Beginnings
A/N: Heyo! Been wanting to this for some time now. And something that *gasp* doesn't have Emma in it? Shocking, I know. The titles for each kid are based off of music videos on the Bionicle archives of . Yes, I have no life. DEAL WITH IT. Several answers to several questions that I just know you guys and gals are gonna ask me. No, Omi is not in here, because he was raised at the Temple. Nobody went to get him. Yes, the times are different, but Dojo can't just teleport around. I chose the order of the Dragons in geological closeness to China, and there are different time zones to consider. Plus, by the time Dojo got around to all of them, a good part of 16 hours would have passed. (I did so much time-zone math with this, it isn't even funny. O_O) The result is this piece of doo. And yeah, that is a little Raikim you see there. ;) Enjoy!
Bye Bye Babylon
She sighs and looks in the mirror. It's far too early for her to be awake, and yet she had the dream again. The fire dream. She knows it's not a nightmare, since nightmares are supposed to be scary. And some people might be scared of fire, but she wasn't. It wasn't mean like everyone else said. Fire was warmth and light and the ever-present flickering of change. Maybe only she got that?
But she sighs and tells herself that since she's up, she might as well get to work on that History report. She walks to the computer, ignoring a flicker inside of her. But then the flicker grows, and she pauses, not sitting down. It feels like something she's known before, and yet it isn't. It doesn't hurt, but it's a little strange. She knows that she can't go to anyone for help, because she can't explain the sensation. It isn't physical so much as mental. Like she's been lost for a long time and she knows, somewhere deep inside her, that she's about to be found.
But by whom? Or what? Yes, she's influential; you don't get to be the daughter of one of the world's largest game companies and not always have an entourage of bodyguards. (Sometimes her papa could be just the teensiest bit overprotective.) And it isn't a bad feeling, it's a good feeling, like when you're about to get a report card and you just know you made all A's, or when you see a box at Christmas that's shaped exactly like the new video game you wanted. She hopes desperately that it won't turn out to be all A's and a B, or just a box of socks.
She walks to the balcony, ignoring the chilly air, and sighs. It's just another night, with the lights of Tokyo polluting the sky. Pollution. Such an odd word. Even light can pollute, and yet when she looks out onto the city, all she feels is warmth. She doesn't want to leave the comfort of home, and yet… it's becoming claustrophobic. She leans against the railing, wondering if her tutor will let that paper slide another day. She turns to go back inside, when a thought crosses her mind. She leans down and picks up one of the scented candles she kept around her room and even on the balcony, good for meditation purposes, plus it meant that they replaced perfume. They were cheaper, and smelled better anyway.
She holds her fingers to the already blackened wick, drawing in a deep breath. She still hasn't told anyone about her fire-speak, and she doesn't plan to. But it's nice to talk to the flame, even if she sometimes can't understand what it's saying through it's accent. She lets go, and a small but bright flicker is drawn open. She grins and raises her hand, letting the fire dance and grow. It wavers with her concentration, but she's gotten much better. The first time she tried to do this on purpose she nearly burnt off her own hair. Interestingly enough, it never burnt her skin. It didn't even feel hot, just warm. She keeps the fire at a steady pulse, in time with her heartbeat, then shakes her head and snuffs it out.
Suddenly, something darker than the sky draws her attention. She sets the candle down and walks to the railing, squinting against the brightness of her hometown. Something is coming, and it's fast. Too fast to be the occasional jet that would skim air above her. She tries to make herself move, get back inside, duck, anything, but she's rooted to the spot by a mixture of wonder and curiosity. Then, in a moment, the thing is visible.
It's a dragon. Not like the Western ones from all those American shows she loved to watch, (which were great for learning English,) but like the ones on the tapestries that hung in her papa's office. A long, winding body the color of jade and two scaly arms. It comes to a stop right in front of her, and her breath is taken away. "May I come in?" it asks, and she feels herself nodding and stepping aside through the fog of wonderment.
