A/N: This is taking longer than expected to get done, so I thought I'd go ahead and post chapter four. So far I have up to chapter 8 finished, so it shouldn't take that much longer for me to write the rest. Hope you guys enjoy :) All comments are appreciated!
-=-0-=-
Kurama was between the girl and his cousin in a second, his hand already reaching into his hair. He could sense Hiei in the trees nearby. He would have aid if he needed it. She stopped in her tracks, looking at him with wide eyes. Her worried expression quickly turned into anger.
"Who are you?" she asked, dropping into a fighting stance.
Kurama didn't move from his protective crouch as he answered. "I don't really think that's any of your business."
"Get away from Jack!"
"No, I don't think I will. Instead, I believe you and your," he glanced over the group of teens standing not far off, "friends will be leaving now."
She stepped forward, reaching into her belt for a weapon. Kurama's rose whip was out in a second. If she came one more step, he would make sure that she would have no chance to hurt his cousin again. She pulled out some strange object- an amplifier for her power if he had to guess- and his grip on his own weapon tightened.
Of course, that was when Yusuke gracelessly burst out of the bushes. Not a second after he came to a stop, Kuwabara ran into his back, bowling them both over.
"Kuwabara what the hell?" Yusuke shouted.
"Don't blame me Urameshi! Why the hell did you stop all of the sudden?"
Kurama hadn't moved or taken his eyes off of his perceived enemy while they were busy yelling at each other.
"Kurama, what's goin' on?" Kuwabara asked, noticing the serious atmosphere and getting to his feet next to Yusuke.
"Kuwabara, if you could be so kind as to check on Jack, I'd appreciate it."
Kuwabara ran forward, careful to avoid any of the combatants as he went to Jack. He kneeled beside him and checked what he could see of his wounds without trying to move him.
"It's not looking good Kurama. I think we can move him but we need to treat these burns fast."
"Get him out of here," Kurama said, "I'll keep these people busy and meet you back at base."
Kuwabara nodded and carefully gathered the smaller teen in his arms. He tried to avoid pressing against any of his wounds as he lifted him up. He wasn't sure if he was successful, but couldn't take the time to actually check. He wished a little in that moment that he had Yukina's ice powers. They would've been helpful here.
He turned to leave, only to find a small bald child in his path.
"What are your intentions toward Jack Spicer?"
"Look, kid. I'm sorry but I don't have the time to answer questions."
Kuwabara kept walking, going around the boy so he could get a move on. In a flash of red and yellow, the kid was in front of him again.
"Where are you going with Jack Spicer?"
"Kid, seriously, get outta my way."
"As a Xiaolin Warrior, it is my duty to protect. Even if Spicer is my enemy, I cannot let you leave with him!"
"I don't care what you are, I-"
"This is taking too long," said Yusuke suddenly. Faster than Kuwabara's eyes could track, the kid was launched across the clearing.
"Urameshi! You can't just kick little kids around!" he yelled.
"It's a little late for that, don't ya think?" Yusuke said, putting his foot back down and looking bored, "Anyway, looks like things are gonna get interesting here. You might want to get going."
Kuwabara spared a glance to the side and saw that the other guys in the clearing appeared to be drawing weaponry. Any other day, he'd be jumping for a fight, but with Kurama's small cousin looking worse and worse in his arms, he couldn't afford to mess around.
"Fine! But I'm not doing it because you told me to, okay." he snapped.
"Sure, sure," Urameshi said, an insufferable smirk on his face. Kuwabara dearly wished he could flip him off.
Kuwabara took his leave, trusting his teammates to have his back.
-=-1-=-
Kimiko tried not to yell as Omi crashed into the ground across the clearing. Temporarily distracted, she didn't even notice the guy carrying Jack had run off. She drew her Star Hanabi, ready to take out the redhead between her and her youngest teammate.
"Omi! Are you okay?" she shouted, simultaneously launching a fireball at the man in front of her.
She moved to get past him, but he intercepted her with his own weapon- some sort of whip. She ended up with a stinging hand for her trouble. Her eyes returned to her opponent.
