Clay was very pale, even the color from his hair having been drained to nothing more than a creamy white. He rested on his mat, unable to react when Raimundo and Omi enter the room carrying the Vein of Zhen.
"Master Fung said if we activate the Vein of Zhen again, it will return the disease to the Wu," Omi said more to himself than to Raimundo, who was now crouching beside Clay in case anything went wrong.
"Vein of Zhen!"
The Wu glowed, the four metal prongs at the end of the shaft opening once again. A dark purple substance seemed to work its way from the pores of Clay's skin, from any orifice it could escape from, until all at once it shot back into the Vein of Zhen. It took less than five seconds before the Shen Gong Wu was shut again, waiting to be used once more. Clay's color immediately returned, and a few moments later he was coughing and sitting up slowly.
"Clay, are you alright?" came Omi's instant response. Clay groaned, stretching his limbs with his bones cracking.
"I reckon I am now. That there Wu had me feelin' deader than a Texas armadillo. Thanks y'all." He said, after pulling himself up. "Who'd Kimiko beat fer the Shen Gong Wu?"
"What do you mean?" Raimundo asked.
"Well, didn't she go off after I'd been shot?"
"Oh, yes. She told us that Chase Young had gotten the Wu before she could reach it. And he just turned and vanished!" Omi explained, turning so that he would not have to face Clay to answer the question that he knew was going to pop up.
"Where's Kimiko now?"
An expected silence falls over the room. "Guys, what's goin' on…?"
"Clay, in order for us to get the Vein of Zhen, we had to make a deal with Chase Young…" Omi clenched his fist, closing his eyes and turning back around to face Clay. There would be no honour in not facing the decision they had to make to save Clay.
"He would only trade the Vein of Zhen for one of us."
Immediately he tried to save face. "I told him that I would go! Because that is what he would have wanted. But Kimiko insisted that she go, for she was the one who lost the Wu in the first place." Omi had gotten over his whole sexism spiel years ago; he wasn't about to let it show in his words today.
"We aren't going to get much done about gettin' her back by sitting here," Clay started, making to leave, but Raimundo held him back.
"Clay, dude, you're forgetting just how many warriors Chase has against us now. Ever since he conquered over China's forces, he has more guys than ever—and you know what happened last time we tried to stop him from invading Taiwan. Even with all four of us, we were barely able to stop him, and he still had more forces that could have taken us down if he hadn't been taken down by that one Wu." Yes, the one Wu everyone vowed not to speak about again.
"Just imagine if we tried to take him on with only three of us!" Raimundo looked like he was about to go on more, but Omi held up a hand.
"If you remember to the days when I swore my loyalty to Chase Young, the three of you managed to win me back in a Xiaolin Showdown."
"I get it. If we challenge Chase to a showdown, we can wager for Kimiko back!" Raimundo exclaimed eagerly, feeling a bit more enlightened now that they actually had a chance of Kimiko returning to their side.
"Yes… That is exactly what I was going to say, until you interrupted me." Omi scrunched up his face, but Raimundo knew Omi was only messing with him. The situation right now was more important than getting irritated over something so petty.
Right now, all they could do is wait for another Shen Gong Wu to activate, and hopefully that Chase Young would be there.
.o
Kimiko shouldn't have expected so much in her new role as Chase's servant. She found her main purpose for Chase Young would be as an addition to his kitchen staff—basically to help make the food for his thousands of warriors. At the time she'd been told of this, she was stuck as a tiger, so she couldn't vocalize her protests (how would he expect her to work with paws for hands?)
When he introduced her to who she'd be working with, she noticed all of them were in their human forms, and she guessed that makes sense. The staff was comprised of twenty some people, most of them fair skinned with garments dating back to the Tang Dynasty, though there were a few tanner servants with clothes of all types. They paid her little attention when they arrive, though instantly bowed their heads in a silent acknowledgement to Chase before continuing with their duties.
"They will teach you how to cook what you don't know, and how to perfect what you do know," Chase began, referring to the food that she must serve his warriors. "As they all live in the same segment of my lair, they will show you to your quarters, and warn you of areas you may not enter." And like that, Chase was gone, and she found herself back in her human form. The transformation was painless (though without a doubt it definitely looked more painful from an outside perspective), and the clothes she'd worn as a monk were right back where they were.
