Frostbite
Chapter 2
Hey, guys, Sunny here! And OH MY GOSH IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS! MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY!
A little warning in advance: this chapter isn't going to have as many funny bits or character moments in there. This one is gonna have a LOT of exposition. Don't worry, next time, I'll be right back on track!
Answering reviews time!
Kairocksrainbow: Thanks so much! (Snatches cookie) COOKIES!
iluvninjagoTNSBFWgirl: Aww, thanks! You just made my day!
Guest: Thanks! Loyd's only my third favorite though (best ninja award goes to Jay)
Well, now that that's over...
Let them read fanfiction!
Loyd's p.o.v
I knew the village was gonna be weird when I met the talking fox.
We hadn't been walking for very long when we came to the edge of a rather large village. Well, now that I think about it, it was more of a small town than a village. The buildings were bigger and more advanced than in most villages. The people who were outside wore modern-looking clothes. There was a lot of new technology, something a lot of villages didn't have due to wanting to keep their old ways. However, there were a few things that had obviously been there a while. A temple-like structure was in the center of the village. It didn't have any paved roads. There was a river off to the far right where a few people were fishing. A couple of villagers were in a rice field near the riverbed working. Some kids were playing on a small patch of green grass right next to the village. But even with the strange combination of old and new, it didn't seem all that out of the ordinary for a place known as the "Home of Elementals." I was half-expecting to be something intimidating or completely crazy, but everything was so laid-back and welcoming. It felt like...well, a sanctuary.
"It's...normal," I said.
Keyonee gave a small laugh. "Just wait until you meet the residents."
"Why? What are they like?" I asked.
"Well, some of them are-" she started, but was cut off by the sound of some one yelling, followed by a huge creature dropping ungracefully in front of us. It looked to be a white fox with light blue markings on its feet, ears, and stomach, covered in soot. A small tuft of fur and silver speckles were on its forehead. It was at least 6 feet long-bigger than any fox I'd ever seen. It's eyes were the same color as Keyonee' s (minus the indigo specks) and had no pupil or whiteness to them. To top off the strangeness, it multiple tails, all fanned out on the ground. I thought for sure it had broken its back, but it simply got up and shaking off the soot.
"Let me guess. Sunny and Taylor are fighting again," Keyonee said.
Before I could question why she was talking to an animal, the fox, to my surprise, responded in a feminine voice, "No, I just decided to cover myself in ash and shoot myself across the village. OF COURSE THEY'RE FIGHTING AGAIN!"
I stared in bewilderment at the scene before me. "It-it talked!" I said. "The fox TALKED!"
The fox turned her head towards me, then back to Keyonee. "New guy?"
Keyonee nodded.
"Welp, might as well change back." In a millisecond, the fox was gone and was replaced by a red-headed 15-year-old girl. Her eyes had changed from blue to a brownish-green color. She wore a plain gray shirt and jeans. The only thing she'd kept was her funny blue fox-ears, which were on top of her head.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Gabby Revé," she said, and stuck out her hand.
I backed away slightly, not sure what to make of her, but Keyonee elbowed me and whispered, "Shake her hand, she's harmless." So, I shook it.
"Okay, now that introductions are over," Keyonee said, "Lloyd, do you want to help me stop a fight between two dragonoids?"
"What's a dragonoid?"
"I'll take that as a yes." She grabbed my arm and took off, practically dragging me behind her.
"Hey, wait! Slow down! Stop!" I pleaded. "You might make me hit a-"
WHACK!
"...tree..." I said. Why did this always happen when I was with this girl?
"Sorry," Keyonee said. She let go of my arm and took off running again.
She only has one speed, doesn't she? I thought as ran along side her. Eventually, she skidded to a stop.
"So, what exactly are we trying to stop from fighting?" I asked. In that moment, a blast of fire completely burnt the tree next to me, causing me to jump.
"That," Keyonee said, and pointed to the direction the blast had come from. I turned my head and saw two blurs in the air. They dove and swerved in and out of the air, clashing continuously. At times, fire would come from one of the blurs, only to be dodged by the other.
Keyonee turned to Gabby, who was standing behind her. "What'd you think? Should we use the dog whistle or soak them?"
"You know the dog whistle just hurts my ears," Gabby said.
"Soaking it is," Keyonee said.
