A Dragon's Crimson Cry

By: Tippi

A/N Here the next chapter, a lot of Avatar reference bare with me.

Ch 88 Of Lightning and Parents

It was a cold March this year and since the whole Q crisis things have been quiet on the home front. Jake was taking the time to focus on school and his fire bending.

Fire was the base element for every dragon since there have been dragons. One of the most useful attacks a dragon has in their arsenal is breathing fire but a dragon bending fire fell into a thing of fantasy stories. Jake might be the only dragon to break the boundary between fantasy and reality.

Currently Jake was in one of the many spare training rooms at the Elite N.Y. elemental school practicing. He was doing some advance moves and finished them without flaw. Jake stopped, panting a little, and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Then he heard clapping from the doorway. He turned to see a middle aged woman standing there. He couldn't see her quit well in the dim light from the door

"Masterfully done" she said coming into the room.

Now that she was in the bight light of the training room Jake got a good look at her.

She had long crimson red hair that fell down her back and pass the shoulders like liquid fire. A hair band with zigzag stripes of red, orange, and yellow held the hair from her face. She had golden eyes that Jake had a feeling he knew. Her lips were the same crimson as her hair. Around her neck was a necklace sporting a nicely sized ruby. She had a black open jacket that revealed a red t-shirt with tight black pants that had red, orange, and yellow flames shooting up from ankle to hip on the outside legs. To finish her look she had black ankle high boots and her nails were red tipped with yellow her right ring finger sporting a ring with a yellow diamond.

All and all she still had nice body, something not many women her age could say and if that necklace and ring was any indication she was rich. She also had an air of power and high society around her.

"Excuse me but who are you" Jake finally asked.

"O I'm sorry," she said. "Let me introduce my self. You can call me Venus."

"I feel like I should be calling you by something a bit more formal like a Miss or Mrs." Jake said.

"There's no need for you to be formal with me, Jake" Venus said with a chuckle.

"How do you know my name" Jake asked.

"I donate a lot of money to this school so I like to check in on it often. And the teachers always inform me on talented up coming fire students" Venus explained. "One of the students they mentioned was Jake who is also special since he is also a dragon."

"Yeah so a lot of people remind me" Jake said.

"Nothing wrong with it," Venus responded. "But I was thinking with your talent I can teach you a move only the most gifted and powerful fire benders have mastered."

"What" Jake asked?

"Lightning" Venus said.

Lightning was a move only most skilled and gifted fire benders could accomplish. Many try few succeed.

"Lightning is a pure expression of fire bending it isn't fueled by any emotion like most fire bending it is precise and deadly. To make lightning one must have piece of mind" Venus was explaining. "There is energy all around us and two most important ones are known as Ying and Yang."

"Two opposites of the same whole; they are completely different in every way from each other but for one to exist the other needs to" Jake said.

"So you know this game a bit" Venus stated.

"All cultures have their own version but I'm Chinese and we gave it its original name" Jake informed.

"Then you know that the two energies are like a positive and negative and when you separate them this causes an imbalance and the positive and negative seek to return balance and come crashing back together. In that moment you must provide release and guidance thus creating lightning" Venus explained the very act that is needed to be done to make lightning. Venus then did the very thing they'd been talking about.

Jake had heard about it before but this was the first time he was able to witness the conjuring of lightning. The flash of the lightning lit up an expression of awe on Jake's face.

"Care to give it a try" Venus said turning to Jake.

For an experienced bender who has made lightning before they make it look easy but it is very difficult. Jake was able to separate the two but giving it guidance at the very moment provided to be hard. Every time the two came crushing back together Jake was off on the timing and it blew up in his face.

"What am I doing wrong" Jake asked in frustration being blown back by another blast.

"I'll give you credit that you've managed to separate the energy which is a fete in and of it's self. You just need to work on timing and guiding. Realize that you don't control the power you more like point in the direction you want it to go, don't at the right time it does what it wants" Venus instructed.

Jake just heaved a sigh in response.

"You need more practice but let's try something different and take a break" Venus suggested. "There is a technique that I invent of my own it is the ability to redirect lighting."

"Is it anything like creating it" Jake asked.

