"Hey, Clay. What are you up to?" Kimiko asked the blond monk.
The young man turned his towards not only Kimiko, but the other Xiaolin dragons as well.
"I'm just wrappin' my gift for Mother's day 's all. Master Fung 's lettin' me drop it off later. Can even stay 'n celebrate for a bit."
She and Raimundo looked surprised at that.
"Oh, dang. I totally forgot about Mother's Day," Raimundo moaned. "I can't just not get her anything, either! A woman who wrangles eight kids on a daily basis lives for this day."
"I forgot too," Kimiko sighed. "Looks like Rai and I will have to take a trip to get something."
Omi just looked on, confused. "Mother's Day?"
"Yeah, little buddy. The day we celebrate all that our mothers have done for us." Clay told him.
Kimiko did a quick web search, and read the results aloud. "A special day in the honor of mothers, Mothers Day is celebrated in several countries around the world though on different dates. In many counties Mother's Day is always celebrated on the second Sunday in May. These countries include: Anguilla, Aruba, Australia, Austria, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Malta, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and The Grenadines, Suriname, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, The United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
"Kim!" Raimundo interrupted her. He motioned his hands in the gesture to 'speed it up'.
"Sorry. But what ever may be the date of Mother's Day around the world, the spirit is the same everywhere. Everywhere in the world mothers are respected for their extreme devotion towards their kids. And on Mother's Day children pay their humblest tribute to their mothers and thank them for giving them birth and providing them with the best of care and upbringing."
"In other words, you kiss up to you mom and buy her presents, today, as thanks for what she's done for you." Raimundo concluded.
Omi looked down. "I do not have a mother to celebrate on this day."
They all looked sheepish for having temporarily forgotten. But Clay had an idea.
"Cheer up, partner. Even if she ain't actually here, you could imagine the things she'd 'a done for you growin' up," he said.
"Yeah, you don't know what happened to her, but that could be because she couldn't. Ya know, not because she didn't want to," the dragon of Wind put in.
"It's not uncommon for people to give up their kids if they know that they wouldn't be able to take care of them - whether that be financially, mentally and emotionally, or physically. She probably really cared for you." Kimiko said softly.
Omi looked up with a sad smile. "You really think so?"
The others nodded.
"Besides," Kimiko continued. "Not everyone who celebrates Mother's Day celebrates it for the mom that they came from. Some people celebrate it for the people that cared for them, or took care of them - friends or other family members."
Omi gasped and smiled. "Master Fung has helped take care of me for as long as I can remember! Perhaps I should celebrate him on this day."
The others snickered at the image it put in their heads of Master Fung in a night gown with hair curlers on his beard, being served breakfast in bed.
"Well, you could. But maybe you should wait for Father's Day," Clay suggested, still laughing.
Before Omi could respond Dojo slithered in. "A new Shen Gong Wu activated."
He opened the scroll and they all gathered around to view it. "It's called The Memory Metamorpher. You can use it on both yourself and other people. It allows the user to recall and view a memory of their choosing. If they don't know a specific memory, they can call up one using a key word. Could help me remember where Dashi hid all the other Wu."
He put away the scroll and transformed into his larger size. They all boarded and took off.
The wu's location ended up being in a large cave in Africa. At some point they had resumed talking about their Mother's Day plans, thankfully having dropped the Master Fung part of it. They had been talking about it when Jack crashed in - literally - apparently there was an issue with one of his Jack-bots; it flew through the cave's wall instead of the cave's opening.
Jack actually face-palmed as he walked through the cave's entrance and spied his malfunctioning robot.
"I am so not in the mood for this, today. First I forget her gift, now my robots are malfunctioning," he grumbled.
"What, did everyone - except Clay - forget that it was Mother's Day?" Raimundo asked aloud.
Jack raised an eyebrow. "You guys too?"
Raimundo and Kimiko nodded.
"I did not even know about this holiday until today," Omi said. "I must figure out what I can get Master Fung."
Jack didn't know whether to laugh or stare dumbfounded. He was about to ask about it when Clay spoke.
"Oh boy, I thought he'd forgotten about that idea."
Another voice joined the teens, "What disturbing conversation have we stumbled into?"
They turned to see Wuya and Chase standing a little away. Wuya had been the one to ask.
