Disclaimer: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown or X/1999
Tears in the Wind
A little boy was in a church all alone. Well, almost alone. With him was his best friend, a teddy bear named Ninja Fred. The boy himself was around five years of age, with perfectly tanned skin from the time he spent outdoors, and brown spiky hair that just dipped over his forest green eyes. He wore a plain white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. Around his neck was a gold amulet with a spiral on it that had belonged to his mother when she was alive. This was Raimundo.
The room was filled with flower petals that Raimundo had brought in and laid on the floor. All of the candles in the room were lit. Ninja Fred was propped up against the podium in the back of the room. The room itself was very beautiful, with stained glass windows that depicted crosses and clouds and angels. A red satin carpet covered the floor and the candles were held in gold candleholders.
Raimundo put up his hands in the air and something very strange began to happen. The wind began to blow inside the room, blowing the flower petals around the room in an elegant way and causing the flames from the candles to dance. The effect was truly beautiful.
"See Fred?" the boy spoke to his teddy bear, "I'm going to show Daddy! I know he'll like it because it's pretty like Mommy!"
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When his father saw though his reaction was not what the innocent young boy had thought it would be. When the man opened the door to their apartment he gasped at what he saw. Papers were flying every where, though all of the windows were closed and there were no fans on. His son stood in the middle of the room with a huge grin on his face, holding his hands up in the air.
"Isn't it cool?" Raimundo said, not noticing his father's gasp, "It's pretty like Mommy was!" Suddenly Raimundo's father cried out.
"Demon!" The man screamed. The next thing the boy knew he was on the floor, and his face hurt badly. His father had hit him.
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The next several months were the worst of Raimundo's life. His father didn't let him play outside any more. The boy had to stay locked up in the apartment all of the time. He was constantly beaten and suffered insults such as 'demon' and 'devil'. Raimundo's father usually didn't feed him. The poor boy would usually have to sneak some food when his father was at work or asleep, and then he could only take very little, because if his father caught him he recieved extra beatings and was locked up in a closet.
People started coming, after the first few weeks. Sometimes there was only one, but sometimes there were more. Raimundo never saw them, he wasn't allowed out of his room when his father had company, but he heard their conversations.
"Look, Mr. Pedrosa, if you allow your son to come with me he will learn how to control his powers, how he can use them to help people-" the speaker was cut off by Raimundo's father.
"No! Don't you understand what that devil spawn could do if I'm not watching him? Leave now! And I swear Fung, if you ever come here again!" The shouting stopped and there was a sound of a door slamming. Raimundo heard his father's footsteps coming closer. The child tensed and bit back tears. He squeezed Ninja Fred to his chest when the footsteps stopped outside his door. The door swung open. His father grabbed him roughly by the arm, dragged him out into the hall, and threw him against the wall.
"You evil little monster!" the man shouted, causing tears to well up in Raimundo's eyes, "It's because of you these people keep harassing me!"
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Later Raimundo's father was praying aloud in front of a shrine in the main room, a beaten and broken Raimundo behind him, clutching his teddy bear. The man was sobbing as he did. The poor child found this deeply disturbing. He thought adults never cried.
'Am I really that bad?' the innocent little Raimundo asked himself, 'am I really so evil that I make my Daddy cry?'
"Why?" his father asked, "Why did you give me this demon for a son? He has brought nothing but pain and suffering to me. He should die." Raimundo wanted to cry, but didn't. He had run out of tears what felt like an eternity ago.
"Daddy..." the child began in a weak voice, "if doing bad things makes you the devil, doesn't that make you the devil every time you hit me?"
His father turned around looking infuriated. He back handed Raimundo, causing the child to sprawl across the floor, still clutching Ninja Fred.
"Don't you talk to me you demon!" Raimundo's father roared, "If it weren't for you we wouldn't be living in this dump! It's because of you my wife died! You deserve to die!"
"But," Raimundo began weakly, "if I died wouldn't you cry?" His father seemed to become angrier at that.
"Cry? For you?" he roared, raising his foot to begin stomping on the little boy, "Why would I cry for a thing like you?"
Raimundo's father brought his foot down. Raimundo closed his eyes and waited for the pain, but it never came. Instead there was a sound of something big rushing by him. Raimundo heard his father gasp and opened his eyes to see what it was. He was shcoked to see two tigers standing feircely between him and his father.
