse's back wall. He climbed up on the base and pressed the dot in the middle of the statue's forehead. When he jumped off, the statue rotated to reveal a stairway leading down into the darkness. There was an already-lit torch hanging in the hollowed-out statue.
"Whoa," the Dragon of Earth murmured.
"Whoa, indeed," Long agreed. He took the torch from its bracket and descended into the darkness, Amira following very close behind him.
The staircase was long, but the incline lessened the farther the two monks continued along. At the end, there was a small landing with a door opposite the stairs. At least, Amira assumed it was a door – after all, there wasn't much else it could be, if this was the Heylin Seed vault. It depicted a potted plant with six flowers, and three stripes of leaves ran horizontally across the image. The pot jutted out from the door, as if it were made for someone to stand there.
Master Long carefully inspected each of the flowers, then ran one finger down the main stem of the engraved plant. When he finished this, he turned to his pupil.
"Well, everything seems to be in order here. That was easy, wasn't it?" he asked with a laugh.
Amira, though, didn't hear him. Her eyes were trained on the tiniest trickle of water that came from underneath the door.
"Master, isn't the Heylin Seed supposed to be kept away from water?" she asked quietly.
Long immediately followed her gaze. "Oh dear. That is a problem." He stepped toward the trickle and knelt, observing it with concerned eyes. There was no sunlight in the vault as far as he was aware, but water near the Heylin Seed was a recipe for disaster, especially if one of their enemies were to break in and steal it, or if the ceiling were to somehow be destroyed.
Unfortunately, he couldn't fix the problem – at least, not from the outside. And all records of how to open the vault were gone; all that remained were the instructions on how to strengthen the seal, should it be weakened by age or magical interference.
He knew what he was about to suggest was risky, but leaving a leak in the vault was even more so.
"Amira, could you break down the door with your element?"
The Dragon of Earth shot the elder monk a startled glance. "But, Master!"
"We need to stop this leak," was all he said, standing up and moving behind his student. She gave him an 'are you sure?' look, and he nodded.
"Wudai Crater – Earth!" Amira cried, holding her hands out with palms facing toward the door. It trembled a little before a yellow light ran up the middle of the plant's stem, and the two sides slid into the wall forcefully.
The two monks gasped at the sight that met their eyes.
They were facing a veritable wall of ice – or rather, a block of ice; for frozen inside it was a young woman.
From what they could see through the ice, she was wearing female monks robes, and her black hair was pulled back into pigtails. One of her arms was outstretched towards them, as if she had been reaching toward the door when she was frozen.
"Amira, go get the Eye of Dashi," Long commanded.
The Dragon of Earth nodded mutely before turning and running back up the stairs. As the sounds of her footsteps echoed back through the tunnel, the master monk placed his torch in one of the brackets on either side of the now-open door and stepped closer to the ice, trying to see the young woman a little better through the distortion the ice was presenting. Her eyes were blue – that much he could make out – and almost the same color as the ice she was trapped in.
He strained his eyes to see her face, nearly pressing his nose to the ice. She looked to be no older than twenty, but her expression… he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Of course, having a thick layer of ice distorting her features made reading her expression even harder.
Long sighed and stepped back.
"Who are you?" he asked aloud. He crossed his arms as he continued to examine her. She obviously hadn't been frozen here recently, as no one had been in the vault since Grand Master Omi had sealed it. And since the monks robes hadn't changed much even since Grand Master Dashi's time, her clothes gave no indication of what time she was from.
His eyes drifted to the lower right-hand corner of the ice block, where it was beginning to melt, and thus trickling under the door. On the bright side, I now know where the 'leak' came from.
The sound of footsteps alerted him to Amira's return – though this time, she brought company.
"Master Long, what's going – whoa…"
The new voice belonged to Mariena, the Dragon of Fire. She was about fifteen centimeters shorter than Amira, with auburn hair and blue-green eyes.
"Here's the Eye of Dashi," Amira said, handing said Shen Gong Wu to her teacher. "Mariena decided to tag along because… why did you tag along?" She looked at her fellow Dragon oddly.
"Because when you're in a rush, it's important," Mariena replied. "And anything important around here is exciting." She gestured toward the ice. "And look! Excitement!"
Amira huffed. "Someone frozen is a vault is not exciting, Mariena. It's horrible and we need to help her."
Master Long interrupted his students' squabble with a command of, "Stay back." They eagerly obliged as he aimed the Eye of Dashi at the ice.
"Eye of Dashi!" he shouted.
A bright beam of lightning shot towards the ice block, completely vaporizing it. Long was surprised when the girl remained in the same position for a moment – allowing him ample time to read her facial expression.
Betrayal. Accusation. Sadness.
Then her eyes fluttered closed, and she fell to the ground in a dead faint.
