Calamity Hoppers ~Reprise~
by Christopher R. Martin
Chapter 3 – Gray
Where the hell am I? Why am I here? Whatever this place is, I don't like it. I have to get out of here.
But first thing's first. I breathe in and out to calm myself. I need to discern my surroundings, gain my bearings, before I can do so. Set apart what I know from what I don't know. The place is completely coated in gray, accentuated by the bitter cold that clings to my skin and the dense mist that impairs my vision. Before me is a body of water—a lake, maybe?—barely visible through this mist. It stretches far and wide, but where it ends is anyone's guess.
After that, I inspect my person. Around my right hand is my bamboo sword. It is one of my only three companions, the other two being my shadow and the sound of my own voice.
And speaking of which…
"Hello?!" I holler through my cupped hands, the empty space around me magnifying my voice. But no response.
My mind searches through a list of names of friends and family alike – the next logical step, I believe. It's worth a try, though unlikely.
"Yin? Master Yo?"—maybe I should have gone with 'Dad' or 'Father' instead?—"Lina? Roger? Coop? Dave?" I give it a few seconds until my echo vanishes. Rallying up my lungs, I cup my hands around my mouth tighter and add, "Anybody?!"
Anybody? Someone? Anyone? Surely, I can't be the only one here.
Ten seconds more, and I start running, my path dictated by my feet alone. North or south, east or west, up or down, left or right, none of this seems to matter. Really, they don't.
It catches up to me that all this running won't change anything. I am by myself. A rabbit child hopelessly lost, misguided, and at the worst possible moment: fresh from a verbal beatdown that wasn't deserved.
Convinced of this brutal reality, I hunch into a ball on the floor and bury my face in my arms. I hold on to the hope that this soulless realm will go away. As my chest turns sore, any resistance I've built wane. A Woo Foo Knight does not cry. A Woo Foo Knight does. Not. Cry. But I want to. Just one single tear.
My ears catch a glittering noise from the distance. A shaft of light breaks through the monotonous gray, and from it a new presence emerges. A shadow. No, not a shadow. It is the silhouette of what I think is some kind of dog or canine, its erect ears and flailing tail gaining my curiosity.
Instinctively I ready my sword and point it at this figure. Besides Lina, I don't know if there are any other canines that are in my circle of friends.
"Who are you?" I demand. But 'What are you?' might have been a better question, because this person is nothing like I've faced. It's almost otherworldly.
"Master Yo…" says the shade. Is he Woo Foo, too?
"How do you know my teacher's name?" My stance and grip on my sword stiffen in certainty. Perhaps he is an acquaintance of the panda.
I can't be sure of it because he doesn't answer. Instead he continues, speaking to himself. He isn't speaking in a foreign language or anything, but the softness of his tone prevents me from making sense of his words.
Surely he has a reason for being here, and it has something to do with me if he's here with me.
"I'm talking to you. Don't pretend you can't notice me, pal," I announce, anger bubbling. My voice topples his, but he keeps to himself some more.
The instant he stops, he tilts his head upwards, eyes aligned with the lake.
"Do you seek strength, little one?" asks the silhouette.
His question paralyzes me, but in seconds I tear from it and answer with, "Yes. Yes, I do."
I wish to be stronger, better, than I am in my current state. If I can do so, then everything and everyone I hold dear will be safe under my protection. My battles will be easier. And I won't have to put up with people talking me down anymore.
Nodding his head, he points a finger my way. He points it at a specific spot: at my right hand and the bamboo sword in its grasp.
"And yet your display of bravado betrays the doubt that clouds you." His patronizing is pissing me off. As if letting my family take potshots wasn't enough.
"What the hell does this have to do with you?" I glower at him, even though he can't see me.
A glow emanates from my right side. I turn to its direction and see my bamboo sword bathed in light. The weight in my right hand increases in mere seconds. The light dissipates. In place of old reliable is a new kind of weapon. A greater kind of weapon. The enormous steel curves off in a wide arc just before the tip, and the hilt is wrapped in one long strip of cloth to soak up any moisture built up by the wielder. Both sides are sharp, the edges trimmed and without a single dull spot to be seen.
This sword brings forth a sacred feeling. Its design is in itself a token of the mastery of its craftsmanship. This is an actual treasure. This is a weapon. I recognize it from somewhere, but it's just not coming into me. It hasn't arrived yet.
Surprise surges in my veins as I hold this weapon now and the visage of its original wielder surfaces in my mind. This gargantuan blade felled the Infernal Beast long ago and ended its tyranny upon the world. I've read about this weapon before—the Blade of the Governor—as part of an examination to become a Grade Two Woo Foo Knight. But I never thought that it would find itself here, in my possession.
The silhouette lowers its arm, gaze still trained on the lake. As his arm falls to the side, the sword returns to its original state.
"Because I have been in your position, too. Your struggle was once mine a long time ago," he says, his boast enforced by his pride. "But take heed, young Woo Foo. For this power to be yours, you must cast aside your misgivings. If you are indeed true to your word, then you will search for me, and I will provide you with what you yearn for."