"It's nothing like that" Venus answered. "You must let the energy in you own body flow and the lighting will follow with it. I'm sure as a dragon you have learned how to let the energy of your body or as dragons say chi flow. It's kind of similar" Venus explained. "You must cerate a path way from you finger tips down your arm to the shoulder, down into the stomach; which is the source of much energy and called the sea of chi. From there you direct it up again and down the arm out the other end" Venus was saying as she made the motion for the technique pointing out the path way as she did it. "The detour into the stomach is critical if not it may pass through your heart or lung and that will almost certainly kill you" Venus put emphases on the last part. "You should try the physical motion to get a feel for the path way, like this" Venus said making the motion as she did before and Jake began to mimic it. "Focus your chi and let it follow the same path" Venus said. "Do you feel your own energy flowing through, down, up and out" Venus asked.

"I think so" Jake said.

"Thinking isn't going to do it" Venus replied.

Jake took a deep breath and focused on his chi moving down the path he was mimicking with the physical movement. As he was practicing the moment Venus started to ask him what was going on in his life mostly about school and his friends. Jake found that odd but figured maybe it was to keep him clam and help the flow by letting a talk about basic things flow.

After some time of repeating the motion continually he felt the flow of the chi following the path as if he'd always used that path.

"Good that's perfect" Venus said stopping Jake and praising.

"I got to ask though how did you come up with this technique" Jake had to ask everything they were doing didn't seem like having any fire bending roots.

"Actually I learned it from watching and studying the water benders and their techniques" Venus said.

"But you're a fire element and I thought the fire and water clans had a very… how do I put" Jake said thinking about it for a moment. "You just plan hate each other since your elements are contour opposites and clash. You don't show the best example of Ying and Yang" Jake put bluntly. "I could see you watching water bending but studying it" Jake said.

"I didn't really have a choice" Venus admitted. "I mean I live with two water benders and all.

"O well then… whoo time out, rewind, what" Jake said coming to the realization of what she just said. "How…" Jake was asking before a shout form the doorway cut him off.

"Mom" a familiar voice yelled out. Al came into the room his usual carefree demeanor completely gone, replaced with an irritated and pissed one.

Now Jake knew why her eyes seemed so familiar, they were the only physical feature Al got from his mom.

"Alphonse," Venus said then remembered and corrected her self. "Sorry I mean Al" she said walking up to Al reaching out with her hand.

Al slapped the hand away before it could make contact.

"What the hell! You show up out of no where and I find you with my friend" Al yelled.

"Well I got to find out what's going on with you some way you don't come and talk to me any more" Venus said.

"I can't talk to you" Al yelled. "You're never home and I never know when you get back."

"That's not right I've had my secretary send word to you so we could connect when I'm around" Venus said. "I thought you were just avoiding me on purpose."

She and Al were taking a moment to conclude why he wasn't getting the messages while Jake was at the side totally forgotten.

~Later at Al's house or mansion~

Venus slammed the poor water elemental butler against the wall her temper flaring.

"What do you mean you were intercepting the messages" Venus yelled at him as Al watched unfazed while Jake was wide eyed at Venus's aggressive tactics.

"I'm sorry my lady but I was ordered by the lord of the house to intercept them all" the butler pleaded. "I can't disobey his orders; you know what he could do to me."

"Very well I'll take it out of his hide" Venus said releasing her grip on him and letting him slide to the floor.

Once out of her grasp the butler made a hasty retreat not wanting the get in her way while she was on a war path.

"Can I spend the night at your place" Al asked as his mother walked off to find his father. "My home's about to become a battlefield."

It turned out in an attempt to turn his son's parental acceptance in his favor had his secretary find when his wife was sending a message to Al and have the butler intercept it so Al never got it. Making him think his mother was ignoring him. The first fatal flaw in his plan was that he was working so much he was also ignoring him. The second is not thinking his wife would try and use other methods that would lead to her finding out about his plan.

Jake know while his parents were pre-occupied fighting each other Al was going to be a really bad boy to get attention back on him but it never worked in the past so Jake was going to do damage control to make sure Al didn't go so bad he'd do something he'd regret.

A/N I hope I didn't give up that it was Al's mother up to soon. So what do you think about his mom? Next chapter Jake's 14th birthday.