Well… I got nuthin'… Except a slight sunburn… I don't really burn easily, though… Just a little darker, I guess… Not necessarily a bad thing… Not good, either… Skin cancer equals no. Oh, one thing- why is a duck swimming in my chlorinated pool? Doesn't that hurt it?
Our Task… chapter Two.
"Omi, it's been years," Kimiko said as she walked with her friend, "What makes you think I could help teach anybody…?"
"Well, our new dragons in training are the elements of earth, wind, and water…" he said calmly, leading her to where they were.
"Even more so," Kimiko commented.
Frowning a little, Omi replied, "Because the new dragon of the water is a girl…" Kimiko smiled to herself- Omi always was bad with girls. He'd have to teach someone he didn't understand- that's why he needed her so badly.
"So how come there's no new Dragon of fire?" she inquired thoughtfully, running her finger tips along the tops of old bonsai trees she remembered from her youth.
"The Dragon of Fire is different from the other for elements… A new is born only once the old dies… Much like a flame… A new starts after the first is snuffed out, as you say…" he explained calmly, "The other elements continue to be born at a rate of once every five years or so…"
Kimiko nodded to herself and the two entered the room in which she first met Omi, Clay, and Raimundo all those years ago. But instead she was met with a young boy, rather tall for how old he looked, with caramel brown skin and fuzzy black hair on top of his head- he reminded Kimiko of Jermaine in so many ways. Then beside him was a boy with a scar on his right cheek- he had rather pale white skin and messy brown hair. And then the shortest of the bunch, a girl with tanned skin and nearly white blond hair stood, smiling at the two elder dragons.
"Kimiko, this is Archer," Omi said, motioning to the darkest and tallest boy. The boy smiled nervously at her in response, she smiled. "…Ezra…" he motioned to the boy with the brown hair, who blushed as he stared at Kimiko. And then Omi motioned to the blond girl and said, "And this is Dmitri…"
"Pleased to meet you all," Kimiko said, bowing to the new coming dragons. The boys seemed eager to get to know her, but …Dmitri, was it? Well, she was busy staring around the room and looking at everything.
"So what element are you guys?" Ezra asked eagerly, "Wind and earth?"
Omi replied immediately. "I am the Dragon of Water, and Kimiko is the Dragon of Fire," he said. All their eyes lit up at hearing that, even the previously uninterested girl.
"Fire, huh?" she asked, "Well why are you here without someone to teach…? There's no other fire dragon…"
Omi had to go through the same lecture he just gave Kimiko about how fire dragons are born differently for the new kids. Dojo came into the room and chuckled at them. Dmitri screamed and jumped behind Ezra when she saw him.
Kimiko picked Dojo up and he said, "This reminds me of when you guys started here… Omi was so short then… And Kimiko, you had your hair all blond like hers…!" He pointed to the terrified Dmitri with a big grin.
Kimiko smiled at Dojo and said, "Yeah, but I didn't scream when I saw you…"
"What is that?" Dmitri asked from behind the boys.
"Dojo is the Dragon who has aided in guarding the Shen Gong Wu and maintaining balance in the world… He's one of our most trusted and dearest friends," Omi answered.
Archer commented, "He looks kinda like a snake with arms…" Dojo looked mad, but Kimiko patted him on the head comfortingly.
"Trust me, when he's bigger, he looks like anything but…" she said.
"So you said he's magical, right? How can something that little be magical at all?" he continued to ask, as if Kimiko hadn't said anything at all.
Omi quickly spoke. "Do not be deceived by appearances, young one… We too once doubted Dojo's importance to our team and we nearly lost him to the forces of evil…" he said softly.
"You mean he almost turned evil?" Ezra asked, looking interested.
"No." Kimiko said sternly, "He almost got eaten." Each dragon in training recoiled in terror at the idea.
"Who would eat that?" Dmitri asked, motioning to Dojo as if he weren't a living being, but an object.
Omi smiled and said to Kimiko, "I think we may leave that as a surprise for our new students… I'm sure they'll enjoy meeting him…" The kids looked between the smirking two and frowned when they wouldn't explain the inside joke to them.
After a little while the two began showing them around and they assigned them to their rooms. None of them seemed happy to find that there were no mattresses, but Archer was the only one who actually complained. And when he did, Omi pulled a Master Fung on him and simply raised his eyebrow in question. He gave up just like Raimundo did the very first day.
Dmitri kept saying she'd need her own bathroom to do make-up, but Kimiko quickly told her that all that make-up and fancy stuff would just get in the way. Omi raised an eyebrow at her and grinned when she said that. "Oh shut up," she grumbled at him. Omi snickered to himself and went into the tea room to meditate on things.
"You guys can do whatever you want for now… We'll start your training later," Kimiko told the kids. She wanted to train before anything- she knew she was horribly rusty. She went out to the bamboo fields and began jumping and flipping and punching and kicking- unaware of her audience.
