A Lesson in Ki

As the time wound down for Raven, Jasper, and the boys to go to the Acropolis of Lindos, Raven was currently in a position that was very familiar to him: trying his best to talk some type of sense into his wife as she raged at him. Raven had tried to explain to Sharon that he and Jasper were going to follow up on a lead, that being to go to the acropolis to meet up with Nestor, but she had lost it the second he had denied her or LaShonda the opportunity to travel with them to the city of Lindos which was a little over an hour away to the south east of Rhodes. This time, however, she was not alone in her harassing of the Exemplar, as LaShonda had joined the woman in her yelling whilst on the dock in front of the Liontamer, whereas the other men and boys took the high road and tried to avoid the women.

"Argh!" Raven yelled, feeling his throbbing migraine get even worse as the females found it necessary to yell at him from both sides. "In the most respectful way I can put this," Raven said with an almost forced sigh. "Would you women please, shut, the hell, up!"

"I know you didn't just-!" LaShonda started, but a stern glare from Jasper immediately quieted his wife. At this point, even Jasper was starting to get irritated with the constant complaining of their wives. They were in the lap of literal paradise, and they had gotten what they wanted by staying in the first place. Now it was just getting plain old ridiculous.

"Yo!" Jasper yelled, waving a stressed out Raven back. "I might not be an actual leader here, but I'm going to say it like this: Rave's been stretching the limit as it is with you girls and the kids being here. It might not seem like it to you, but this beautiful little island is one of the most dangerous places in the world right now for all parties involved."

LaShonda just rolled her eyes, not liking her husband jumping at his brother's defense, but in the back of her mind she had to admit that the Edge men had a point. Sharon, however, took Jasper's comments as a challenge; in her mind, Jasper was 'butting in' on her 'conversation' with Raven. "You're right," Sharon said with an obvious attitude. "You're not the Exemplar here, Raven is. That's why I'm talking to him, not you."

"Rave you better get your girl," Jasper said with a warning edge in his tone, not one to particularly welcome anyone's attitude when they talked to him. "Talk some sense into her or something."

Seeing the situation between the four adults start to come to a heated cusp, Jericho jumped in between the ticked off women and their respective husbands, in an attempt to be the mediator of this squabble. "Hey hey now," Jericho said, waving both his hands in a downward motion. "First off, there's no need to get hostile."

"Then tell Jazz to stay out of my business," Sharon said, crossing her arms with an irritated huff.

"See what I mean," Jericho said, turning towards Sharon as he tapped on his forehead. "Attitude much. Chill Sharon; they're only trying to make sure you guys are safe. Why do you think I'm still here in the first place?"

"Does it look like I care?" she asked, doing her best to tune Jericho out.

'You know what,' Raven thought, deciding that he was done with Sharon's continued attempts to follow him around. 'This ends here.' He loved her dearly; that would never be questioned, but sometimes she had a selfish streak that defied all logic and reason. Seizing her arm, Raven forcefully turned the woman around to face him, giving her a lesser glare than the day before, yet no less intimidating. "Sharon," he said in a deathly serious voice. "I'm not going to say this again. The stipulation for you all staying, wives and boys, is that when I tell you to do something, do it."

Sharon let a condescending laugh out as she stared at Raven with an equally intense glare. "So you're going to order me around like I'm just one of your subordinates, and not your wife?"

Raven sighed as he shook his head; there was no reason for her to go to that level with this. "Yes," he said simply, visibly surprising both wives with the ease in which he had said it. "I'm your husband, but I'm also an Exemplar. You and LaShonda decided to have a bright idea and come halfway across the world just to have some alone time with us; now deal with the consequences. As long as this mission lasts, I will not have anyone challenge my authority, not even you. Do I make myself clear?"

A tense silence followed Raven's words as everyone watching the confrontation, the kids included, waited on a response from Sharon, who looked to be shaken at Raven's declaration. "Auntie," Taji said, to the surprise of everyone, Raven included. "I would stand down, for realz." That had the effect of turning Sharon's wrath onto him, with the woman leveling her nephew with a glare reserved for when she scolded her kids, but Taji stared back, unflinching as he continued. "No matter what you want, remember your place right now."

"Jazz," Sharon said simply, taking Taji's remarks as a personal affront for more than a few reasons. "You need to teach your son to stay out of grown folk's affairs."

"And you need to learn how respect an Exemplar," Taji said with a tone highly unusual for the youth. "Like it or not Auntie Sharon, this is serious business. Did you ever stop to think about why Uncle Raven's not letting you or my mom go anyway? Maybe the reason you two can't come has something to do with the one thing neither of you can control?"