With so many big cats here—and not to mention the countless ones that inhabited the citadel—there was no chance that an escape would be easy. One red-haired woman, one who spoke with a Russian accent, called her over. And thus life began as a servant.
The first hours were rather uneventful. She'd been immediately placed to work in the kitchen after Chase exited. They were preparing dinner for all warriors, which took a considerable amount of work considering just how many warriors Chase Young had defeated over the years. Kimiko was introduced to foods and ingredients she'd never even heard of before, animals that would have to be taken down by a team of warriors, plants of every colour. Kimiko wondered where they even acquired these foods when it was pretty much a wasteland around Chase's lair. Only with the help of Shen Gong Wu would they have been able to travel to the lands that contained these beasts.
She was taught how to make soups and how to prepare meats—even the meat of lions. However, considering that Chase Young ate dragons when he was one, the idea didn't seem as odd as it should. By the end of their work, her brain was aching from all the recipes she had to learn in mere hours.
Platters were gathered by servants outside of the kitchen, brought into a room that Kimiko was soon lead into by the kitchen staff. It was a huge room, one with arcs and pillars that maintained the same beautiful architecture as the rest of the citadel, while hosting long rectangular tables in a circular room. Kimiko could see felines of all types prowling around on the second level of the room, weaving in and out of hallways. Perhaps this was a central room? It would make sense to make access to their eating space as easy as possible.
Soon, felines and humans alike began pooling into the room as the time to eat grew near. There were some cats that shifted almost as though at will into a human before taking a seat at a table, while others stayed as they were. Kimiko wondered if they were truly able to shift themselves at will, or if it was Chase's doing for certain servants.
Kimiko stood there awkwardly until a rather large snow leopard pushed her from the back and into the direction of a table that the majority of the kitchen staff was headed to. She shuffled over and stood there, not wanting to take one of their seats and accidentally start any issues, at least not with the people whom she assumed she'd have to be working with for a long time.
After a moment, the Russian from before scoffed, "Gah, go get her a seat!" to a similar looking woman beside her, who sneered and mumbled under her breath before heading off. Kimiko wondered of their relation toward each other, before a seat was presented to her. Chairs were moved aside and finally she was allowed a place to sit.
Since there were already some digging into the food, Kimiko decided as well. She grabbed a plate, and after observing how others collected their food, did so as well, though not as much as she'd normally eat at the temple. All of the talk around her didn't make any sense to her—though she'd only just got here. Maybe this gossip would mean something to her in the future, but wow, her group seemed to love indulging in others' secrets.
All the time she ate, her eyes wandered. There were still some felines filling the tables, many of them digging in mostly to the meat. However, as her eyes ran out of tables to browse, she noticed that Chase Young was not among them.
About half an hour in, Kimiko had already finished her eating, and was waiting for the rest of her team to do so as well. From the corner of her eye she noticed something very white move by, and upon observation, it was a very pale warrior—almost the colour of Jack Spicer, even—carrying a steaming white bowl across the room and out into a hallway with something green sticking out of it. She hadn't noticed any other person taking food out of this room. She stared for a few moments before movement to her right distracted her.
"Come, we will show you to our room," one of the girls said, and they all seemed to get up at the same time, sans a few that had already left. She was led through many hallways, instructed on which rooms that she was allowed to enter, and which she was not. Hallways she should never travel down lest she wanted to get mauled—apparently there's some territory disputes among the kitchen squad and a Wudai Shiguo group, and if she travelled there, she'd best expect to be ripped to shreds based on being placed in the Tang squad.
The sleeping quarters were not much different in appearance to any of the other rooms, except for the ceiling being much higher, with more floors lining the walls. Beds lined each floor, most of them being similar to the cots that they slept in in the temple; a few of them had multiple blankets on them, and some even had animal pelts strewn on top. There was a staircase that spiraled throughout the room, extending to each floor. Kimiko was led to the second floor, and saw that the majority of their beds had skins of sheep lined on their beds.
"You will sleep here." The girl said, pointing to a cot close to the wall, and surrounded by other cots. Once she sat down in her surprisingly soft bed, the kitchen staff seemed to loosen up. Some of them returned to their feline body, sprawling their huge bodies across the floor. Kimiko scooted up against the wall, resorting to staring at them instead of resting.