It does something strange then. It rushes around itself, like it's chasing it's own tail, and as it does, it shrinks as quickly as it flew. Then, suddenly, the giant, majestic creature she saw earlier is no bigger than the plushies that littered her bed. It's actually kind of adorable. It slithers inside, and she follows it, shutting the door by reflex alone. "Please, have a seat," it says, and she does, not even bothering to remember that this is her home and she should be the one offering a seat. "My name is Dojo, and you, Kimiko, are the Xiaolin Dragon of Fire." And then the dragon begins to talk about Shen Gong Wu and monk school and Xiaolin and Heylin, and as it- he- talks, Kimiko begins to understand. Now she gets to see the world. Now she gets to be a heroine, just like the shows on TV.
Time to go.
Gravity Hurts
He stands on the edge and breathes in the energy. It's palpable here in the fog, thousands of feet above rational thought. The air here is clean and thin, void of that awful smog that pours out of factory chimneys. Up here, he's untouchable. No worries, nothing binding him to the ground below, just the wind and he. If he listens close enough, he can almost hear it whispering his name. Normally, he would dismiss that thought in an instant, but now he's above even the circus canopy. Nothing is impossible. So with that in mind, he leaps off the edge of the mountain.
The fall is always what gets the adrenaline rushing. If he closes his eyes and just feels the air racing past him, the g-forces stripping away any regrets, he can pretend he's on a rollercoaster. Of course, he isn't really, so he keeps his eyes open. The ground rushes up, hungry to claim him. But it won't. Not today. He does what he did the first time, when he fell instead of jumped; he gathers up the wind at his fists and his feet and he pushes, and suddenly it's not ground he's staring at, it's sky. He gives a victorious whoop as he goes higher and higher, being careful to stay within the oxygen zone. He's learned his lesson.
A few loop-de-loops later and he's starting to get wonderfully dizzy. Then he just careens around the open sky, staying behind the fog bank that the mountain provides. He finds a thermal and rides it higher, letting it aid him in his quest for flight. Sometimes he lets go again, plummets down again, and pulls right back up. Up here he's king, and he says that gravity can't touch him. Screw physics, he can control wind. Maybe if his science teacher saw, she'd believe that Newton didn't have it all figured out. Of course, Sir Isaac probably didn't have any flying boys to study back then, and he'd seen enough superhero movies to know that giving away his secret was a bad idea.
But then he lets himself just float, tilting his head to the side. The wind was being pulled back too, far away, but it was coming closer fast. Too fast to be a plane. Oh no. He needs to get down. The last time he'd had a run-in with another flying creature, it had earned him a trip to the hospital and a lecture about messing with oversized predatory birds. But this thing is coming too fast to be another vulture and too fast for him to get down, so he stays where he is, ready to fight if need be. He'd taken on an angry vulture, the neighborhood bullies and his mama and came out on top. Well, okay, he'd lost the fight with his mom, but that didn't count.
Suddenly, he can see it. It's like in the legends his dad told him, about Quetzalcoatl and the others. This is indeed like the mystic man-eater, but lacks the colorful feathers on the head. It actually looks more… Eastern. A beautiful girl is perched on it's back, but she looks almost unsure. And then the thing is right in front of him before he can blink, with what can only be a smile on it's odd muzzle. "Hey," it says. From its voice he guesses it's male.
"Uh, hey." The thing- the dragon?- laughs and gestures to the mountain. "What say we head down there so we don't use up our energy, huh?" He nods and sails back down the mountainside with this thing. When they get down, the girl slides off and it coils in on itself, getting smaller and smaller until it's no bigger than the alley cats around the circus. "The name's Dojo," it says, "and you're a very special kid, Raimundo. But I think you already know that."
Raimundo tilts his head again. "What do you mean? And how do you know my name?" The dragon laughs, but it's not condescending. The girl smiles at Raimundo, and suddenly he feels oddly warm inside. He smiles back.
"I know a lot of things, but I know your name because you are the Xiaolin Dragon of Wind." Raimundo isn't sure what to do, so he sits down and lets Dojo explain. And as the little dragon talks, a grin begins to spread across Raimundo's face. So the wind had been speaking. And all along, he had known what it had been saying. All along, he had known that he had been special.
Time to go.