XXX
Amira stared hard at the sleeping girl. After being thawed out from her icy prison in the Heylin Seed vault nearly a week ago, she had barely stirred since fainting shortly after being freed. The Dragon of Earth knew this quite well by now – she had been sitting in the chair at the side of the girl's bed for nearly that entire time. She had skipped out on training, chores, and even the rare Shen Gong Wu retrieval, just to make sure that the girl was okay when she woke up.
Strangely, Master Long supported her decision; though her fellow Dragons sure didn't. They were mostly just annoyed that she got out of chores while the rest of them had to work. Though not for very long, mind you, since they used the Shard of Lightning for everything.
The Dragon of Earth, in the meantime, had taken the time to learn all she could about the girl. She looked to be Asian; perhaps from the islands of the Eastern Asian Empire. She couldn't have been more than twenty; though if Amira were one to guess, she'd say the girl was about eighteen.
"Okay, Amira, this is an intervention."
She started at the sound of Mariena's voice, and looked up to see all three of her fellow Dragons standing in the door to the infirmary.
"Look, guys," Amira began, "I can appreciate that you're pissed off that I'm exempt from chores, but this is really, really impor-"
"That's not why we're here," Valan, the Dragon of Wind, cut her off. At 198 centimeters, he was easily the tallest person in the temple; made even more imposing by his black hair and blue eyes. Underneath his slightly off-putting exterior, however, lay a heart of gold. It was Valan that Amira considered her best friend here at the temple, even if he could be a bit insufferable at times when he teased her.
"We could care less about you not helping with chores," he continued. Leos snorted, earning himself a sharp look from Mariena, but Valan kept speaking. "We don't want you to waste away in here, Amira. You need to do something besides sit in that chair all day."
"It's just until she wakes up!" Amira protested. "How would you feel if you woke up in a strange place with no one around?"
"What if she doesn't wake up?" Leos snapped; voicing the concern that Amira had harbored mentally since about day three of the girl's sleep. "What if she's one of those people who goes into a coma that the doctors can't wake up, no matter what tech they use?"
"Shut up, Leos," the Earth Dragon growled.
"Are you going to wait in here for fifty years until you're both old and wrinkly for her to wake up? Huh?"
Amira stood suddenly, her chair sliding back on the tiled floor with a violent screech. "I said shut up, Leos!" she yelled. "What would you know about thinking about others? Nothing, I bet, since you're so narcissistic!"
Leos looked ready to retort, but Valan and Mariena exchanged a look before the much larger Dragon of Wind placed his hand over the Water Dragon's mouth and dragged him out the door.
Mariena sighed and crossed the room to stand next to Amira, slinging her arm around the taller girl's shoulders. "We're just worried for you, Amira. You need to get out and do something before you turn into a pile of dust. How about training?"
Amira shook her head.
"Even with Wu?"
Another head shake.
"How about beating up Jackie?"
This earned a reaction out of the Dragon of Earth. "Mariena!" she said accusingly. "That's against Xiaolin code!"
The Dragon of Fire merely grinned. "But it got you to say something, didn't it?"
Amira sighed. "Look, Mariena, I just… have to do this. I'm not really sure why, but I feel like she needs someone to be with her when she wakes up."
"Okay." Mariena released her taller friend and walked away, but paused at the door. "But if she's not awake by tomorrow, you're coming out to train for an hour, okay?"
Amira didn't respond, which struck her as odd, so she turned back to the infirmary.
"Mariena," the whisper came, "I think she's waking up!"
The Dragon of Fire rushed over to the bed by which her friend stood. It was true; the girl's eyelids were fluttering open, revealing ice blue eyes. She blinked up at her surroundings confusedly before seeming to notice the two girls standing next to her bed.
In a flash, she was out of the bed and in an obviously practiced fighting stance, eyeing the two Dragons suspiciously.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "And where am I?"
"I'm Amira Hassell," Amira answered, holding her hands up to show that she meant no harm, "and this Mariena Andros. We're Dragons-in-Training at the Xiaolin Temple, which is where you are."
The girl seemed to relax a little, but only a little. "I don't remember the temple taking on more Dragons," she stated.
"Well, I don't remember any scrolls saying anything about you being frozen in the basement," Mariena retorted, causing the girl's eyes to widen in shock.
"Frozen?" she whispered. "But I don't…" Her arms dropped to her sides. "I don't remember…" She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before looking up at the two girls. "Is it true?"
She was met with two nodding heads, and she closed her eyes again, her expression pained.
"Look," Amira proposed hesitantly, "maybe if you tell us who you are, we can help you."
The girl let out a breath and straightened, sizing up both Dragons-in-Training, as if trying to see if they were trustworthy. Finally, she nodded.
"My name is Kimiko Tohomiko, and I'm the Dragon of Fire."
Author Note: And so our story begins! Hope you liked the first chapter, and I would love reviews if you would be so kind as to leave them (they really inspire me to continue).
Also, a cookie to whoever can guess what the quote is from!
~Sapphire Kyogre