The two humans heard footsteps from to the left. (a/n Raimundo's left, sorry if it's confusing) They looked to see a fairly tall young man wearing golden armor. He had long black hair that reached to his lower back. His amber reptillian eyes that matched the symbol on his belt stood out against his pale skin.
'Is this Fung?' Raimundo thought, 'He looks so different than I thought, kind of scary.'
"Mr. Pedrosa," the stranger began in an eerie voice, "I would like to talk to you regarding your son." Raimundo's father forgot his fear of the big cats and scowled at the man.
"Another one? I already told the last one they sent. Raimundo is staying here, no matter what you say to me," he growled, glaring at the new man. This stranger only smirked.
"I had a feeling you might say that," the stranger said in his eerie voice that sent chills up and down Raimundo's spine. He knew this wasn't Fung. Fung's voice sounded warm and gentle, not cold and dark.
The stranger snapped his fingers. One of the tigers pushed Raimundo's father towards a door while the other laid down next to Raimundo. The big cat's purring made it difficult to hear and he couldn't see very well past its form, but he was able to see the stranger walk to the door the tiger had led his father to. The black haired man opened the door and motioned for Raimundo's father to enter the room. He didn't look like he had any choice but to oblige. He entered the room, followed by the stranger and his tiger. The door was shut and then locked. The tiger laying next to Raimundo began to purr louder, barely blocking out the horrible noises coming from the room.
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After a while the noises stopped, although Raimundo wasn't really aware of them, thanks to the tiger. Raimundo was sitting up now, back against the wall, holding on tightly to Ninja Fred. the door opened. The stranger and his tiger walked out, but Raimundo's father didn't. Raimundo, being a naive little child at the time, didn't understand why.
"Where's my Daddy?" he asked the stranger, who smiled gently to him. It seemed all wrong.
"Your father is sleeping right now, and will be sleeping for a long time," he said, his voice sounding not quite as dark, but still just as eerie as before.
"Oh," young Raimundo said, believing that his father was really only asleep, "well, who are you?"
"My name is Chase Young," the man, Chase, replied, "and I'm here to take you away from this place." Raimundo seemed a little confused at this.
"Why?"
Chase was a little suprised at this. The child had clearly been abused. There were bruises covering Raimundo's body. Blood was trickling down from the corner of his mouth. His clothes were torn in many places and he looked dirty and underfed. Surely this child would want to be taken away.
"Because," Chase replied, "your father was hurting you. I'm going to take you to live somewhere safe."
"But Daddy said I was evil," the child protested, "he said I needed to stay with him." Chase scowled mentally, but kept his gentle protector facade.
"You father was wrong," he said, much to Raimundo's relief and shock, "staying here is the worst possible thing for you."
Raimundo squeezed Ninja Fred tighter. He was struggling with himself inwardly. On one hand, he really didn't want to stay here. His father would continue to hurt him (or so he believed) if he stayed. If he went with Chase he would be safe. But on the other hand he didn't want to leave his father alone. Even through all of the torture, he still loved his father, and since his mother died they were the only family eachother had.
"Raimundo," Chase said still trying to convince the boy, "why would you want to stay here?"
"Because," Raimundo said, smiling the for the first time in months, "I love my Daddy. He was the only person who ever cried for me."
Chase was confused by the boy's words. He didn't understand love at all. How could this child love someone who had been so cruel to him?
"If I go with you," Raimundo began again, "what will happen to Daddy?" Chase wasn't sure how to answer this without lying. So he lied.
"Your father will be fine. He'll be angry at first, but he'll eventually get over it. It will probably be better for both of you," He said in his eerily gentle voice.
"All right," Raimundo answered, his eyes drooping slightly, "I'll go with you." Raimundo's eyes closed and his breathing became lighter and shallower.
Chase Young picked up the sleeping boy who was still clutching the teddy bear. On the back of said teddy bear, sewn into the fabric, was a little patch that said: To Raimundo Love Daddy.
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(Authot's Note) Okay, I wrote this story while having writer's block for Wind Angel. This story is kind of a crossover with X/1999 in this chapter. It goes to the plot of a side story about a little girl with the ability to control fire who was beaten when she showed her mother. The ending was different, however. The ending to this story pulls more into Xiaolin Showdown. I am not sure if I will continue this story. I might when I'm done with Wind Angel or if I get a lot of reveiws.