Title: Return of Wind
Summary: Post Storm Before the Calm, Pt. 2. When the Wind Rangers retire from saving the world in color-coded spandexes, they enter a battle with an enemy that they have never encountered before: teaching at the Academy. Set from Storm Before the Calm, Pt. 2 to Thunder Storm, Pt. 1.
Blue Bay Harbor, 8:30 a.m., November 22, 2003
Waldo "Dustin" Brooks woke up to the annoying beep of his alarm clock.
Groaning, the former Yellow Wind Ranger slapped it shut, blearily opening one eye to check the time. Instantly, his eyes popped out of their sockets and he grabbed his hair. "SHIT!"
"Dustin!" his father called from downstairs. "What did you just say?"
"Oh, man, I am screwed!" Dustin yelped, completely ignoring his father's huff of exasperation. Snatching his earth sensei uniform from where it was hanging lazily off his chair, he threw it on over his pajamas, sliding down the banister while zipping it up. Fastening the Wind Academy's circular emblem at the throat of the uniform, he raced to the breakfast table, where his father's head was hidden behind The New York Times, as it always was.
Dustin's father looked at him. "You're late for teaching duties, eh?" he asked with a hint of disapproval in his tone.
Dustin groaned. His mother, who was rarely ever home because of her duties as a leading marine biologist, had been a water ninja graduate of the Rain Ninja Academy, while his father was also water ninja, although he graduated at the Wind Ninja Academy.
Sometimes, he wondered how he showed an aptitude as an earth ninja while both of his parents were water ninjas.
"Dad, why didn't you wake me up earlier?" Dustin groaned, hurriedly fixing his hair.
His father clucked absently. "Dustin, you're eighteen and about to go to the University of Indiana next fall. You can't rely on me to wake you up every single day for duties like this!"
"Oh, god, my friends are going to kill me!" Dustin moaned, rushing to grab a cereal bar.
"They will, son," his father cheerfully said. "In fact, they've been waiting for you outside the door since seven." He chuckled. "What's her name...Tori? Yes, Tori was swearing up and down the block that she would douse you in gasoline and then drop-kick you off the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently, Shane was going to help her. But I'm sure they'll understand."
"DAD!" Dustin yelled, and then grabbed his bag, stuffing the cereal bar in his mouth. "Mex'f t'm, wuck muh uff!"
"I didn't understand that," Dustin's dad grinned, "but you better go."
Dustin burst out of the door, straight into a seething Tori and Shane. "Dudes, I'm so sorry—"
"Get into the car!" Shane barked as Tori screamed, "YOU ARE SUCH AN ASS!" His "best friends" nearly folded him in half into Tori's blue van by shoving him through an open window, and the demon herself got in the driver's seat, hitting the gas until the car must have been accelerating at over eighty miles an hour.
Shane glared at him. "Bro, we are so going to get chewed out by Sensei!"
Dustin rubbed his head. "Sorry, I overslept...and technically, since we are Senseis—"
"Don't go there," Tori snapped, swerving to avoid a runaway sparrow. She skidded onto a mountain path, sending loose rocks tumbling down the side of the cliff. They sped past a speed limit sign, which happened to say, Speed Limit: 15 mph.
"You're gonna kill us!" Dustin screamed as he held on for dear life.
"Bite her!" Shane retorted.
"Are you saying that women can't drive?" Tori snarled. "We're already an hour late! Goddammit, if I get assigned to kitchen duty with you guys again, you are so going to get it..."
A minute later, Tori miraculously pulled to car to a stop near the forest where the Wind Ninja Academy was located. All three ninjas jumped out, streaking towards the waterfall and running through the portal.
Shane led the way to the grounds, where a whole horde of ninjas and a not-too-happy looking Cam were waiting for them.
"You guys are an hour late," the son of Sensei Kanoi Watanabe grimly said. "An hour! Didn't we already go through this?"
Shane and Tori both glared at Dustin in front of the entire student body. The earth sensei cringed. "I overslept! Mercy! Don't kick me off the Golden Gate Bridge!"
Both of them stomped on his feet, and Dustin yelped. "Ouch!"
"Guys, break it up!" Cam got in between them. "Honestly, the way you're acting right now..." He turned to the students, who were all giggling, shaking his head. "Excuse me. Now that your instructors are finally here, we shall begin—"
"Wait!" someone yelled from the bushes.
Three beginner ninjas exploded from the sidelines, panting as they stumbled out of the woods.
"You three again?" Cam resignedly asked.
The guy in the yellow trimmed outfit, an earth ninja, grinned. "Ninjas, dude."
The girl in blue gave him a look. "No one says 'dude' anymore, Eric."
"Oh, they totally do, Tally," the first guy said happily. "Right, Kyle?"
