"Looks like it'll rain today." Said Saras glumly.
"Excellent! I love the rain!" Li I bounded towards the window. As soon as he looked out of it his face fell. "You know, when you said rain I was thinking, some dew, few droplets, lots of sunshine. This is a thunderstorm waiting to happen. I hate thunderstorms. Who wants to be thunder-buddies?"
"How old are you?" Asked Saras, snorting with laughter.
"What? I had one back at the orphanage. Didn't you have one in... wherever you're from again?"
The fox momentarily froze. He really ought to come up with one clear fake-backstory. "I was never scared of the lightning anyways." He thought the reply had come out rather smooth.
"Thunder-buddies."
"I didn't have one either." Added Han.
Li I stared exasperated at Kunjingle, who merely shrugged.
"At least you can have an umbrella." Reasoned Dianbo.
"Like I packed one!"
Dianbo shrugged. "The stands should be relatively dry anyways."
It had been a few days since Reidak, Lang and Jiao'ao departed. With their retreating backs came tension. The finals were here at last. To make matters worse they had all been confined to their rooms, so as not to get a sneak-peak at the work-in-progress arena. Dianbo looked pale but calm. Han Guan was sweating up a storm and anxiously pacing the room. Even Saras felt the butterflies flapping around in his stomach. Regardless of who won, he should be happy. They were all his friends in one way or another. It was not who won that bothered him, but rather what they had to go through to win. Hopefully nothing dangerous. It surprised him how not-dangerous this tournament had been in hindsight. Sure there had been the whole fiasco with the Order of the Owl, but within the arena itself he'd never really been in danger.
There was a knock at the door and after a brief pause Badr Tamod entered, beaming widely, though his eyes looked troubled. "May all those proceeding to the finals please come with me. Those who wish to watch the Final Task, please make your way to the arena."
Saras, Dianbo and Han Guan followed, clutching the Scrolls they'd won (or in Saras' case, been given). In hindsight he could have spent some more time analyzing it. Would have probably been more useful than waiting for rain...
Badr stopped to collect Babirasu. They passed Mulaohu, who threw them all a thumbs up. At last they arrived at the Palace steps facing towards the village below. Collectively their jaws dropped.
One corner of the village was covered from head-to-foot in vines and creepers and shrubbery. Another was filled with mud and boulders and pebbles and all kinds of earth. The third looked like it was underwater. Another was covered in clear metal, wih numerous weapons sticking out of the ground, visible even from where they stood. The last one was aflame. Leading to each corner was a massive gate with the respective element carved onto it. Carved into the sides of the valley were enough seats to accomodate a hundred comfortably. In the center of the village there were four little huts and a miniature colliseum.
"Simple Task this time round. You have all been assigned an element. Your job is to get to the center of the village, wherein you will find the prize. You will also find a few traps within, so be wary. What Element have you been assigned?"
"Fire." Said Babirasu. Saras was tempted to snap 'typical'. Seriously, why did he get all the easy jobs? He wasn't that good!
"Earth." Murmured Dianbo, his eyes twitching madly as they tried to decipher the quickest possible path through the labyrinth of mud and stone.
"Er- water." Squeaked Han. Fitting, he was already dripping.
"Wood." The element of... Saras wasn't too sure what wood represented. Fuel? Homes? Dryness? He would be anything but dry if there wasn't a decent tree to hide under.
Badr nodded. "Please make your way to your respective Gates."
Ba's walk took far longer than he'd expected. The spider was forced to go round the entire village, rather than through it, as such he was back at the palace by the time the gong struck. Wugu wouldn't like missing out on the action. But Wugu would no press the matter either so there was no reason to hurry.
Or at least he thought. When he reached the corridor and saw the door to their dorm wide open he felt his heart skip a beat. Perhaps the fish had gone to the arena without him? Wugu was likeable and the bear probably would have done him the favour.
Yet for some reason, with every step closer grew a feeling of dread like no other. A deep... not really pain but... strange, uncomfortable sensation. It was as if a portal had opened up inside of him, and thrown his innards into the abyss.
The room was a mess. Water lay in a pool around a cabinet of broken glass surrounded by a wet blanket and old, dry webbing. That was enough to wind him. Then his eyes, all eight of them, found the fish's dead body lying in a corner. His heart skipped a beat.
"No." He wanted to yell it, but it came out as a whisper. There seemed to be no air left in his lungs and he could no longer breathe. Tears found their way to his eyes, all eight of them, yet he found no strength to blink them back as he had done so many times before. His legs gave out from under him, and he collapsed into an untidy heap on the floor. He crept forwards, hoping in what he knew was vain, that somehow Wugu would yet draw breath. What a silly thought... he needs water to breathe. To the outside world he could have been mistaken for someone sleeping. But up close Ba could see that beneath a thin layer of miraculously undamaged scales lay a pile of broken bones. His vision was getting blurry from the tears now. Everything was out of focus. It was like a bad dream. The worst kind of dream.
"And they're off! Han Guan is starting slowly at the Gate of Water! Probably doesn't want to slip on the ice, and he had better not! That water is filled with piranhas, sharks and other monsters of the deep! One misstep could cost him his life! SQUAWK!"