"Get out of my way!"
"I really don't see why I should."
She scowled.
"Look," she said, "I don't know what you're doing with Jack but I don't want anything to do with it, okay. I've already won the wu- unless you're going to fight me for it, you should just leave me alone!"
"Oh no, I'm not interested in that." he said, his voice sounding oddly sinister, "I'm interested in why you were standing over my little cousin who just happened to be burnt near to a crisp. Isn't it interesting how you seem to have fire abilities?"
Kimiko shivered. He didn't even seem angry, his face was completely neutral, but somehow that made him more intimidating.
"You're related?" she squeaked
"Quite." he said, and suddenly she was dodging a swipe from his weapon.
"Wait! Jack challenged me for it and I won it-" she stopped to avoid another swing. "I swear I didn't mean to hurt him that badly!"
"It's a shame that you did, then." he said, not stopping his attacks for a second.
Kimiko kept dodging and launching balls of fire, hoping to find an opportunity to get further away from him. She was only barely keeping up as it was. Still, she was worried about her friend.
"Omi!" she shouted, "Please tell me you're okay!"
A blast of water suddenly hit the back of her opponent, "I am fine Kimiko, do not worry yourself."
She sighed in relief at the sight of him, only to yelp a second later as she was caught and wrapped with the whip. She tried to struggle but ended up cutting herself on the thorns intertwined with the ties.
"I'd suggest not moving around too much." the redhead said plainly, looking smug.
Spitting with anger in a second, she set fire to the whip.
By the time it was burned off and she was ready to fight the guy, he was already gone. Omi had been similarly trapped but hadn't managed to get loose yet. She moved into a defensive stance and checked the clearing but it was all clear. With her mouth set into a frustrated scowl, she moved to burn an opening into Omi's bonds.
She moved to the other side of the clearing, checking on Clay and Raimundo. They'd obviously also had the crap kicked out of them. At least they looked mostly fine- a little bit bruised, sure, but not otherwise harmed.
Raimundo was fuming though. "I can't believe that guy! He was just playing around with us."
Clay nodded along. "Rude as a snake tryin' ta keep ya from the hens, I'd say."
"If you say so, man." Raimundo said.
"We need to tell master Fung about this," Dojo interrupted them.
"Hey! Where were you during all that?" Kimiko asked.
"I'm delicate, okay? You can't expect me to get involved in a fight like that!"
-=-2-=-
After Jack was taken care of, Kurama called his group together for a meeting. Jack was pretty severely burned. His injuries were bad enough that Kurama had needed to use some demonic plants to make a healing salve just to keep from having to take him to the hospital. He and Kuwabara had bandaged his wounds and made sure he was stable before doing anything else.
Kurama had found it hard to leave his side, but he had other things to do. After all, their strange encounter with those uniformed children needed discussing. His team met in the kitchen and he made them tea while he thought about what to say.
"Those children," he began, "have obviously been trained."
"Yeah," said Yusuke, "they're weak as hell, but they know how to fight."
"Indeed. They are well versed in martial arts, at the very least." said Kurama, thinking back on the fighting style the girl had displayed. "They also had some strange weaponry- I believe that girl called them 'wu'? They seemed more like power enhancers than anything."
Hiei, crouched in his chair at the far end of the table, finally spoke up, "The ningen seemed to think you were a challenger."
Kurama nodded.
"Yes. She said she'd already defeated Jack, and seemed to think I should challenge her for the 'wu' or leave.
I think that before we do anything, we should find out who is training them and what their agenda is."
"Look, I don't see why we don't just kick their asses and tell them not to screw around with the kid. Seems simple enough to me."
"Yusuke, now is not the time to run around starting fights. We need to think about the mission."
"Exactly! So let's show 'em who's boss now so we don't have to worry about them messing with us later."
"Well, uh..." Kuwabara interrupted, shifting in his seat, "That one kid- the little one- said he was a 'show-lin warrior' or something."
"Thank you, Kuwabara. So at least we have an idea of what kind of group they're a part of." He went quiet for a moment. "They seemed to know Jack well. He probably has more information on them."