'Someone was listening in this morning,' Jasper thought, easily catching on to Taji's thinly veiled logic. 'Kid's got some guts though; standing up to Sharon isn't something Roman or Quinton would ever do. Rave even has a time when he tries.'

"Sharon," Raven said with a much softer tone as he put a hand on her shoulder, noticing the tell tale signs of his wife on the brink of losing it on the kid. "Get mad all you want, but Taji's right on the money. We're only going out for a couple of hours anyway; you'll have me all to yourself tonight." Raven turned his head to Jericho with a pleading look, silently asking for help from the Canis.

"Yeah," Jericho said quickly, catching on to Raven's contingency plan to keep Sharon from blowing her jets. "I'm taking the kids with me tonight for a run around the coast; do some fishing, man things, ya know. You two ladies will have your husbands all to yourselves tonight; heaven knows you two need it."

Sharon narrowed her eyes at Jericho, instantly suspicious. "You're not just saying that to get me to back off and let them leave us again, are you?"

"No," Jericho said, nervously scratching the back of his head as he slowly shuffled to his right, keeping both women's suspicious gazes on him. "I would never do something like that."

'Now's our chance,' Raven said, quickly waving to the boys as he turned tail and ran off the dock, being followed on the heels by Jasper. The boys didn't waste a second, hightailing it away from the women before they noticed anything amiss. "Love you honey!" Raven yelled out once his group was safely off the dock, reaching a compact sized black BMW that Nestor had sent for them to use as transportation. "Move boys!"

"Oh that's childish!" LaShonda yelled, realizing a bit too late that Raven and co. had pulled the wool over their eyes. "Sharon!"

"I'm going to kill him!" Sharon yelled, just as angry as LaShonda was at the boys' maneuver. The two women turned to try and catch Raven and co. before they could drive off, but they were suddenly tripped by a long, thick vine, courtesy of Jericho, before being bound by two more vines from the neck down. "Jericho!" Sharon yelled, now even more incensed as she helplessly watched Raven drive away, with the boys waving at their trapped mothers from the back seat window. "Let me go, now!"

"Nuh-uh," Jericho said, quickly shaking his head in the negative. "That'll be a danger to my health. You two aren't getting released until you all calm down." At that, Jericho laughed as he grabbed a hold of the ends of the vines he had used to trap the raging Edge women, dragging them on board the Liontamer as he did his best to ignore the string of curses that were flying out of both women's mouths.

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 "Got it!" Taji exclaimed with a victorious smirk as he lowered his camera. "This'll be good blackmail for a few years!" Needless to say, all three preteens had found the way Jericho had detained their mothers' hilarious, and Taji had used the situation as a pristine opportunity to use his trademark camera that was nearly always on his person.

"I wouldn't let your mom see those pictures Taj Mahal," Jasper said from the passenger seat, holding a smirk of his own as he busied himself by rolling a joint.

"She won't," Taji said with an assured look. "Password protection is the best. Even you couldn't get into my camera."

"That's what you think," Raven said under his breath. Apparently the boys still hadn't gotten the memo that until they were 18, there was no such thing as true 'privacy', especially in the Edge households.

"So," Jasper said after lighting the joint. "How did you know what we were going to do today Taj?"

"Uh," Taji said nervously, quickly trying to come up with an excuse for knowing about the elder brothers' plans for them. "I didn't? I was just trying to help you guys out Dad."

"Save the b.s for someone who'll believe you," Raven said, smirking in the rear view mirror at the three boys, specifically at Taji to let the boys know that his eavesdropping earlier that morning was already picked up on by him and Jasper. "We're not mad; actually you made perfect sense."

"He did?" Roman asked with a mocking scratch of his head. "Taji made sense?" Roman and Quinton suddenly shared a look, before making a show of looking out of all the windows within their reach.

"What are you two doing?" Jasper asked.

"Checking for some supernatural phenomenon," Quinton answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Taj Mahal making sense must be a precursor to some worldwide freak accident." That response was met with a swift smack to the back of the head by the slightly miffed Taji. "What?"

"Thanks for the support cousin," Taji said before sitting back in his seat, staring out of the window to his left with an irritated look on his face.

"Rome, Q," Raven said, chuckling at the antics of the three boys. "Be nice. And yes, as amazing as it sounds, Taj Mahal did make some actual sense. I didn't want your moms coming with us because they actually would have been in some danger."

