(A/N: I know this story sucks and it's too slow-paced and everything, but I don't care that much.  Well I'm thinking that there needs to be more action, and Mel and Van are becoming more and more out of character.  Oh well.  Disclaimer as always…don't sue me for not writing it in because I'm tired of it!)

Chapter 5: The REAL first lesson

Whoever is pounding on the door is way TOO LOUD for the middle of the night.  Huh…it's 3 AM?  Why, I'm going to kill you…Van…

"I know, Mel.  Put down that pillow.  We've got to head to the beach before the crowds come," said an all too perky Van for this early in the morning.  I swear I see two of him, one standing impatiently over me and one about to tickle me…Ah his fingers…

"Ouch!  You're still strong even though you're tired!" exclaimed Van after I punched him.  But he seemed to be staring at me for some reason…  Oh yeah, I'm in my underwear right now…PERVERT!

I smacked him far past the door and into the hallway.  Then I slammed the door before he could even blink and dug for my clothes.  Hey, it wasn't my fault that I was in my underwear only because it was too hot to sleep with more on.  He should have known that.  And to not even let the girl change before entering her room…is a MAJOR CRIME!  I'm going to get him soon…

Anyway, back to my task.  I found the bathing suit that Rhonda had packed neatly into my bag along with my discarded T-shirt and shorts from yesterday.  They still were okay…hey, it's not like I want to carry around multiple sets of clothes.  I don't get any mercy when I'm with Van.

Neatly making the bed and tying my sack, I opened the door to find Van obviously gone.  He was waiting in the kitchen, where Radius had left us some food that I quickly stuffed in before our departure.  He had also left a note that wished us a good day, which was appreciated.  I mean, I wouldn't wake up to bid farewell to two crazy kids who decide to wake up before sunrise to go to the beach.  He's an old man, an awesome old man, and he deserves sleep.

After sneaking quietly out of Arni, we headed down to Lizard Rock.  The landscape was a bit unpleasant to the feet as the name implied, but it was pretty sandy too, obviously because we were closing on to the beach.

"Stupid Sand Squirt," I muttered as we encountered another one along the way.  After a hit from my boomerang, the poor monster fell over.  Van and I were lucky enough that the monsters around here were quite easy.  Plus a bonus was the fact that it was still dark outside, and much of the wildlife was not up until sunrise.  Now if Van didn't have to go against the laws of nature and wake me up at this unnatural hour, then I wouldn't have a problem running into these stupid monsters because I would be able to spot them.  I was glad those Kodomo dragons were not awake yet.  They weren't too hard either, but just annoying when their claws latched onto skin.  And I heard that if you kill too many of the young Kodomos, Mama Kodomo comes out and gets you.  Korcha told me a while ago that Serge faced it by himself once, and he almost died.  But then he had just begun to train, Korcha added.

I had Van, but that wouldn't help.  He's too much of a coward to protect me.  Plus he's lazy, and would make me face it anyway.  So much for extra help…

"Ah…" he yelped.  It looks like Mr. Dillogne has tripped over a few rocks.  Well, his knee seems to be bleeding.  I fished in his bag for bandages, and after pulling out three blankets I found a First Aid kit.  Wrapping a cloth around his knee, I let him stuff the blankets back in while I secured the bandage on with tape.  Helping him up, I took his hand, which was warm, and together we walked as he dealt with the pain in his knee.  I think he faked some of the pain just so he could lean on me and burden me with his weight.

I wanted so bad to kick him as he smirked at me.  But then I would have to carry him and his monstrous bag, which I rather not do.  All I could do was to stumble on.

Well at least when he held onto me he was treated to the jerkiest ride ever.

*****

We were at the beach now and the sun still hadn't rose yet.  I guess Van overestimated the time it would take to get here.  Oh well, I guess I could take a nap before the sunrises…  I stretched out in the sand with my shoes off on top of my blanket and yawned.  I rolled over to my side, the usual way I slept, and closed my eyes.  What I didn't expect was someone's fingers playing with my hair.

"Van?" I mumbled, rolling over to look at him.  He had this weird kind of look on his face, almost as if he was caring for me like a father would.  It was kind of scary, to see that kind of look on his face, but soon the look was replaced with a smile.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered, lightly pushing me over.  I rolled back to my side and became comfortable once again.  Then the strangest thing happened.

Van hummed.  It was the lullaby that I'm sure his mother must have taught him because my mother taught me it too, though I forgot its name.  He had a sweet voice, which was nicely in tune.  I could feel my lids closing as if a fairy pressed them closed.  The last touch I remember was that of the blanket being placed gently over me.  Then I entered the dream world, where I had the weirdest dream in days.

*****

It was sunrise at the beach.  There were three of us at the beach: Van, Korcha, and me.  For some reason Korcha was carrying his fishing rod and swished it angrily in the water.  Van and I were having a competition on who could swim the fastest in the water.  Of course I was winning by a lot, kicking water into Van's mouth most of the time.  Suddenly we both heard a yelp and Korcha started sinking through the sand.  We quickly rushed back to shore to find the sand halfway up his body.  But when I reached out to grab his hand, I felt myself sinking along with him.  To my right I saw Van experiencing the same thing.  The three of us screamed, but no one came.  The sensation was weird.  Before my head was even covered with sand I felt air at the bottom of my toes.  Soon enough we were falling through the clouds and landed, with no spectacular explosion or anything, on another beach that looked exactly like Opassa.

