Xiaolin Showdown Fan Fiction ❯ Out of the Shadows ❯ The Beginning ( Chapter 1 )

Out of the Shadows

By HeavenSentTenshi

Chapter 1: The Beginning

The day had begun as normal. Sauda was laying in her bed, enjoying the soft rays of the sun that streaked through her window and landed on her face, and listening to the soothing music of the song birds. She stared at the ceiling and watched the glow from the stars she'd put there when she was six, almost ten years earlier, fade in the sun washed morning. She sighed, content with how quiet and peaceful the morning was turning out to be….

Then a crash disrupted her thoughts; it sounded like glass. She sat up, her mind still hazy from the sleep that had yet to leave her mind. The crash was immediately followed by the slamming of a door and loud screaming. Sauda sighed again, this time in annoyance. She rubbed her temples as she slowly got out of bed and slipped a robe over her shoulders and her pajamas. She walked over to her bedroom door and went to open it; but when her hand had reached the knob, it swung open. Her mother was standing in the doorway, her face screwed up in anger, her hands cut and bleeding, and her hair messed up from over excessive movement.

Sauda stepped back and attempted to shut the door, but her mother kept it open.

“What did you tell your father?” she demanded, grabbing Sauda by the arm.

“About what?” Sauda asked in her defense, “I haven't told him anything! You're the one who's said it, I don't tell anyone about anything, remember? I keep all my feelings bottled up! Now let go of me!” Sauda removed her mother's hand from around her arm and attempted to shove her out of her room.

“You told him something! He thinks I've cheated on him! What did you tell him?”

“I told you, I didn't tell him anything! And why would Dad think you're cheating?”

“Well, it must've been something you told him!”

Sauda's face turned red in anger. She wasn't sure what her mother was talking about, but she was sure that she didn't want to be arguing this early in the morning.

“Lucine!” Sauda looked over her mother's shoulder to see her father standing behind her, his hand firmly gripping that shoulder. “What are you yelling at Sauda for? She has absolutely nothing to do with this!” When this was said, Sauda's father pulled her mother back out into the hallway and calmly closed her door.

Slowly, Sauda backed up and sat down on her bed, her hands shaking. She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Nosing her face into her knees, she began to think that today wouldn't be like any normal day.

Through the closed door, Sauda could hear her parent's conversation. Her mother was screaming at the top of her lungs, while her father was trying to act as calm as possible.

“What did she tell you?” her mother screeched.

“She didn't tell me anything.”

“Then why did you accuse me of cheating?”

“I didn't accuse you of cheating on me.”

“Yes you did! You're lying to me!”

“No I'm not; I've never said anything like that.”

“Don't accuse me of lying!”

“I haven't!” Sauda's father's voice rose for this moment, but he calmed it again. “Lucine, look…”

“Don't `Lucine, look' me! You're cheating on me and you're lying to my face!”

“When did this suddenly become me cheating on you? And where are you getting all of this? ”

“Getting all of this? You've been doing all of this for years, haven't you? Haven't you!”

“Lucine, I'm not cheating, and I'm not lying!”

“Yes you are!”

Her father sighed. “Alright… I'm done… I don't want to argue this anymore, especially when Sauda's room is right there…. Let's talk about this tomorrow when she's out of the house.”

“No! No, we have to talk about this right here, right now! Just admit that you're cheating on me!”

“I can't admit to something that never happened!”

“Just tell me the truth!”

Suddenly, Sauda threw a large martial arts book, which looked more like a dictionary of four languages, at the door. “Stop it!” she yelled, stomping over to her door and throwing it open, “Stop it! Did it ever occur to you that you might be wrong, Mom?” she continued in her loud voice, “Did it? Did it ever occur to you that you might be the one whose accusations are false? Dad's not like that cheating jerk you married before! So don't accuse him of something he didn't do!”

Sauda didn't expect it; in fact, she kicked herself for not; but just then, her mother slapped her in the face. It was the first time she'd ever been slapped, and by her mother no less. She didn't know how to take it. Had it been a punch, which she had taken many times in her training, she may have known how to deal with it, but punches didn't sting like a slap did, it was very different.

Sauda stood there for several moments, silenced; her father doing the same. Her eyes were wide in disbelief. With the speed of a slug, her hand reached up and touched the red spot on her cheek. It was warm. She blinked several times as her eyesight focused on her fuming mother who didn't want to hear what she had to say.

“Did you just…?” she began as her mother continued to glare at her. Her father was flabbergasted to the point that he couldn't even speak. He just stood there, gaping at them. “You just… you just slapped me… didn't you?”

“I did, and I'll do it again if you interrupt us one more time.” Sauda had never, in her fifteen years of life, seen her mother like this. It angered her. Her right hand, still down at her side, balled up into a fist. She'd never been slapped, but she knew that there were three things someone could do when they were punched; cry, ignore it, or punch back.  She had the urge to punch back.  But she didn't. She stood there, her hands shaking, as her father turned on her mother.

“Who do you think you are?” he yelled, “Who do you think gives you the right to slap your own little girl?”

“I do!” her mother spat, “I gave birth to her, I have the right to punish her how I see fit!”

“No… no you don't,” Sauda hissed in a deadly tone. “No one ever has the right to hit another person….”

“How can you say that?” her mother asked, “You do it all the time.”

“I don't just hit people for the sheer pleasure of it!” Sauda screamed, her vocal cords buzzing in pain, “I don't just hit them to teach them a lesson! I do it for self-defense, I do it to help them train, and to help train me!” When she was finished, and without noticing, Sauda shoved her mother back against the wall, her black-purple eyes alit with fury.

“Sauda, how dare you!” her mother shrieked, diving at her daughter. Sauda easily sidestepped it, sending her mother into her room. When her mother reemerged from the confines of the doorway, she lunged at her again, this time only to be tripped and sent into the opposite wall again.

“Don't try it, Mother, and I use the term lightly. Do you remember all those classes you paid for, or should I say, Dad paid for…? Well, I learned something from them… I learned how to fight, and I learned how to avoid one too.” At this time, Sauda grabbed her mother by her arms and held her up a bit. “It's in your best interest to leave me be.” And with that, she dropped her on the ground, her mother shaking and sobbing and muttering something about her being her only mother, how she brought her into this world, and something about how would she be able to do something like that to her. But Sauda just brushed it off as she returned to her room, slamming the door behind her.

Her father touched her mother's shoulder and received a swat and a “Leave me alone!” before returning to their bedroom. Sauda immediately headed for her bathroom, seeing that her robes now had blood stains on them from when her mother had grabbed her arm. She sighed; guessing that her mother had received the cuts on her hands when she'd thrown whatever it was that was made of glass and was shattered.  Pulling off her robe and applying a sufficient amount of Spray and Wash on the stains, Sauda got ready for a shower. The thing she needed now, more than ever, was a hot shower to calm her nerves. She always found that the warmth always soothed her after another tiring fight with her mom.