"Totally, dude!" the one in red, Kyle, grinned.
Shane, Tori, and Dustin exchanged a look with each other, and then looked at the trio as they filed into the ranks of the ninjas already there. Dustin broke out into a wide grin. "They're the new us!"
Shane and Tori both groaned as Cam facepalmed. "I don't think I can go through this again...anyways. Training. I'll leave you with Shane, Tori, and Dustin to get started. If Shane and Tori aren't too busy killing Dustin—"
"HEY!"
"—then they will hopefully explain the schedule and training here," Cam finished, ignoring the three senseis' looks. He clapped his hands. "To business!" Briskly walking away, he went to his own students, the small amount of samurai who had enrolled at the Academy.
Tori and Dustin both pushed Shane to the front. The air ninja grumbled. "Typical." Raising his voice, he began introductions. "Hey, guys. So, I'm Shane Clarke, the air sensei around here...um..."
"Dude, you're doing this all wrong," Dustin ordered Shane.
"See?" Eric loudly hissed to his blue friend. "I told you!"
"Let the master take over," Dustin continued. Shane rolled his eyes, but he stepped back and allowed Dustin to take his place.
"So! Hey, ninjas-in-training!" Dustin grinned. "Sorry we're late; it's just that Shane and Tori here overslept—"
"Waldo Dustin Brooks!" both of them snarled.
"—uh, what I meant to say was, I overslept, so we're late, but we're here now!" Dustin scratched the back of his neck. "So, um, yeah. Anyways, Shane introduced himself, and I'm Dustin. Dustin Brooks, earth sensei." He pulled Tori to the front. "This here's our resident—"
"Since when was I a 'this'?" Tori demanded. "Get out of my way!" She pushed Dustin backwards, sending him tumbling into Shane. They both fell off the podium with an oof!, and all the female ninjas smirked and nudged each other. "Men..." Tori mumbled. She plastered her trademark smile on her face. "Anyways, I'm Tori. I'll be teaching the water class around here."
Shane and Dustin both climbed back up, rubbing their arms. Tori gave them a don't-you-dare-interfere-or-I'll-punch-you-in-the-face look, and turned back to the students.
"Her and her split personalities," Dustin whispered to Shane. Tori stepped on his foot again without looking back. "So...I guess that I'll take the water ninjas right now." Stepping off the podium, she waved them over to one of the training areas, and the water ninjas flocked over to her, leaving a mass of red and yellow behind.
"Ahem." Shane cleared his throat. "Same goes for air; I'll take you guys."
Which left Dustin and the earth ninjas.
The earth sensei grinned. "I guess we'll start off with some fun. Who likes mud fights?"
Shane looked over his shoulder as he herded his students to Tori, who was waving him over. "NO MUD FIGHTS!" he yelled.
"Okay, no mud fights," Dustin admitted, drawing a groan of disappointment from his students. "But you will be getting down and dirty in this exercise, so...take a shower when you get home!"
"Okay," Shane started as he began to address the crowd of air and water ninjas. "The first thing that you need to know about ninja fighting techniques as that air, water, and earth all have some degree of connectivity in their styles. So while Dustin's off to teach his students the basics of earth manipulation, Tori and I will begin to tell you the basics of the Air and Water techniques. Tomorrow, Air will be with Earth and Water will be manipulating, and the following day, Water and Earth are together, with Air off to the side." He smiled. "This will be interesting..."
An air ninja raised his hand. "So are you going to, like, pair us off fighting, or do we have to read out of a textbook?"
"No textbooks," Shane said affirmatively. "Textbooks are stupid."
Tori frowned. "They are not! I can use them to give you permanent brain damage right now!" She pulled an Algebra textbook seemingly from nowhere and threw it at his head.
Shane ducked. "Hey, what was that for?"
"You insulted the textbook," Tori barked. "Never do that again."
"She's weird," Shane told the students, who were watching this like a reality TV show. "Sorry. But to answer your second question...well, first, what's your name?"
"Kyle," the boy answered.
"Kyle," Shane nodded. "We will be splitting you up into partners. Air will be paired off with Water for the first couple of days, but as we dive deeper into the individual techniques of each element, you'll be fighting with members of your faction. That will come later, though. But even before we split you up, we'll be giving you a demonstration."
Tori grinned evilly. "Which is why this will be interesting."
Shane took a step away from her. "Tori...don't...even...think about it..."
"I wasn't," Tori sniffed.
"Pay attention," Shane said, turning back to the students. "We'll be showing off a few basic moves. I will be on offense, and Tori will be defense. Okay?"
A chorus of "uh huh"s and "yeah"s drifted through crowd.
"Very well. Let us—"
"Wait!" Tori interrupted. Smiling, she instantly punched Shane in the face. "That was for stealing my board last week," she happily said. "Now we can begin."
