DISCLAIMER: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown, the random pop culture references, or any of the characters that appear in this story. Except for Minerva. She's mine.
I apologize if this isn't very good. It's a first attempt. At least I try right?
Every Body Was...
"No! This cannot be" Omi whimpered upon seeing the once familiar room.
"What the?" Clay said, looking at the ceiling.
"He is so dead" Kimiko hissed.
The brown haired boy on the roof laughed a little as he watched his teammates leave the dorms to come find him. Sure, he was Shoku. Sure, he was supposed to be the responsible one. But did that mean he couldn't have a little fun once in a while? Not if he could help it.
He laid back and examined his handiwork. Omi's room redone with a squirrel décor, Clay's hat glued to the ceiling, Kimiko's PDA reprogrammed to show a video of Jack attempting to break-dance when she tried to turn it on, and the finishing touch, Kung Fu Fighting pumped through the Temple PA system. A little cruel perhaps, but worth it later.
"On the roof" Clay said, pointing at him. Now the fun really begins he thought, flipping over the roof peak.
I'd give this one a nine for execution, seven for escapeablilty, eight for style, and an eight for planning, he thought, wincing as he hit the ground. The time spent running from the other dragons was one of the few occasions where he could truly push himself to the limit. Without the other monks, he just had no motivation, but the morning jogs, they all had to keep pace with each other.
He caught himself rethinking the escapeability score when he turned the corner however. Master Fung stood directly in his way glaring at him with a look that could have dropped a charging elephant at thirty paces. "Raimundo Pedrosa" he said calmly. "Come with me."
As he followed the older monk to his office, he couldn't help but hear Omi say: "Our friend shall truly receive the gift this time."
"You mean he's going to get it" Kimiko corrected. "It's about time too."
He nervously glanced around Master Fung's sparsely decorated office, his previous good mood forgotten as he imagined the lecture that would follow. Master Fung hadn't lectured him about pranks in a long time, but Raimundo assumed that having his predawn meditation interrupted would not make the monk happy.
"Since you were appointed to Shoku Leader last month, I have seen brief glimpses of the great leader that you will become" Master Fung said, sitting at his desk and motioning for Raimundo to do the same. "But then there are times like these when I wonder if Dashi was misguided." He shook his head in a disappointed manner. "And I am not the only one who tires of your antics. Master Vic's hair shall never be the same because of "the werewolf incident," Dojo was notably displeased by having his allergy cream sealed in jello, and Clay has lost three hats in the last fortnight alone."
Rai stared at the desk to avoid meeting the old monk's gaze. He noticed that the saying a day calendar was about a month behind and note cards with reminders like: "tell Dojo not to wash white socks with red shirts" were scattered around the desk.
"I was going to start this phase of your training a month ago, but due to complications, I was forced to delay it" he continued. "But it is in your best interests to start now. You will train with a new mentor for three days out of every week. It is a good thing that you woke the entire temple up before dawn so you can get an early start to your first day."
Raimundo's eyes snapped to Master Fung's face. He hadn't been expecting this. Separated from his friends over a prank. "You can't do this to me" he said, defiance masking his worry.
"This course of action was set long before any of you even came to the temple. The Shoku always trains with them" Master Fung said. "Don't worry. You will see your friends most of the time. Now get up and get your things together, you don't want to keep your new mentor waiting."
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The Wind Dragon's expression as he left Master Fung's office was enough to dampen even Omi's spirits. "My friend, why are you in the garbage? Master Fung could not have held up a punishment that is too severe."
"In the dumps and handed down Omi" he said, and pushed by the other dragons on his way to his cubicle. Kimiko watched him go sadly. This wasn't like him. One of the few things that she actually enjoyed about his stupid pranks were that they showed that no matter how serious and responsible being Shoku made him, he was still the same reckless, cocky, goofball that she met four years ago.
Not that I'm going to have to worry about that, she thought. He still tried to shirk work by covering up dirty dishes with the Shroud of Shadows and skated on soapy sponges to clean the floors. Seeing him shaken up so much worried her.
"I'm going to see what's wrong with Rai" she said. "You guys go and find where he put the off switch for the speakers." Clay gave her a knowing look, and then hurried off after Omi to find the switch.
Rai was sitting on his soccer ball, staring with empty eyes at something grasped in his hands when she came into his room. For a few minutes, she just stood in the door unsure of what to say. "Rai, are you okay?"
"What does it look like?" He replied, not looking at her. He sighed and added: "I'm leaving."
"What?" She braced herself against the doorway. "Over a stupid prank?" How would Clay and Omi take this? She knew that Omi would take this especially hard. Despite the young monk's jealousy over the leader position, he was fiercely loyal to his friends.
"No, for training" he said. "Just three days out of the week, but I'm still gonna miss you guys. I'm actually sort of relieved that it wasn't worse. I thought I was gonna get laundry duty or something."
