Chapter Five

Kim's POV

I flew through the air, narrowly dodging a giant boulder sent hurdling towards me. Once my feet were planted on the ground, I leapt into the air again. Fire burst from my finger tips as I shot my element out in tiny fire balls aimed at my opponent. He brought up a rock shield just in time to block my fire attack before sending his shield flying at me. I brought my hands out in front of me and burst through the rock by sending a massive swirl of fire through it. Rocks and fire rained down upon the battlefield, our eyes locked in combat. We readied our fighter stances, and prepared to charge before the gong rang.

Whew. Lunch time! Good thing too, my wounds were starting to throb slightly from the previous day, but I wasn't going to let it show. I walked gracefully over to Clay, my opponent, and gave him a high five.

"Nice tranin' lil' missy. Your getting' better every minute." Clay beamed down at me. I managed a small smile, but it didn't touch my eyes. The boys had been exceptionally nice to me lately. They kept my spirits up and tried not to say anything to upset me. I appreciated it but my spirits still weren't very ecstatic about the whole situation. I was tired of whining though, I was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. Be a big girl.

We all sat down at our regular spots and began devouring the food before us. Master Fung was working us harder than before, which left us exhausted and famished. We sat in silence, engulfed so much in our hunger that we didn't notice Master Fung walk in. He cleared his throat and we dropped our chopsticks, straightening up from our slouches and looked up at him. To our surprise, he was smiling. We all glanced at each other with the same, slightly shocked expressions. We hadn't seen him crack even the tiniest smile in at least two weeks. What was up?

"Young monks," Did his voice sound a little off, or was that just me? "You have been working very rigorously, so you may have the rest of the week off. Enjoy." He turned and walked out. We all stared after him, dumbfounded. We slowly turned our gazes to each other, too confused to speak. Of course Omi was the first to break the silence.

"He must be joking! We only have two weeks, and he gives us a week off! He has clearly lost his conscious!"

"Mind, little dude, and cheese ball's right! Something's up." Raimundo's thoughtful face slowly turned into a mischievous grin. "That doesn't mean we can't figure it out later... After we've had little bit of relaxing time though." He beamed.

"What!" Omi looked like he was about to blow a gasket! "We need all the training we can get! Kimiko is nowhere near prepared for this! Look how weak she is!" He grabbed my rest from the table and let my arm dangle there for a second before letting it drop to the table again. "We must prepare her!"

By now I was used to his stupid little comments about my being a girl, so I just rolled my eyes. "Not that I'm agreeing with Omi that I'm weak or anything..." I shot a flicker of fire at his robes and he scrambled out of his chair onto the floor. "But he is right; we can't even waste a day. This is huge Raimundo."

"Ai guys, calm down. Just like an hour or two, then we can confront Master Fung about it. When's the last time we even had five minutes of free time? Clay, when's the last time you got to carve a little wooden figurine thing?" Clay grunted and looked down at the table. "Omi, when was the last time you got to play Goo Zombies?" Omi huffed and crossed his arms, still not happy about this. "And Kimiko, when was the last time you got to check your emails, or texts?" I grimaced, knowing Keiko and my dad would be worried after my weeks of non-replies. "Come on guys, just an hour, and then we'll meet at the training grounds to figure out what's up." He grinned again before standing up.

Clay and I looked at each other and shrugged. One hour didn't seem too bad. Omi mumbled something incoherent before stomping out the door. We all set out down different hallways to enjoy our one hour of free time. The thoughts I had been suppressing came creeping up into my mind, but I pushed them back. One hour won't kill me. I knew I could pass the tests; it's the things afterwards I didn't know if I could handle.

I settled down onto my mat in my tiny cubicle, dusting off my lap top while checking my cell phone messages. It was nice to catch up with all of Keiko's gossip and Dad's business schemes. It made me feel more relaxed than ever. I really needed this relaxation time. After I emailed and messaged them back, I stretched and looked around my room. My trunk with all my regular clothes in it hadn't been touched for weeks. I had had to wear my training robes every day, then, too exhausted to change at night, I slept in them too. I grimaced and looked down at myself. When was the last time I'd taken a shower? I stopped counting after I passed two days and quickly gathered my toiletries before heading off for the bathroom.

The scorching fire felt nice, relaxed my muscles, washed away every thought and fear, and just surrounded me in a blanket of peace. I bandaged the claw marks around my stomach and wrapped my shoulder up as well. They didn't hurt as bad as they looked, and really only my shoulder wound hurt. I wrapped a towel around my body before drying my hair and applying some make up. I cracked the door open and glanced down the long hallways to make sure no one was there before darting for my room. I reached the curtain and yanked it back. I small yelp escaped my lips and my cheeks burned with embarrassment.

"Um," I quickly hid behind my curtain, too embarrassed to wonder why someone was in my room. "S-sorry Master Fung, I didn't know you were-" I abruptly stopped mid-sentence and smacked my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Master Fung quickly changed into an all-too-familiar robot before my eyes. I should have known that's what was going on. How could Chase think we would be fooled by this? I quickly scrambled into a fighter stance, but had to keep one hand firmly gripping the top of my towel so it didn't fall. That was going to be a problem, but I kept my focus on the robot before me. It grinned evilly before a strange purple gas began to fill the small space of my room. I gasped and tried to make a mad dash for it, but it extended one of its long arms and grabbed a hold of my waist, and pulled me back into the cubicle.