Shane rubbed his nose, and then he took up a offensive position. "One. Two. Three. Go."
Dustin led his band of chattering earth students to the dirt patch near the Academy. "Okay, guys, girls, I want you to lie down on the earth. To manipulate it, you have to have a close feel to it—once you, so to speak, get 'down and dirty', we can start."
Twenty faces stared at him in disbelief.
"Guys." Dustin held up his hands. "You've gotta feel the earth. You've really gotta feel it to manipulate it."
"Feel the earth!" Eric enthusiastically said. "Right!" He felt the earth, crumbling it between his fingers. "Like that?"
"Um..." Dustin scratched his head. "Yeah...I guess?"
Once everyone had "felt" the dirt, Dustin smiled. "Okay, earth is a solid element, as all of you guys know. So to exert control over it, you've got to be...well, solid. Firm and tall. Once that feeling is kind of like muscle memory, you'll be able to manipulate earth without any problem." He demonstrated by tossing a dust bomb into Cam's back, who was about twenty feet away. The earth students burst out into laughter as Cam stiffened and swiveled around, glaring at Dustin. "SENSEI BROOKS!"
"Whoa! Dude, I'm sorry! It just went kinda, uh, haywire?" Dustin turned back to his students. "Anyways, like that. So I want you to stand up straight, feet slightly apart. I'm going to try and knock you over."
The students quickly assembled, and Dustin started with a guy at the back corner. "Your name is...?"
"Tom," the boy replied in a small voice.
Dustin smiled kindly at him. "'S okay, Tom, I won't bite. This is why you don't sign up for Air or Water. Anyways, as I said before, I am going to try to push you over, unbalance you. I want you to resist me without tipping both of us over, okay? One, two, three, go."
Dustin began to apply pressure to the boy, who instantly fell over into the girl next to him, creating a domino effect.
Dustin scratched his head. "Um...your upper body strength is commendable, but that won't do you any good if you don't have a strong base." He knelt down and tapped Tom's legs. "Try keeping them a little wider apart, so that you have a solid, firm base."
And so it wore on, with most of the trainees tipping over on one another.
Dustin swallowed after he tested the last student, who happened to fall straight into Dustin. "Um...maybe we should just practice our stances for now...but my point is, after you get that technique nailed down, you have to apply that...feeling to the earth, bond and become one with it. You have something in common with it then. You know, manipulating earth requires a lot of feeling."
Cricket, cricket.
"Get to it, then," Dustin briskly announced. "We'll postpone manipulation until each and every one of you get that stance."
Tori crossed her arms in front of her chest to protect herself from Shane's one-two punches.
"I can't do this," Shane mumbled as he pulled back to deliver a right hook.
"What are you talking about?" Tori asked as she bent back to avoid the blow. "You're doing fine! Think of it as a sparring match. We did plenty of those in Ninja Ops."
Shane transferred his weight from his right to his left foot, about to demonstrate the last attack, a snap-kick. "This isn't a sparring match," he muttered. Losing his form a little, Shane landed head-first at Tori's feet.
Tori blinked, and then grinned. "I win!" She pulled Shane up, and her smile was wiped away from her face. "What was that? Your snap-kicks are usually the best out of all of us..."
"I told you!" Shane quietly moaned. "I can't teach!"
Tori rolled her eyes. "Shane, you're doing fine. We're done, anyways." She turned to the ninjas. "Okay. Sorry about that last demo; Shane was a little off on that one. So, uh, how about...air ninjas to our left, water to out right."
As the ninjas scrambled to their positions, Tori gave Shane an exasperated look. "Trust me, you're doing okay. This is our first time doing this, remember? I'm sure that all of us will get into the groove of it by next week."
Shane didn't reply.
Tori lowered her voice. "If this is still about insecurities over Skyla...you've got to let go. You're the leader of us when we were Power Rangers, you still are. You did an awesome job leading us in the battle against Lothor. Teaching's the same thing, except that we've all got equal roles now. You're leading your air ninjas, I my water ninjas, and Dustin his earth students. It's as simple as that. I know that Skyla meant a lot to you, but that was, like, the only blemish on your otherwise pristine record in Ranger-ing. Okay, maybe you and Hunter arguing like little girls was another, and you putting the blame on me and Dustin for not retrieving a stupid scroll in the middle of a desert another, but that doesn't matter." Tori patted Shane's back. "Okay?"
"Okay," Shane whispered. "I'll think about it that way." He turned his attention to the students. "Okay, so now that you're divided into your own groups, I want you to pick a partner from the other group. In other words, Air should pair up with Water, not Air-Air or Water-Water. Then, training shall officially commence..."
A.N./ So: Love it? Hate it? Review it! This was Part One of Day One. Hope you enjoyed reading!