"We were talking about Mother's day," Omi answered.
Wuya looked confused.
"You know," Jack said. "That day where we all go crazy trying to find or make something for our mothers so they don't complain because they feel 'unappreciated'."
"Ah, yes. I remember you going nuts over it last year; built her a robot to paint her nails, I believe. I hope this years turns out better than last," She said.
"I'm buying her something," he mumbled.
She heard it anyway. "Good choice."
"Can you just get on with it?" Chase demanded tensely.
Everyone silently agreed and ran deeper into the darkness of the cave. Kimiko summoned fire in her hand to light the way and Jack had a flash light. After a few feet they spotted something lodged into the cave wall.
"There!" Omi shouted.
With the light shinned on it they could see it more clearly. It looked like a small, golden fountain; small enough to be held in one's hands comfortably. It was stuck in the wall and looked like it would take some serious pulling to pry it out.
They raced towards it. Jack-bots flew past Jack and towards the wu, but but as they tried to sail past the monks, they were intercepted and destroyed. Jack tried to run past the chaos and get to the wu, but Omi, Kimiko and Raimundo were faster. Omi and Raimundo leaped and dove for the wu at the same time. Wuya was no where near it, but that didn't mean that someone else wasn't. Raimundo's hand reached the wu first, but the monks couldn't celebrate yet.
Seemingly out of nowhere came the 'hand' of Hannibal Roy Bean. Before anyone could say or do anything, Bean challenge a Xiaolin showdown. Him, wagering the Moby Morpher, and Raimundo wagering The Sword of the Storm. The game: A test of both cunning and strength - whoever could free the wu from its rocky imprisonment, would win.
"Let's go, Xiaolin showdown!" They both shouted.
The cave top rose and the section containing the shen gong wu broke off and formed a high pillar. All around the pillar rocks began to shield and guard the wu; it was now completely hidden from sight.
"Gong Yi Tanpai!"
Raimundo called out "Sword of the Storm" and tried to create a tornado to suck the rocks away. Hannibal used the Moby Morpher to to change his tentacle-like hands into muscular humanoid ones, punching away at the rocks.
It looked like it was going to be a race of techniques - whichever was faster would get the shen gong wu. Raimundo stopped his wind attack and suddenly leaped up, using his elemental abilities to propel him higher, then used his martial arts training to break through the rocks, right about at the location of where the Memory Metamorpher was.
He knew that all it would take was one more attack with the Sword of the Storm to break away the last few rocks and clear away any debris, and he'll have won the showdown.
Just as he was about to call upon his wu one more time, a boulder suddenly slammed into his side and sent him flying. He vaguely heard Kimiko call his name as it happened.
Meanwhile, after throwing the boulder, Bean raced his way up the formation and propelled his own body into the structure, shattering the rock, then, before he fell back to the ground, punched his arm through the last defensive rock and grabbed the shen gong wu.
The showdown was over, Hannibal Roy Bean had won.
Kimiko rushed to Raimundo's side after everything shifted back, checking him for injuries.
"I'm fine, Kimiko. I'm not too badly injured... except for my pride," He said as she helped him up.
Bean held the wu with a smirk and turned towards the others in the cave.
"You know, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, before, and it made me remember something I had always been curious about." Hannibal Bean turned towards Chase. "I remember when you were a Xiaolin dragon that whenever the topic of your mother came up you would avoid it at all costs. I have to wonder why that is."
Chase just grit his teeth and answered that it was no one's business but his own.
Hannibal grinned darkly. "Maybe I can test this wu out on you. It could easily find what you're trying to keep secret, so long as I ask it the right question."
Chase stiffened ever so slightly, only those who were particularly observant would have noticed, but to the rest he appeared just as calm and collected as usual.
"You wouldn't be able to find anything. I was dropped off at the Xiaolin temple before I even turned a year old. I have no memories of my mother, or parents in general," the Heylin said coldly. With that, he turned to leave and started walking.
Hannibal shook his head and called out to him. "Even if I fully believed that, the Memory Metamorpher is designed to dig down deep into the brain and recall things that you never even knew happened - or that you remember happened, is really the case. It could pull up anything I ask it, whether you claim to remember or not."
By now, Chase had stopped walking and had turned to Hannibal, glaring.
