The Medallion's Keeper Ch.1

Summary: An unknown group of assassins attacked the dojo, killing his father, trying to take the medallion they were seeking. After surviving the fire, a young vengeful martial artist swore revenge on them all. But it will be challenging keeping it a secret from those giving him a second chance at a life full of love.

*****

A lone hooded young man was standing a few meters away from the front door of a building while biting a blade of wheat grass in his mouth. Raising his head, he looked at the sign that was written in Chinese characters, as a hint of disgust could be noticed on his shadowed face. Looking to the side, he spotted a silhouette standing on top of a nearby building, only that the shadow jumped off the roof and landed on top of the same building he's facing.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, he inched closer to the door, before raising his foot and kicked it down with brute force. After that, he stepped into a foyer and the first thing he saw was a cabinet full of trophies and diplomas covering the wall. He clicked his tongue in bitterness.

"Who goes there?!" A voice was heard at the end of the hall before a man wearing a traditional kung-fu gi with a red belt tied around the waist appeared to investigate the source of a disturbance. His eyes widened the moment his sight set on a hooded intruder, but his surprise reaction quickly changed into anger as he approached the trespasser. "Hey! What do you think you're doing? You can't just barged in and-"

The hooded one didn't let him finish when he thrust his fingers into the kung-fu instructor's neck with his fingers, leaving him gagging for breath. He then grabbed him and elbowed in the face, sending the instructor crashing into the shelf that made some trophies fall down to the floor. After leaving the instructor out of commission, the hooded man proceeded further.

"What's going on over there?!" Another voice was heard in the room to the left where the instructor came from.

Turning his way to the left, he now found himself standing in a dojo where a group of students were training until they heard the commotion. All of them were stunned after seeing the unknown stranger, but one of them, who was a high-level ranking instructor judging by the brown belt tied around his waist, was not intimidated by the intruder's presence.

"What is the meaning of this? Who are you and state your business!" The other instructor spat as he walked towards the stranger.

"I'm looking for the Grand Master. I have some unfinished business to deal with. Take me to him or you will suffer if you stand my way!" The hooded man declared, without hiding the resentment in his voice.

However, the instructor furrowed his brow at the request. "You fool. You think you can just make demands to a Kung-Fu school teacher? I don't know what you did to my assistant, but if you're not gonna turn around and leave, then I shall make you." He seethed and went to a fighting stance.

"M-Master, let us help you!" One student shouted as the others agreed.

"Stand down! I can take it from here! With only one punch, I can take him out." The teacher said with confidence.

"Hmph, and you call yourself a master when you're just so full of yourself." The stranger scoffed before he took off the hood and fully revealed his face and his messy brown hair.

"You insolent little..." The instructor rushed forward and launched a jumping kick, but the intruder sidestepped and dodged it. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he threw a barrage of punches, but the intruder could deflect them without any difficulty.

The instructor spun around and tried to land a roundhouse kick, but the intruder blocked it and then kicked him in the groin. The instructor lurched after receiving the low blow, but the young man didn't stop from there when he grappled him and kneed him in the face, before finishing him off with an elbow to the back of the neck.

"Master!" Another student cried out before he and the rest of the pupils began to surround the intruder. "You won't get away from this, you bastard!"

The intruder let out a sigh and cracked his neck before turning to face the students with an eerie smile on his face. "That's funny, because I'm not planning to. Not after I'm done with all of you..."

*****

The backdoor behind the main building was opened and the intruder came out to the backyard with his clothes slightly stained with blood. He wiped some of the blood off his face with the back of his hand as he closed the door to hide the mess he left behind. The stranger continued making his way through the backyard, which was also a traditional garden.

While he was going up the stony stairs, he heard a commotion that was coming from a two-story building up the high ground. When he reached the top, he smelled something burning as he noticed some smoke coming out of the building. Suddenly, the front door burst open with fire and a man flew out and slid across the floor with severe burns covering his body.

