Part Two: Rage Aflame
He cared little for the others in actuality, focused most on the one with the most potential, the little monk of the water, nimble and proud and naïve. But only a fool would not stop to consider the others at least in passing.
The one girl fascinated him in her own way. True, it would have been equally easy to corrupt the next strongest, the unspoken second-in-command, the Wind dragon, whose soul contained vestiges of darkness. Darkness that had a definite tinge of green acid, blazing of that sickening wench Wuya's magick. But the girl… the girl was fascinating.
She would prove a challenge, for fire purified and then destroyed all that came at it. But she was physically the weakest and what need had he to fear fire? Dragons reveled in flame, breathed it, and were born into it.
He could not read true darkness, true evil in her. She had not been corrupted, possessed by evil, filled with it like the others; even the stolid Earth dragon had housed an evil! But she had delicious potential.
She raged too easily, lost her temper and her focus. Though it could be argued that she was passionate, that she could not be trapped in intricate workings at the emotions, for she let herself feel and let anger be a hot flash of flame that vanished without a trace. But be it said that she was all too easy to defeat in battle, as one became the water to douse her fire and remove what advantage she ever had.
Immediately, his mind would pick at working her apart as it was wont to do when encountering potential enemies for the last centuries of his life. It wouldn't do to know how to defeat her in battle. It was more… interesting to ponder how to twist her, to see the seed of evil within her.
Her rage was countered by despair; her heart was fragile in that it was passionate. That was why she raged so, clinging to control as desperately as possible. Perhaps that was why she sought power, why she went to the remote hills of China to train herself. But in that passion, she was blind to all else, including her own faults, the feelings and affairs of those around her, allies she could not afford to lose if she sought true power.
What a delicious paradox. He smiled slowly as he stood before an enormous hearth. The flames leapt up, crackling angrily in uncharacteristic defiance, disturbing the stony serenity of his palace with the popping of sap and bubbles within the wood. Rage. Wasted rage. And he slammed the fire into the earth with sheer force, smothering that hopeless source of flame.
A/N: I love Kimiko, don't get me wrong. But she is cast rather indifferently by the creators of Xiaolin Showdown. /sighs/ It's a shame, no? Her biggest flaw is her temper, one must admit. Because in her temper, she seeks perfection and hides her mistakes. Which have the unfortunate tendency to grow into even bigger problems. She's the hapless instigator. Pandora even. Poor girl. Who can guess the narrator of this?