"But really," the bean continued. "I know for a fact that there's more to this story than you're letting on. Not just 1500 years ago, but just a few minutes prior, when everyone was talking about Mother's Day, your mood was even more irritable than usual. If it was truly meaningless to you, you would have been indifferent to their chatter. But you weren't. I think you know something, or maybe you're embarrassed of something involving your mother..."
There was a tense silence. It carried on for what felt like an eternity, until Bean made a sudden move with his morphed, now human-like, hands. He smashed down on the cave floor and set sent several rocks hurtling at Chase.
Chase moved swiftly out of the way, but Bean advanced on him calling out "Memory Metamorpher!"
Chase tried to dodge, but the power coming out of the shen gong wu actually turned and headed straight for him. Before he could even begin to contemplate just how the wu's power was able to follow him, he was hit with its power. An intense burning sensation ravaged its way through his skull.
He didn't hear Bean command the wu to reveal his most recent memory of his mother. He didn't notice the thick white fog that started seeping out of the Memory Metamorpher, engulfing the entire cave and its occupants in a thick, tasteless, odorless mist. He didn't see colors and shapes begin to form all around him, turning into a scene.
He only noticed all of this once the pain began to fade and it no longer felt like a smoldering iron blade had pierced his skull. And by that time he couldn't stop everyone from viewing his private memory.
Two figures sat at a table in a small kitchen. One of them a man, early to mid-twenties, his body was half hung over the small brown table. He nursed a bottle of unidentifiable liquid in his arms. There were several other empty bottles of the same substance spread about - on the table, floor, even under his foot. The more you watched him drink, the clearer it was that he was already intoxicated, and anything more was sure to put him over the edge.
The other figure was dramatically smaller than the man. It was an infant, propped up by some pillows, facing the table. He looked to be about six months old, had dark, black hair, and golden brown eyes. He was whimpering softly, like he was trying not to ask for something but couldn't hold it in much longer.
Not long passed before he started to cry, and it took less than a second for the man to take his eyes off of his drink and actually glare at the child.
"Be quiet!"
But the baby continued to cry.
This time stood up, threw the nearly empty bottle on the floor, and screamed "I said said Shut Up" at the child.
The baby now cried harder.
Raimundo stood up and tried to walk over to the man. "Who the hell do you think you are, yelling a baby!"
Kimiko rushed over to him as the boy's hands went through the man that he tried to punch.
"Rai, it's just a memory. You can't change it... only view it." She led him a good distance away and they both sat back down to watch. It wasn't so much a matter of if they did or did not want to, they didn't have a choice. As far as they could see, there was no exit because the fog covered everything. Sure they could try to walk away from the scene and find it, but they were honestly too curious to do so.
Before the man could do anything to the child, a young woman walked in. She was not Chinese, that much was obvious. She also appeared to be quite young, no more than approximately nineteen. She had darker skin, like Wuya's, a light mocha color. Her hair was as dark as a star-less night, long and wavy. Her eyes were the same golden-brown as Chase's; exotic but beautiful.
"Well, well, well..." Bean said to himself. "What do we have here."
She walked over to the child, and baby Chase reached his arms up towards her. She smiled sadly at him as she picked him up and cradled him against her.
She turned and glared at the man. "He's hungry."
The man scoffed. "And? That's your job."
Her expression didn't waiver. This wasn't a woman of the time who, even if she had been angry with a man, would have backed down the moment he said that.
"I would think that you would at least be more decent to your brother's child, if not his mother."
Everyone watching, save for Hannibal and Chase, gave a sigh of relief that the man wasn't Chase's father.
The man became angry once again. "I respected my brother's dying wishes and took you both in! You know damn well that a gypsy woman would never be able to survive out on the streets here, especially one with an infant."
The woman just gave a mocking bow of 'respect' and sarcastically thanked him for keeping them. The man, however, was too intoxicated to notice the sarcasm and merely nodded to her.
She turned with the child and rolled her eyes, cooing to him softly as she exited the room.
She took baby Chase into a more private room and started to undo her shirt in order to nurse him.