The stranger looked at the burned man with an indifferent expression before he looked up and faced a young woman with long raven hair with a knot on top of his head and a lean, curvy body. She's wearing a golden-trimmed, regal red suit with dark blood red long sleeves and a golden belt around her waist. Her legs were covered with red armored boots that reached up to her knees and curled at the toe. Her arms were covered with red forearm protectors and elbow pads.

"Hey Jet, I was just getting rid of these weaklings for you. I wouldn't waste my time with these fools, but I was getting bored." The woman sneered as she sat on the table and crossed her legs, ignoring the flames that were starting to spread around the room.

"What part of do not get carried away did you not understand, Ozai? We were supposed to do this stealthily." Jet's voice was laced with anger as he got inside the house through the broken door.

"How about you stop whining since you're supposed to be our leader? Besides, I'm sure the other guys just finished dealing with the rest of the students ahead as we speak. But better make it quick, cause I have the job of getting rid of the evidence." Ozai said and a flicker of flame burst out of her hand.

Jet clicked his tongue to hold back a retort and moved further as he took the stairs. He exited through the back door on the second floor and once again took the stony stairs to reach the higher ground and found a large wooden gate ahead. Gripping around the handles, he opened the gates and entered the yard of a mansion.

Bodies of students and instructors were scattered around, though it's unknown if they're just unconscious or even dead. But among them, there was a lone hooded man sitting on a stony bench with his head bowed, as if he's in deep thought until he noticed the leader's arrival. He raised his head, only to reveal he was wearing a sinister white mask with a red disc on the forehead.

"The Grand Master, where is he?" Jet asked while approaching the masked man.

He didn't seem like he was willing to answer, but then he turned his gaze at the mansion that was good enough to answer Jet's question. "Hama and Zaheer are taking care of him, but looks like they're having some trouble." He spoke gravely.

Jet didn't have the time to show any reaction as he strode his way to the door and slammed it open. At that moment, he saw a middle-age lady and a stout man with a shaved head fighting against an old man in a red shirt and dark khakis.

The middle-aged lady with slightly gray hair was whipping her water-like whips with a water-bending ability, but the Grand Master could dodge any of these attacks. The other man with shaved head tried to attack him from behind with a bo staff, but the Grand Master kicked him away, sending him crashing into a pillar. The gray-haired lady then spun around and whipped the water whips once again, only to miss when the old man ducked his head and let the water whips cut the other pillar.

"Stop!" Jet shouted, making everyone look at the young man standing in the doorway.

The water-bending lady sighed as she reverted the water whips back into her body, as the stout man stood up while using the staff as leverage.

"Jet. I always figured you would come back sooner." The Grand Master said with a voice full of disappointment.

"It's been a while, sifu. You've become slower than the last time I saw you." Jet replied dryly as he took a few more steps. Behind him, Ozai and Amon stood beside him.

Sifu furrowed his brows as he glanced at the henchmen standing behind Jet. "If you wouldn't go that far of burning my school, killing all my students, I would have given you the choice to live."

"You know why we are here, master." Jet spat at the last word as his fist clenched tightly. "We want the medallion."

Sifu grew a grimace of disdain before turning around and headed towards the shrine where a picture of the founder of this school, who's also his father, was hanging on the wall. "You used to be my best student. And I was very proud, so proud that I could meet someone like you. But you become selfish, arrogant, and reckless. You're nothing but a disappointment."

Amon suddenly was about to step forward, only to stop when Jet held up his arm and gave him a look, which Amon had no choice but to stand down.

The master looked straight at the picture of his father before letting out a sigh and looked down to look at a small chest laying on the shrine with a golden crest. His hand ran slowly across the box. "If only you knew why this power is too much to fall into the wrong hands."

Jet then moved forward while the other assassins stood behind to bear witness to the final confrontation between the former student and the master. "I've been waiting for this moment for so long. This ends once and for all." He proclaimed.

"For once, I agree with you." Sifu turned back to face his former student and assumed his fighting stance. "I should do what I must to put an end to this madness."

There was a loud thunder that made the glass window vibrate, before Jet rushed towards and the elder one deflected all the punches his former student was launching. Jet tried to kick his legs to make him trip, but Sifu raised his feet every time he tried. The young man then tried to hit him with an ax kick, but Sifu blocked it and pushed him away, making Jet stumble to the floor.

