Chapter 2: Magical Coins and Culture Shock
Okay, okay, I'm updating! Stop giving me the puppy dog pout.
Like I said, there won't be much of a schedule, so if you have to wait a long time in between updates, sorry in advance.
Hate to break it to you guys, but from here on out it's going to be a little less funny, nothing like the first chapter. I'm following the series as best as I can, only adding in Shen Gong Wu from the trading card game to spice things up. If any of you have ideas for Wu, I'd like to hear them and I'll credit you in the chapter I introduce them. Sound good?
The sight of the valley took Valerie's breath away. A vast yard of flowers surrounded the temple, with Chinese elms guarding the gates. The temple was really a village of white houses with blue shingled roofs, but there was a large, cylinder, white tower in the very center. It was so beautiful it hurt Valerie's eyes to look at it.
"Come along, Valerie," Chan said, leading her through the front gate. Valerie followed the female monk with Hui following her, carrying her bags. Suddenly Hui went to the left, away from the two women.
"Hui is just putting your things in your new room," Chan explained as she led the way into one of the white buildings. All the houses had circular windows without glass-weird. But Valerie didn't dwell on that. She was too busy following Chan into the building, a place with rice paper walls and wooden floors and Chinese plants dotting the hallways.
Chan finally led Valerie into some sort of dark hallway with plants in big blue vases. It was kind of ominous, especially since there was only one window. "Here you are," Chan told Valerie. "I'll leave you here so you can meet the other Dragons." And then Chan left, leaving Valerie to deal with the two guys already in the room.
"Well, howdy there, I'm Clay," said the cowboy with the Southern drawl. Seriously; tan cowboy boots, jeans, a blue button up shirt over his muscular torso, a red handkerchief tied around his neck, and a ten-gallon brown cowboy hat covering his blond hair.
"I'm Valerie," she introduced herself, shaking Clay's gloved hand. She liked how Clay looked at her-straight in the eye, not distractedly like so many other people Valerie could name. She turned to the other boy.
"Call me Raimundo," the other guy said, holding out his hand. He was naturally tanned with short, spiky brown hair and thick eyebrows hiding green eyes. He seemed to be a sporty type, since he was wearing a white short-sleeved hoodie, green cargo pants, red basketball shoes, and a red wristband on each wrist. A yellow medallion dangled from his neck and moved as made his way over to Valerie. She noticed that she just made it to his shoulders.
Valerie and Raimundo shook, and Valerie asked, "So who are we waiting for?"
Raimundo shrugged his shoulders. "I guess for the other dragons." And no sooner had he said that when another girl came walking in, talking on her blue cell phone.
The first thing Valerie noticed was her outfit: blue sneakers with white knee socks, a red and white vertically striped skirt that also covered her stomach, a blue baby doll t-shirt with a large red star on it, long, white fingerless gloves that stretched to her shoulders, and blonde hair tied in a braid with a long blue ribbon with white hairpins stuck in it. And then Valerie noticed that this girl was still talking on the phone, and probably didn't even know there were others in the room.
"Oh, wait, hold on," the American Girl said into her phone. She turned to the other students. "Hi, I'm Kimiko."
"I'm Valerie."
"I'm Raimundo."
"I'm Clay."
Kimiko nodded at them before going back to her conversation. The other three waited in uncomfortable silence until Master Fung showed up with the fifth and final student, a boy with strange yellow skin and large, bulbous head, wearing red monk robes, a black sash attached to his waist, black pants and black Chinese slippers. He was tiny, barely getting up to Kimiko's waist.
The infamous Master Fung, a bald man with a black beard and moustache combo wearing the traditional Xiaolin outfit, told the little guy, "Omi, this is Raimundo-"
"'Sup."
"-Kimiko-"
"He said that? No way!"
"-Valerie-"
"Hi."
"-and Clay."
"Well, howdy, there."
"Master, where are the new students?" Omi inquired. He clearly could not handle the culture shock.
"Right in front of you," Master Fung said gently.
Omi looked at the four dubiously. "They…are not what I expected."
"The best things in life rarely are," Fung answered wisely, as all master monks do.
"You are right master," Omi conceded. He turned to his fellow Dragons. "Welcome my strangely attired friends!"
"I must be going, young monks," Master Fung suddenly said, leaving the room. "I see there is much teaching to be done here."
