Day of the Dragons: Pt 1
Far far away from the safe and familiar lands of West Side and South Island is an exotic empire of enchantment and mystery. It is a place of gold, silk, and spices known to you, outsiders, as the middle kingdom. This is the home of my people the proud nation of Chun-nin. We are a glorious nation over three dozen clans under the wise and benevolent rule of our leader, the Emperor. Some clans serve the middle kingdom as samurai while others serve as ninja. There are those clans who work with diplomacy and those clans who choose the path of stealth. I stand alone as a child of these two worlds. Neither bound by the open rules of combat that mark the way of the samurai nor am I prone to the dishonor and disgrace that is the main feature of those who call themselves, shinobi. No. My father's honor and my mother's fighting style are deeply rooted in the blood that flows within my veins. The two forces are constantly at war within me, creating a conflict – much like yin and yang – that will go on for as long as there is life within me. It is this conflict that I now –
"Hey Espio, you done talking to yourself over there?" My scaly companion calls out to me. "The guard has checked our papers and is ready to let us through the gate."
"Sigh. I'll be there in a moment, Dulcy." I reply wearily. "Just let me finish my communion with my ancestors at this roadside shrine."
The lady, Dulcy, has a surprising lack of honor and discipline which is most shocking for a lady that comes from a tributary state to the middle kingdom. As the guard lets us through the heavenly gate so that we my traverse the Great Dragon Way, she merely regards the greatest feat of Chun-nin engineering as a cheap knock-off of a statue of her own kind.
"Boy, they got the proportions on this dragon all wrong." She complains, kicking the side of the wall with her boot. "It looks more like a giant red snake with legs than a dragon."
"So, some respect for the Great Northern Dragon, you whyrm." I counter-complain. "Now, we must hurry on our way to the city of Peeking Duk."
"Why are you in so much of a hurry to get there, lizard boy?" Dulcy winked at me. "Or are you just scared I'm going to beat you to the city?"
"In your dreams, fire breath." I smile taking a runner's stance. "I would wager all the yin in Yokohama that I'm faster on my feet than you are in flight."
"We'll see about that, wanna-be ninja." She called back opening her wings and taking flight. "You shouldn't even be going on this mission. You should be working to save the people of West Side Island hundreds on their car insurance."
"That's a gecko, you idiot. I'm a chameleon." I call after her.
But it's almost too late, she's long out of ear shot and has nearly reached the horizon. I take off running with the speed of a ninja, rocketing behind her and catching up in the way a only master of the shadow arts could. Seeing she was getting much farther ahead of me, I realized I was going to have to fall back on the tricks of my shinobi ancestors.
"Honorable chameleon." I call out, placing two fingers in front of my face. "Teleport-no-jutsu." I immediately disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing right beside her on the race track.
"Hey, no fair, you used a cheap ninja trick to cheat." Dulcy growled. "I thought this was going to be a fair race."
"When did I ever say we were racing? I'm just going from one point to the other and you happen to be going the same way." I chuckle. "But don't worry, I completely understand if you can't keep up."
"Keep up with you? As if." She turned backwards to face me. "I have a secret weapon of my own. Watch this." She took in a puff of air and blasted out a stream of fire from her mouth. The fire breath pushed her along at a ridiculous speed as she disappeared over the horizon yet again. "See you later, you wanna-be gecko."
I simply roll my eyes at her antics. She's busy clowning around instead of concentrating on the reason why we've come here. Princess Sally sent us to find the missing chaos emerald Tails' team had dropped during their adventure in the Land of the Sky. After they had returned to West Side Island, Prince Ray indicated the emerald had dropped somewhere in my homeland. And since the Chun-nin are known to be unfriendly to outsiders, Dulcy and I were asked to go and retrieve the gem. But at the rate, we're going the planet will have Dark Gaia-ed itself apart before we can even lay our hands on the chaos emerald.
