Author notes: After starting back on this story after a year has gone by my views of the characters have changed. My favorite characters are between Doga and Shaman. Tobe comes next. Clown and then Chief.

The next morning Doga got Shaman up at 9:00am.

"What's the commotion?" Shaman asks sleepily.

"You do want to learn magic, right?"

Shaman beamed. "Really, you're going to teach me now?"

"Yes"

Shaman let out a loud "Whoo hoo!" that woke up everyone else.

Doga taught Shaman everything she knew.

Shaman easily mastered the basics.

He did have trouble on the advanced magic.

By the end of the day, Shaman was on the ground exhausted, while Doga stood with her head held high in her tattered trench coat.

"We'll start again tomorrow."

At the end of the week, Shaman was proud to say he was an expert on magic.

That Sunday night, the gang has a party to celebrate Shaman's mastery of magic.

Clown continued to stare at the wall, but at least he had something to eat. The cast on his leg had little drawings all over it. His leg would be healed soon.

As Chief went to sleep that night, she dreamed of the time she met Tobe.

Jing Jing was crying loudly. She lost her mother in the park. Her mother probably was too busy to remember that she came to the park with her daughter. Jing Jing was about six years old at the time.

She saw a young boy walking with his father. The father sat on a bench and watched his son scamper off to the playground. The boy didn't go to the playground. Instead he ran up to the crying girl. "What's wrong?"

Jing Jing looked up at him, tears welling up in her eyes. "I can't find my mommy," she whimpers. The boy picked a daisy and presented it to her. "Please, don't cry. You're too pretty to cry. I'll help you find your momma." Jing Jing immediately forgot her sorrow and blushed.

"What does she look like?" "Just like me, except she has longer hair." "Wait, with my dad, I'll look for her." She went up to the tall man sitting on the bench. "What's your name, little girl?" "Jing Jing," she sniffles. "Are you a friend of my son?" "We just met."

"I overheard that you lost your mother."

"It's okay, that boy is helping me find her."

"Tobe is such a sweet kid."

"Did Tobe come here with his momma too?"

"No… Tobe doesn't have a mother… She died when Tobe was two years old."

"She died? What does that mean?"

"That means… Tobe won't ever see her again…"

"Why! Did Tobe make her angry?"

"Tobe was a sickly boy when he was young. His mother caught his disease… Tobe survived but his mother… didn't."

Jing Jing was glad to have this conversation; it took her mind off of her Mom being lost.

Now all she could think about was a poor motherless Tobe and this foreign word called death… What did it mean?

Finally Tobe came back with her mother.

"Momma!" Jing Jing jotted up and hugged her mother.

"I told you not to wander far…"

Jing Jing looked at Tobe, hugs him, and they both fell to the ground covered in dirt.

She gave him a small peck on his nose.

Tobe looked surprised and probably was a little afraid of the myth called "cooties."

"Want to be friends?" she asks him.

"Um… okay" Tobe smiles shyly.

Her mother looked at her in dismay. "Jing Jing, just look at your dress... What were you thinking!"

"Sorry."

Tobe and her played and became inseparable. She was so happy to finally find a playmate.

Her parents never had the time to play with her, but Tobe could play with her almost all the time.

Tobe was very close to his father. His dad played airplane with his son and always taught him fighting moves.

Tobe wanted to be a ninja just like his dad, so he trained really hard. Tobe and his dad taught her moves too.

Jing Jing wished that the bond with her father was as strong as the one between Tobe and his father.

"Tobe, do you ever miss your momma?"

"Not much, I don't really remember her well. Sometimes I wish I knew what it's like to have a momma. I remember her warmth and how nice she was… I guess I miss that…

Jing Jing then hugged him again. She was making a big habit of this.

"Stop! You'll give me cooties!"

She giggled loudly. "I wish I had a momma…"

"What? But you already have one."

She's always doing work; she never has time to play with me. She's never there with me… it's like not having one at all."

They had been best friends for a couple months, and Jing Jing still didn't know what happened to Tobe's mother.

"She died; didn't my dad tell you?"

"But what does that mean?"

"I don't know what it means either, but I know it's my fault momma's missing. Daddy's lonely because of me…"

"He doesn't seem lonely."

"I can tell. He cries at night. When he's sitting by himself, he looks so sad! Sometimes he would burst out crying for no reason. He misses momma a lot… I'm proud of my daddy… He came a long way after momma died.

After she died, daddy couldn't sleep or eat. He looked so thin. He couldn't do the simplest of things. He stopped tucking me in at night and reading stories to me. One day he realized how sad I was to see him like that. Then daddy changed.