"Yes, master, much teaching indeed," Omi said, giving the 'strangely attired' kids a look. Valerie could already tell she was not going to like this kid. She looked over at the others to see their reactions. She looked to her right to see Raimundo smiling at her. Valerie returned it; so he also thought the same thing about this Omi kid.
They were in the beautiful courtyard at this point, and Omi was walking on two fingers and the others following him as he gave them the grand tour. "The key is balance," he was telling them. "You are beginners, so you might want to use three fingers."
"Uh, just curious," Clay hesitantly said, "but when will we need this?"
"Try never," Raimundo scoffed.
"Okay, Keiko, I'll email it to you," Kimiko said to her friend over the phone, snapping shut the connection. "Is there a net connection around here?" she asked Omi, who was walking normally now.
When no one answered, Kimiko said, "No? I'll use Wi-Fi." Kimiko immediately pulled out a blue PDA out of her little white backpack and immediately began to use the email function on it.
"Oooh," Omi said, clamoring his way to Kimiko. "What is that? Is it magic?"
"It's a PDA," Kimiko said. "I'm sending a message to a friend in Tokyo." Valerie didn't know if that explained the crazy getup the Asian girl was wearing-she had never been to Japan before. Was it one of the styles over there?
"A secret message?" Omi asked, captivated by this wonderful device.
"No," Kimiko said slowly, "I'm just telling her about this very strange kid who apparently doesn't know about personal space issues."
"Really?" Omi got real close to Kimiko. "Is it that guy?" He pointed to Clay.
"Not me, partner," he said jovially.
"It's you, chrome-dome," Raimundo said bluntly as Omi blushed.
But Valerie was more worried about the supposed lack of Internet connection. Her laptop probably used Wi-Fi, but what if it didn't? How else was she supposed to email Eric? It wasn't like her phone had Internet. And talking on the phone from across the world really ate away at her minutes.
And now Omi was running around like a crazy person, shouting about how he wanted the rest of them to defy him or something. Valerie wasn't paying attention. But she did notice Clay turning some rope into a lasso. Where'd he get that?
Clay swung the lasso over his head and threw it at Omi, catching him by his feet and dragging him towards the others. "Hold on there, little buddy," Clay said. "I can't resist a challenge."
"Uh-huh. The cowboy just lassoed the little guy," Kimiko said into her phone. At this point Valerie was getting her iPod out, about to let the genius of The Who and The Beatles take over her brain when Omi started to yell: "I am the teacher! You are the students! You will give me the respect I deserve!"
"Since you've done nothing but patronize us all day, I seriously doubt it," Valerie said, miffed at the little monk. Seriously, who did this guy think he was, anyway?
"Respect this." And then Raimundo pulled down Omi's pants, revealing white briefs. Kimiko laughed, saying into her phone, "No way; the Brazilian kid just pantsed the bald kid!" Valerie held up a hand to Raimundo, and he high-fived her.
But before they could start a conversation, Master Fung called out them. "Come, young monks! Something has happened!"
"Something activated the Shen Gong Wu?" Valerie repeated. Everyone was in a large, circular, stone room with plush red carpeting in the middle, and with vase plants dotting the sides. Everyone was sitting in a circle Indian style, listening to Master Fung.
"Yes, and if Wuya finds them, the world will be plunged in ten thousand years of darkness." Well that was a happy thought. "We must collect all them before Wuya does."
"I have a question," interrupted Raimundo, raising his hand slightly.
"Yes, Raimundo?" inquired Master Fung, expecting a normal question, like 'how will we find these Shen Gong Wu?'"
"I saw my room, and there's no bed, just a mat. What the dilly?"
Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. "What does that have to do with anything?" Valerie asked, perplexed.
Raimundo smiled sheepishly. "Um, we can talk later."
They were in a small red room now, with candles on poles in the corners and a large, circular window with square bars taking up most of a wall. Underneath the window was a long, wooden table with a single scroll on it, coated in a gold-metal substance.
"This is an artifact that will follow its owner anywhere," Master Fung explained, opening it.
"The Ancient Scroll of the Shen Gong Wu," Omi gasped. The piece of paper shown on the scroll had a circular window thing with moving pictures and Chinese symbols surrounding it.
"The Mantis Flip Coin," Master Fung said as the blue picture revealed a medallion-like object. "Whoever wields it will have the skill of a mantis."
"Wild!" commented Kimiko.
