CHAPTER 10

"Waaaaaaaaaa!" THUNK! "Damn it! What the hell just happened?" Asked Josh, (Xion) still in pain from landing on his butt.

"That's what happens when we travel between. Get used to it; we're gonna be doing it a lot from now on," I said kinda snottily having struck my landing, but barely.

"So is everybody here?" Asked Julia, as we began to head out of the cave.

"Yeah it looks like we're all here," said Mina once we were out in the open.

"Alright then, let's head on to the village and find out what's been going on since we left," I said, and we headed for the village. When we arrived we learned that it had been ten years since we left. Kraden had passed away and Kit had taken his place as shaman of the village. There was no news of Ebony, but we knew that she was out there somewhere. But since it was our first night back in Animos we decided that we should relax, and boy did these people know how to throw a party. There was a banquet in our honor and it was awesome!

Shadow and I were getting ready when there was a knock on our door. Turns out it was Julia, which was odd enough in itself. She told Shadow to get out and it was only when he left that I noticed she had a suit in her hands.

"What do you want?" I asked, eying the suit nervously.

"I'm gonna do you up proper," she said.

"Why the sudden act of kindness?" I questioned, she normally put on a cold front.

"Just because I'm ice and have control of my emotions does not mean I can't act like I normally do," Julia said, a certain exasperation in her voice. "Now put this on. I don't want to see the atrocity of whatever you were going to wear tonight."

I did what she told me and I have to say that I didn't look too shabby, even Julia agreed, but what shocked me the most was what she said as she was leaving the room: "By the way, you better get over your fear of dancing because you're going to dance with Mina at least once tonight." Then, she left with a light smile on her face. Shadow came into the room and whistled (not like for a good looking person, more like a surprised whistle).

"She dressed you up nice," Shadow said, "too bad she hates me."

"Well, you better get ready if you want to be on time," I said leaving the room and waiting outside for him to change. Finally, he came out and we went to the banquet hall together. We searched the hall for the others and saw Julia, Mina, Kit, Raiden, Ivy, Aqua, Xion, and Aveon talking and laughing. The girls looked incredible! Mina was wearing a red dancing dress with thin straps that hugged all her curves. Kit was wearing a similar to Mina's dress only a little longer and black. And Julia was wearing a more formal dress that went to the floor; it had only one strap and was black and fitted her curves, she was also wearing an arm bracelet on her upper arm. All the girls had elegant up-do's (and were attracting a lot of attention from other guys; I'm not gonna go into detail about Ivy's and Aqua's dresses). Shadow and I walked up to the group and greeted them.

"So Riku," smirked Julia, "think I did a good job?"

"All right, yes, you did," I admitted.

"Did a good job on what?" Asked Mina.

"I fixed him up for you," winked Julia. "I don't know about you guys, but I feel like dancing! Come on Xion, dance with me!"

"What? NO! I don't do dancing!" Xion flat out refused.

Julia pulled on his arm. "Well, you do now, come on! Oh, and Riku, get a move on and ask Mina to dance," said Julia and then with one last tug led Xion onto the dance floor.

I nervously cleared my throat. "Ummm… Mina?" She looked at me to signal that I had her attention. "Uhhh… will you dance with me?"

"Sure," replied Mina. I couldn't believe it. My luck was actually working with me tonight! I made a mental note to try and not do anything to mess this up and to thank Julia later. I had a great time dancing with Mina, but eventually we had to take a break. We went to sit with the other guys and later on Julia and Xion joined us, Julia laughing the entire way to the table.

"You are a horrible dancer," giggled Julia, "but I had fun anyway, thank you." Josh (Xion) merely grumbled and muttered a 'Your welcome.' "So… you guys having fun?"

There was a chorus of 'Yes!' from most of the table. Right now what we needed was food and so we went to the buffet (I luv buffets! ) and all got our share of food. We ate our fill and decided to go to the dance floor again. This time I was Aqua, Raiden was with Kit, Mina was with some random dude, Ivy was with Shadow, and Julia was with Aveon, which I thought was a bad idea considering the last time they saw each other. It turns out they actually enjoyed dancing together; they were laughing and talking as if they were still a couple. The shocker of the night, for our group at least, was when we all had to witness a passionate make-out session between Julia and Aveon. This confused us because we all thought they had broken up, but here they were snogging in front of everyone. Julia told everyone later that they had never really broken up, but merely pulled a prank on everyone, to see if they could actually pull it off. I have to admit, it was pretty convincing. Eventually, the night had to end, much to everyone's disappointment, but at least we could cherish the memories we were gifted with tonight. We all went to bed well fed, happy, and content.

The next day we had to start the new guys' training, which was only bad for Xion who unfortunately looked like Shippo (fox demon from Inu Yasha) and kept getting called a squirrel (his least favorite animal). The others however weren't as bad. Lizzie (Aqua) had turned into a tiger; her clothes that were similar to Julia's and Mina's were form fitting and had the symbol of water on the back. Krystal (Ivy) had turned into a monkey; her clothes were basically like Julia's outfit and the symbol of nature was on the back. For some reason my clothes had changed as well, it was nothing too drastic, but my outfit was a little more form fitting and made of a different material (basically it's not a kimono anymore; not going into detail kuz I don't know what the author wants). The next day we started basic training with Aqua, and Ivy, but we couldn't find Xion but that didn't matter at the moment. He already had a handle on his powers. It was fun trying to help Aqua and Ivy get control of their abilities both elemental and physical. One day, I took Julia aside to talk to her.

"I just wanna say thank you for what you did at the banquet," I said.

"No prob, just being good friend. I understand that I haven't been the best friend in the past, but I would like to remedy that. So… can you forgive me for all the times I was unnecessarily harsh to you?"

"Of course," I replied, "sometimes you can't help but be that way; it happens to the best of people."

Julia smiled and then we both heard a loud crash and we both grimaced. "Thanks for that. Think we should get back to them before they destroy the village?"

"Hell yeah!" (Do not pair up Julia and Riku; it will never happen; Riku likes Mina and Mina only . , k? good! )

It took about six months total to train the three of them before we decided to head out to find and learn from the other shaman. Plus, according to Chrono we also have to find the three new beacons. When we finally left we decided to go the same route as the first time. Heading through Pyron and then on to Atmos and so forth. Once in Pyron we stayed to let Aqua and the others get to know the people and to have a little fun. Shadow and I went out into the countryside to train as we had been doing a lot of lately. Julia and Mina did their usual shopping for supplies and then they spent the rest of the day at the inn relaxing in the open-air baths. We decided after about a week of stocking up and reconnaissance on the route to Atmos to head out. We had also learned of a tribe of traders that had set up camp at the south end of the Atmos Peninsula. That would be our first stop on the way to Atmos. It didn't take us long to get there. The roads that are most traveled by the Shadow guard are only the common way to your destination. We have learned of plenty of back roads to take. Once at the docks of Port Town we found a small fishing boat to take us to the trade island of South Point. To our surprise the beacon of water was on the island and thankfully the tribe had a water shaman. The bad news was that Aqua's training would take about three months. This put a damper on our plans to get done within two years, but oh well. At the capital city of Atmos it took us less than a day to find the shaman and less then two weeks to get Aveon trained. So we were almost back on schedule. Our next stop would be Tundria, then Thundria, but what awaits us ahead? Shadow and I know.