Okay, I meant to get this up yesterday, but I didn't get back from showing until eleven. I'm sure this is the wrong forum for this, but I just want to say that I am so happy that I did well yesterday. Ozzy and I cleaned up in our division because he is such a superstar in the show ring and I didn't completely screw up with Rio. He didn't totally blast off in the lines and I got him to wait for the distances. He over-jumped a couple and missed a few lead changes, but he's a lot better than he was earlier this year so even though I didn't win anything with him I'm considering it a sucess. Anywho, moving on.
Spadefire: Yes. Yes it is Mr. Jermaine from New York. This will cause much humor later with Omi and his alternate universe location. Thanks so much for the review!
Disclaimer: I just bought this absolutely adorable purple fly bonnet for Ozzy. He is Mr. Fabulous when he wears it (and doesn't flip out because god forbid something come near his head), but it sort of wiped me out for cash for a while. I don't have the money to own Xiaolin Showdown.
Chapter Three: Mr. King Throws His Dinnerware
A chill ran down his spine as he stared down from the top of the platform. He wasn't supposed to be here, but he had to try it just once. If his parents found out about this he would be grounded, figuratively and literally, until doomsday. This couldn't be that difficult, he watched his aunt and uncle do it all the time, this bet was as good as won.
He stretched out his arms to loosen up and took hold of the trapeze. He began to swing, gathering momentum, and set his eyes on the next bar. This would be easy. It was a short distance, he just had to make it to the other side and then Fernando would see who was a sissy.
The moment he let go, he knew he wouldn't. He didn't have enough speed to carry himself to the next bar. As he soared through the air, the world seemed to be moving in slow motion. The panicked pounding of his heart slowed to a crawl, the grain of the dark wood trapeze bar was in high definition, and it seemed as though he could feel each individual air molecule as it passed over his skin as he got closer and closer to falling.
Then just as his fingers just barely brushed the trapeze, as a feeble hope spread through his mind, everything accelerated. What happened next was a blur of desperation and fear. His fingers slapped against the bar, but before he could react, he was too far to catch it in time. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn't hear a sound. The next thing he knew was blinding pain and all consuming dark.
When he came to, he was alone on a dark city street, slumped against a building. His body blazed with pain and he bit his lip to keep from screaming, but he still couldn't stop himself. People swarmed around him and the paramedics arrived soon after. They rushed him to the hospital and between screams of agony, he tried to explain the situation.
He quickly found out that they didn't understand Portuguese, so he switched to English, he was reasonably fluent in that, but that didn't make things any easier. Later, while in a pale blue and sterile recovery room, he discovered two things. First off, he wasn't in Rio any more. His room, the pastel paint and cloudy white curtains, the ugly potted plant in the corner, and his battered body, were all in Chicago. Secondly, when both the hospital and the police ran a background check to verify his story, he may just as well have not existed.
He spent the next year and a half bouncing between recovery, government processing, and foster homes, all the while trying to understand what happened to him. He tried to contact his family, but never heard back.
Then the sky turned green and not long after that, the Emperor came to power. He was recruited for the Imperial Army, but he'd dropped training after less than three days. He fell in with Silver Dragons soon after. It's started out just so that he would have somewhere to go, but then he started doing some odd jobs for some extra cash.
The mercenaries gave him easy jobs, suited to his youth and agility, mostly stealing antiques for various government officials. Viggo never trusted him enough to give him anything big, at least not until that night. It still should have been easy, stealing the silly bottle was easy. Then on his way out of the museum he ran into the Imperial police. He could remember shouting as a bullet just barely missed his ear…
"Would it kill you to keep it down?" a voice said as he awakened from his nightmare by a sharp blow to the side. He hadn't noticed that he'd been screaming the entire time.
He opened his eyes and saw the room around him. Aside from some shafts of light coming from slits in the wall, it was completely dark. A dull pain throbbed in his, probably dislocated, shoulder and he was lying on something he was vaguely sure passed off as a cot. There was something by his side that felt vaguely like mug thrown in a fit of sleep deprivation. There was a cold metal loop around his wrist and as he moved to leave his cot, the chain attached to it clinked against the metal floor.
"You're not going to get far if that's what you're going for," the voice said, a touch of boredom creeping in.
He turned to look at the source of the voice. He was across the room, sitting on his own cot. Even in silhouette, Raimundo could tell he was tall and had a rangy look about him, like he hadn't had a good meal in a while. Given his suspicions about their location, he probably hadn't.