As Master Fung closed the scroll, Omi announced, "So, our grand quest begins. Follow me to victory!" And then he ran out of the room like a man on a mission. This was eventually followed by a sheepish "I have no idea where I'm going."
"Yeah, how do we find the Shen Gong Wu?" Valerie asked the master. He turned to the little green gecko that had slithered into the room when nobody was looking.
"Dojo helped Master Dashi hide them."
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago," Dojo said. "You can't possibly expect me to remember where-" Dojo suddenly began to tremble and shake and pointed out in front of him. "This way."
"Yeah, like we're going to take directions from a gecko," Raimundo scoffed.
"GECKO?!" Dojo roared, spinning in place. His body was stretching itself out, getting bigger and bigger until Dojo became a big, scary, fire-breathing dragon. He got all up in Raimundo's face. "DON'T EVER CALL ME A GECKO!"
"My mistake," Raimundo whimpered, a broken smile overtaking his face.
Instead of being afraid, Valerie said out loud, "So you really are a dragon."
Dojo turned to her, snorting fire. "You're darn right I am!"
Valerie patted Dojo on the nose like he was a pet dog. "I'm sorry for doubting you. So, when do we leave?"
Ten minutes later, Dojo was flying the Dragons to the Mantis Flip Coin. Now, Valerie was used to high altitudes-she had spent a good chunk of her life in airplanes. But she had always been encased in a protective metal armor with attendants and food and uncomfortable seats. Now she was thirty-thousand feet in the air on the back of a dragon, with no seatbelts and no protection against the wind.
Still, riding on Dojo's back was pretty comfortable, if a bit scaly.
Dojo did not seem to enjoy carrying them across the world. "I can't believe I went from temple guardian to babysitter in less than a day!" he griped as the kids ignored him.
Valerie wished she had brought something to pass the time like Kimiko did. She was playing with some portable game player, and Omi was all over her trying to figure out what it was.
Valerie turned to the other boys behind her. "So, where you guys from?"
"Brazil," Raimundo answered.
"Texas," Clay said proudly, tilting his hat. "How about you?"
"Well, I'm Canadian, but I never really spent much time there."
"Really? Where'd you move to?" Raimundo asked, curious.
Valerie began to list the places. "First there was Spain, then Italy, then Germany, then Poland, then Russia, then France, and finally Switzerland. That's where I was contacted by the Temple."
The two boys gaped at her. "You've been everywhere," Clay said breathlessly.
Valerie shrugged. "I haven't been to either of the Americas, and this is my first time in any part of Asia," she said truthfully.
"What exactly do your parents do for a living?" Raimundo inquired.
Valerie was about to answer, but then Omi started telling Kimiko, "Look, my new little friend cooperates with me as I push the buttons." Kimiko must have given him her videogame to let him play, and now he was happily playing with it. At least until Raimundo pushed the off button, shutting off the game.
And then Omi began to cry big, fat tears of sorrow and began to scream, "Oh, the dark forces of evil! Pochi, are you in there? Can you hear the sound of my voice?"
Raimundo chuckled evilly until Kimiko punched him in the arm. "Don't mess with the monk!" she hissed before turning to comfort poor Omi.
"Girl, you hit hard," Raimundo said, rubbing his sore spot.
Valerie smacked him upside the head. "Don't you think that was a little uncalled for?"
"It was just a joke!"
"Yeah, a joke that made him cry. Those aren't funny." Valerie turned away from Raimundo as he rubbed his sore head, grumbling about the girls he had to deal with.
It wasn't long until Dojo landed near a busy street in a bustling city. Asian signs covered the place, and the street smelled of exhaust and the trash of open establishments. "A lot has changed in the last fifteen hundred years," Dojo said, his jaw dropping.
"So many buildings; so many people. What is this place?" Omi asked the others, since he never left the temple.
"San Francisco." Raimundo grinned at Valerie. "Welcome to America."
"We got a Mantis Flip Coin to find," said Kimiko, wanting to get down to business.
Dojo began to sniff the air. "It's close," he said. "Real close."
"Bow before me, citizens of planet Earth! I now rule you with the Mantis Flip Coin!" a pompous voice rang out in the alley where the Xiaolin Dragons were. Everyone turned to see a strangely dressed boy standing on a low roof top, decked out in: a black overcoat, black jeans, black combat boots, black fingerless gloves, and a funny-looking backpack strapped to him. He had unusually pale skin with mascara under his red eyes, and under his right eye he had drawn a single dark line down his cheek to make himself look evil. His yellow goggles were hidden in his dyed red hair, giving him a sort of steam punk look.