"What was Chase thinking, adding another person to the team? It's not like we can't handle the load already," was the first thing out of the mouth of one of them.
"It can't hurt to have someone else on the team. Re did get a lot more recently, and it 'ould be runderful if you'd rub my back, Rasha," said another in regards to a husky panther, who padded over to the chocolate skinned female. He hovered over her before planting his paws directly on her back, kneading as regular cats do, claws and all. Kimiko gawked, wondering why she wasn't complaining about the claws.
"So, is this all you guys do all day? Cook and what not?" Kimiko started, wanting to at least get some conversation in, since the majority of her time here so far had been in silence. They stared at her, an awkward silence making her tense before one of them spoke up.
"For the most part, yes. We are not warriors. Well, except for Washa and Kronos next to you."
The snow leopard who'd shoved her before curled up close to Kimiko, grunting slightly as he shifted off of his mat and all over the floor (and into Kimiko's personal space).
"They were taken off of warrior duty for certain war injuries we're not allowed to discuss. I'm Tak," she introduces herself, rolling into her own cot. "That's Beebi, Xiaocho, Tanaka, Rei, and Ren." She pointed to the other five closest to her, all whom settle down after a moment.
"After breakfast, we spar against each other for about four hours, as Lord Young commands it. Afterwards, we are free to do as we please before dinner," Rei explained. "Stuff like studying or hunting. Though that's what the actual hunters do… But it is nice to roam outside of these walls sometimes."
"Oh, Chiyin, did I ever tell you about that fish I caught in the waterfall yesterday?"
And then they were all talking amongst themselves, while that line reminded Kimiko of an issue. "Um, guys, where's the bathroom?"
The Russian red head spoke up, "Weren't you paying attention when we brought you here? It's right outside here, third door to the right."
.o
Sleeping was a pretty restless task. While Kimiko was surrounded by tens of giant, fluffy cats (including one very intrusive snow leopard that just wouldn't stay out of her personal space and had ended up with his legs over her that night), she couldn't help but wonder what the other monks were doing right now, if they were trying to formulate a plan to help her escape. Life as a feline so far wasn't as bad as the stories shared within the temple made it out to be—there was no whipping of disobedient cats, there wasn't a bunch of shed fur littering the floor (in fact, one could see their own reflection in the floors), Chase Young wasn't 'using' them for his own personal satisfaction (that one was one of the biggest rumours that spread like a disease amongst monks. When Kimiko brought it up, they all laughed at her as though she were crazy). If anyone had asked her, she could compare it to a life as a Xiaolin monk, doing chores (though her chores were considerably less tedious now and had more to do with meaningful tasks).
She was trapped here. Surrounded by hundreds of claw-tipped felines that would be watching her every move. With the amount of work that it took to make that dinner, she could only imagine how alert she'd have to be to cook multiple dishes at once tomorrow. She needed to be rested to keep her wits about her. So she settled for a light sleep.
.o
The second day, she was woken up early to prepare breakfast for the others. Raw meat was hauled out of the kitchen for those who'd settled for a bloodier diet, while pounds of it was hammered and chopped and tossed onto the fire in the kitchen. Eggs cracked, berries roasted, an abnormally large amount of sausage thrown onto a grill. When she asked where most of this food comes from, Tanaka responded that they foraged and hunted in the Jungle of Neither Here Nor There, since it was close to the Land of Nowhere and they could harbor many species of meat there, similar to farming them. For more exotic meats—such as the lion—they had to use other modes of transportation, provided by Chase, of course. By the time they'd finished cooking for breakfast, Kimiko's arms were sore from it all.
She ate with the others, much more willing to open her mouth this time now that she'd had time to get to know them yesterday evening. She was still a little slow with their names, but given time, she'd be able to recognise them more easily.
After breakfast, she got to hang out with her group. And by hanging out, that meant sparring. She was led through a hallway that differed in colour scheme from the rest, consisting of earthy browns, reds, blacks and white. The room they entered was very similar to the room Chase had fought Master Monk Guan in many years back, except this one had a dirt floor and the walls were lined with many different weapons and tools to use. It was already filled with warriors who'd finished their breakfast, some training by themselves, but many with at least one other partner. Tak noted that this training room was reserved for those who weren't frontliners or main warriors to begin with.
