2. Xiaolin Dragons
A good distance away, set at the base of a towering, snow-capped mountain range in rural China, sat the ancient temple of the Xiaolin Monks. Having long since strayed from the immensely rigid, old-fashion system of perpetual training and mediating and sipping tea on a little mat, the temple had been nothing short of a playground for its four star student for a few years.
Actually, its only students.
Though the four were a little less childish by the time this story commences, they were still, nonetheless, teenagers. In fact, the prefrontal lobes of the three boys' brains wouldn't fully develop until the age of twenty-five.
And their names were Clay, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Omi. Don't laugh. The Xiaolin Temple believed in politically correct diversity, another trait recently developed in this modern age. Fifteen hundred years ago, they wouldn't have so much as breathed the same air of anyone who was anything other than mid to upper class Chinese male.
But, there they were, in the modern day.
"But it's my turn to play!" Raimundo whined. He was the Brazilian of the group, an avid soccer player (what the heck else?), and the recently promoted Dragon of Wind.
"No way, Rai!" Kimiko snapped back. "You played all day yesterday!"
"But you own the game, girl! I want to play!"
Kimiko, something of an over-privileged Japanese valley girl, was the Dragon of Fire, and her new Game Sphere was a much fought-over pass time amongst the monks.
"It is MY turn to play!" Omi cried out, shaking his fists in the air. "I haven't got to play at all yet."
"Hold yer horses, little fella," Clay said in his Texan accent that leaned each word against the next. "It's not goin' anywhere."
Omi, the Dragon of Water, was…extremely Chinese. Clay, the polar opposite of Omi and the Dragon of Earth, was…extremely Texan. Not American, that's too broad: Texan. Only, he had no international oil shares.
"All right, Omi, it's your turn," Kimiko said after a moment more. "Here's how you play. This thing here is the console and the controller, so don't drop it or anything. Move your character around by tilting it like this, jump by shaking it once like this, and some of the other action buttons are under your fingers on both sides."
"It's like the orb of tornami," Omi commented as he picked up the Game Sphere.
"Only your little hands barely fit around this one," Rai commented sarcastically.
"Do not insult my hands," Omi snapped, concentrating on the screen. "There is much power in my fists!"
Raimundo rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, whatever." And he wandered away.
Of the four Xiaolin Monks, each had, in his or her own unusual or unfortunate way, seen the world from behind evil eyes at least once in the past; Clay, when an evil earwig possessed him for a time and refused to leave until Clay couldn't stand on his own two feet; Kimiko, during a showdown when she repeatedly entered and exited the Ying Yang world and switched from good to evil countless times; Raimundo, when he joined the Haylin side in a fit of rejection and desperation; And Omi, when he was tricked over to the ways of evil and temporarily caused the world to fall into darkness. By now, the four were well accustomed to the fact that, if they messed up, the word would fall into darkness. How the entire planet so frequently rested on their four shoulders was a complete mystery, but, as one can imagine, it did remarkable things to each of their egos.
Standing in the open air of the temple, Raimundo took a deep breath and glanced up at the sky. The evening was wearing on, but it was still light enough out. In fact, it was light enough out to see a high-speed jet- just a speck in the sky- gradually flying in large laps overhead.
"That…doesn't look like Spicer's jet," Rai commented. "It looks like one of those things they fly in the military." He cocked his head to the side and decided to investigate.
"Dragon's Wake!" he cried out to help initiate the change into the Dragon of Wind. In a whirl of white wind he became a streak of air and flew into the sky. The trail he left formed what looked like the long, sinuous body of a dragon, Raimundo's transparent form the head.
The Dragon of Wind spiraled into the sky and, as the ground shrunk away as though in fright, he neared the guest jet within moments. Becoming a completely invisible, but not undetectable, wind, Rai went right up to the cockpit window and peered inside. The interior was no different from any other jet, and the pilot had nothing conspicuously sinister about her, almost to Raimundo's disappointment.
Suddenly, a little red light flickered on the cockpit display board, followed by a few other little lights. The pilot, face hidden behind a full oxygen mask and visor-adorned helmet, looked up sharply, directly at Raimundo.
"No way!" Rai shouted, backing away from the jet immediately. "There's no way she could have seen me!" But, within moments, Rai realized that she had just looked through him, not at him, as she scanned the sky all around. The pilot punched a button on the dashboard, for lack of proper terminology, but the little lights persisted. She mashed a few more buttons and flipped a switch on and off, all with no effect. Rai chuckled as she smashed a fist on the display, but he- and she, too, probably- was surprised with this little fit actually did the trick.
The jet suddenly changed into its version of the next gear up and barrel-rolled away, leaving Raimundo in its figurative dust.
"That was weird," Rai muttered as he returned to the ground within the temple.
"What was?" Dojo, the resident dragon, asked.
"Someone was flying a jet in circles over the temple," Raimundo explained. "But, they were probably just lost."
"Or out sight-seeing," Dojo suggested, somewhat sarcastically since, "thousands of feet up is an inconvenient place to look for the scenic routes. Believe me, I know."
Omi emerged from the temple then, almost a shadow in the dimming light, and glanced about until he spotted Rai.
"Oh, Raimundo! There you are. Come quickly. Master Fung wants to speak with all the Dragons."
"'Kay, be right there," Rai called over. He took one last glance up at the sky, but the jet was long since gone.
Gathered in a room with the Temple's distinct red screen walls and maroon pillars, the four Dragons stood waiting in their formal red robes. It was night, so the round paper lanterns and tall, bowl-shaped braziers were lit.
"Now that you are each full a Dragon of your element," Master Fung began, "you have almost completed your training."
"Almost!" Kimiko exclaimed. "I thought we were done! Isn't that why Master Monk Guan sent us back here?"
Master Fung slowly raised one eyebrow. A thought to the effect of, 'When will they learn to wait until I finish?' scrolled through his head, but he maintained his aplomb.
"As I was saying, you have not quite yet completed your training. As Dragons, the quest for perfection will never cease, but you still have one task remaining that will arm you with the abilities to strive for that perfection."
He paused for a moment to let each Dragon puzzle over what this final challenge could be. Was it a long, solitary journey, entirely on foot? Was there some overwhelming battle they must engage in? Did they have to finally defeat Chase Young, or was there a new threat of which they were unaware?"
"You finally test will be the most difficult of all. You will receive no assistance, guidance, or even advice whatsoever. You four all entirely on your own."
He paused again, and the monks nearly screamed under the pressure of curiosity.
"You must mentor and train a new Xiaolin Monk, from Novice, through to Apprentice, Wu-Dai, and Dragon."
There was silence from the monks for a moment, until Clay said what they were all thinking.
"That's the hardest final test you could think of?"
Master Fung sighed and thought back over the long, arduous process of raising monks.
"Surely, you don't think it will be easy, do you?"
Raimundo laughed out loud.
"Are you kinnin'? It'll be a piece of cake! We have his Xiaolin Monk thing down forwards and backwards!"
"Yeah, we know what we're doing," Kimiko added. "The four of us combined will be able the train the best monk ever!"
"Yes, and my superior leadership abilities will surely give this new Xiaolin monk much wisdom in the ways of the martial arts. When will we meet him?"
Master Fung kept his thoughts to himself again.
"The new trainee will arrive tomorrow."