And most importantly? He had the Mantis Flip Coin, a red Chinese coin with gold markings, showing it off in his gloved hand. After shouting out the name, the boy jumped and did a flip in midair before he landed safely on the ground. He glared at the good guys.
"You cannot rule the Earth yet," a scary voice reminded him. A purple ghost appeared next to the Heylin boy, her hair looking like a squid. But her most noticeable feature was her mask, a white thing with evil red and black markings and large yellow eyes that could easily scare little kids.
"What do you mean?" the boy whined.
"You have but one Shen Gong Wu."
"Well, how many are there?"
"Hundreds!"
"Hundreds?!" the boy squeaked. "Okay, you're going to have to get solid and help me out here."
Omi calmly walked up to the Heylin boy and said, "Hello, friend. That coin is of great mystical importance. May we please have it?"
The Heylin boy laughed in the monk's face. "No way, Shorty. This Shen Gong Wu is mine!"
"How does he know about the Shen Gong Wu?" Raimundo asked no one in particular.
"How indeed?" the purple ghost mocked, appearing beside the bad guy evilly.
"Wuya?" Dojo exclaimed. "The years have not been kind to you."
"Mind your tongue, pest!" Wuya yelled at him. "Dashi isn't here to protect you!" As if to drive the point home, Dojo fled and slithered into Omi's robes. This must be a normal occurence, because Omi went on and pointed a righteous finger at Wuya.
"You cannot stop us."
"She can't," the bad guy said, "but I can. Jack-Bots, attack!" Pressing a command button on his watch, a bunch of bronze robots without legs or arms and slightly Roman facial features appeared, standing in the way of the good guys.
"Mince them," Jack ordered. Immediately, whirling shoulder blades appeared out of the robots shoulders, and they all went after the monks.
Fearlessly, Valerie punched one of the Jack-Bots and sent it back a little, but it still went after her. Undeterred, Valerie jumped into the air and spun around, kicking the head off the robot in one fell swoop. The others were doing the same to their opponents, though Clay was the only one to destroy a Jack-bot just by slamming into it.
The fight was over quickly, since there weren't many robots to fight. After the good guys turned the last of the robots into scrap metal, Jack complained to Wuya, "You didn't mention freaks in pajamas looking for the Shen Gong Wu!"
"Details!" Wuya scoffed. "You got the Flip Coin, now go!" Following her orders, two poles appeared out of Jack's backpack, and the blades spun around and lifted Jack in the air.
Omi immediately went after him, jumping on some more robots that Jack had sent at the last minute. Valerie kicked a hole through the torso of another robot. With difficulty, she shook it off and kicked it towards another robot, making both explode.
Valerie heard screaming behind her. She turned to see Raimundo dodge a Jack-bot that Kimiko had accidentally thrown his way. Clay, who hadn't noticed, didn't dodge in time. Valerie could only watch helplessly as Clay was thrown backwards into Omi, who was this close to catching Jack.
"A lesson for losers: never mess with Jack Spicer!" Jack laughed evilly as he flew away with the Mantis Flip Coin.
"Please remove your gigantic self from being on top of my body," Omi pleaded as he struggled to get out from under Clay's legs.
"Well, sorry there, little buddy," Clay apologized as he got off of Omi.
Put Omi wasn't putting up with any of it. "Because of you four, we have lost a Shen Gong Wu!"
"Dude, it was a coin," Valerie pointed out unhelpfully.
"A magical coin! Do you not understand?"
"Apparently not," Valerie muttered under her breath. Truthfully, she did understand that the Shen Gong Wu had super amazing magical powers, but the Mantis Flip Coin only allowed people to do a flip in midair. That one didn't seem very important.
"The more Shen Gong Wu Wuya possesses, the stronger she is!" Omi went on like he hadn't heard what Valerie said.
"We're sorry, Omi," Kimiko said.
"We'll try better next time," Clay tried to appease the monk.
"Next time is now," Dojo said, tugging Omi's sleeve like a small child. "I'm sensing another Shen Gong Wu!"
"Let's see what we got." Kimiko got the Ancient Scroll out of her white kitty face backpack and unrolled it.