The four Xiaolin and Jack closed their eyes and turned around out of respect. Wuya saw no point in looking away since she was a grown woman, as well. Chase glared darkly at Hannibal as the bean refused to look away. If he wasn't so drained from the wu plunging into his thoughts and forcibly ripping out the memory, he would have completely lost it and attacked him for dragging him into this entire situation.
When the woman was finally finished and had button up her shirt, Wuya called out the the teens. "Alright Kiddies, Adult Swim is over now."
They turned back around and Chase sighed but nodded to them in thanks.
The woman held the baby and grabbed a blanket from a nearby mat. She wrapped the child in it and started singing to him in a language that wasn't Chinese. Baby Chase was finally calm and content but she just kept singing and speaking to him in that mysterious language.
She stopped suddenly and moved toward the door, pressing her ear up against it. Drunken footsteps made their way across the other room, followed by a door slam. She waited a minute in the silence to make sure that he was really gone, then she turned back inside and made her way to a corner of the room.
She balanced baby Chase in her left arm and used her right one to search for something. Her fingertips glided over the floorboards, pressing down lightly, and stopping on ones that were loose. She dug her nails under them as much as they could go and lifted the boards off. She then pulled out a multi-colored cloth bag and carried it to the middle of the room.
She sat down with the baby and the bag, and rummaged through it with her only free hand. She made a small noise of success and pulled out a smaller red cloth bag tied closed with golden string. She undid the knot and pulled out a pack of tarot cards.
She sat the baby in her lap, propped up against her stomach, and he watched her shuffle the cards with wide, curious eyes. She smiled down at him and kissed his head.
She spread the cards out in front of her in an intricate pattern and turned them over, examining them for a minute before frowning; a concerned look gracing her features.
She reshuffled the cards and moved them to the side. Then she reached back inside the bag and took out a white, porcelain dish with a lid and another small bag, dark blue this time, a similar size to the one the cards were in. She opened the lid and emptied the contents of the bag over the dish - a small pile of bones spilled out. She then reached inside the bag once more and grabbed two rocks, which she scrapped together over the bones, creating a spark and lighting them on fire. As she watched the bones crackle and burn, her frown became deeper and eyes widened fearfully.
She clutched the child to her chest and he looked up at her, his small head tilted to the side to match the confusion in his eyes. She spoke to him in that language again and tears came to her eyes. The baby did not understand why she was crying, but merely saw that she was and began to cry as well.
Chase choose to pretend he didn't hear several voices whisper 'aww'.
Suddenly her look became determined and she reached for the cards again, shuffling them and spreading out another pattern. Apparently the result was not to her liking, so she shuffled again and repeated her actions. Several times she did a reading until she finally got one that was apparently acceptable. Not great, as she did not smile, but merely nodded her head to it.
She put everything away, scooped up the child and barely had time to throw on a cloak with a hood before running out of the house. She ran through the streets, avoiding any villagers' gaze, the cloak wrapped around both of their bodies, shielding the child from sight.
She ran through the nearby forest and up to the top of a large hill where a small temple came into view. She rapped on the door and pulled down her hood.
A man answered the door not a minute later. He appeared to be middle aged and had a soft, kind expression. He wore traditional monk robes and had a shaved head.
"Monisha! What's wrong, what are you doing here?" He asked her.
The woman, now known as Monisha, looked at him with sorrow and moved the cloak to reveal the baby.
"Jia, may I please come in and explain?"
He smiled warmly at her. "Of course, my dear."
They sat down at small table on the floor, and she held baby Chase in her arms. He waited patiently for her to explain.
"I've been concerned... Lately whenever I am around Kong I am assaulted by a strong feeling of foreboding. I did a reading to see if anything was amiss and the result was very grim. I got the death omen." She said quietly.
"For a deeper insight, I did a bone reading. The result was the same - death - but in more detail. The death of both Chase and myself, within three days time."
He stood up but motioned for her to continue as he started to make some tea.
"I consulted my cards again, trying to find a way to save us. I tried numerous methods - running away with Chase would cause him to search for us and have us end up right back where we were. All he would need to say is that I am his wife, it would be my word against his... And even if we did escape, to try to survive out in the world with a child as young as Chase, the outcome would not look good. And if I confront him about it he may do something drastic, and I cannot risk that while I don't have just myself to worry about."
He sat back at the table and offered her some tea. She took it and nodded in thanks.