With these words spoken loud and clear, the shadow begins to disappear. Piercing through this gray realm, through the mist and over the lake, is another ray of light.
"Hold on!" I say, running towards him with an outstretched arm. "How will I know if you're telling the truth?"
He says nothing. Following the brief pause, he turns his head towards me, his features indiscernible, and says, "I will make sure of it." He's becoming see-through, now. At this rate, I won't get a chance to ask him the rest of the questions I have for him.
So I run. I thrust out my hand. The light ahead of me brightens. I'm losing him. I'm very close.
"WAIT!" I scream, lungs on fire.
Violently, my body thrashes about on my bed. Stifled moans sound from my mouth as I scrunch my face into wrinkles.
"Wait! Wait!" I say, my lips moving of their own accord. At one point I even throw my hand out and up in the air. I bet it's something important if I'm reaching out to it with both eyes closed.
One—two—three breaths. I calm down, my arm flopping on the bed in a limp. Someone is nudging my right shoulder.
"Yang? Yang! Yang, come on. Pick your lazy butt up, man," says someone – a girl.
My eyelids part, and I lift my upper body off of my pillow. Yin had been awake this entire time, prodding me out of my not-so-peaceful sleep. Her features are hardened into a grimace.
"Oh, Yin. It's just you," I comment, rubbing my face to clean it up somewhat. "Now that was weird. What time is it now?"
"Eight-thirty. You've been tossing and turning in your sleep for the last fifteen minutes." She bites her lip as she stifles her laughter and covers her mouth slightly.
"And you're just waking me up now?" I jump off of bed, pick up my discarded gi from the floor and sling it across my shoulder.
"I've been trying to wake you up for that long." My sister's lips widen into a grin.
"You're enjoying every second of this, aren't you?" I say with a glare.
"You put on quite a show there, bro," says Yin. Unable to contain it any longer, she guffaws herself silly. She laughs at my misery for a good twenty seconds before stopping to breathe. "Now hurry up and get your lazy butt out of bed. We've got a lot of work to do today."
She exits the room, letting out a few last chortles and wiping tears of hysteria from her eyes. What a pain in the ass she can be. Actually, scratch that. She's a pain in the ass, period.
I pay her no mind and simply go inside of our bathroom. There I begin my morning ritual, showering for a minute or two and brushing my teeth. All at once. Everything is done hastily yet thoroughly enough that I don't miss a spot.
With these tasks finished, I dress myself in my gi, grab my sword from underneath my bed and dash out of my room and straight for the backyard, where my sister stands attentively on the stairs overlooking our group of friends, all of whom are the same age as us. They consist of a female dog with aqua fur wearing a purple dress, a bright yellow chicken in a dress shirt, overalls and a pair of wide-rimmed, thickly-framed glasses a tree stump with limbs—I find him the most uninteresting of our lot—and an adolescent ogre—or a 'skelewog'—in street clothes, his horns protruding out of his backwards baseball cap.
Cracking my knuckles, I take my position on the same step that Yin is on and inspect our group along with her. Now that she and I are Grade Two Woo Foo, it's our duty to guide other knights that are lower in rank than us. To teach them the Might and Magic disciplines of our martial art, as well as learn something new ourselves.
Yin loves the sense of authority that comes with being a mentor. I can tell from the way she scrutinizes our friends, with narrowed eyes and folded arms. How she leaves them nervous, trembling from their feet up and sweating, through her gaze alone.
And I have to admit, I do too. It's so much like when the adults of this town were once under our beck and call thanks to a certain Woo Foo artifact, except it's smaller in scale.
Breaking the silence, I step down towards the grass and pace back and forth. Like a rebel leading his band of revolutionaries, or a commanding officer addressing his soldiers with his skin-piercing words. I stop in front of each of them, my stare directed at their very souls. They tremble more. All but Lina, the testy one of the bunch.
"Listen up, people," I say to them, Yin joining me on my left. "As Woo Foo Knights, you must understand your own limitations. And you also have to know that you can push yourself past these limitations. So with that said, today's training's gonna be a bit more difficult than usual." My words are uttered harshly, almost without compassion. They sink into them, given how tense their bodies have become.
"If anyone here feels like bowing out, now's your chance to do so," says Yin, her tone soothing them. No one says a peep, so I assume that they won't bow out.
"So, you guys ready?" I spin my sword by its hilt and point it to the sky.
"Bring it on," says Dave in his usual, squeaky voice.
"Hell, yeah!" Roger junior exclaims, his fist raised to show his enthusiasm.
"Yup," says Lina, as collected as always.
"You bet I am," hollers Coop, his clucking making his boast less convincing.
Yin and I turn to look at each other in the face before going back to our four eager friends. She places a hand on my shoulder, a confident smirk across her lips.
"You ready, bro?" she asks, orbs of light shining around her hands.
Swinging my sword twice in front of me, I cock my head back and mirror my sister's zeal with a smirk of my own. "Of course. Alright, you pansies. Let's see if Sis and I can't whip you pansies into shape."
For the next four hours, these kids are not my friends. They are my students.
Our students.