"What kind?" Roman asked, thinking that his dad was referring to something having to do with his and Jasper's mission. "Are we going to be fighting some Ut Puri thugs? Saving a noble or something?"

"No," Jasper said with a laugh. "But it is something that has to do with you guys' training." With the abrupt silence that followed, Jasper knew he had the boys' undivided attention. "You three are exceptional for your ages; all of you have a decent grasp of the Seiryu-ken fighting style. Taji knows some of the more 'advanced' maneuvers of my personal 'strong' style, and I've heard about your adept level of skill with Rave's 'swift' style Rome. Q, you have a better understanding than either Taj Mahal or Rome when it comes to general theory and fact about the different Sovrumano races, so Rave and I think that it's time to take your collective training to the next level."

"How so?" Quinton asked, completely missing the quick flash of a smirk on Taji's face.

"Well," Raven said. "You guys are going to get to learn more about what we Draco can do in a real fight, and that means you all have to master one basic, yet important skill: ki manipulation." A low, mad cackling from all three boys followed that announcement; this was the lesson that they had been waiting for ever since they had first found out about their Sovrumano roots. "Hey!" Raven said, knowing the sort of thoughts going on in the boys' minds. "Don't think it'll be all that easy; Rome wasn't built in a day."

"I was built?" Roman asked, no doubt being a smart aleck, laughing at the asinine question.

"I'm not gonna even dignify that with a response," Jasper said, laughing at Roman being a clown. "Raven, how long do we have in this car again?"

"About 45 more minutes," Raven said. "Why?"

"F**k this," Jasper said, immediately opening the dashboard for the 'gift' that Nestor had left him, that being a personal bottle of Greek liquor. "Wake me up when we get there; you can deal with the backseat circus by yourself!" The entirety of the car's occupants laughed out loud at that, making themselves comfortable for the ride ahead to Lindos. 'Hope you're ready to put on a show old dude.'

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'Okay,' Riley thought as he wiped a bead of sweat from his nose. 'Why did I agree to this again?' Riley currently found himself on a balance beam in the athletic complex of the University, doing his best to balance on one leg without having to wobble. The feat was simple enough for a person like him, except for the minor addition of four people hurling medicine balls at him from all sides. "You guys are enjoying this, aren't you?"

Jordan was quick to respond, unabashed with his feelings of the situation. "This is almost as fun as playing the Xbox." He hurled another medicine ball at his living target as he spoke. "Almost."

The reasoning for the whole exercise came from, of all people, Justinian himself, who was busy watching the happenings from a seat nearby. The Angeli Exemplar had gotten the dean of the school to close down the athletic complex early, his goal to give the Sovrumano teens in his temporary class a much needed workout. Right now he had Riley attempting to balance while doing his best to avoid being hit. From the amount of bruises that were visible on the teen, Riley wasn't having the greatest success.

 "Stop!" Justinian called out, shaking his head at the lack of progress from Riley. Everyone else had figured out the true concept to the exercise, that of using their inherent abilities to avoid getting hit altogether; it was only Riley who hadn't figured it out. "Riley, what are you doing?"

"Dude," Riley said as he slid down the beam, sitting on it as opposed to standing. "How am I supposed to balance and dodge?"

"I did it with no problem," Jeet said with a smirk, giving Jordan a high five to the displeasure of Riley.

"You're a snake," Riley said with narrowed eyes. "You're supposed to be able to dodge crap."

"Don't have the player, hate the game," Jeet said with a thumbs up.

"That you lost," Ashley said as a follow up, causing the group of teens, minus Riley, to erupt in another round of laughter.

Justinian motioned for the teens to stop in their heckling of the slightly depressed Daeva, "Leave him be," Justinian said sternly. "It's not his fault that he didn't take the hint yet. Disregarding the true purpose of this exercise, Jeet and Jordan are the only two who actually passed this exercise at face value."

"Ha!" Riley said, feeling a bit better from Justinian's proclamation. "I'm not the only one who's sucking here!"

"Hold on," Selena said as she hopped up on the balance beam to take a seat in Riley's lap. "What do you mean, only Jeet and Jordan passed? None of us got hit with those medicine balls." She wasn't being played by Justinian; she had figured out the true purpose from watching Ashley's attempt.

Justinian gave Selena a blank look before laughing out loud. "Really?" the Exemplar asked with an incredulous look on his face. "Do you kids think you can pull the wool over my eyes that easily? Be honest Selena, Ashley; you two cheated." Actually, they hadn't, but Justinian felt the need to cut Riley a bit of slack, seeing the look of displeasure on the teen's face.

