Jackie Chan Adventures: J: Enesis

CHAPTER FIVE

The evening spent in the valleys went according to the precise plan Jade had been somewhat winging based on her wealth of experience in the field of covert deception.

She was a guest at the dinner table, a pale and enchanting moon illuminating the evening as the entertainment flooded in. Food, drink, and companionship.

It was so easy to get lost in the remarkable company of what she had grown to oppose for so long, anyone less focused on the mission at hand.

"And then, the tortoise just got up and zipped far across the boat carrying me on its shell .Eventually we just left the cannibal on the boat surrounded by Shadow-Khan. And before that, my uncle the Jackinator proves once again he has the wits quick enough to outpace a member of the Dark Hand wielding the same power and send the mass of humanity crashing into their ship and sent it to the depths of the waters below"

There was an uproar of laughter from the table as the Warrior Dragons

"Unbelievable, you weave such great threads Jeddah, a supreme storyteller" complimented Shendu

"You know the game....take a shot every time I mention anything to do with how many times the Dark Hand slip their grasp on anything" said Jade in jest. Shendu agreed and dunked another keg of beer into his mouth.

"This Dark Hand, they sound like a legend in their own lifetime, if they were ever truly in my service, I would feel honoured to share in their misadventures and suffer their presence for the sake of personal amusement"

Later, when a heavy intake of drink had served to subdue just about everyone, Jade took Shendu on a stroll along the beach, Jade kicked away at the tides as they drifted in and out, occasionally even throwing some of the water Shendu's way.

"So all of your brothers and sisters rule over various territories, but you're content to remain a valley boy....you're not even the size of your typical Dragon overlords"

"Oh, I'd love to walk a mile in a giant's shoes" said Shendu, "To be on par with our great God Ryujyn would be an achievement, but it would require years, perhaps a century or so, to master enough chi, from the light and dark corners, to amass such height, such power, and such responsibility"

"Is that why you want to conquer Aisha?" said Jade

"Conquer is too harsh a word Jeddah...it is one of the last free domains, but I do not wish to rule it with an aggressive hand"

"Got a little confession...I kind of come from Aisha, my parents do anyway. A lot of parents are there. A lot of children. All with parents."

She tightened her right hand into a fist.

"And that's why this has to be done."

She decked Shendu with the swiftest blow she could muster, a chi-erry bomb clenched within, the combination of raw physicality and the energy bomb going off in the space between her fingers propelled Shendu five feet off the floor and into the ocean. Jade dived in after him, managing to catch him as he surfaced. She grabbed his head as it came above water and pushed it back down into the drenched sand, holding it there for as long as possible, hoping, praying, that the fire that raged within and without would be extinguished long before it had the chance to ignite it's flames upon the known world.

"Jade, you were playing possum this whole time?" Jackie said, fascinated and a bit discomforted by the reigning down of blow upon blow to the young Dragon's features.

"I shouldn't have done it. It was the catalyst for everything afterwards that I'm certain of. I was determined to show him, in those moments of reality shaped by my experiences with him, all of my personal qualities that can only blossom on a battlefield. The only quality I didn't want rising to the surface before he did was unfortunately the one I couldn't subdue"

Jade froze in the midst of another raw, aggressive and nakedly violent blow, and looked upon her distorted reflection in the centre of the still waters.

"The quality of mercy"

Jade looked at the mangled face of Shendu, continued to stare at her own distorted reflection in the waters, and realized just how far she'd gone.

Jade pulled Shendu out of the water and gently stroked his face. Small tears came down her face

"This...all of this...what made you the monster I know, hasn't happened yet has it? You can't possibly understand..." Jade uttered, the small droplets from her tender features raining delicately on the young Dragon's skin and chest. Shendu steadily slipped back into consciousness, and the first thing he saw was Jade's anguish.

"So much pain in your eyes...a need to resolve, to avenge, surely Aisha remains untouched, why do you fear I will be a burden to it?"

"You become something...I know it, I've seen it"

Shendu clasped her hand.

"I believe that any one true dawn can be tailored into a false one, and like a stone, it can dart across the water, skim towards the horizon and out of view, and you know what I see? Beyond the horizon? What is more consistent, what rises more than even the great Dragon God himself? "

He pointed to the sun as it began to rise

"That which burns brightest. That is what I want to be. How can anything that brings light to the world become anything like a monster?"

Jackie sensed a seismic shift in the status quo about to occur in what he was witnessing. He looked back at the projection of his niece, who whistled ever so slightly

"You don't have to look if you don't want to" she said.

"What do you mean don't loo..." Jackie said, steadily turning his gaze only to find the two locked in an all too eerie embrace.

"What brought THAT on? Are you out of your mind?!"

"I'm hundreds of years in the past, can't trace my quarry, ended up sparing someone who tries to make out with me to achieve his own ends in the future, and I'm feeling kind of lonely, and I just got fed the corniest romantic hard sell ever"

"I don't know whether or not this whole thing is just you trying to sell me a hockey amount of wish fulfilment fiction or not, but all means, continue to entertain me" Jackie remarked.

"We don't have much long left in the tale. This day is where it starts; next I'll show you where it begins to fall apart"

"Don't you need a fast forward for that?" asked Jackie

"Yeah, I kind of wasn't honest earlier..."

"Jade, part of conveying any proper story to the public is not to exaggerate or falsify facts"

"Yeah, I know, I make a lousy reporter. There's a reason I didn't bother much with the profession after that week. You saw to that"

"How did I see to that?"

"You'll know when you wake up"

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