This did not, for some reason, make Han feel better. He wasn't too sure what water represented in the Chinese Wu Xing formula. In Japan water represented the formless, flowing, fluid things in life. Plants were also classified under 'water' funnily enough. The Chinese had an entirely separate classification for 'wood', which greatly confused him.
What confused him more was why he was thinking about the Godai and Wu Xing while precariously balanced on a wet, melting slab of ice. How Badr had even gotten slabs of ice here was questionable in itself. And apparently there were so called monsters of the deep waiting just under him.
Still, he never gave up. Extending his claws as far as they would go (pitifully short by his standards), he leap-frogged from iceberg to iceberg, digging in to the melted water with as much force as he could. After every successful jump he needed at least a minute to recooperate, and to pull his claws back out the ice.
It was painfully slow progress, though much preferrable to getting eaten.
For the first time since the tournament had started Dianbo seemed to have gotten the easy round. Sure there was the occasional boulder he had to dodge, and the ever-appearing pits of quicksand he was forced to jump over. But compared to Master Flying Rhino's training regime this was a walk in the park. It would even be enjoyable if it wasn't raining so much. Then again if it wasn't raining he would be forced to listen to Chaonao.
Earth represented stability. Stability and patience. Which he figured to mean he had to walk continously forwards non-stop to reach his goal. The side-streets were filled with traps no doubt, to prevent those not in-tune wih their element from passing easily. This theory was proven correct when, distantly, he could see a hut growing closer.
Saras was lost. He was ninety percent sure he'd passed the same tree three times already. He was in a maze, that much was obvious. Though this was a maze with a twist. He was almost entirely sure that it moved occasionally. There were no walls in the same place, but the large, flowery trees all looked the same. He was going round in circles- no eggs. But he did not know what was the top or the bottom of the egg.
His suspicions were confirmed when he found himself back where he'd started, facing the enormous gate with the symbol of wood carved into it. Letting out a low growl Saras turned to march back into the forest when a brilliant idea hit him. Why in the name of wood was he still above ground?
There was a puff of green and a moment later a mole was digging into the soil at his feet. He just had to make sure not to overleap himself...
Under the ground he could neither feel the rain nor hear Chaonao's muffled voice. His sensitive nose picked up roots and brambles in his path and allowed him to swerve past them with ease. It would have been easy going... if not for the Deathworm.
Han made it to about a quarter through the slabs of ice, when it started raining thick and heavy. Leap-frogging was much harder after that, for now the surfaces were slippery (and they had been slippery to begin with). One positive of the rain was that it drowned out Chaonao's loud voice. He could still hear him of course, but had no idea what the parrot was saying. The slabs of ice were growing smaller now. It would only be a matter of time before he slipped...
No sooner had he thought this then he misjudged a particularly difficult jump and landed in the water with a resounding splash.
He let himself sink low for a few moments, surprised that nothing had come to devour him yet, when his foot lightly brushed against something cold.
Han shot out of the water like a cork from a bottle, his speed increased ten-fold in a blind panic. There were no more calculations, no more jumping, just frantic scrambling forwards from iceberg to iceberg. The rain beat down on him, but for once he could ignore it and push on. It was only when his nose became painfully intimate with the door of a hut that he realized he'd gotten past the death pool.
"You know I was just kidding about the deep sea creatures, right?"
It was lucky he could not hear the parrot.
"Now all you have to worry about is the giant elemental gollum guarding the Gate of Life! SQUAWK!"
Han Guan was unnecessarily surprised by the fist of stone that promptly slammed into his nose.
"What has a giant worm got to do with wood?"
Still in mole form, Saras shot out of the ground, Badr's giant pet worm in hot pursuit. There was a flash of green just as the worm snapped it's beak shut over where he'd been a moment before.
He wasn't too sure why, but he was uncomfortably familiar with something trying to shut it's jaws over him.
Panting lightly as he hid behind a bonanza of banana leaves Saras watched the worm was slither back under the earth. For the time being he was safe. Though it was probably in his best interests to stay off the ground.
Babirasu was lost. Fire, fire, fire. It was a really good thing he wasn't pyrophobic. Yet not a really good thing that he had no way of knowing whether or not he was going in the right direction. All these flames looked the same.
He wasn't in the slightest bit annoyed by the rain or the heat, and the traps that launched fireballs at him... were kind of redundant considering he was immune to them.
"How much did all this cost?" He wondered aloud as the flames shifted from bright orange to green and then to blue.
Chaonao replied to him. But over the roaring of the flames and the constant pattering of the rain no words were discernible.
Footnote: I changed the finale up a bit since last time. If I remember correctly it was a race to the finish (like this) but that they had to go through all the elements indiviually. Not in the interest of cutting word count but in the interest of story flow I decided to give each of them one element instead and have them go through that.
This was kind of a filler chapter (well not really, it's just that nothing of significant interest took place). Aside from Ba's bit.
You may also have noticed that Chaonao has barely any lines... just didn't seem like the right place for jokes... Well... more jokes than they already are.
Enjoy.