The boys looked at the Exemplar, at first thinking that he was just joking, but upon seeing the barely hidden looks of guilt from said teens, they became instantly suspicious. "All right," Riley said with an accusing look at Selena. "Fess up; how'd you girls do that?"

Justinian let another laugh escape from his throat as he pointed to each of the offending teens to explain. "First of all," he said, pointing at Ashley. "You used your gravity manipulation to make sure the medicine balls didn't hit you. Obviously they wouldn't be able to if they couldn't fly through the air."

Ashley laughed nervously as she had the gall to look ashamed. "All right you caught me," she said. "But you really think I was going to let them hit me with fifteen pound medicine balls?"

"That wasn't the point," Justinian said, effectively shutting her down. "As for you Selena," he said with an accusing look. "It's easy to dodge a ball when you have an invisible doppelganger diverting their trajectory."

"Oh," Riley said, nodding at Selena with a mocking glare. "So you laugh at me, yet you're the cheater?"

"Only at this," Selena said before placing a small kiss on his lips. The two teens had apparently come to some sort of accord when it came to their mutual feelings in the past few days, and now it seemed like they were actually making a play at going out.

"Yo," Jeet said, with Jordan making a retching noise behind him. "PDA much." Obviously. they had been making too much of a play at heightened relations, as the other two boys were quickly getting tired of the two's constant displays of affection.

Riley scoffed as he showed Jeet what he thought of their opinions via the one fingered salute. "This is a girlfriend," Riley said before returning the kiss. "Go get yourself one." 

'I swear,' Justinian said, smacking himself in the face as he watched the teenagers be, well, teenagers. 'Raven, you had better find Soulbreaker, and fast. These kids are going to make me look as old as I am with all this stress.' Yeah, dealing with the youth wasn't Justinian's forte at all. 'You must be having so much of a better time than I right now.' 

_______________________________________________

Raven took his time as he inspected the forms of the three boys, walking behind them and prodding their legs with his foot as he tried to correct their basic horse stances. "Balance," Raven said, stressing the word before giving Roman a 'light' tap to the back of the head, causing the teen to fall flat on his face. "How do you expect to call upon your ki without any sort of balance? I know I taught you better than that."

Jasper was currently having the time of his life as he watched Raven nit pick at the forms of the boys. The had arrived at the Acropolis a half hour ago, and Raven had immediately decided on using the massive clearing in front of the ruin-turned-tourist site's iconic staircase to conduct their training. 'They actually aren't half bad,' Jasper thought, but Raven was in essence a perfectionist when it came to the martial arts, especially when it came to the Draco's personal style. "Rave," Jasper said, getting the attention of his brother as he knocked Taji over on his behind with another 'tap'. "Why don't you at least give them what they want?"

"Basic's first," Raven said, unwilling to be moved from his way of teaching. He knew that the boys could stand in a perfect horse stance; they were just too restless due to wanting to immediately learn ki manipulation. "Once they can stop acting like retards and go through the basics that they go through on a regular basis, then I'll start with some ki."

"How about you kids just try and yell?" a familiar voice said over the slight breeze. "Tense your muscles and feel the warmth; that's the feeling of your ki." Raven smacked himself in the head, frustrated at being shown up by the arriving Nestor, who had emerged from one of the ancient buildings, dressed in a more battle suited uniform. He was wearing brown leather shorts that hung past his knee caps and a gleaming copper chainmail shirt, as well as having a long metal spear strapped diagonally on his back. "Hiya Raven, Nyce." Nestor had the gall to grin at Raven, knowing full well what he had done.

"And thank you for ruining my lesson," Raven said with mirth. Seeing the matching looks of anticipation on the faces of Nestor, Jasper, and Taji, he easily figured out why Nestor had done so. "You two that eager to have your little exhibition?"

Meanwhile, Roman had taken Nestor's words to heart, and was currently thinking it through. 'Well,' Roman thought with a twinkle of mischief in his eye. 'Ki is the physical manifestation of your spirit energy; I'll give this a shot.' With that, Roman tensed his muscles, a few seconds afterward feeling the sensation Nestor had been talking about. 'Alright,' Roman said. 'Now to direct it, and roar!' "Hey Dad," Roman said, having a plan in mind to surprise the adults.

"What Rome?" Raven asked, turning his attention to his son. Due to the arrival of Nestor, and partly because of his own reservations at Nestor's claim pertaining to his eldest son, he was truly caught off-guard with Roman's next maneuver.