"There was only one solution I was truly alright with. I seemingly allow disaster to take its course - which will occur within the next three days - but if you allow me to leave him with you every night, when I am certain that the tragedy will occur, he will live, and there is a sliver of a chance that I may as well."
He was wide-eyed for a moment. "There was no outcome where both you and your son could live?"
She shook her head. "Really, in the end it came down to 'my life or his,' and I could never put my life over his. He is my Everything."
She hugged him closer as she said this, tears stinging her eyes once again. When one fell, Jia reached over the table and used his thumb to wipe it away. He brought his hand under her chin and gently lifted her head to look back up at him.
"Chase will always be welcome here, as will you, should you make it out alive." Jia soothed.
"Thank you!" She cried. "You are one of the few people I trust in this world, and probably the only one I would trust with my son."
"Well, like I had told you months ago, I would have eventually had to take him in to train him, anyway. Although this situation is more dreadful... You should have no doubt that I would take him in."
The two discussed their plans. Every night Monisha would come, before the sun set, and bring Chase to the temple. In the early morning, she would return and collect him, until she is unable to do so.
The fog turned white for a moment before the scene is changed. It must now be the next night as Monisha is once again dressed in a hooded cloak, taking the baby up to the temple. This night, as she reached the temple door, Jia was standing outside waiting for her. She followed him in.
She was noticeably more anxious this day, mixed with painful sadness that seemed to take away some of her beauty. Jia made tea and sat down.
"How have you been, the past day?" He asked her.
Monisha shrugged and buried her face in her son's hair. He giggled at the odd feeling.
"Have you prepared for what may come?" Jia asked.
"I have subtly packed a bag of various necessities for Chase. I have it with me. I will try to bring as many supplies as I can sneak away without it being too suspicious," she deadpanned.
Jia mere laughed dryly. "I meant have you prepared yourself."
"As best as I could. I haven't put him down since yesterday. And I dare not leave him with Kong for even a minute. I have taken him with me and done everything with him; soaking up as much time with him as possible."
He smiled at her and said. "I have a suggestion."
Monisha looked up at him, indicating that she was listening.
"When he is older he is going to wonder what happened to you. While I could explain it, myself, it might be a better idea for the both of you if you were able to explain it. Write him a letter for the future. Tell him all about who you are and what happened, and what you sacrificed for him. Tell him how much you love him and wish that there had been another way. Tell him everything that you wish you could tell him now, that he can't understand yet.
"This will help the both of you. You now, because I know that you wish you could do more. And him, later, when he'll need to know that you loved him and supported him; hearing it from you is better than hearing it second-hand from someone else. While a letter may not be ideal, it'll mean more to him than anything I would ever be able to tell him."
Monisha had tears in her eyes as she nodded frantically, a small smile on her face. "Jia, you are amazing!"
The fog turned white again before the next night was displayed. Monisha and Chase were already in the temple. She was handing Jia not only a very long folded up letter, but also her cloth bag from under the floor boards.
"I want him to have my tools of the trade. I spent hours writing an instruction manual for each item and how to draw meanings from them. It would be better if I could have taught him one-on-one, but this is the best I could do, I suppose."
He took the items and stored them in his own, personal room so that no one else in the temple could mistakenly take them.
The fog went white again and now the third night's memory appeared. This time, while Jia, Monisha and Chase were sitting at the table, two other people entered the room. One was another monk about the same age as Jia, with a long graying beard and braided graying hair. With him was a child who looked to be about ten years old. He had yellowed skin, like Omi's, but his bald head wasn't in a sphere shape like the little monk's; it was more of an oval shape.
The boy grinned at them, while the older monk looked more serious.
Jia smiled and gestured to the new people. "Monisha, this is Monk Mu, and -"
"Dashi, mam," the boy said before Jia could finish.
Everyone gasped at seeing Dashi as a child, not even expecting him to come up in all of this.
"If you don't mind me saying, mam, you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," Dashi said with a bit of awe in his voice.
Everyone watching the memory, except for Chase, laughed. Wuya in particular smirked as she snickered and whispered that somethings never change.
Monisha laughed as well, but thanked him. Dashi beamed back and smiled over at baby Chase.