"Where would the people who actually like their clothes be then?" She laughed. "That shroud would have to get paid overtime." The Brazilian actually cracked a smile, not a cocky grin or a sarcastic smirk, a genuine smile. "Don't worry, we'll still be here after three days, and if we're not, you can blame Clay for letting Dojo at the hot sauce."
"I highly resemble – I mean, resent- that statement" the little dragon said, slithering into the room. "Sorry if I'm interrupting something here kids, but we've got to get going. Your new mentor's not going to like you being late." Rai picked up the backpack by his side and followed Dojo into the courtyard.
Kimiko couldn't help but wonder what sort of something Dojo thought he might have been interrupting. Rai was her best friend. They always went to each other with their problems. Like the other week when Omi kept making sexist remarks. Rai had wasted no time almost putting a stop to that. He had even hidden the kid's "Ancient Guide to Females" when Omi wasn't paying attention.
When she got out to the courtyard, he was already wishing the other monks goodbye. His fake brave smile wasn't fooling her though, he was still as nervous as he had been in the cubicle. She rushed up to him and gave him a quick goodbye hug before he left.
"You're going to miss him aren't you?" Clay asked after a few minutes of watching him and Dojo disappear into the predawn gloom.
"Like I'm going to miss constant teasing and having my privacy invaded by obnoxious pranks" she said. It was only for three days out of the week anyway.
"You've got a point there" he laughed. "I'm going to miss loosing my hats like a prairie dog misses a rattler. But I suppose that we're going to have to take over correcting Omi full time."
"I guess so" she said.
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"I have one thing to say kid" Dojo said. "I do not envy you right now."
"Why?" He muttered sleepily. Spending all night prepping that prank was not one of his better ideas.
"Your mentor has a bit of a thing against the Xiaolin temple right now. In fact, she's had this thing for the past fifteen hundred years" Dojo said. This didn't help Raimundo's feelings of discomfort about the new arrangement.
"What's her deal?" He asked, leaning forwards to hear better over the wind.
"It's a long story. Let's just leave it at she really didn't want Dashi to hide a Shen Gong Wu, and she's held it against us for fifteen hundred years that he did. It took Master Fung and I a month of negotiating to get her to agree to train you" Dojo said. "You'll be fine though. You can't get a better education anywhere."
"Thanks for the confidence gecko" he snorted.
"Seriously, don't sweat it. Her last apprentice is one of the greatest warriors on earth" Dojo said, for once ignoring the gecko remark. Somehow, this worried Rai more than Dojo's half-hearted assurances. "She's just going to be assessing you anyway. Just a quick warning though, she has a flare for the dramatic and a sense of humor that makes your pranks look like the work of a depressed armature playwright."
They flew on for about an hour until they came to a high mountain. On a ledge before a cave, some sort of animal lay on a patch of moss. Dojo began to descend towards this cave. When they finally touched down, he realized that the animal was a griffin. It raised its head somewhat reluctantly off the soft moss, its mottled gray feathers shining in the early sunlight.
"You must be the fresh meat" she said. Her voice was high and tinny, but slow, as if she was unused to speaking English.
"Yeah" he replied as he dismounted. "You're the new boss lady right?"
The animal shook her head. "Nah. You're Comet's girl right?" Dojo asked in an amused tone of voice. The griffin nodded slowly, her jaw clenched slightly. "Give your dad my regards the next time you see him, and tell Min I'm sorry about the Wu. It's hers once we find it." With this, the dragon flew off back towards the temple.
"Follow me" she said, standing up and walking off towards the cave. He followed her through side tunnels and strange doors that opened at a touch of her claw. The griffin never paused to look where she was going. All the while, a strange roaring noise grew as they went deeper into the cavern. Finally, they reached their destination deep within the recesses of the cave.
An opening in the ceiling let in enough sunlight for him to see the river and waterfall that was the source of the roaring noise that had gradually grown throughout his journey through the cave. At the base of the waterfall, there stood a lithe, tall form shrouded in mist. "Go on" the griffin insisted.
He walked down a rarely used, rough-hewn path to the stepping-stones that led to the rock platform where his new mentor stood. "Come no closer Dragon of the Wind" said an ancient sounding, powerful voice. The silhouette on the other side of the stones began to rise on a cloud of mist, blue flames licking up and down her arms. Wind whipped violently around the room and she rose even higher. Then, everything stopped. She hung suspended in the air for a few moments and vanished in a shower of white sparks.
He looked around the cavern, waiting for her to reappear on a ledge, or more likely right behind him, but the woman never did.
"Truly some of my inferior work don't you think?" Said another voice from right him. He whipped around and saw only the griffin watching him with a displeased, yet amused expression on her face. Gone was the shrill voice that she had initially used, in its place was a deeper, smoother sounding voice with just the faintest hint of a British accent.
"That was just an illusion?" He asked.
"What are you kids saying nowadays? Is no shit Sherlock out of date?" She snorted.
There you go. First chapter suffered through. Rate and review please :)