"Watch this!" Roman yelled, before taking a purposeful step forward as he let out a loud yell. Raven's eyes, as well the eyes of all parties involved, grew to the size of an American half dollar as from out of Roman's mouth, spewed an intensely hot flame that rocketed at a high speed towards the Exemplar, who he had been aiming at. Now Roman wasn't intentionally trying to hurt his father; he actually was using as little power as he could successfully control, only wanting to show off his quick comprehension of ki manipulation. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect his first element of Draco ki manipulation to be a stream of fire flowing out of his mouth like a flamethrower.

Obviously, neither did anyone else.

Seeing no choice in the matter, Raven took a deep breath of his own, expertly manipulating the base amount of ki needed to negate his son's firestream, before letting out a yell of his own. This time, however, instead of fire, Raven's yell manifested into a stream of water, meeting the firestream a few feet away from his front. The colliding streams of elemental ki resulted in a blanket of smoke that temporarily fogged up the clearing.

"Yo!" Quinton yelled as he fanned away the smoke. "That was cool!"

"I know right?" Roman responded with a victorious smirk. "Must be that Edge blood in me, right Unc?" A long ten seconds passed without an answer from Jasper, or anyone else for that matter. "Unc? Dad?" Roman asked, starting to get a little worried. The last thing he wanted was his recklessness resulting in someone getting hurt.

Jasper finally let out a long, impressed whistle after a full thirty seconds of standing in silent amazement. The maneuver had taken the adults completely by surprise, both due to Roman actually using his ki successfully, and due to the amount of power he had used. 'Nestor wasn't joking,' Jasper thought as he carefully looked over Roman, mildly shocked at the lack of fatigue from the kid. 'Not only did he use a firestream, but he doesn't even look winded. A maneuver of that level would have tired out most novices; it was almost like it was second nature to him.'

Raven too was impressed, holding a prideful smile on his face for a long moment as he watched Quinton and Taji hound Roman on the latter's newfound ability. 'Kid's going to be something special when he grows up.'

Nestor chuckled, walking up to Raven's side before lightly shaking the Exemplar's shoulder. "I told you your son's talented," he said with a sure tone. "They don't come like that everyday. You see that?" Nestor pointed to the group of excitedly babbling kids, specifically at Roman, "He might be just a teenage boy now, but those eyes speak of an amazing destiny for him."

Raven sighed as he whistled out loud, catching the boy's attention successfully as he strolled up to them. "Alright guys break it up, break it up." The boys nodded in understanding before taking up their horse stances yet again, this time highly motivated after the demonstration from Roman. "Granted, that was unexpected, but congratulations Rome on your first successful firestream."

"No prob; it was easy," Roman said with a satisfied grin.

"Humility Rome," Raven said pointedly before playfully shaking his eldest son's head. "But you take a step back for a moment; I want to see if your brother and cousin can do the same with that kind of ease. You guys want to give it a try?"

"Me first!" Quinton said, eagerly raising his hand.

"No me!" Taji said, running in front of Quinton to try and block him from Raven's sight, eager for his own shot at trying to manipulate his ki.

"Patience!" Raven yelled, effectively silencing both squandering boys. "Quinton, since you called it, you get to try first. And please, aim towards the sea, not one of us."  Raven pointedly motioned to the overlook of the water; he didn't want to have another close call like he did with Roman.

Quinton flashed a brief mile before closing his eyes in focus. It took the younger kid a decent bit more time than it did for Roman to focus his ki, but soon enough grasped a hold of it. He emphatically performed the same motion as Roman did before, but to his displeasure, he was only able to spit out a medium sized ball of water aligned ki, with the energy expelled looking like a swirling, glowing blue ball. "Hey!" Quinton whined, obviously upset at the lss stunning display as the water ball fell to the ground after only flying forward a good fifteen feet. "Why couldn't I breathe a breath like Rome?"

Jasper smirked at Quinton's displeasure, remembering his own reaction at his first time attempt as a child. "Don't feel bad Q," Jasper said with a thumbs up. "Most beginners at ki manipulation fail at this degree, regardless of race. Being able to expel anything at this point is a plus."

"Don't worry cuz," Taji said with a pompous grin as he took up his position. "I'll best Rome's little firestream."    