"How are you going to do that exactly?" I asked.
"Easy," Gabby said. She switched back to fox form. "Ready, Keyonee?"
"Ready," Keyonee responded. Before I could figure out what was going on, blue beams shot from Keyonee's hand and Gabby' s mouth (and I just now realized how weird that sounds) and hit both figures just as fire shot from them.
They both fell to the ground, soaking wet, and started coughing up ash. "Oh, COME ON!" one of them said. "Can we not fight without you-cough-shooting at us?!"
Now that I could finally see what they looked like, I found they were even weirder than Gabby.
The first one, a guy, had on a black shirt and torn blue jeans. His hair was sandy blond and covered his left eye. His eyes were a grayish-blue color. The other one, a girl, had caramel colored hair stuck in a messy ponytail and bright sky-blue eyes. She wore a plain yellow shirt and capris. Both had a pair of dragon wings sprouting out of their backs and long, scaly tails, the guy's being black and white while the girl's was blue and yellow. The male only had those qualities, but the girl had a pair of dragon-like ears on her head and a few scales on her face, neck, and arms. When I got closer, I could see her teeth were wickedly sharp and her pupils were in slits, like a snake's.
"Okay," Keyonee said. "Who attacked who first?"
"Sunny did!" the guy said, pointing at the girl.
"You were the one who dumped a bucket of ice water on me!" the girl said.
"Well, if you had been paying attention and not sleeping-"
"Yeah, like I'd sit there and torture my ears with all the bull crap you have to say."
"Sunny," Keyonee rebuked.
"Why not? I do that every time you speak," the guy said.
"Ooooh," Gabby and I both said.
"Taylor!" Keyonee exclaimed.
Sunny's ears flattened. "Say that again."
"Oh, you mean what I just said about you constantly spewing out bull crap every time you speak?" Taylor said.
"Taylor, you are treading on thin ice," Keyonee warned.
"Hold on, Keyonee, I have to put this in a way that she will understand," Taylor said. "Okay, I-that's me, the person right in front of you- do that- that is, listen to your bull crap- every time you speak- that is, when the English language comes out of your mouth. Is that slow enough for you?"
Sunny was breathing heavily at this point and looked like she was ready to rip some one's head off. "Keyonee," she said, "hold me back."
As Keyonee held Sunny back by her wings as she tried to strangle Taylor, she gave an apologetic look. "Hey, sorry, but I'm not gonna be able to show you around town. Their fights take a while to resolve," she said. "You don't mind if Gabby shows you, do you?"
"It's fine. I understand," I said.
"Good. I'll be back in about half an hour. See ya then!" She turned her attention back to the two. "SUNNY, TAYLOR, WOULD IT KILL YOU TWO TO ACT LIKE REASONABLE ADULTS FOR ONCE?!"
Gabby and I took that as our cue to leave.
"So, if you don't mind me asking-" I started when we had gotten back to the village.
"I'm a kitsune," Gabby said.
I blinked. "Huh?"
"You were going to ask what I was. Every newcomer asks that question," she said.
"Okay," I said. "What's a-"
"A kitsune is a creature that can switch between human and fox forms," Gabby said. "Yet another question everyone asks. Don't you have any original questions?"
"Ummm...are there any other weird creatures that I need to know about?" I asked.
"That would have to depend on your definition of weird," she said. "But if you're looking for non-human elementals, there's gargoyles, harpies, phoenixes, xianglius, nekomatas, and of course, kitsune and dragonoids."
That confused me a little bit."So, elemental masters don't have to be human?" I asked.
She shook her head. "You misunderstood what I said. I said non-human elementals, not just elemental masters. The term refers to either to either elemental masters or elemental creatures, which is what I am."
I tried to wrap my mind around that. "So, if you're an elemental creature, what is your element?" "Ice, same as Keyonee' s," she said.
"I thought it was water," I said.
We stopped in front of the temple and Gabby started scratching her ear. "What made you think that?" she said.
"Well, the way you and Keyonee stopped that fight back there was by getting them wet," I reasoned.
"We shot at their fire blast," she continued. "And when you mix fire and ice, what do you get?"
A thought flashed in my head. "So, does that mean-"
"No, we are in no way related that robot you're friends with," she said.
"But, you have the same element," I said.