He started to teach me all the fighting skills he knew because he knew how much I loved ninja. Daddy wanted me to be happy, so he changed for me. Daddy means the world to me."

"I spend so much time at your house, he seems like he's my dad too. I catch myself calling him daddy."

"Don't steal him!"

Jing Jing rolled on the floor laughing. "I'm not."

Jing Jing kept coming to Tobe's every day for months.

She kept wondering more and more about death, because no one would explain it to her.

One day, Jing Jing got a taste of death. It happened to Tobe's dad, right in front of Tobe and her.

She couldn't remember what happened. All she remembered was all the blood. The terror in Tobe's eyes. The tears falling as he clutched at his father's pale corpse. His father never woke up.

After his father's funeral, Tobe locked himself in his house and refused to see anyone.

Jing Jing waited a long time, but the door never opened.

She eventually gave up visiting him. She didn't think he wanted to be friends anymore. She didn't think he wanted to be friends with anyone anymore.

Jing Jing was once again lonely, with no playmate.

During Tobe's absence, she realized how much she loved Tobe. He wouldn't get out of her mind.

She wondered if Tobe would ever come out of his house.

She loved his shyness and sweetness. She realized the Tobe she always loved doesn't exist anymore.

A new, bitter Tobe was created that shuts everybody out, that distrusts everyone in the world.

She'll miss the old Tobe.

She still believed the old Tobe wasn't gone; this bitterness is hiding it.

One day, his door opened and Tobe walked out.

Jing Jing and Shaman saw him again and tried to hug him like she always did.

"Don't ever touch me! Stupid girl!"

"Tobe! Don't you recognize me? It's Jing-"

"Shut up! I have no time for you. I'm busy trying to defeat Garu. His father killed my father so I need to defeat his son to avenge my father." Then he walked away.

Shaman bristled and almost attacked him for yelling at Jing Jing.

Jing Jing put her hand on Shaman's shoulder and shook her head.

"No, Shaman… I love him…"

"You… love…him?" Shaman has a hard time getting out the words. Shaman turned back to see Tobe disappearing around the corner.

Jing Jing would always love Tobe and always will. Even if he has changed.

That was the first time Shaman met Tobe.

The first time Shaman heard the words he wanted so bad for Jing Jing to say to him.

But it was to another person he has never met…

Chief woke up with tears in her eyes. She looked over at her Tobe picture and gave it a kiss.

Doga awoke to find a letter under the door addressed to her.

"It's from Mel!" Doga beamed.

She tore open the letter instantly and read it.

She frowned, crumpled up the paper, and threw it on the ground.

"Something wrong, Doga?"

She sniffed and stared out the window.

"Mel broke up with me…"

"He what! Why!" Shaman blurted out.

"I'm going to take a walk for awhile." She was crestfallen.

When she went out the door Shaman grabbed at the crumpled paper on the floor.

He read it.

Dear Jaguar,

When we were still together,
I truly loved you,
but what's happening right now,
I guess we are through.

It hurts me so much, but I have
to let you go.
But before I let you go,

there's one thing I want you to know….

My feisty jaguar has turned into a delicate kitten…

Sincerely, Mel.

Shaman slowly lowered the paper.

Chief looked over his shoulder."

"Why'd he do that?"

"He thinks she became soft. He didn't think she was villain material for him anymore so he broke up with her."

"Poor Doga…"

"Now she has no one else that loves her. No one at all…"

"Shaman you need to talk to her."

Shaman walked slowly to Doga who was sitting on the sidewalk.

"What a shock, huh?" He says to her.

"Go away." She mumbles. "I want to be alone."

He sat next to her and gave her another hug.

She pushes him away. "Go away!"

Shaman then saw a small tear at the corner of her eye.

"You're not alone, Doga. You have us. Especially me. I'm here for you."

Doga rubbed at her eyes.

Shaman put a hand on her shoulder. "You changed for the better, Doga… Mel doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a jerk, don't cry…"

"I'm not crying!" she sniffles. "I can't take this anymore!"

"What do you mean?"

"Wherever I go I'm betrayed—hated. Now Mel hates me. I'm so sick of it all."

She put her face in her hands.

"Just go away!"

Shaman gave her some space and left her alone for awhile.

As he walked by the river he scoops out some water. He drinks a little and sighs.

Suddenly he hears a scream coming from the shed. It's Chief's scream.

Shaman bounded over to the shed to find Chief wasn't in there. Instead a shocked Clown stood shivering in his bed. He finally snapped out of his staring at the wall.

Chief has been kidnapped.

As he looks over to the corner, he sees an unconscious Chief in the arms of a shadowy figure.

As the last speckles of the sunset danced on her hair he found he recognized the kidnapper.

It was… Doga…