She landed beautifully on the very top of a thirty foot bamboo rod and she heard a voice call out, "How'd you DO that?" Glancing down, she smiled to see it was Archer, Ezra standing right behind him, and Dmitri walking out after them.
She jumped down and landed perfectly on her feet in front of them, once again impressing them and earning a breathless, 'wow'. She stood and said, "Lots of practice… Of course, I'm still really rusty… It's been a while… If you really wanna see impressive, you should watch someone who never stops training, like Omi, or Master Fung, or Cha-" she stopped. They couldn't watch Chase train, what was she blathering about? She laughed at the thought of taking them in to observe him.
"Oh don't mind us, Chase, we're just showing some new students the ropes," she thought with a giggle. That would be the day.
Dmitri looked a little bit annoyed at her- Kimiko knew from the beginning that she and her wouldn't be getting along very well… They were opposite elements.
"Can you teach us stuff like that?" Ezra asked, looking confident.
"In time, yeah," she replied, "Right now you're just learning, though…" She placed her hand against her chin and muttered, "too bad Jack's not around anymore to start you off with an easy task… all we have now are the really difficult Heylin warriors to beat…" She mentally cursed Jack for having been pathetic when they were kids.
"What's Heylin?" Dmitri asked.
"Oh, that's the bad guys… People like Wuya, Hannibal Bean, Chase Young… Um… Vlad, LeMime… Tubbi left, I think… Mm… Maybe there's new villains out there, or something…" She had no idea who was still at the being evil business- Chase had to be, he was immortal and would always be evil. Wuya had to as well, because she was a Heylin witch. Hannibal… well… Kimiko only assumed he was still evil… Maybe asking Omi would have been a better idea…
She went off to find him and once she did, he told er about new and old enemies.
"Jack has given up ruling the world through the Shen Gong Wu, yes," he explained, "He has now moved to Wall Street and has become a millionaire there, as I have heard… Wuya is more powerful now than ever, as you were informed… Hannibal Bean is still out there, always trying to find some new way to overpower us… Chase Young has not shown himself in many years, however I am sure he still lurks and waits… Wuya had betrayed him to regain her powers, but that is all I know of him… There is a new villain who calls himself The Grim… He wears all black as Jack did, but he is much cleverer than Jack ever was… there is a strange new foe who has no real understandable form… He calls himself the Blob and that is the closest to what he is… He was the result of the Moby Morpher being thrown into a pot of soup by accident once… There is a young girl who goes by the guise of Heart. She is able to command liquids much like the Dragon of water- I believe she had once wanted to become a dragon, but found she did not have the correct skills…"
Kimiko groaned- so everything really had changed. She missed the good old days where Jack and Katnappe would be their opponents, and Wuya would be a useless hag that Chase would kick around whenever he wanted. She actually missed Jack- as odd as it sounded. She missed his spiky red hair and his girlish shriek. He was definitely the villain she missed most, because he was only a step away from being good. He could have been their nerdy friend if he really wanted to…
"Has Chase really not done anything?" Kimiko asked- it seemed really hard to believe to her. Chase had always loved ruining their days back when they were kids… Even if it didn't involve the Wu, he was always just a jerk…
"He has been sighted many a time, yes… But as far as attacking us, he has not recently done so…" Omi said, his eyes still closed.
"what about Hannibal?" she asked.
"Hannibal attacks us whenever he has a new idea or tactic… Usually about every two or three months…" he told her.
"And Wuya?"
"She had been inactive for some time, but recently she has attacked many times… Using her powers… it is not an attractive sight…"
"Pretty, Omi," Kimiko said subconsciously.
Omi stayed quiet for a moment before he said calmly, "I believe that if we do not train these new dragons soon, she will be able to overpower us… I also feel that Chase Young has been attempting to contact us… peacefully… recently…" Kimiko looked at him as he continued, "I believe he does not wish for Wuya to succeed any more than we do ourselves…"
"So you think he might help us?" Kimiko asked, trying to clear up what he was saying.
"Perhaps," Omi replied, "he has not been attacking, he simply has been watching… Waiting for something new to arrive, I assume…"
"Yeah, fresh meat," Kimiko muttered, watching the hilltops closely. He had always liked watching them from there, hadn't he?
"Any new good guys?" Kimiko asked hopefully.
"Jermaine has begun fighting crime in New York, and I am told that new dragons have been born, but I am sorry to say, no…" he told her, opening his eyes and looking at her. He looked disappointed.
She smiled at him and said, "Well then we better get started on these guys, shouldn't we?" He smiled and got to his feet with her and they walked to their new students.
I have no idea what I'm doing… Maybe romance will bloom… Maybe not… Everything looks like it's through a fish-eye lens right now… Weird…..