"We'd still be called into battle, but only if for some reason, the frontliners have failed."
Training was the same as they would have trained in the Xiaolin temples, sans any actual Shen Gong Wu. Because Chase's warriors extended a millennium, the contraptions on the wall ranged from primitive to downright alien. But that didn't stop her fellow kitchenmates from handing her different weapons and seeing her abilities in wielding them. She wasn't exactly proficient in the older models, not knowing how to properly use the majority of them without help, but she'd found a staff with scythes on both ends particularly interesting, and practiced with that amongst other weapons against Rei, who was proficient in fighting with a sword.
Training like this allowed her to put herself back into the temple, fighting with her friends and not servants.
Training was followed by an hour of cooling down, and boy, did Kimiko need it. Xiaocho could fire arrows from a bow faster than any normal human could, and dodging them while keeping up her defense against Rei proved to be a more difficult challenge than she anticipated.
Kimiko was invited to spend a few hours with Tak to join her in the literature dome, which Kimiko figured couldn't hurt. As much as she'd like to just lie down and rest the soreness of her muscles away, she trudged up long winding stairs with Tak until they reached it. Surprisingly, it had way more scrolls and books than Kimiko would have thought. Then again, a thousand and a half years was more than enough time to amass this much literature into one room.
The texts came in all different languages, presumably for the different cultures and languages of the people Chase was harboring now. Tak wandered off, leaving Kimiko to find what she wanted.
Her browsing led her to find texts about the Xiaolin temple and its history and involvement in battles, which she absorbed much info on during her free time before dinner inevitably came. Chase Young came up during the battle that happened over 1500 years ago, and it even mentioned Master Monk Guan, how one could not exist without the other—how Guan is immortal because of Chase Young's Heylin treachery, and then some. Omi had written something describing what would have happened if Guan had gone to the Heylin side instead of Chase, and how it would inevitably be worse than the fate they had now with Chase, as Hannibal, Guan, and Wuya would be a worse combination than Chase working against Hannibal and Wuya… But she never got a chance to finish reading his writings.
Dinner time seemed to creep up on her faster than she expected, because Tak was telling her to follow once more to the kitchen. Dinner was basically the same food as yesterday, so Kimiko had an easier time handling the dishes she'd been ordered to cook again.
At the table, she noticed once again the albino-esque man carrying the bowl with a green object sticking out, out of the dining hall.
"Hey, what's the stuff that guy is carrying? I don't remember seeing you guys cook something green like that?" Kimiko pointed to the man with her chopsticks before slurping down thick noodles.
"Oh, that? That's uh, Chase's Rao Mang Rone soup," Kimchee, the one who'd been massaged by Washa the other day, spoke up. "Really nasty stuff."
.o
Nightfall came once more, and once again, Kronos was all over her bed. Instead of sitting uncomfortably against him, she resigned to it and snuggled into his furry backside. The girls didn't have much to talk about tonight, though among them, there was a new rumour that Wuya was talking with Hannibal Bean again, and that they were doing a lot more than just talking. The thought of that made Kimiko shudder; how was it even possible? She didn't want to think on that. First the rumour about Chase and his cats, now a 1500 year old spirit-turned-human and a fruit? Gross.
.o
The third day, Chase invited her to spar with him.
That certainly was a brow-raiser, considering her purpose here was supposed to be of a humble food servant and not much more. She hadn't seen much of Chase at all in the couple of days she'd been here. She wondered why he wanted to spar with her all of a sudden.
She'd begun walking toward the training room that her kitchen group had used yesterday, but the messenger who'd given her the instructions from Chase pointed her into a different hallway, to a set of doors that once open, revealed the training room that Guan had defeated Chase in, containing the same spiral floor and cats' eye decoration on the walls.
Chase stood at the opposite side of the spiral floor, hands behind his back and facing the entrance.
"Glad to see you could make it, young one," he began.
"As if I had a choice," was Kimiko's snarky reply.
The lion who'd been guiding her disappeared, and it was just them.
