Ok, I'm back. Enjoy and review.

P.s. Physical therapy sucks

Chapter 17

"You know Jade, the song 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' is only ever a whim away… a whim away, a whim away, a whim away, a whim away. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight."

"Seriously? You went there?"

"Never underestimate my power to get a song stuck in your head."

"Just shut up and let me drive, Jamie," Jade said. She was dropping me off back at my house after our day of shopping. No, we weren't out looking at clothes and shoes. We were at Cabela's: my happy place, looking at guns, knives, various archery things and camping supplies. And fudge. Cabela's has awesome fudge.

"In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight," I sang very softly.

"Jamie, I am going to kick you in the face if you keep that up," Jade warned.

"Noted."

"And it's going to be when you least expect it."

"Always a daily surprise."

We sat in silence for a minute or two before I started humming the song. Jade reached over and turned up the volume of the radio, drowning out my humming with her country music. So belted it out in the off key way that seems to be the only way I can sing.

"Jamie, you make me want to crash the car," Jade whined over the music.

"That seems a bit extreme."

"Really? 'Cause it seems perfectly reasonable to me."

I turned down the radio to its normal volume and sat quietly in the passenger seat, and pulled out my phone. I knew that Jade's phone was in her purse so my plan would work perfectly.

"A whim away, a whim away, a whim away, a whim away." I texted her.

She pulled up into my drive way and said good bye.

I stopped as I was walking up my drive way and turned around, mouthing the song to her. She laid on the horn and narrowed her eyes at me.

Laughing, I walked into my house and locked the door behind me.

:3( )~~

I pulled out of Jamie's drive way and headed back to my house. I think I'll go on patrol tonight. Who needs sleep anyways?

By the time I was home, Mom and Dad were both at work and my little sister Kenna was in preschool. So I had the house all to myself. I dumped my purse on my bed and pulled the cover off the fake vent I made in my bedroom. I reached inside and pulled out a locked box that had carvings of the different elements on it. I unlocked it with the key I always kept on a string around my neck. Inside was my uniform. My Tempest uniform.

I slipped on the grey and black clothing and grabbed the various knives I had stashed around my room and tucked them into my belt. Once I was sure I had everything I opened my window and slipped out and created a wind tunnel to carry me up to the roof tops.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, I thought to myself. Dang it, Jamie!

The sun was setting with brilliant oranges and pinks, the light turned the once white clouds purple. I sat there and waited for darkness where no one else could see me.

I left my roof top and hopped from roof top to roof top by controlling the wind currents. There is nothing like flying. It's not like I had wings or anything like that, I could control the elements. It came in handy. Not just with crime fighting but with everyday life. For example, the water fountain at school doesn't shoot the water up high enough? No problem, I'll just will the water closer so I can get a nice drink of cool water. Being able to control earth is just more entertaining than anything; people only think that they are tripping over flat surfaces. I can adjust my aim by manipulating the air like I had with the throwing knifes.

All I ever did in the way of crime fighting was patrol my neighborhood. I would stop the occasional person breaking in to cars, vandalizing or if I was lucky a house robbery. I never spoke to anyone, they would try to thank me but I would leave before they could recognize me. I had no mask but that never seemed to matter. As Tempest, people just excepted that I would come and go as I pleased, and as Jade, I didn't talk much either, with the exclusion of talking to my close friends.

As I was going from roof top to roof top on that particular night I noticed that Jamie's front door was standing open. They would never be so careless as to not lock the door so I went down to inspect it closer. There was splintering around where the deadbolt was. Someone had broken into my friend's house and I knew that she was home.

I slipped inside and made myself hover about two inches off the ground so I wouldn't make any noise as I moved. I heard rummaging upstairs and headed up that way. From the best that I could tell just by the sound the intruder was in Mr. Knote's office. When I got to the top of the stairs I peeked around the corner and looked down the hallway to the right. The light was off in the office but enough light came in through the west facing window to show the outline of a hulking man rummaging through his desk.

When I passed Jamie's bedroom she slammed into me with her bow drawn. Luckily the darkness concealed my identity. I motioned into the office; she peeked in but never lowered the poised arrow from my chest. Once she saw the man, she rushed in, threw on the light, using her shoulder and shot the arrow into the intruder's foot. He screamed in pain and I rushed in and sent a gust of wind to encase him. Once he was immobilized I realized my vulnerable position, I pulled up the tube of black fabric I kept around my neck for just such emergencies so that from my nose down was hidden, and shook my head so that my hair fell to cover more of my face.

Jamie turned and looked at me for the first time. She already had another arrow notched but it wasn't drawn. Her eyebrows pressed together in a frown above her scared face.

"The police are already on their way if you would like to avoid questioning," she said to me, still giving me a look.

I nodded and made to step around her, then stopped. The man was still bound in the wind I had surrounding him, preventing him from any movement. If I left now, though it would hurt like hell, he could still move. I made a motion communicating my concern.