'Good luck with that,' Raven thought with a smirk. Despite what other might have thought, Raven's opinion had little to do with his own personal pride for his son, and more to do with realistic measurements. 'A stream of any element is a mid rank skill, much more concentrated in its composition; you have to master a ball and a breath before you even hope to control a stream. The techniques of the Draco aren't pulled off my mere flukes.' True to Raven's thoughts, Taji was unsuccessful in his attempt to best Roman's stream, but he did manage to fire out a widespread breath of dark brown, earth aligned ki, which had the mixed looks of a brown fire and mud.

"Still not a stream, but not half bad my dude," Jasper said with an appraising smirk directed towards his son. "Maybe if you saw it done by an expert..." Jasper almost laughed out loud at the sudden look of shock on his son's face, both individuals knowing what the elder Edge was referring to.

Taking that as a cue, Nestor yelled out loudly before suddenly jumping high into the air, doing a few stylish looking flips for the amusement of the kids before landing on the ground a fair distance away from Jasper in am expert looking Kung Fu stance.  "I guess us older warriors can put our masteries on display for the youth. What do you say Nyce?"

The looks that were on the faces of Roman and Quinton were too good to let fade into memory for Taji, who quickly retrieved his camera from a public bench nearby, bringing the mechanism just for this occasion. With a cackle, Taji humorously took numerous pictures of the dumbfounded looks on his cousins' faces. "That's going in the record book!"

Taji's voice had the effect of bringing the two boys back to reality, with Roman shaking his head to clear his shock. "Did that old man just challenge Uncle Jazz?" Seeing the nods from Nestor, Taji, and Jasper, Raven and Quinton let out laughs of amusement as they collapsed in a heap. "Wow! I didn't think Alzheimer's hit the mind that bad. This ought to be a show."

"Show?" Quinton asked with yet another chuckle. "More like a massacre."

Nestor's eyebrows wrinkled up at the comments of the two brothers. "You boys don't seem to be giving me much of a chance."

"Nah, not really," Taji said, folding his hands behind his head. "My dad's the Nycest, ever. No one can beat him, not even Uncle Rave!"

"Ha!" Raven shouted, amused at the claim from Taji. Yeah, Jasper was the 'Nycest, ever,' but there was a reason he was Exemplar. "Not even your dad would twist his mouth like that Taji. Jazz you better tell your son something good."

Jasper was too busy laughing himself to comment, but straightened up once Raven growled at him. "I might be technically older, but Rave's a bit stronger," Jasper said, deflating his son's bubble with the sudden serious in his voice. "We've exchanged victories on the battlefield a long time ago, but if it came down to it, right now, Raven would clean my clock. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good fight, but he will beat me in the end."

"Okay," Taji said, making sure to ignore Roman and Quinton's blatant cheering at Jasper's fact. "But this guy?"

"Don't judge a book by its cover," Raven said before taking a few leaps back himself, seeing that the two other men had pretty much decided to stop pushing off their imminent clash as Jasper slipped into a stance that looked much like a boxer's, hopping on both feet from side to side as he held his hands in front of his face. "I want you three over here, behind me," Raven said with a firm voice, waving the kids over. "Watch this fight as close as you can; you'll learn something."

The kids made haste in obeying Raven's command. Despite their sureness and boasting about Jasper, this would be the first time they had ever witnessed Jasper, or any other Sovrumano for that matter, fight at a serious level. The most that they saw out of their fathers was a show of physical prowess, usually having to do with the perfection of stances and forms. With that being said, they had no idea at the level in which they were to be soon amazed.

'Alright 'Nyce',' Nestor thought, analyzing Jasper's stance as he calculated his best way to attack. 'Let's see what you got.' Nestor let a focused look come to his face as he looked Jasper dead in the eyes. "You might be an ally, but I won't be holding back, you hear me 'Nyce'?"

"I hear you," Jasper said as a sure grin graced his face. His adrenaline was pumping through his body as he readied himself for a real fight; this would be the first time in a while that he would fight even half-seriously. "I just hope you packed your lunch."

"Packed my lunch?" Nestor asked as a minor look of confusion swept his face. "Why?"

"Because," Jasper said as he dropped his shoulders, preparing himself to attack. "If you don't... You know, I'll just let the boys tell ya!"

The boys didn't hesitate to do so, in all respects being 'cheerleaders' for their uncle. "That's yo' a*s, Mr. Postman!" all three yelled out in a loud, unified voice. With that being said, both warriors rushed at each other, prepared for one heck of a showdown. This would be one fight the boys would not soon forget.

'Just don't use too much power,' Raven thought as the warriors suddenly blurred out of sight. 'Let's not forget why we're here in the first place.'