"You haven't changed a bit. You're still sloppy and careless!" Sifu scolded while he stood with a relaxed stance.

Jet gritted his teeth before kicking up back to his feet and lunged towards Sifu with a flying knee. The elder master blocked the knee with his arms and threw a tiger-style punch, but Jet deflected it and thrust his palms into Sifu's torso. The Kung Fu master gasped in pain as the force of Jet's attack forced him to stumble back until his back collided against the shrine.

"Still think I'm way out of my league, old man?" Jet taunted before rushing in and launched a roundhouse kick, only to miss when Sifu rolled away and ended up kicking the candles off the shrine instead. What he didn't notice is that the candles were still lit and when they fell on the floor, it began burning the wooden surface.

"You think killing me is gonna change everything? You're still gonna be the same frightened, angry child!" Sifu shouted before he went on the offensive, sweeping Jet's legs to bring him to the floor and tried to finish him with a stomp, but Jet rolled away as his foot left a hole on the floor.

"You're right about one thing, but I'm not scared anymore!" Jet snapped as he got up and kicked a chair towards the master, and took the distraction to get closer to Sifu while the old man broke it in pieces with a kick.

Sifu parried a blow from his former student and tried to strike him, but Jet elbowed in his mid-section, forcing him to stagger back. He tried to fight back, but he should've known that Jet had studied his moves, which gave him the advantage to predict his attacks as he parried them and struck him with his attacks. Even so, the elder one kept holding on as he used his arms to protect himself from the Jet's unleashed punches.

He thrust his elbow into Jet's torso to break his defense, and reared his fist past his hip to prepare to deliver a final blow. But before he could do so, the gates behind Jet were slammed open.

"Father!" A young boy with short hair just came from the courtyard and saw the master fighting against one of the assassins.

Sifu was completely taken aback to see the boy coming to a place where he's not supposed to, but that distraction gave Jet a chance to pull his clenched fist back and with a swift thrust, he punched directly into Sifu's chest, right where there was his heart.

"Agk! Ugh..." Sifu let out a choked gasp, clutching his chest when he felt a heart attack. He looked at Jet with hatred in his eyes, but at the same time he was shocked that this young man could learn a devastating technique. But then his eyes set on the boy, who was completely shocked at what he's now seeing. "Shen... Run..." He drew his last breath before falling to the floor in a heap.

The boy's breaths grew heavy the moment he witnessed his father lying lifelessly on the floor. He wanted to scream, to call his father in hopes that he's just unconscious, but nothing came out of his mouth as he was overwhelmed with many emotions. He struggled to take a step forward, but he froze when Jet turned over his shoulder to look at him as the fire began to spread the entire room.

Without exchanging a word to the boy, Jet made his way towards the shrine without giving a second glance to his former master's body. He took the picture of Sifu's father off the wall to take a closer look, but he let out a scoff before throwing it into the fire.

"That old man was your father?" Jet asked as he took the wooden chest off the shrine, yet he didn't expect to hear the boy's answer. "If he would've just stepped aside, I would've spared him. He got what he deserved though."

The boy couldn't say anything, but the fury began to build up in his eyes when the assassin just insulted his father.

"Hey, we gotta get out of here! Everything is gonna burn to the ground!" The water-bend lady known as Hama shouted.

"You want me to take care of the brat?" Ozai asked as she glanced towards the kid.

"Give me a moment!" Jet retorted before looking back at the box, and opened it slowly while awaiting the moment of truth he's been preparing for. But when he fully opened the chest, his excitement quickly turned into shock. "What?"

"What is it?" The man with the shaved head noticed the expression on the young man.

"It's... it's empty. The medallion is not in this box!" Jet angrily tossed the box aside. "I don't understand, Sifu would never take the medallion out of the chest or even give it to someone else! Unless..."

His eyes widened once he put up the puzzle pieces together, and then turned his sight back to the boy. The kid gulped down a lump down his throat as he took a step back.