He stopped and took a sip of his tea, thinking on what to do.
"Kuwabara," he said finally, "could you go keep an eye on Jack and tell us when he wakes up?"
"Yeah, of course."
Kuwabara stood and left the room. Kurama didn't have to look to know that Hiei had also taken his leave. He took another long drink of tea, pointedly not looking at Yusuke. He waited
"What was that all about Kurama? You seemed pretty protective of the kid earlier. Why're you backing out on him now?" There it was.
"Yusuke, I am not feeling any less protective about Jack than I was earlier," he said, "I just think, considering what our mission is here, that this isn't a coincidence."
"You think they're the kids we're supposed to be looking for here?"
"You have to admit, Yusuke, it's strange that we found a group of children with such unique weapons in this location. That description fits what were sent here for."
"They ain't exactly little kids, Kurama- they knew exactly what they were doing. I'm not seeing why we're not kicking the crap out of them already."
"Before we make any moves, we need to know what we're dealing with. I don't plan on running in blind."
"Fine." Yusuke said. He obviously still thought he was correct about the whole thing. Kurama didn't see fit to disillusion him just yet. He knew to pick his battles, especially with Yusuke.
-=-3-=-
Jack rolled over in his bed, not happy with having woken up. He hissed as he managed to jar an injury on his arm. Ugh, waking up after a fight was the worst.
He should get up, he was pretty sure. No one was around to stop him from sleeping in, but he liked to get work done. A moment later he remembered his cousin and his friends were at his house and frowned to himself, giving a small grumble of annoyance. He didn't want to deal with guests right now.
His eyes snapped open as the fight with the Xiaolin Dragons came back to him. He blinked a couple of times, his eyes far too dry, and tried to remember how he'd gotten home. Biting his lip, he flipped onto his back and ran a hand through his unruly hair. Surely the monks had bandaged him up and brought him home. There was no other way that he could've gotten home after that. He was in his own room, so someone had to have put him there. He just wished he could remember what had happened.
Honestly, he was embarrassed. He couldn't believe he had slipped up like that and let himself pass out. Those losers had probably ended up having to take pity on him again and drag him home. He couldn't imagine what must be going through Shuuichi's mind right now. His younger cousin ran off with no warning and had to be brought back beaten and bandaged by a weird as hell group of teenagers. That would look bad to anybody.
He pulled his covers over his face, giving himself a moment to whine and complain. He didn't really want to get up and deal with the mess his life was right now. He knew he'd have to eventually though and putting it off wouldn't change that.
He sat up and pushed his blanket down. He'd barely gotten his feet on the ground when his door burst open. He looked up with wide eyes.
"What are you doing?" he managed to say.
Kuwabara looked at him with a bewildered expression on his face.
"What are you doing?" he said, "You shouldn't be trying to get on your feet when you're hurt that bad."
"This?" Jack looked at his bandaged chest. Yeah, it wasn't pretty, but it wasn't anything he hadn't dealt with before. "I'm not seeing the problem here."
Kuwabara frowned at him. He looked a little disturbed, actually. Jack frowned right back. He wasn't sure what exactly was going on here.
"Look, just lay down. I'll be right back, okay?"
Kuwabara closed the door behind himself. Feeling a little wary now, Jack settled back into bed, pulling his blankets back up. He made sure they could be thrown if he needed to get up quickly. He liked to think ahead like that.
When Kuwabara did come back, he brought Shuuichi and Yusuke with him. Jack, who had been on the verge of falling back to sleep, was alert almost instantly. This felt like an ambush- like all of them were suddenly ganging up on him. Before they even spoke, he was tense and struggling not to bolt.
"Uh. I brought you a glass of water." said Kuwabara. He set the glass on the bedside table beside Jack and then got out of his space. Jack didn't bother drinking any.
"What's going on?" Jack asked, trying not to show how suspicious he was with the situation.
Kuwabara leaned against the wall and Yusuke stayed where he was, blocking the door. Shuuichi pulled a chair from his desk and brought it over towards the bed. He took a seat.