She walked into the temple. "Okay, this is a little difficult to explain on its own, so I'll just show you," she said, using her paw to gesture me to follow.
I walked in to see a whole bunch a murals painted and chiseled into the walls. Some of them showed events I recognized, like the First Spinjitzu Master fighting the Overlord and the first Serpentine War, but there others I didn't. Images of what looked like people and other creatures running away from a mob and of building a village.
"What is this?" I asked.
"We call it the Hall of Times Past," Gabby said.
"That's kind of a mouthful, don't you think?" I asked.
"Well, we tried 'Hall of Old, Dead Guys', but that just sounded dumb," she said.
She turned toward a part of the wall that outlined with a shelf filled with various books and scrolls. "Now where is that scroll? I just had it a few-there it is!" Switching back to a human, she pulled out a battered-looking scroll. "This is all of the family trees of the main five elements. Yours, your friends', and Keyonee' s are all in this." Curious, I rolled out the scroll.
Each one of the trees had a picture of an element next to a picture of a person. The first half had five separate lines that represented mine and my friends' families, but the other half had just one large one. At the very bottom was Keyonee, but also three other people I didn't see before. Two girls and a guy, to be exact.
"This is interesting, but this doesn't explain why they're not related," I said. "I mean, I get why you're not, since you're not human, and I know they may not be biological, considering Zane's a robot, but couldn't it be adoptive?"
"This is where it gets complicated," Gabby said. "If history has taught anything, it's that there's a yin to every yang, a different side to everything. The same is true for elements. Ice may be cool, calm, and graceful, like snow, but at the same time, it can be fierce, strong, and fast, like hail or a blizzard. Fire can be blazing, hot, and destructive, but it can also be warm and inviting."
I thought about that for a second. "So, for every elemental there's some one out there with the same power, but they have a different way of using it?" I said as we walked out.
Gabby' s ears flattened. "That's how it was supposed to be, but unfortunately, that not it is for most of the elemental masters."
"Why's that?" I asked.
"You remember the mural with the mob?" she said.
I nodded my head.
"That's how life was for us back then. Non-elementals didn't understand us, so what was the logical thing to do?"
"Try to communicate better and maybe try to understand?" I suggested.
"Logical thing to do when you're operating on the logic of a paranoid five-year-old," she corrected.
I shrugged.
"Lock us up or kill us, of course," she said bluntly.
I was dumbfounded. "What?! Didn't the First Spinjitzu Master do anything about it?!"
"Lloyd, it only started after he was gone. You don't seem to understand that even though they claimed it was fear, the real reason was only because they were mad that we were the ones who got his blessing. He trusted us to protect the land he made. They couldn't understand what was so special about us. The majority of people he gave elemental power to were orphans or people who weren't that high up on the totem pole. Heck, half of us were struggling to get by. Mix that in with both sides constantly bickering and refusing to listen to each other, and you've got a whole lot of hate," she said. "Also, you know he has a name, right? He's not just 'the First Spinjitzu Master.' His name's Masuta."
"Ohhhh," I said in understanding. "So, most of the other elementals died?"
She nodded her head sadly. "But, rather than just play the blame-game, we decided to be more mature than that. Why act like some bitter little kid for something that happened years and years ago when they already made amends? That's just irresponsible. We want to be better than that. Besides, our lives are great and peaceful now."
BOOM!
Right then, a small explosion came from the basement of a small auto shop near us. The door opened and a huge, red, eagle-like bird emerged from it and flew away, followed by brown headed woman in overalls smeared with motor oil and soot spraying a fire extinguishing down there all the while. "Seriously?! That's the fourth one this week! If they weren't immortal, I'd kill those phoenixes!" she exclaimed.
Gabby had a small smile on her face. "Okay, maybe not so peaceful."
Anyone else think that I should change the rating to T after that little argument between Sunny and Taylor? I think maybe I'll do that...
Also, in case people don't know how to pronounce some of the words, here's a list of them.
Xiangliu: SHANG-LOO
Kitsune: KIT-SOO-NAY
Nekomata: NAY-KO-MA-TA
Sorry for going so long without an update. I've just been really busy with school and piano and church and POKEMON! ...I have a bit of an addiction.
Question of the chapter: Which other elemental creature do you think Lloyd will meet next?
I'm Sunnyonminecraft, until the next chapter, and Merry Christmas to all y'all!