"Dulcy, wait up. I told you this isn't a race." Reaching into my ninja pouch, I pull out a shiny silver throwing star. "That does it. Shuriken-Air-Surfboard-No-Justu." I throw the star and it grows to a large size. Hopping aboard, I'm sent spinning in the direction of the speeding dragon following swiftly like a mighty tornado.
"Ugh, this justu is making me really queasy." I groan as the star spins me around and around. Catching up to my companion again, I simply laugh at her surprised anger.
"Can't I do anything to get rid of you?" She shook her head. "Alright, you leave me no choice. Time to kick this thing into high gear." The dragon flattened her wings and rushed ahead in a powerful dash that again sought to leave me in the dust. Dulcy raced ahead at top speed following the stretching and moving coils of the Great Dragon Wall as she neared the finish line. Looking down she saw, I was no longer trailing her and the female dragon smiled in triumph.
"I did it. I outsmarted the ninja." She cheered, not watching where she was going. "I knew I could outsmart the lizard. Go Dulcy. Go Dulcy. Go-." SLAM! She smack face first into a mountain the wall curved around, but Dulcy had failed to curve with it. Sliding down the side of the mountain, she landed back on the wall with a thud. "It's okay, mom." Dulcy called out, clearly confused by her surroundings. "I'm not ready to go to school yet."
But it didn't take long for the female dragon to recover and she was again, sprinting towards the finish line. Reaching the gate post to the city of Peeking, the female dragon crossed through the gate and collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.
"Yeah, I did it." She gasped, trying to stand up again. "I got here before the lizard."
"That's what you think, my naïve dragon friend." My voice called out. "You insured that I would win this little race, even if I didn't say there was a race to begin with." I suddenly appeared on the dragon's snot, hopping off and looking down at her with a victorious sneer.
"What? No. How did you beat me here?" She cried out, exasperated.
"Simple. I merely used my ninja invisibility and rode the last leg on your face without you even noticing." I helped her up and started to walk towards the town. "You were so obsessed with making it to the finish line, you never even noticed I was there."
"But… you…" She stamped her foot in anger, snorting fire out of her nostrils. "Oh, you damn ninja. Always winning with your cheap magic tricks."
"Victory is always the goal, no matter how one attains it." I tell her, not even looking back over my shoulder. "My success was because I did not stop to worry about how it was achieved."
"Espio, would you please cut out that fortune cookie junk." She growled. "We have a hard enough time convincing Westerners to forget about that stupid stereotype and martial artists like you aren't making it any easier for the rest of us."
"Oh please, I am merely sharing the wisdom of my clan." I reply, not even glancing back at her. "But I should expect just as much. A non-serpent dragon wouldn't know wisdom if it landed on her head. Your kind would rather gather a treasure hoard and kidnap some damsel from a village and wait until a knight in armor comes to send you to an early grave."
"Oh… that's really low, Espio." She growled. "You know there are times where your cruelty is as sharp as a kunai to the face." At that exact moment, a blade shot past both of our faces landing in the road right next to where we stood. "AH! A kunai." She cried out, jumping behind me. "We're under attack."
"You most certainly are, outsiders." An angry lynx growled, standing atop one of the nearby pagodas. "Strangers such as yourselves do not belong in the middle kingdom in perilous times such as these." I looked up at the rooftops and saw several cat mobians in martial arts garb running to encircle us from above and pulling out ropes and grappling hooks. Among them, I saw a lithe female lynx in a purple gi and brown straw hat glaring down at me.
"You are trespassing on the territory of the Lightning Feline clan." She hissed, drawing forth her claws. "Under better circumstances, Ninja Espio, you would be welcomed here. But now, I must ask you to leave."
At the sound of her voice, a distant memory of my youth stirred within me. Looking up at the determined feline once more, I saw the face of an old flame staring back down at me.
"Bride of the Conquering Storm." I greeted her, bowing low. "It has been many lunar years. How have the fortunes been treating you?" Glaring at me, the ferocious feline jumped off her perch somersaulted across the road and tackled me to the ground. She raised her claws to my chin, before jumping forward and giving a long and deep kiss.
"Welcome home, lone wanderer." She whispered in my ear. "It's been a long, long time."