"The Two-Ton Tunic; aw, I remember that," Dojo said wistfully. "It was Dashi's invulnerable armor," he continued as the scroll showed a man using the tunic to shield himself from arrows.
"Excellent!" Kimiko cheered. "Spicer better watch his back, because this one is ours!"
"The Two-Ton Tunic is mine!" Jack Spicer cheered as he held the tan cloth in his hands.
"Not so fast!" Raimundo cried as he and Clay ran after him on the docks of Venice. To dodge, Jack fell backward into a gondola, accidentally tripping on his own feet and letting go of the shirt as he plunged into the boat. The boat glided across the water as the Xiaolin monks claimed their prize.
"Finally, the Two-Ton Tunic is mine!" Omi held the shirt over his head like a trophy, smirking triumphantly.
"Better not count your chickens before they hatch," Clay told him as Jack-Bots appeared to assimilate them.
"A fearsome fight, but they are no match for the Two-Ton Tunic!" Omi pulled the shirt over him just as it became armor. It was far too big and heavy for Omi, and the dock couldn't hold his weight. With a shake, the dock fell, everybody getting soaked in the process.
"It's not the way Grand Master Dashi would have done it, but you're still learning," Dojo tried to comfort the soaking wet Dragons as he flew through the sky towards the next Shen Gong Wu.
Omi, sitting apart from the rest, admonished, "I do not wish to speak of the failures of me or my students. I just want to find the next Shen Gong Wu."
"Which is?" Valerie asked Kimiko, who held the Ancient Scroll.
"The Eye of Dashi," Kimiko announced.
"I reckon it shoots lightning something fierce," Clay explained as the moving picture showed just that.
The location for the Eye of Dashi was in a mountainous area, full of trees and flowers and sylvan creatures. "My kind of place," Clay said approvingly.
"Are you kidding?" Kimiko complained. "I can't even get a signal here."
Raimundo was holding Dojo like a tracker, pointing him in every which direction. "If I were a lightning shooting Shen Gong Wu, where would I be?" he muttered as he did so.
"Close," said Dojo. "Very close."
Everyone walked around, searching for any sign of Jack or mystical energy running loose. And then Omi spotted it, hanging by a thin rope on a giant elm tree. It was diamond shaped with a single red ruby in the middle.
Omi immediately went after it, and just as he grabbed it, Jack Spicer appeared out of nowhere, grabbing it at the same time. "Sorry, monk boy! The Eye of Dashi is mine."
The two began to have a tug war over it, and then the Wu began to glow. "Hey, what's with the glowing?" Jack inquired. Omi stared wide-eyed at the artifact.
"It…is a Xiaolin Showdown."
"It's a what now?" Raimundo asked Dojo.
"A Xiaolin Showdown; it's what two warriors do when there's a stalemate over a Shen Gong Wu," the dragon explained. "Two words: Frea-ky."
"Jack Spicer, I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown!" Omi declared. "I wager my Two-Ton Tunic against your Mantis Flip Coin." He pointed to a little stone path a ways from the elm tree. "Whoever reaches the last stone first wins the Eye of Dashi and the other Shen Gong Wu as well."
"Accept the challenge!" Wuya ordered, hanging around Jack's shoulder like the devil's advocate. "Accept it!"
Jack, who had hesitated before, was now determined. "I accept your challenge, Omi."
"Let's go: Xiaolin Showdown!" And with that, a bright light covered everything, and the earth shifted beneath, rearranging itself to fit the challenges' needs. The simple stones became giant pillars in the sky, overseeing the white clouds. The Eye of Dashi was hovering against the final stone like a tantalizing prize.
"I did not expect this," Omi thought out loud, beginning to freak out. Suddenly Dojo slithered out of the Two-Ton Tunic's shirt form.
"That's a Xiaolin Showdown for you; always leaves you guessing. GONG YE TAN PAI!" he suddenly shouted, his voice carrying into the wind.
Jack and Omi stared at Dojo. "That means go."
"How am I supposed to do this?" Jack asked, since this was also his first Showdown.
"Use the Shen Gong Wu!" Wuya reminded him.
"Oh yeah. Mantis Flip Coin!" And Jack was off, jumping and doing flips in the air as he safely landed on the stone path.
"Two-Ton Tunic!" Omi cried, the fabric becoming too large armor and making the boy land on his back.