Closer to the Truth (Take Me Home)
He grunts and stretches, listening to his spine crack and pop. He's sore, he's sweaty, he's tired and he's hungry. All signs of a hard day's work. The tractor will (hopefully) continue to run until harvest before they would have to buy that new engine, the animals have been fed and given water, and the cattle are all back in the barn. Soon he'll head inside to eat with his family, do his homework, and hit the hay. But for right now he's got a tractor to put away, so he climbs up and starts back towards the barn. As he rides back, he gives a small sigh. He loves his life, he really does, but sometimes it's just too… routine. A little more action would be nice; even Jessie agreed with him, and they never agreed on anything.
He looks up to the sky and thinks to himself that autumn is approaching. It's been darkening faster and faster. Soon, home school will start, and he'll be up even later between chores and homework. After straining his eyes trying to find the evening star, he shakes his head and reminds himself to keep his feet on the ground. Normally, he isn't one to daydream, but it's been easier lately. Of course, the ground is where he's most comfortable. It's sturdy and firm and immutable. You can't fall far if you're already on the ground, and he takes that to heart.
Then the tractor jitters and coughs and the engine begins to spew smoke again. He jumps off, coughing as the pollutants enter his lungs. Furious, he wonders why on earth the tractor's stalling again. Unless, of course, Jessie switched out the good parts he had been using with bad ones so she could keep her bike in top condition. Again. Not that his parents will believe him. Even though their daughter was part of a motorcycle gang, it wasn't like they realized it. He loves his family, Jessie included, but sometimes he wonders if his parents ever look beyond the cornfields. If they ever wanted him to be destined for more than a life on the farm.
Then the tractor shudders and the smoke stops, but he knows that it won't be going anywhere. Furious, he slams his foot into the ground in an infantile (in his opinion, anyway,) gesture of annoyance. But then something new happens. The earth below him, the solid old dirt he's been plowing since before he could remember, opens up. A crack splits it like lightning and spiderwebs out from his boot. He stumbles back in shock, eyes wide underneath his overgrown bangs.
This isn't the first time the earth had splintered beneath him. The first time was terrifying, and it nearly made him run to tell his parents. Nearly. But that first time, a chasm had opened up on the south side of the cattle enclosure all because he'd slammed his fist into the ground in anger. It was better than hitting someone, but he hadn't expected the very ground he always relied on for stability to open up beneath him. The first time, as the earth yawned open, he heard it. The rumbling voice of the ground that didn't speak in words, but in a groan and a crack.
After a while, he had learned how to understand it. Dust and sand rasped, like sandpaper against cowhide. Dirt rumbled and stone roared. Stone was loud. But only if it broke. Otherwise, it was like background static on his daddy's old radio. A soft, quiet murmur underneath the layers of silt and soil, whispering to anyone who would listen about days past, of magic and wonder. He had learned many a story from the earth.
But his mind pulls away from its reverie when he hears a strange noise. It's the same noise that the friction of wind makes against the land, but louder and closer and fast, really fast. He runs back to the barn, though he knows he'll only be halfway there by the time it catches up to him. As he runs, he hears it more clearly now, and now it isn't the land speaking, it's the wind rushing, and suddenly, the thing is in front of him and behind him, cutting off any escape. Though, when he sees its face, he thinks that it looks too benevolent to make him want to escape.
"H-howdy," he says, tilting his hat. His momma always did tell him to remember his manners, and he supposed it applied to giant flying things as well as people. "Uh, how ya doin'?"
"Just fine, thanks," the thing says. Judging from its voice, it's a feller like him. It seems amused, and as he's looking over it he notices two kids on it's back, probably no younger than him. They slide off, and it wraps into itself, whipping up loose silt and getting smaller and smaller until it could very well fit around the brim of his hat. "Pleasure to meet you, kid. I'm Dojo, dragon and transport of the Xiaolin Temple."
"Clay, an' th' pleasure's all mine," he says, still unsure. Dojo laughs and slithers over. "Well, Clay, have I got some news for you." He gestures to the others, and they walk over and shake his hand and introduce themselves. And the dragon begins to talk about myths and realities, and battle and adventure, and Clay understands. They're not unlike a few of the stories that the rocks from the quarries all the way from China had murmured to him. The little dragon talks about duty and honor and valor, and Clay understands. He isn't destined to be a farmhand all his life. He's going to be more. Finally, he's going to be more.
Time to go.