She understood and responded with, "I'll get the zip ties." Jamie walked out of the office and back into her bedroom. I heard her flip the light switch and rummage around in a drawer. She reappeared with a hand full of plastic ties in her hand, humming In the Jungle. She handed them to me and picked up her bow again.

"I don't trust either of you. You can tie him up and I'll keep hold of my bow. Once that is done, from what I have heard about you Tempest, is you can make your escape from any level. Bind him and then you may leave through the window.

I took the plastic ties and hog tied the man that was still whimpering inside his wind bonds. When I was done I moved toward the window and opened it. Before I could leap out, Jamie spoke again.

"I saw you, you know, when you fought the Ghost Twins at the Winter Guard competition. You lit the building on fire. I'm the one that saved Marie, not you."

I was baffled. Jamie hadn't been in the gym, she had been running around the building looking for me. Well for Jade, but that's the same thing. Without responding, leaned over, lit the fletching of the arrow in the guy's foot on fire and jumped out the window and took to the air.

:3( )~~

She made no comment to what I told her but lit the arrow in the guy's foot on fire instead. Almost like she was saying "Got a problem with me lighting things on fire?"

Once she was gone I put out the small fire that had now ruined one of my arrows, and those things are expensive, dang it. I looked down at the man that had broken into my house, "You picked the wrong house to screw with."

When he opened his mouth, he let loose a long string of profanities that I would rather not repeat. Let's just say that I have been called worse by better. I kicked the foot that still had an arrow sticking out of it and grabbed the duct tape my dad keeps in his desk. "See if you had been paying attention as you were digging through the desk you would have realized that the tape was close at hand, or in your case, close at mouth," I told him as I put a strip of the silver tape over his mouth. He continued trying to scream at me through the tape, so I kneeled down next to him and pinched his nose closed. "The tape was a hint to shut up. I can make sure you do or you can behave like a good little burglar and keep quiet until the police come to get you."

I let go of his nose and picked up the bag he had been shoving my family's things into. I emptied its contents onto my dad's desk. He had grabbed at least half of my dad's dragon figurine collection.

"Seriously? This is what you go after? You are a sorry excuse for a thief," I told the man lying on the floor. "Shall we recap? You broke into my house, quite noisily might I add, assuming that no one was home because you didn't see any cars out front. For future reference, I park my car outside the cul-de-sac. You ignored the electronics downstairs in the living room and came straight upstairs to my dad's office, again passing up the computer down the other side of the hall way and passed by my bed room in which I have a collection of swords, knives, throwing knifes, my bow and arrows. And you take dragons. If you wanted a dragon you should have just asked," I stood up. "I can give you a dragon."

I shifted into the biggest dragon I could due to the size of the room and placed my front feet on either side of the man's body. I opened my mouth, revealing my multiple rows of razor sharp teeth and breathed literal dragon breath into his face. His eyes were wide and I could see that he was breathing fast. I used my dragon hands to pinch his nose closed again, keeping my dragon face in his so that that was the last thing he saw before he passed out. I knew from karate training that cutting off the air to the brain would screw up some one's memory so I held on just long enough for him to forget that I had changed into a dragon, and even if he did remember he would be written off as crazy and probably get landed in Arkham. I can't really say that I'm sorry to hear that, to be honest.

I shifted back into my human form as I heard the police sirens. When they pulled up and came to a screeching stop I stuck my head out the window Tempest had left from and waved to the police men. "I got the guy! He's up here."

The men rushed into my house and up the stairs. They told me to get back when they saw me but then all stopped short when they saw that the intruder was hog tied, had an arrow in his foot, had duct tape over his mouth and was currently unconscious. I was perched on the corner of my dad's desk, quiver of arrows on my back and fiddling with the bow in my hands.

"Did you…" one of the officers started to ask but then stopped as if that was a ridiculous idea.

"I did," I confirmed, pulling my bow string wax out of a pocket on the side of my quiver and proceeded to apply the wax as they stood there with their mouths open.

"Ma'am, could you please step out of the room and let the professionals get this man out of your house?"

"Have at it. The dragon figurines on the desk is what he tried to take, you can see the dust outlines on the shelf that he got them off of, if that is any help to you." I walked out of the room then stuck my head back in the door way and asked, "Do you know who the guy is? He looks familiar."

"He's a mobster named Zeke. He has been seen around this neighborhood recently but was chased off by some one's dog.

I busted out laughing and left the office again and couldn't stop even as I put my bow and arrows away.

:3( )~~

I got home after helping at Jamie's house, figuring I had done my good dead for the day and thus had met my quota. I crawled back in my window and plopped onto my bed. I felt around blindly for my phone and unlocked it.

One unread message. From Jamie.

Okay, she wouldn't text me "I know your secret." So why am I worried?

I opened the message and had to resist throwing my phone against the wall.

"A whim away, a whim away, a whim away, a whim away," it read.

I realized this happens a lot, I type scared as in the past tense of scar and it looks like scared as in terrified, I would like to clarify this, I'm not saying that Jamie was 'terrified' I'm referring to the scars on her face.