The others were watching from the sidelines, on a rocky cliff far away from the match. The wind whipped Valerie's hair to and fro, making her wish she had put it in a braid, or at least a ponytail.
"You know what I just realized?" Raimundo said suddenly. "Master Fug never did answer my question about the bed."
"Yeah, because that totally matters right now." Valerie turned her attention to Omi trapped in the tunic. "Kick Spicer's butt, Omi!"
As if he heard her, Omi picked himself up and jumped heavily onto the next stone, slowly but surely making his way towards the end.
But Jack Spicer was too far ahead and he actually took the time to cheat. Two Jack-Bots appeared, aiming their deadly blades at Omi. Omi looked hopeless in that situation, but then he suddenly body slammed into one of them, throwing his weight around.
"That's how you do it!" Clay cheered him on.
The other robot neared Omi, but instead of body slamming it, Omi crept out of the armor through a sleeve and attached himself to the Jack-Bot. "Always honor the power of the off switch!" he announced as the robot powered down. Before the robot fell to oblivion, Omi jumped back into the Two-Ton Tunic.
"Don't mess with the monk!" cried Kimiko.
Jack, who had just been standing there watching Omi defeat his cheat code, decided that fun time was over and that he needed to finish the race. But Omi had almost caught up with him; he was literally one step away from Jack.
"It is best not to patronize people, Jack Spicer!" Omi yelled out.
"Nice work, Omi!" Valerie shouted, happy that Omi had listened to her.
With one last effort, Omi launched himself at Jack, only to fall at his feet because of the tunic. "Now maybe you should respect the genius of Jack Spicer!" Jack said arrogantly, throwing his head back and laughing.
"Respect this!" And down went Jack's pants, revealing pink boxers with yellow smiley faces on them. As Jack tried to tug them back up, Omi went past him and grabbed the Eye of Dashi.
With another blinding light, the earth returned to normal, with Omi standing triumphantly with three trophies on his person. "That was sweet!" Kimiko cheered as the good guys ran up to Omi.
"You done a good day's round up there, partner," said Clay.
"I really liked that thing," Raimundo said, pointing to the tunic. "What's it called again?"
"The Two-Ton Tunic!" Omi yelled, accidentally making the shirt become armor again. He fell over due to the weight.
"I gotcha," Raimundo said, picking him back up, and everybody laughed at Omi's blunder-even Omi.
Back at the Temple
Everyone had been given their official monk uniforms: the guys got red v-neck shirts with black sashes at their waists, white pants and black Chinese slippers. The girls got red v-neck dresses with slits up to the thighs with black sashes and black slippers like the boys, only the girls had to wear tights underneath. Valerie chose the blue-black kind she had seen in that ink drawing, and she had put her long hair in a braid. Kimiko had chosen white stockings, and Valerie had been surprised to see that the earlier blonde hair had just been a wig; Kimiko had natural black hair put into pigtails with red ribbons, which made her seem extremely adorable.
All the new monks were in the red circular room with blue adornments and Chinese potted plants placed strategically around them, listening to Master Fung. "I say they did exceptionally well, wouldn't you agree, Dojo?"
Dojo, who was lying in a self-made hammock between some plants, said, "Eh, they weren't bad for amateurs."
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step," Master Fung remarked wisely.
"Where do you get this stuff?"
"I have a desk."
"Master Fung," Omi said sadly, "there are so many Shen Gong Wu left to be found."
"You're new friends will help you," Master Fung said comfortingly.
"Oh, yes, I have already taught them so much!"
"But Omi," exclaimed Master Fung, "they are here to teach you!"
Omi looked around at his friends like he couldn't believe it. "But, Master, I am the chosen one!"
"But you aren't the only chosen one, Omi. Someday, your friends may become dragons as well." He began to list them one by one. "Kimiko, the Dragon of Fire. Clay, the Dragon of Earth. Valerie, the Dragon of Aether. Raimundo, Dragon of the Wind."
"Is…this true?" Omi still couldn't believe it.
"Yes," Master Fung said, "but I didn't want to tell you until you were ready."
Omi fainted, falling on his back.
"I don't think he was ready," Clay stated the obvious.
Like I said, it follows the episode. But I added my own bits of humor, so it's not bad in my opinion.
Also, I'm making Valerie stupidly fearless. I plan on showing off how overly confident she really is. It's supposed to be her tragic flaw. Hopefully it'll work out.