"What's going on?" he asked, trying to hold back the panic in his voice. This proved to be a fruitless venture. "Where am I? Who are you? Where…" he started to name his friends, but stopped when he remembered that they were either safe at the temple or still out looking for him.
"They either increased the dosage on the tranqs or you're getting stupider," the man across the cell said. "I think I prefer the former. The latter is a bit terrifying to be honest. Where do you think you are?"
"The Tennant," he replied without thinking. At least he was pretty sure that was the airship in their…Then he realized what he was thinking.
"No," he whispered. That nightmare he had, it was just that. A nightmare and nothing more.
"And the winner of tonight's ten million dollar prize is…" his new cellmate said, but he didn't hear.
"No." That trapeze accident didn't go down like that. The wind held him up, he caught it, he discovered his powers that day. "No." He couldn't have imagined almost four years worth of adventure and danger with the Xiaolin Temple. "No." That couldn't be his history.
"Kid, would you shut up?" It still didn't register.
"No." The world couldn't be ruled by evil. "No." The pranks on Clay, his relationship with Kimiko, whatever it was, his friendship and rivalry with Omi, they had to be real. "No." Proving that he was worthy of being the leader wasn't just in his head. "Ow."
He glanced at the thing that struck his head, a very accurately thrown plastic plate, without really seeing it, and fell to his hands and knees on the cold metal floor.
"Good. Now that I've got your attention, I'm just going to say this once. It won't do you any good to feel sorry for yourself, and your sniveling annoys me, so pick yourself up and start using actual words," his cellmate said, dragging his plate back with a laceless loafered foot. "Besides, it's not like you'll be here for long anyway."
"What do you mean?" he muttered, still trying to sort everything out. This had to be some sort of hallucination. The blast from the Wu either knocked him out or killed him and this was either the world's worst afterlife or a head trauma induced nightmare.
"You're a common criminal. The Tennant neither handles your sort nor is heading in the direction of a proper holding facility. You'll be transferred to another ship in a week or two for proper transport," he said, leaning back against the wall.
"So what are you here for?" Memories of street fights crept into his mind as he considered that he might be stuck in a small space with a violent criminal with a tendency towards dinnerware related violence.
"Damned if I know. One moment I'm handling the Tohomiko account…"
"You know the Tohomikos?" Even if this was a hallucination, he had to know if Kimiko was okay.
"No need to fanboy. Yes, I know them. Toshiro's my business partner. He's a nice guy with good taste in rice wine and even better taste in stock options. Satisfied?" His cellmate sounded almost amused at his rapid change in demeanor.
"Are they okay?" he asked. They were. This was just some hallucination, but he still had to make sure.
"Like I said, one moment I'm handling the account, the next I'm attacked in my office, bound, gagged, and tossed in here. Aside from what my various cellmates tell me, I know nothing." Raimundo's heart sank. Even if this was just a very vivid dream, he still wanted to know if his friends were alright.
"Thanks anyway." He stood up and dragged himself back to his cot, wincing as one of the rusty springs jabbed his bad shoulder. "I'm sorry you've been here for so long."
"Please. It's not that bad. We get bananas every Thursday, which by the way I will give you my pudding on Monday for," he said.
"Wait. You know what day it is?" Maybe if there was a calander or clock or something he could use the date to prove that this was a dream.
"Actually, I don't. It's an arbitrarily assigned day based on our two meal a day feeding schedual and the fact that every fourteen meals we get a banana. I like bananas, I like Thursdays, thusly, banana day is Thursday. We get pudding eight meals later, corresponding with Monday based on my banana based prediction of Thursday. It works out perfectly because I happen to like neither Mondays nor pudding."
"You're crazy." For the first time in what felt like forever, Raimundo let out a bit of a laugh, wincing as he did so at the pains it sent through his shoulder.
"No, I'm Seth King, former CEO of Outer Limits Financial," the man replied, his voice the sort of perfectly emotionless deadpan that indicated there was some sort of humor in his statement. He stood up from his cot and walked towards him, atrophied limbs shaking as he did so. He extended his hand in a gesture of welcome.
"Raimundo Pedrosa, current Xiaolin Dragon of the Wind," he said, standing and returning the handshake. Even though Seth's hands were thin, his grip was firm and authoritative.
"Now who's crazy?" Seth said, his tone betraying his smirk.
"Says the man who assigns days based on bananas."
"Says the boy who claims to be a dragon." At least he could say his hallucinations had a sense of humor.
Alright everybody, I forgot to get Judges feedback yesterday and I don't see my trainer for couple of days so I'm deprived of criticism. I want it. Review for me!