Being a Xiaolin Warrior was almost impossible.
Emma had never thought it would be so hard. Constant chores, a demanding schedule, getting up early and going to bed late. Working nonstop, with almost no time for enjoyment or rest. It was not at all what she had been expecting… and she loved it anyway.
It was adventure. It was everything she could have asked for and more, a real challenge and a test. The Xiaolin Dragons, the kids who controlled the elements, made it look so easy. (She'd never be a Dragon, but if she worked hard enough she could possibly make Warrior.) They were kind, for the most part, and helpful… usually. Omi was condescending, Raimundo flat-out didn't like her, Kimiko was disappointed that she was such a tomboy and Clay was… Clay was a mystery. (One that she was ever so eager to figure out.) And though they seemed almost wary of her, in all her hyper, awkward strangeness, they slowly grew to like this small, grinning girl that had barged into their lives without so much as a hello.
Adventure though it was, being a Xiaolin Warrior wasn't easy. The chores alone were mind-boggling. Dishes and laundry didn't sound so bad, but considering the fact that the four- now five- kids did them for the whole Temple, it was more than a hassle. Cleaning, as well, took up most of their time. They did have help on some parts of the Temple, like where the older monks slept, but other than that they were on their own. Emma learned very quickly how to scrub tile and hardwood and everything in-between. She was more adept at cleaning the bathrooms than she was the kitchen, and found that she vastly preferred sweeping to dusting.
Then came the training. Emma woke up the second day and was almost paralyzed by how sore she was. She hadn't thought much of it going to bed after her first day of training, but the next morning her entire body hurt. Not even a specific kind of pain, just a lancing, throbbing hurt from working so hard when she'd never exercised before in her life. Kimiko had laughed and explained that the first few days were the worst, when the body had yet to adjust to the rigor of temple life. Emma had moaned some response and managed to drag herself out of bed, knowing that the aches weren't going to get any better.
The training itself was almost more than she could handle. She liked to pretend she was playing a real-life video game when she was running through the obstacle course, always looking for shortcuts and thinking of ways to cheat. She loved using the Shen Gong Wu, and though she was still the worst of them at sparring, she didn't mind getting beaten up on occasion. After all, she was learning, even if the learning hurt. (Much like she had learned how to duck and dash when she heard certain people at school coming her way, the bob and weave she had taught herself to avoid getting shoved into her locker.) Still, there were the things like running and sit-ups that she hated and weighed too much to be any good at.
The magic training, though, that was the best. While the Dragons-in-training went to study their respective elements, she was ushered into the Temple basement, which had been cleared out to allow room for her spells. A good thing, too, since she had so little control of her magic, and as it had a terrible tendency to spin out of control. If the concrete walls were not there to hold in her lightning bolts and storms of energy, half the Temple would have been decimated. She pored over thousands of scrolls and books more ancient than her family tree, deciphering what she could use and what she couldn't. The magic was soon pouring from her, teeming over to spill out in color and energy and explode into the physical world. It was both excruciatingly terrifying and bone-shakingly exciting all at once, and Emma loved every second of it.
Fighting the Heylin, however, was another matter. She didn't know how they made it look so easy. They could crumple Jack-bots like tinfoil and she could barely dent them without the Fist of Tebigong. She was clever, yes, and resourceful, but that barely helped during showdowns and never helped during a firefight. She was also a coward and bad at making split-second decisions, which resulted in her sustaining more damage than necessary. She got faster and more agile, but so did Jack's mechanical minions. She never did get the hang of which wires to cut at 50 miles per hour. Chase Young frightened her to no end. Though the Irish girl was loathe to admit it, Chase knew exactly how to mess with her head, and that fact alone scared her more than anything. She could take Wuya on and sustain a reasonable chance of winning, but only when they were both cheating through their magic, and Wuya still outclassed her by a mile.
But when the comeback was good, it was brilliant. As she lost weight and regained it in muscle, she found out how to hit the robots and where. She sang and out came her magic, pouring through the notes to become a tangible stream of physical force. She got good at fighting- real good. And she liked it; she craved the rush of adrenaline and the leap into battle. She learned how to fight smart because she couldn't fight via strength. It was good, and she loved the learning, but it was so much work she had to wonder sometimes if she should just quit and return to Indiana.
Even outside of battle and Temple life, the Xiaolin Dragons never stopped astonishing her. They wore more hats than she could count. They were peacekeepers, babysitters, do-gooders, pranksters, social workers, mess-makers and more. The hours were inhuman, and being a member of the Xiaolin Temple could be exhausting, annoying, disgusting, aggravating, boring, horrifying and often it seemed like more effort than it was worth.
Yet time after time, the Dragons held the world together all by themselves. And Emma O'Reiley, in a stroke of luck that she had never thought would come, got to witness it all.