Monisha saw and introduced her son. "Dashi, this is Chase." She looked down at the baby. "Chase, say hi to Dashi." She pointed to the boy.
Baby Chase looked over at the other child and babbled at him with a grin.
"He's pretty too," Dashi said.
Everybody froze.
Everybody froze.
Mu put a hand over Dashi's mouth. Monisha questioned Dashi with a confused 'huh?' and curious eyes.
Dashi pulled away from Mu's hand and said. "You know, like a 'baby pretty'. Most babies aren't cute -"
"Dashi!"
" - even when everyone says they are. Only some of them really are, and your baby is. So, that means he's more than cute - thus pretty. Plus, he looks like you, and you're pretty... So he is too."
Everyone was silent, but Monisha and Jia looked like they were trying not to laugh.
Those watching the memory weren't being as silent about their laughter. Some of them were even doubled-over on the floor, laughing.
"Ah, I see" Monisha said. "Thank you for clearing that up."
Dashi smiled and spoke gibberish right back to the baby. Jia cleared his throat.
"I thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to others who are staying at the temple so you can see for yourself that everything will be alright," Jia said.
"How long has Dashi been with you?" Monisha asked.
"Since he was three," Mu answered. "I took him in as his sole caretaker, just as Monk Jia will do for Chase, and Monk Wei did for Guan."
"Guan is staying with us too now. He's my age, but he just got here and I've been training longer so he's just starting out," Dashi said. "I'm the Xiaolin dragon of wind, and Guan is the dragon of earth."
Omi and Raimundo's eyes widened at the same time. "Dashi was the dragon of wind?!"
"You're not a dragon yet, you're just training to be," Mu interrupted.
"I know, I know." Dashi brushed him off. "What dragon is Chase going to be. I already know that he's gonna be one."
Monisha looked helpless and turned to Jia in question.
Jia chuckled, "I never did get around to the specifics did I?"
Monisha shook her head.
"I had figured that we had plenty of time to discuss that in the next few years, so I didn't rush things. But I do know what he'll be. I've known since I first met you two."
"How exactly did that happen, Jia? You never did tell me," Mu questioned.
"We met a few months ago," Jia began. "I had been walking through the village to clear my head, the sun had already set, and I saw this young woman-" he gestured to Monisha, "and her child, also walking through the village. I could tell by the way that she walked that she wasn't heading anywhere specific. Since it was already dark, I was concerned for her and her child's safety, so I approached her."
He looked over at her. "You were angry when I first offered my assistance, I remember."
"Annoyed. But yes," she confirmed. "As I told you then, I had already been used to traveling mostly on my own. I did not have a family, or a steady set of friends, only other Romani people I had met on my travels and a few good-natured people. I was used to relying on myself and defending myself."
"That is true." Jia said. "You looked like someone who could defend herself. But I expressed that I was concerned because you had a child; guarding one's own life is hard enough, having to guard another as well... Only after I made that point did she, albeit reluctantly, allow me to walk with her."
"We introduced ourselves, and I eventually told him about my brother-in-law going on a drunken rampage in the house." She looked at Mu. "I don't know how much you know about me, but the whole issue is that my husband, Tao, had just died a few weeks prior to that night and had asked his brother, Kong, to take care of us if he didn't make it. He had been sick, you see, for quite a long time. He got sick after we married and had a child, but he only lived a few months with it. Everyone we went to said it was incurable, but not contagious.
"Anyway, Kong promised only because his brother was on his death bed. It is only out of honor that he took us in, but truly he was not happy with our marriage. He does not like outsiders, like me. I had hoped that he would at least be decent to our son, but that obviously was only wishful thinking."
Jia gave her hand a comforting pat before she continued.
"He drinks a lot so that he doesn't have to deal with us, or actually face his decision. That night he was very angry and I just needed to get Chase out of there. I was trying to get him to fall asleep when Jia came up to us, which I told him I was trying to do."
Jia continued now, "I lead her to my favorite spot by the lake in these woods; my favorite place to meditate. I told her how relaxing it was and we both sat down on the water's edge. I closed my eyes and went into a meditative state, but at some point I heard her gasp. I looked over and didn't see anything unusual at first - she was sitting down with her son in her lap, both were facing the lake - so I look over to the lake and saw that there was a push and pull of waves, like it was trying to imitate the ocean. That wasn't normal for such a calm lake, and the weather was too fine for it to have any effect. Then I noticed that the child was reaching his hands out towards the water. That's when I knew he was another elemental dragon."