"You. The old man must have given you the medallion so you could escape with it, but instead you came back..." Jet said with a calm, but enraged tone as he began to approach slowly towards the boy while the other four assassins stood beside him. "Give me the medallion." He seethed with his hand out.

Shen looked at each of these assassins as they were giving him a look that made him tremble in fear, it was clear they're expecting him to either give what their leader wanted or suffer the same fate as his father. Either way, they're planning to kill him along with everyone else in this dojo. Without any hesitation, he turned around and dashed away.

"Don't let him get away!" Jet shouted with his index finger pointing at the boy.

The water-bending lady stepped in and shot water tendrils out of her hands to catch the boy, but Shen could see what she's trying to do and jumped off the ground before the tendrils almost wrapped around his ankles.

"Oh no, you don't!" Ozai shouted and whipped her arms around before shooting a fireball out of her hands.

Shen felt the heat coming towards him, but the fireball flew over his head and blew the lintel that was hanging over the entrance to the mansion. Realizing she's been meaning to trap him, he didn't stop running and slid across the floor. He managed to get back into the mansion before the fire-bending assassins blocked his way in.

Hearing some inaudible shouting from outside, Shen didn't have to wait and try to understand what they're saying as he continued to run through the burning mansion. It was hard for him to leave the place he grew up, where he trained the martial arts, and where he spent fond memories with his father and friends, but he knew he had to fulfill his father's wish and that is protecting the medallion with his life.

He was getting closer to the exit, so he ran as fast as he could to make an escape. But suddenly, the buff-looking man jumped down on his way and stood between the boy and the way out of the mansion.

"Don't make this difficult kid, give us the medallion, and I promise we will spare you." The man with the bo staff said coldly and walked closer to the boy.

Shen tried to stay far from him, but now he felt cornered that at some point he wondered if he could try to fight his way out. But before he could think anything, he heard some crackling noise above him. He looked up and the next thing he saw was the charred remains falling down on him.

After that, everything went dark.

*****

A groan escaped from the boy's lips as he slowly regained his consciousness. He cracked his eyes open, only to be blinded by the light that left him dazed in a second. Once his sight became clearer, he became aware that he's laying on a bed with rails and found himself in a white room. He was about to get up, but then let out a hiss when a twinge of pain ran through his body, before he looked down to see a cast covering around his right arm and leg.

Shen was very confused and a little anxious as he wondered how he ended up in this predicament, until he heard the sound of a door opening to his side, before he looked over and saw a dark-skinned woman with dark brown shoulder-length hair coming into the room while staring at the clipboard in her hand. She appeared to be a doctor for the white lab coat she was wearing.

The doctor looked away from the clipboard and gazed at the boy. "Oh, you're awake! Thank goodness!" She said with a voice full of relief.

"He's awake?" A young female voice sounded from behind the doctor before she bursted into the room. It was a teenage girl with dark brown braided hair with two loops on the sides of her head and fastened on the back. She also wore a dark blue jacket with white shirt underneath and a pair of grey jeans.

"Katara, wait!" Said a young woman with long dark hair tied back in a bun and wore a blue blouse underneath her beige demi coat and a pair of tight blue jeans. She stopped the girl from going further, but then she was also stunned once she looked at the boy now awake.

It didn't take long for Shen to recognize their faces. "Katara? Miss Kya?" He said with a shocked look.

The teenage girl named Katara pulled herself free from her mother's grasp and dashed towards her childhood friend. "Oh Shen, thank God you're okay!" She exclaimed as she gently pulled his face towards her to see how badly he was wounded.

"Katara, please, give him some space." Her mother asked her as she gently pulled her daughter away from him. "How are you feeling, Shen?"

"Fine, I guess... W-Where am I?" Shen asked as he clutched his ached head, before feeling that he also had some bandages wrapped around.

"You're in the hospital, kid. You've been trapped under the rubble of a burned building, but the firemen found you in time to rescue you and take you here. While you suffered some injuries, it appears that you'll recover sooner than expected, which honestly I'm very surprised about." The doctor said with a smile.