"I am here to test your full fighting capabilities, so that when the time comes, I will know what to do with you when conquering another nation." Of course, that wasn't her true purpose for being here. He didn't need her to take over the world. If he was going to have her around, he may as well learn more of her weaknesses for any battle he may have with her in the future—if she'd somehow manage to fall from his command.
"I don't have to fight for you."
"You will fight for me."
"Yeah, what makes you so su—" but Chase was already upon her, palm open in an obvious strike. Kimiko gasped, ducking and using her outstretched arm to hook Chase's neck and drag him to the ground, her legs working to trip him up. He worked this to his advantage, however, by catching her abdomen unguarded and forcing her into the air. The wind was knocked out of her, leaving her disoriented, only to find herself in Chase's arms as he caught her from what would have been a most painful fall onto steel.
He steadied her to her feet, only to have her push away moments later. Her frustration got the better of her and fire was shot at him, only for him to easily dodge them. "If you really want to hurt me, you'll have to do better than that, young monk."
Kimiko paused, staring down at her hands. "Wait, shouldn't you have my powers, like what you did with Omi…?"
Chase lifted a brow. "You mean you never attempted to use your powers inside of here yet?"
Her face flushed. "It's not like that was on my mind when I'm surrounded by giant cats that could kill me!" Her face only turned brighter of embarrassment when she realised her words weren't helping her case. That smirk on his face wasn't helping either! Oh, she would wipe it off his face real good…
"The deal was not for you to pledge your loyalty to me. I am not interested in owning your element, nor your powers. My dragon form wields it quite nicely. Omi, on the other hand… he possessed power far beyond the three other Dragons. Power I wanted for myself. You are merely a pawn in the grander scheme of things."
Kimiko didn't respond, whether from anger toward him or just not knowing what to say, he didn't know.
"You will stand and fight or risk a most humiliating defeat," he knew those words were ones that Omi used quite frequently during face offs with Heylin members, and ones that would spark a fight from Kimiko simply from stealing his phrases.
Of course, Kimiko's face scrunched up in invited anger, her pose becoming more trained, tactical. "You're on."
.o
Four hours. Four hours of the most intense sparring Kimiko had ever gone through. At the end of the session, Chase was barely breaking a sweat while Kimiko's clothes were drenched in a sea of her own sweat. Her own fire being used so much could have been a contributor to that, though.
Chase really didn't expect her to keep up with him, seeing as he'd been strengthening his stamina for over a millennium, while she's only had maybe twenty years tops to develop her own.
Before Kimiko began to make another move at him, he holds up his palm. "Enough. You have fought well, but there is still much to learn." He was actually quite impressed with just how well she'd mastered her element. The way she wielded fire was legendary in comparison to the previous Dragon of Fire, who did not see much hand-to-hand combat action against Chase to begin with.
"Oh thank god," She immediately dropped her defensive stance, knees nearly giving out on her.
"You may take the day off from kitchen duties, but tomorrow you will be granted no exception."
Chase was on his way out, but Kimiko stopped him.
"Wait, I've been here for days with no place to shower. And I stink," she put it bluntly. "I can't go walking around smelling like this."
Chase's eyes glimmered for a second before turning away. "Someone will be here to guide you to the bathing facilities momentarily." And as soon as he said that, he was gone behind the pillars.
Kimiko wondered what was up with his habits of not sticking around for long, but it wasn't really a primary concern. Right now, she was more concerned about getting out of these nasty clothes.
.o
The bath area, as was most areas, was occupied by others. However, all of them were human, not a single spot of fur to be found. There were wash racks and pools of water where a group of people could hang around, conversing if they'd like.
Kimiko wasn't exactly on terms with any of them here as far as she could see, so she took the more convenient approach and chose a concealed shower area. The lion who'd been guiding her handed her a new set of robes, suspiciously similar to the old ones, but she wouldn't be able to ask how he acquired these, since in his lion form, he could not speak. Instead, she accepted it, and took do cleaning herself, stripping once inside the shower and placing the old garments outside.
The warm water was a welcome change from the sticky mess her body was covered in, and it felt much nicer than the wash racks back at the temple. Water pooled down onto the stone floor below.
By the end of it, she felt fresh, and ready to take on another day of this odd little 'paradise'.