"We have some questions, Jack," said Shuuichi. He sounded oddly gentle about it, but that only served to raise Jack's suspicions.
He chose to keep silent, his hands tightening on the blanket.
"We… saw some things and wanted to ask you about them."
Jack's heart sank. His mind scrambled to try and remember if he'd seen them back when he'd gone to get the wu. He couldn't remember them being there at all. They- they probably hadn't seen anything, he tried to reason.
"Oh?" he said. His voice was a little weaker than he would like. He cleared his throat.
"Yes." Shuuichi folded his hands in his lap, "What, exactly, is a wu?"
Jack froze, his eyes wide. He stared at his cousin. He had to take a moment to recover before he spoke.
"You… how much did you see?"
Shuuichi's brows rose. Jack knew he was caught. His eyes moved to stare down at his own hands. He stayed silent, fiddling with his thumbs.
"Jack."
"They're… hard to explain. You're going to think I'm crazy."
"After what we saw, I'm fairly certain nothing you say will surprise us."
Jack winced and bit his lip.
"Well, first of all, they're called shen gong wu. I found out about them a couple years ago..."
-=-4-=-
When Jack was done explaining, Kurama stood. He left the chair where it was.
"Thank you cousin." He looked to his friends and motioned them out. "I think we need some time to process this. You should try to get some rest."
He stepped out, closing the door gently behind him. He stood there for a moment and tried to gather his thoughts. Carefully, he pushed a seed into the lock of the door. He felt a little bad, growing one of his plants in there, but it would notify him if his cousin left the room. Jack wouldn't be able to get out and put himself in more danger without Kurama knowing about it.
Downstairs, Yusuke and Kuwabara had already found seats. He sat down and waited for Hiei to make his appearance. It didn't take long.
"I'm going to call Koenma. Hiei, will you join me?"
"Hn."
He stepped out of the house. When they were a good distance into the surrounding forest, he spoke.
"Hiei, I would like it if you would observe these Xiaolin Dragons." He turned to his friend. "Return in a week with a report."
"I don't do your bidding, fox," said Hiei, but he was smiling- well, one end of his mouth was twitched up, but with Hiei, those were one in the same. Kurama gave him a small smile back, before turning back to the forest. Hiei was gone into the branches above as soon as he'd averted his eyes. Kurama knew he'd do as he had asked.
That taken care of, he leaned against a tree and pulled out his communicator. He snapped it open and dialed.
Koenma's childish face appeared on the screen. After a moment, the crackling speakers came to life with a small voice.
"Kurama? I hadn't expected to hear from you so soon."
Kurama smiled and answered the unspoken question, "Something came up."
He didn't bother with pleasantries, instead going straight into his report.
"We've run into a group that call themselves the Xiaolin Dragons. They were in pursuit of an object called a shen gong wu. I suspect they are the children we were sent to investigate. I've sent Hiei to observe them and gather information. I wanted to let you know what we've found and see if there were further orders."
Koenma looked taken aback. "You appear to be handling things quite well, Kurama. I'm impressed."
"You expected less?" Kurama raised an eyebrow.
"No, no!" said Koenma, waving a hand, "I just meant that I didn't expect this search to go so quickly."
"We don't know yet if they're the right people."
"No, but it is a solid lead."
Kurama nodded his assent.
"I think I'll leave you to it. Call me if anything else comes up, will you?"
"Indeed."
Kurama snapped the communicator shut and sighed.
He was glad that the job wouldn't take so long, but at the same time…
Well, he couldn't look after his little cousin forever, could he?
-=-5-=-
Urameshi was in one of his moods. Kuwabara didn't really want to get in a fight at the moment, too worried about what poor Jack was feeling. They'd gone in and cornered the kid, and while he knew they had to do it, he still felt bad. He quietly left the room.
Maybe he should check on him?
He went upstairs and knocked on Jack's door. No response. Carefully, he eased the door open, a question on his lips. He stopped before he even began. Jack was asleep.
Kuwabara shrugged, turned off the light and quietly shut the door.
Maybe he should go see about a spar with Urameshi after all…