Dashi gasps excitedly. "Chase is going to be the dragon of water!"
Monisha looks confused. "Aren't there two other elements? What about those?"
"Three, actually: fire, wood and metal," Jia said. "But they haven't been found yet."
"Yeah, the other elemental dragons just haven't been orphaned yet," Dashi said.
Mu groaned, embarrassed and put his face in his hands. Jia just tried not to laugh.
Once again, no one, except for Chase, could contain their laughter. Wuya was crying as she laughed. "What I would give for Dashi to still be alive, just so I could use this as blackmail."
Jia explains to Monisha that most people aren't even aware that they have these gifts, unless discover by a Xiaolin monk, or a Heylin to tell them so. It's mostly orphaned children, who have been known to come into the care of monks in general, who are discovered and trained.
"And yet," Monisha said. "People are fearful of me using cards to tell their future."
Dashi's eyes lit up. "You can tell the future?"
Mu once again groaned as Dashi asked her numerous questions.
The fog went white one more time. The scene this time is of Jia holding Chase in the morning of the fourth day, there is no sign of Monisha.
The child whimpered a bit, and Jia tried to sooth him. A few minutes went by and there still was no sign of his mother. Jia decided to see if Monisha's concerns were correct. He wrapped baby Chase in a blanket to hide his features, and headed down to the village.
When he was close to Kong's house he noticed that there was a large group of people gathered around. Alarmed, he squeezed his way past them to get a better view.
A house, or what was left of a house, appeared. It was completely burnt, black and charred. It didn't look like it would stand for much longer, either.
"What happened," Jia asked the man next to him.
"Fire broke out at some point during the night. By the time anyone really noticed the entire thing was engulfed in flames. They just barely managed to contain it, and they actually only put it out a few hours ago."
"Were there any survivors?" Jia asked.
"None as far as they can tell," the man said. "I doubt anyone could have survived that, the house doesn't even look like it made it."
Jia thanked him and began to walk away. When he was further away from the crowd, he peered down at the baby.
"Well, little one, it looks like your mother saved your life," he said, sadly.
Baby Chase, of course, didn't answer. He did look up with questioning eyes, though.
"Don't worry, we'll take good care of you. And I'm sure your mother will be watching over you."
The fog finally began to recede and the features of the cave were quickly returning. When everything was back to normal everyone looked around at each other, awkwardly.
Chase glared at Hannibal so hard, the phrase 'If looks could kill' didn't even begin to describe it. Without a word Chase turned around and left.
"Great, now I have to deal with a moody dragon for the next several days," Wuya mumbled as she presumably followed.
The monks and Jack left too, not really feeling the anxious holiday spirit anymore. One part they felt was empathy for their (the Xiaolins') enemy, Chase Young. He obviously did not want anyone viewing something so private, and yet they had all seen it. They could also understand why this holiday didn't sit well with him.
The other part that they felt was something emotional for themselves. Would their own mothers/parental figures sacrifice their lives for them, like that?
In the end, the only thing they could say for sure, this holiday had new emotional meaning for them.
AN
*I cannot write showdowns, I apologize. -_-"
Sources for Info Kimiko pulled up on Mother's Day: mothersdaycelebration mothers-day-around-world .html & wiki . answers Q When_is_Mother's_Day_celebrated_in_various_countries_of_the_world (had to double check that Omi wasn't the only confused about Mother's Day - different cultures = different versions)
Name Meanings (according to the internet):
Monisha - Intelligent Woman
Kong - Empty, Hollow, Void
Jia - Outstanding Person, Good
Mu - Calm, Serious
Tao - Peach, Long Life (tried to go for some irony there)
So, I'm not really sure just What inspired this fic. It's nowhere near Mother's Day, but well, I guess to be honest the holiday was only a way I could set the entire fic up to tell about Chase's past.
This will probably be a one-shot. If I have any more ideas that relate (there were a few swimming around in there) I'll probably end up posting them in a separate story, under humor, if you're interested.
Well, hope you enjoy. If not, well, at least I got it out of my head and out into the physical world.