"Feeling okay?" asked the woman who stood above me.  But to my surprise I saw a blond haired girl with a dagger and a short red jacket and pants.  Wasn't this Kid?  But she looked younger than usual.  Then I looked at Van and Korcha, and they too seemed a lot smaller.  I was even smaller myself, so that I was about 10 years old now.  Around us stood lots of people that I didn't recognize.

"Remember this experience?" she asked the three of us, who clearly had confusion spread over our faces.  "There were two worlds once upon a time: parallel worlds that were connected by this beach.  We had quite an adventure, the 40 or so of us that gathered and fought."

I looked around a bit.  I recognized some people: Ma, Orhla, Doc, Lord Viper and his daughter, the 4 Devas, and even Radius who I had just met yesterday.  Others varied from a tiny alien to a large-hand seaman.  What a weird group.  I couldn't even understand how I could have made up half these people in my mind.  Anyway, it looked like she was leading us somewhere.  I followed the group and she took us to some secluded place on the beach.  There we saw the massive body of a monstrous thing.  It was red and had lots of spikes on the surface.  It didn't have a head, but instead there was a big opening.  I wondered for a moment what the head would have looked like, but I couldn't imagine anything fitting.  While I was off in a daze, Van nudged me.  I noticed as a file of people went inside.  Wait, went INSIDE?  Why would we do that?

It looked like Kid was giving some kind of tour of the thing.  She pointed out the different structures of the creature's body, like the heart, the lungs, the stomach, etc.  Van and I were lagging behind, because it was sort of creepy to be walking in someone's carcass and seeing everything from the inside.  When I walked passed the heart, I suddenly heard a noise.  It seemed like a grunt, like the animal was coming alive again.  Then the whole group seemed to vanish, except for Van.  The body suddenly started to move, and Van grabbed on to my hair…

*****

"Ahhh!" I yelped as I felt my hair being tugged out.  "Van, what are you doing with my hair?" I screamed.

"Oops, sorry," said Van with a smile.  It looked like he was combing it or something, with the way his fingers were stuck in my hair.  Hey, it's not my fault that I had knots.  Anyone who had my hair would know that it never stayed untangled for long.

"You have really long hair," commented Van as he finally pulled his fingers through the tangled mess.  I sat up and attempted to straighten the unruly hair, all while he watched me comb it.  Finally I gave up.  He took this opportunity to pull on my hair once again, harder than necessary, as he untangled it for me.  Once I had lost all feeling in my head, he finished.  Then he looked at his reflection in the water, which was perfect as usual, and turned back to me.

"Let's get this lesson started, okay?" he said.  I agreed.  It was really pretty right now, with the sun rising and reflecting reds and oranges in the water.  It was also a relief to actually see some sunlight after traveling crazily while it was still dark, ahem Van.  I dug through my bag for some paper and pencils, which weren't too hard to do.  It looks like he brought his whole box of color pencils, which probably accounted for 4% of the non-fluff in his bag.  I couldn't even imagine 20 different shades of orange until now.  How does he even decide which one to use?  I think I would have a hard time.

Anyway, back to the sketch paper.  I had a whole hour to try mastering this, but it seems like it would take forever.  I held the pencil in my hand, waiting for his instructions.  He had his own sketch pad which he was testing his colors on.  I had to poke him before he remembered that I was waiting for him.

"Oh!  Well, I guess you should first try making strokes like this," he said, seeming to make a random swish-like stroke on the paper.  I couldn't see how this helped to make the picture of the ocean, but I tried it anyway.

"Good," he said after watching me do some strokes.  "Art should be the expression of the soul.  If you can relate something about yourself into your piece of art, it will have more meaning and other people will appreciate it more."

I watched as he demonstrated some "expression of the soul" on his piece of sketch paper.  I noticed that he had sketch some sort of round circle which he was starting these lines from and randomly outward.  And the colors of the lines were strangely familiar.  It was similar to…my hair.

"Why are you sketching my hair?" I asked as I watched him continue to make strokes on the paper.  He turned to me and smiled.

"You're just as wild as the sea, you know," he responded.  I didn't know if that was an insult or a compliment.  His smile was kind of odd, quirked upwards in the corner, and his eyes were kind of teasing me.

So I decided to smack him.

*****

The sun had risen quite a bit.  I didn't realize that in only half an hour that the sun could move from level with the horizon to…not level with the sun.  Anyway, I had already started working on adding the red to the water which was now more bluish when Van stopped me.

"Good enough for now," he told me.  "Let's take a swim."

I was glad I put on my suit underneath before coming here.  I wouldn't want to strip in front of him.  As I changed out of my T-shirt and shorts, he took of his T-shirt and dove in.

"Hurry up!  It's nice in here," he said, splashing around.  I quickly threw my shirt and shorts by my bag and ran into the water.  Oh…it was a bit cold.  I shivered a bit, but in a matter of seconds I was swimming like a mermaid.

"Darn, I thought she gave you the two-piece," muttered Van as he came up for a breath.  He looked so hot with his hair wet and his chest exposed.  He did have muscles, not like a muscular man did, but enough to look healthy.  I wanted, for some reason, really badly to touch the skin.  But there were more important things to do, like splash Van for one.  And hit him for the comment he had just made.

"Of course not!  She understands that a girl wants some bit of covering to protect her from…crazy young men who peak at girls when they are in their underwear only…" I responded.  Suddenly he grabbed me into his arms.

"You're still hot with the one-piece," he whispered into my ear.  Then he released me just as suddenly and swam away.

Okay, so what was that?  I guess I have to chase him to find out.

(A/N: My random muse decided on that dream to be inserted into the story.  It kind of writes the story for me without any sort of plan.  So how did you like it?  Please tell me…I want more than just the two reviews I have right now.)