I tried to scream but its other hand covered my mouth. I thrashed against it, but I could feel the noxious gasses power starting to take a toll on me. Soon my hard, fire filled punches and kicks turned to feeble smacks, and I felt my body droop in its arms before sliding into unconsciousness.

Again the thoughts sprang as soon as my mind became unclouded, and I succumbed to their power. I shut the fearful thoughts out though. They were stupid and childish. Of course I was going to do this. Do it, and marry evil. Don't do it, and die? Not such a hard choice. It just wasn't fair! I scowled at myself and tried to let my mind wonder, but soon it began to fill with light, and I slowly opened my eyes.

Light came too fast and I blinked furiously to try and get rid of the black splotches obscuring my vision. I sat up and immediately regretted it. My body swayed sideways and my stomached lurched. I fell back against the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. The noxious fumes still had me a little dizzy, and nauseous. I slowly sat up, making sure to grip the blanket for support, and took in my surroundings. I was in a white room, with black furniture. It was very plain, and small. I sat on a high up bed with black sheets and pillows, which sat in the middle of the room. A black night stand sat beside the bed with nothing on it. Right before me was a metal door that I could only assume was the exit. It had some sort of key panel by it. On the right wall there was a plain white door.

I swung my feet off the side of the bed, letting them dangle there for a minute to make sure I had my balance, when the metal door slid open. There stood a flaming red haired boy, standing at bout six foot, two inches, smirking down at me. I glared at him so he wouldn't notice my curious eyes appraising his appearance. His didn't wear his regular attire; he wore a plain black muscle shirt, which to my surprise did show a bit of muscle underneath. He also had on black sweat pants, and his hair was more of a mess than it usually was. He didn't have his eyeliner on and his goggles were nowhere to be seen. He saw through my glare and smirked wider before crossing his arms, his eyes now appraising me.

I gasped when I realized all I had had on before I was unconscious was a towel. I looked down at myself and saw I had on a loose, flowing black night gown on. Heat rushed back to my cheeks before I glared up at Spicer again.

"What the hell did you do with my clothes?" I growled through clenched teeth. He seemed amused by my embarrassment and chuckled lightly.

"You mean your towel? I have to say I was pleased when I was ordered to kidnap you again, but I sure didn't expect my robot to bring you back like t-"

"Ordered? To kidnap me? What's going on?"

He rolled his eyes. "As I was saying my robots took care of you, I'm not a pervert, Kimiko. They brought you here and you've been sleeping ever since."

I glared at him. "And my kidnapping?"

He looked unsure for a moment before answering. "I'm not really supposed to tell you… but I'm pretty sure you can figure it out." He walked over to me and gently pulled the collar of my gown to the right. I hissed and smacked his hand away.

"Don't touch me." He rolled his eyes again and pointed to my shoulder. I looked down at it to see the bandages I had wrapped earlier today. I remembered how I had gotten them and shot a puzzled look up at Jack. "A lion…?"

He smacked his hand against his forehead. "Whose lion was it?" I pursed my lips for a second and gasped again.

"Chase! But why? And why you? Why didn't he do it? I'm surprised he even thought you could kidnap me…" He scowled and took a step towards the door.

"That's the part that I'm not supposed to tell you. But like I said after a while you'll start to figure it out." He strode towards the door.

I sat there for a minute, unmoving, thinking. The only thing I could think of, though, was that I was kidnapped, and my enemy was right before me. I positioned myself carefully before flinging my body at him. I latched on his back and let the fire run through my veins and out of my hands. He yelped with surprise, and then with pain before he grabbed my wrists and yanking me off his back so I was standing before him. He let one hand drop from my wrists to squeeze a pressure point on my arms and neck. I gasped and fell limp. I would have fallen to the floor if his hand was not still securely around my wrists. He smirked triumphantly and threw my limp body back onto the bed. He chuckled darkly. "Behave, and don't try to escape. You're not going anywhere." He entered a code on the key panel, and vanished behind the sliding metal door. I cursed under my breath as I tried to get myself into a comfortable position.

Clearly I wasn't going anywhere for a while, so I dropped the escape plans for a bit. I focused on why Chase would want me to be kidnapped. I though hard for a minute, trying to go over everything I had found out in the previous days. If I was kidnapped, I couldn't compete in the tests! Could I? I wasn't very sure on how you started those tests, so I went with no. So I figured out why I was kidnapped; now I needed to figure out why by Jack. Why didn't Chase just do it? It would be much easier if he knew I was under his roof, and not unreliable Jacks. But then again, Jack hadn't been giving us any trouble lately, and Chase surely had. Maybe he wanted them to think Chase had taken me. Yeah, that's it. And they wouldn't come looking for me here, so I wouldn't be found either. They would use all their energy trying to locate me there; they wouldn't be able to focus on their battling. This meant…

I gasped. Chase was going to destroy them. Or at least imprison them; make them their servants or something! So even if I escaped I would have no clue how to start the tests, and no one would be able to help me! Chase would rule… forever.

I felt dizzy from the thought of all of this. If I hadn't been lying down I would surely have fallen anyway. The clouds in my mind began to weigh down on my thoughts, making it very hard for me to think. I became exhausted from trying so hard and let my mind go blank. I laid there for hours, maybe minutes, I couldn't tell. My mind slowly drifted to unconsciousness. My last thought still ringing in my head.

I had to escape.